Andreas Bovens

When you’re a millennial product manager, attempting to share her knowledge of product, with the wider community and one of the most successful artists in the world is currently on a mass tour of the UK, there’s only one question on your mind: What would the dangerous animals of product management be if they were Taylor Swift songs? If you've been asking yourself the same question then have I got a blog post for you! https://lnkd.in/dYxE_QDq #product #productmanagement #tech #UX

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Seeing this says to me the Ruroc EOX launch has flopped. If you're asking customers "why didn't you buy" with options of: "Product Design isn't good enough" "I am waiting for a good promotion" ...You have to be deluded if you think you're going to get actionable information from a survey like this. Here's what has gone wrong for Ruroc. Firstly, "EOX" was designed as the 'Finale' of the Atlas line. It should have been positioned as the pinnacle of the range and should have replaced the Atlas 4. Atlas was plagued with issues from v1.0. We rushed, the pandemic hit, suppliers messed us around, we had to build our own factory REMOTELY to keep up with demand. To fix the issue once and for all I hired a specialist product designer who built out the team to deliver the 'perfect product'. It was costly, but it would allow us to reduce our Customer Service costs, return logistics costs, and reduce our in-house QC team from 18 to just 2-3. A huge cost to get a huge saving. Absolutely necessary for Ruroc to stabilise and continue growing at 70-100% YOY. That product, the one that should have been Ruroc's biggest success, is now called "EOX". To sell products online and grow successfully you need: - Scarcity - "I want stuff other people don't have yet, or I don't want to regret not buying when I had the chance." - Innovation - People want the latest greatest and best... if it's not that, why am I giving you my money if my current product does the job? - Social Proof - it's FOMO, who's wearing it, who's buying it, am I going to be the odd one out if I don't buy? - Reciprocity - What's this brand done for me? How have they engaged me? Do I buy into their mission, do I feel obliged to be part of it. - Commitment - OK I've pre-registered, I've followed the page, I've signed up for the newsletter, I'm watching the launch video, I'm going to buy. Not one of these tactics was properly employed during the launch of the "EOX" Further to that, some genius has made the decision to continue with the Atlas 4 and have it run alongside the EOX So now, as a customer of Ruroc, what does this say to me. Ruroc Atlas 4.0 Track - $679.00 (Has no real track certificate) Ruroc Atlas 4.0 Carbon - $595.00 Ruroc "EOX" - $559.00 (brand new should be better than Atlas 4) Ruroc Atlas 4.0 Street (fibreglass) - $319.00 (Confusingly is lighter than the Track and Carbon Atlas) So if I want the best, I buy the most expensive helmet? I can wear it on the Track right? No, not in USA or MotoGP. I want the lightest, so I buy the cheapest? I want the newest, but is it worse than the old models because it's cheaper? This is beyond confusing for customers. Customers give brands minimal attention. Your messaging is as much in the decisions you make around naming and pricing as it is anything else. Ruroc "Atlas-X" - $659.00 Drop the Atlas 4.0 and discount til it's gone Clear message to consumers - "the new product is better, replace your old helmet now" It's not hard.

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Alistair Gray gave a great talk at Write The Docs Portland, going into detail about our investment in Internal Docs at Stripe. He breaks down our thoughts about issues of fragmentation, discoverability, and document quality - and how we’ve tried to build great tools to improve the state of internal docs at Stripe across all of these axes. In Q&A, he touches on an important theme which is essentially “how do we convince engineers to use the tooling we build.” The answer really boils down to “ruthlessly build what engineers want” while maintaining our core primitives (eg, ownership, doc quality) that we know are vital to the health of Stripe’s knowledge base all-up. Let me know if y’all have any questions - happy to expand more on these themes! https://lnkd.in/em4QRFmH

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The Product role is changing…. Recently I hear product teams talking as much about preparing business cases as PRDs. 🤔 I think this is driven by a) CEOs looking to better align with technical teams on business objectives and b) product teams becoming more commercially savvy.  Both are positive moves.  Learning to navigate a P&L early is a sensible move.

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Highly recommend this course for anyone who wants to wrangle, ahem I mean develop, people brilliantly!

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The are just a few spots left for me 2h masterclass Essential Coaching Skills for Product Leaders, which I'll be offering to both US and UK/EU time zones. Pick the option that suits you and we'll go from there. My masterclass will aim to answer these three core questions: - What do we mean by “coaching”? - How can a coaching approach change your leadership style? - What is it about asking open-ended questions that make all the difference? The course is a mix of theory and practice, giving everyone an opportunity to put your learnings into practice. If you have any other questions, just drop me a DM and I'll be happy to have a chat.

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How did you get into Product Management? I'm always interested in hearing the routes into the profession. Doesn't seem to be a one size fits all. My route was UX Design -> Combi Role Doing UX and Product -> Product. #product #productmanagement #ux #business #vc

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📣 Product Folks: 😡 Have you and your team hit the wall with trying to focus on value? That *could* look like: ▶ No steady stream of data to inform strategy, prioritization + roadmaps ▶ Stakeholder misalignment ▶ Competing priorities ▶ Duplicative or overlapping work streams 🤓 Are you ready to put Product Operations into practice at your company? Join me for Produx Labs' Product Operations June 5 Masterclass! Snag your seat today. https://lnkd.in/ephFvTwf #productmanagement #productops

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Breaking up is hard to do.... 🎶 Unless you have a shitty roadmap, in which case, is it really? Plus points for getting the absolute worst/best cover image on YT. Our latest episode is live! #roadmaps #prodmgmt #productmanagement https://lnkd.in/e3zxkndv

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In case you missed it while prepping for Flag Day 🇺🇸 Happy State of Engineering Management Report Day happened this week! The annual thought leadership piece from Jellyfish has dropped. Hear from Engineering leaders, managers and frontline ICs .... we cover a range of topics that matter to great R&D leaders. Key Points: 1️⃣ Engineers are now strategic partners! 🙌 2️⃣ Burnout continues to be a challenge 😱 3️⃣ The talent shortage is spiking back up. 4️⃣ Many teams have embraced #AI 🧠 5️⃣ Others have legit concerns about AI ⁉ If #developerproductivity #genAI #engineeringexcellence are important to you .... have a read! (link in the Comments)

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Reader feedback for my latest post about how to use AI and my PRD template to never have to write a PRD from scratch again. Read the full post here: https://lnkd.in/eJjVXJUJ

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The first step in fixing a problem is first admitting there’s a problem. In that spirit, here’s a short video summary of culture anti-patterns on Eng / PM / Design teams. (might help explain what you have seen on your current team or on previous teams)

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If feedback is a gift, why does it keep punching us in the face? “Your test coverage didn’t grow as much as we asked, you should care about quality more.” “You should be be better prepared for our meeting.” “You should care enough about this company to pick up the phone when I call you at 7pm.” “Why so serious? Lighten up, you should smile more!” When you think about it: why do we feel the need to repeat this “feedback is a gift” mantra over and over again? If feedback is so obviously a gift, would it need to announce itself so explicitly, or are we just gaslighting ourselves? Slap in the face. “Ouch that hurts!” “No, no, it’s a gift!” Classic.

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This is not just any "hey, we are looking for a dev" post. This might be one of the most exciting engineering roles we have ever hired for. Let me explain why: I have the great privilege of being the product lead for the exceptionally brilliant Rendering Engine Team at Miro. Several months ago, we took a bold step to revamp our foundational rendering technology from the ground up, setting an ambitious vision far beyond what Miro is capable of today. Building a highly performant rendering engine for a product like Miro is not trivial though. You are dealing with an infinite 2D canvas with potentially thousands of multimedia objects, all while multiple people collaborate in real-time. We want professionals & creatives to spend the majority of their working days in Miro. Unfortunately, every lag when panning a large planning board, every jiggle effect due to low FPS when zooming out from a large planning session, and every slight delay when selecting hundreds of multimedia objects not only results in lost time but also slight frustration. It's that small, annoying feeling that something felt slightly slow, slightly not instant, slightly irritating. A products performance is not just about the time you lose; it is about the feeling this product gives you. On the other hand, we all know the feeling of delight when you do something complex in a product, and it happens instantaneously. That feeling that no matter what you do, no matter what workload you throw at an application, it will be responsive, fast, and instantaneous. This is what we envision: A rendering engine that continuously surprises you with its snappiness, making work feel light and delightful. We are looking for someone who is as equally annoyed by these issues as we are and wants to take the lead in solving them. We aim to build a rendering engine that raises the bar for what people consider possible on a web-based canvas. A computer graphics professional who wants to take on the challenge of working on a renderer that powers the day-to-day work of millions of users and some of the most creative and innovative companies in the world. If you work in the field of computer graphics and want to contribute to the heart of a product that aims to amplify collaboration and creative work, give it shot. Feel free to DM me for more information or directly apply below:

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Collaboration across teams is the key to building a successful product. Here’s why: A great product isn’t just the result of one department’s efforts—it’s the outcome of cross-functional collaboration. When engineering, design, customer success, sales and marketing all work together, you get a more complete understanding of the user’s needs and how to meet them. At Learn Amp, some of our biggest breakthroughs have come from collaboration between teams that approach the product from different angles. Each team brings its own expertise, ensuring that what we build is not only technically sound but also user-friendly and valuable to customers. Collaboration breaks down silos, brings fresh perspectives, and ensures that everyone is aligned on the bigger picture. In the end, the best products come from teamwork—not just within a department but across the entire organisation. #ProductManagement #Product

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What if I told you that obsessing over user engagement might be killing your product? More than you'd think. Just wrote about: - When bad metrics might be good news - Finding clarity in unexpected places - Rethinking what engagement means For product teams looking beyond the numbers: https://lnkd.in/gqPcKXD8 #StartupLessons #ProductStrategy

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Can a Product Manager own the P&L for a product if the teams building and supporting the product don’t report to the #ProductManager? You must set people up for success if you want them to succeed. Giving a product manager the responsibility of profit and loss over a product without authority over how it is built and maintained is the opposite of setting them up for success. I had a conversation with Ruby Raley about this yesterday. I shared a story about a company I know where the CTO was charged with building a new product. He outsourced it to an IT vendor. They got it built in about 9 months. It was sold to a handful of clients. The clients started using it. The bill arrived from the cloud hosting service and it was $1.2M for the month‼️ The company was going to lose over $1M a month just to run the product. 👆🏻This is what happens when goals and incentives are misaligned and constraints are not communicated. The CTO was not involved in pricing; nor had he considered the cost of the architectural decisions made by the outsource team. I rarely see the engineering organization report into the Head of Product. And even more rarely are product managers setting pricing for the products they manage, or determining the size and quality of their design and development teams. Honestly, I am on the fence about this topic. I see so many product managers struggling with the demands of doing all the things they need to do to manage their products. Many PMs only have 3-5 years of business experience. Do they have the time, skills, training, and aptitude for managing a P&L too? Does the reporting structure support it? Will the executive team support it? I would love to hear from product managers. Do you manage your product’s #ProfitAndLoss? Do you want to?

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Mistakes I see PMs make: - Including far too much context in communication instead of quickly getting to the point of what you want to ship and why. - Not obsessing about the details of what you're actually shipping. Simple things like looking at your product from a new user's POV to see if the product copy even makes sense.

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UPDATE (8/27): Recent conversations have been excellent and are moving in the right direction, so I'm no longer looking for new roles. Thanks to everyone for their referrals and support. 🙏 - After managing the design team and product teams at ChowNow for nearly two years I am officially on the lookout for my next opportunity due to a recent reduction in force. While it's always challenging to part ways, I’ve learnt a lot from my time there and was lucky enough to work alongside a truly talented team. I already have a few promising leads, which is awesome but nothing is signed yet, so I’d rather have multiple calls happening rather than just one or two. So for those that don’t know me, here’s the pitch - I’m an award-winning digital creative and product design leader with over 20 years of experience and I’m looking for a VP/Head/Snr Director of Product Design role where I can continue to work with teams on B2C and/or B2B product experiences. I’ve worked in-house at Netflix, Headspace, MTV, Disney and ChowNow. When I was the Head of Design at The App Business (acquired by Kin + Carta) I worked with clients like Tesco, Ford, McLaren F1, News UK, and Visa. I can get right in the weeds, picking away at the UI and pushing around rectangles, but I can also step all the way back to shape business strategy and determine where to play and how to win and if we truthfully even need to be thinking about rectangles. I’ve done all this working as part of the c-suite, in client boardrooms, and in countless Zoom rooms. I’ve helped guide cross functional teams to deliver innovative and transformational product experiences. I advocate for bringing a creative lens and a bit of joy to all product thinking so teams can find ways to differentiate and amplify the brand while still hitting business objectives. I nerd out when it comes to tooling and process so I’m able to manage design operations from that angle alongside hiring and supporting career growth. I also have an unhealthy obsession with Back to the Future, which might not be what you are looking for but I’m just throwing it out there. Check my full LinkedIn profile for more details. There's also my personal website - https://www.konch.net for select work samples (DM me for more info on those), and you can always watch or listen to me talk about design here:   DesignX Community: State of Design Leadership panel - https://lnkd.in/gDjtAca2 awwwards. London Enterprise Design panel - https://lnkd.in/ggvEZkCi Nodes of Design Podcast - https://lnkd.in/gBSn36_M Bureau of Digital Podcast - https://lnkd.in/gjJVwMPx If any of the above resonates, then I'd love to talk. InMail and DM away. I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments, too. And even though this post will organically make the rounds in order to get it in front of the biggest audience possible, it requires something with a little more kick… comments and reposts (not plutonium 😉 ). Thanks everyone.

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