Abbie Kouzmanoff

Sharing real stories from the trenches of product management. First topic - balancing big visions 🌟 with building MVPs that actually solve problems 💡 Would love to hear your thoughts! 👇 https://lnkd.in/einzrwbZ #ProductManagement #MVP #Startups

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I’ve run win-loss programs at previous companies. Valuable? Yes. The most time-consuming project ever? Also, yes. • Figuring out which deals to target • Going back and forth with buyers to schedule interviews • Trying to spot trends of why we’re winning and losing. It seems like I spent more time managing the program itself than taking action on the valuable insights we were getting from our buyers. Myself and Eric wrote about managing win-loss in our past lives. Including some tips for those looking to get the most out of their program. Check it out 👇

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Looking for a Product Leadership role? Explore these top opportunities to drive innovation, lead teams, and shape strategy at these companies: 1. SVP, Product Management – MasterControl, Salt Lake City, UT (Remote) Lead product strategy and development for MasterControl's quality and compliance software portfolio while managing the product management team. MasterControl provides cloud-based quality and compliance software to over 1,000 companies in life sciences and regulated industries. 2. Group Product Manager - Microsoft Security Service Edge – Microsoft, San Francisco, CA (Remote) Lead Microsoft's Security Service Edge (SSE) offering, driving product strategy and development for Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Private Access solutions. Microsoft is a global technology leader with 228,000 employees across 190 countries, focused on empowering every person and organization to achieve more through technology. 3. VP of Product Management – Benevity, Seattle, WA Lead product strategy and development for Benevity's Finance Platform, managing a product team while driving vision, roadmap execution, and platform operations. Benevity is a B Corporation that provides social impact technology to Fortune 100 companies, enabling corporate giving, volunteering, and other social action initiatives. 4. VP of Product – Banyan Software, Chicago, IL Serve as a key executive leader at SoftSmiths (a Banyan Software portfolio company) responsible for driving product strategy, innovation, and execution in the energy sector, initially working independently with potential to build a product team. Reports to the CEO of SoftSmiths, working closely with VP Technology. Banyan Software is one of fastest-growing private software companies in the US that acquires and grows enterprise software businesses with dominant positions in niche vertical markets, operating with a permanent "buy and hold for life" strategy. 5. Director of Product Management – Mark43, New York, NY (Remote) Lead the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) product line and Mobile applications, managing a team of 2-3 Product Managers while driving product strategy and development. Mark43 is a technology company that develops cloud-native software solutions for law enforcement and public safety agencies to improve community safety and quality of life. 6. Head of Product – 0x, San Francisco, CA (Remote) Lead Product team overseeing consumer and developer platforms while driving product strategy and fostering team growth. Reports directly to the CEO. 0x is a Web3 company providing developer APIs for token access and liquidity, having processed over $130B in trading volume through major platforms like Coinbase and MetaMask. Want more Product Leadership roles? Access the weekly updated database: https://lnkd.in/gq9qY6s4

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At Buffer we aim to ship value quickly, often incrementally. We maintain a tighter feedback loop with our customers by keeping product releases small in scope. Ship fast, learn, and iterate accordingly. The upside, from a marketing perspective, is that there's a steady drumbeat of new releases or enhancements to share with customers. Delivering improvements consistently generates goodwill. The downside is what I call 'launch fatigue.' Product announcements feel like a grind rather than something to celebrate, and engagement with your launch campaigns starts to wane. Imagine if you had a birthday every week instead of once a year—eventually, you'd stop caring. Most product marketers have a tiering system for product launches to help navigate launch fatigue. The idea is to reserve major launch campaigns for Tier 1 products. I’ve found these tiering systems to be both helpful and awkward. Helpful because they provide a framework for managing marketing resources and internal expectations. Awkward because the tiers are subjective and often applied retroactively. We try to fit features into tiers after they’ve hit the roadmap, rather than build the roadmap around tiers. Another way to manage launch fatigue is bundling “smaller” releases together into larger, seasonal launch events. I'm looking to lean into this approach in 2025. Here's why: Predictability: People can expect and look forward to a major release on a predictable schedule. It also allows our product and marketing team to plan and resource accordingly. Cohesion: Having a set schedule for seasonal launch moments enables us to organize our roadmap, strategy, and entire team more cohesively around a single theme. Specialness: Launch moments should feel special. There is a level of build-up and excitement that can’t be replicated with regular launches. Innovation: Knowing that we have a major launch penciled in will encourage us to innovate in both product and marketing. It pulls us away from the “treadmill” of regular campaigns. I wrote more on this in my new monthly newsletter. 🔗 to the full post in the 💬

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Product management in tech is going through an existential crisis. GTM - owned by someone else. Pricing - owned by someone else. Growth - owned by someone else. Packaging - owned by someone else. Product vision - given by someone else. Data crunching - owned by someone else. Product strategy - owned by someone else. Hypothesis testing - owned by someone else. Business modeling - owned by someone else. Research, discovery - owned by someone else. Voice of the customer - owned by someone else. Everything that's supposed to be product management in the past is been done by someone else. Last week I chatted with a CPO who said: "Product management won't exist anymore. I need General Managers who drive business results with the product. Someone who knows how to bring a product life and make it successful financially. PM as it is today doesn't work. PMs need to own the role of a GM." I answered: "What you describe is the Product Manager role that's been existing since the 1920s. Unfortunately in tech we're not living it the way the role was meant to be. So yes PMs need to become commercial again. But if you start calling them 'GM', they need the authority of a GM. Otherwise we end up in the 'CEO of the product without being a CEO' mess." 👉 She and many other product leaders I am talking is looking for an entrepreneurial role of a product manager who has the capability to direct the product end-to-end. And seeing that more and more roles and teams are formed that are taking care of the commercial duties that a PM would have prove her point. What happened: ❤️ Product Management was a commercial function. 💔 Got pulled too deep into technical delivery. 💔 This created a commercial vacuum. 💔 Which created roles and teams that took over Product Management's duties. 💔 Now that Product Management rightly wants to get back to its origins, the commercial seats are taken. That's one of the reasons why we have so many discussions about what PMs should do and what not. How to change it: A) PMs need to get "commercial savvy" (pun intended) again. B) Companies need to understand the role of PM and utilize their PMs better. PMs are not ticket monkeys responsible for delivery!!! C) ... what else? I don't know how to end this post so here's the pitch: "If you are a scale-up or SMB who wants your PMs to be more entrepreneurial, and need help with that -> ping me" ... ... and POST END 😅

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This might sound strange coming from a product marketer but I'm not a fan of frameworks. They have their place. But rarely will they help you *move* the needle. Sometimes they can even be stifling. I prefer heuristics. These are the foundational principles from which I try to develop and execute product marketing ideas. Here are my heuristics 🤸‍♂️ Zig when others zag 🔁 Repetition never hurt anyone 📚 A narrative is more powerful than a feature 📊 Data-informed not data-driven ✏️ Write how you would talk ❤️ Brand equity over growth hacks 📞 If in doubt, talk to a customer Anything else I should add to my list?

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Positioning is everything for job seekers right now. > The Product Manager who owns the roadmap... vs. the one who's turned user research into a competitive advantage > The Partnerships Manager who "has a deep rolodex" vs. the one who knows how to monetize > The Eng Director who's led teams of 30 vs. the one who's brought revenue-generating products to market with speed and efficiency Same people. Two different ways of talking about their experience. One makes them sound like everybody. The other lands interviews. Do you know what your competitive advantage is?

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Want to get better at working with others to solve problems collaboratively? Use the 4 D's framework for systematic thinking. Go one step at a time. 1. Data - What do you (collectively) know about the problem? 2. Diagnosis - Why is this problem happening? What are the underlying causes? 3. Direction - What should be done in general? 4. Do Next - What specific actions should be taken? Who? When? Where? How? Credit to Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp's book "Getting it Done." Read this because it was recommended by the late and great Charlie Munger.

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We've been running an in-product NPS survey for the last few months (thanks PostHog for making it easy), and we've been blown away by the results! After 139 responses, we leveled out at 68.3! Now, I'm not the biggest believer in taking NPS too seriously, but in software (according to HubSpot [https://lnkd.in/gHTMp4ZK]) the average NPS is 27 -- I don't know what the standard deviation is, but I'd say a 68 is pretty dang good. We also let customers give some feedback after they score us and here are some examples of what they've said (mostly the 10s): "This has been a really useful way to compile training in a simple yet effective manner using the material I have already developed. Quick, intuitive and easy to use, saved me hours of work!" "Cuts my development time in half." "the app has made lesson development so much easier and efficient" "We are developing a training program and I have been searching for a great tool to make it more lively. This is working!!" "it was the tool that I was searching for a long time." "Lo amo... Es genial!!!" "LOVE everything available in Mindsmith" "Because the lessons are awesome!" "wonderful system" "I love the way Mindsmith works!" "I like the speed and layout of the lessons." And my favorite: "You deserve it"

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Chief Product Officers have the shortest tenure of any C-Suite member: 2.5 years. In my recent interviews with Product Leaders, a common theme emerged - navigating a role under a non-technical Founder/CEO can be extremely challenging…but not impossible: CPOs that focused on educating their org about how product works, shared their vision and strategy constantly, and showcased how product metrics tied to clear ROI and customer value had longer tenures and better, more collaborative relationships with the rest of the organization > those who didn’t.

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🧠🧠🧠 Let's not forget that daily model updates does not mean marketers need to leverage their MMM every single day. It means that our data is ready when YOU need it, not when we feel like running the model. Does that cost more for us? Sure it does. But maybe doing things just a bit differently is what our industry needs. Reach out if you have questions 🤙🏼

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This is one of the most impactful articles I've read about how to grow companies and some of the pitfalls in transitioning too quickly away from founders. Worth a read. #svpg

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Gathering and prioritizing customer feedback - at scale! - is an incredible challenge. A decade ago, we standardized on portals where customers can contribute, sort, search, comment, and vote on ideas. Product Managers spent hours, days, and weeks triaging responses, responding to ideas, and generally becoming frustrated with not being able to keep up with the amount of incoming feedback! Today, Pendo launches Listen as part of the Pendo One Platform. It is such a massive step forward in how we can capture customer feedback from seemingly endless sources, collate, summarize, intelligently route, validate, and take action on it. It's really magically and scales beautifully. I think it focuses in on the difference between hearing the voice of your customer and truly listening. Hearing is about a single sense. Listening involves all of your senses. Pendo Listen deeply integrates our quantitative analytics, integrations, and replay to Listen to your customer and take action. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eTPR4HiQ

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How long does it take for a user to experience your product’s value? From sign-up to the “aha moment”, you need to minimize time to value. If it takes too long, you risk: > Churn > Inactivity > Disappointment If it’s immediate, you gain: > Premium Upgrades > Advocates > Referrals So how do you go from slow to woah? Engagement. At first website visit: Present a free tool. At account sign-up: Onboard with a quiz. At the pricing page: Offer a pop-up discount. At product use: Guide with interactive tutorials. At payment: Provide personalized recommendations. So on and so forth. Engage users at the right time so you can personalize their journey to reach the fastest time to value. #sales #marketing #artificialintelligence #strategy

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All right, it's live! My Sharebird AMA on how to think about and use AI inside of your PMM org, as well as how to think about it in your product positioning. It's been super fun to answer these questions and get them out of my brain and into the wild! 🤗 Every PMM should be waking up each day asking themselves, "How can I automate my job with AI?" ...And then put it into action. You'll come out the other end as a more valuable, strategic resource. #generativeAI #productmarketing

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Lots of misconceptions about what product-led growth really is. So I sat down with the man himself, Wes Bush to go deep on: - what PLG really means - Who it's for (and who it's not for) - How you can think about implementing a true PLG motion in your business. Even if you're sales-led today, this is a great listen cause it talks to the psychology of a buyer a lot. https://lnkd.in/d4VvJmru

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Here are four key pieces of advice for companies looking to scale content for licensing and distribution, from someone who has built three marketplaces from scratch and evolved three others. Content as a Team: Just like you have dedicated teams for design, product, engineering, and research, you should have a standalone content team. It's crucial that this team has some autonomy, can leverage their expertise, and has the ability to steer decisions they will ultimately be accountable for. Areas of Expertise: Recognize the areas of expertise within your content team. Don't expect them to be a catch-all for everything. Lately, I've seen creative and content roles where one person is expected to handle what should actually be three to four different jobs. Hire experts for what you truly need and what they truly excel at. Trust the Experts: Content development, creation, moderation, and licensing require actual skill and knowledge. Most individuals who have invested heavily in their careers in this industry know more intricacies than you might imagine. Putting them in the backseat as they try to educate others on how to drive the car is going to cause an accident. Scale with Quality: Numbers are a long game, and we're no longer in a world where "if you build it, they will come." Nurturing your community, focusing on design and aesthetic quality, and caring about what you're building will show to users and create something amazing over time. And to make things fun, general visual representation of me making content AMAZING below. 🤓

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In SaaS, we make the mistake of focusing only on funnels because they are *much* easier to comprehend (and fix) than loops. We end up smearing lipstick on pigs. 𝗢𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹. A new user follows a (near) linear path from sign up -> set up -> Aha (the first moment of value realization). We meticulously measure what happens between each step, to check where we can reduce negative friction. 𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽. And a tough one at that. It requires: 🔷 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲. It's nice that a user realized the value of your product for the first time, but can you keep delivering enough value to keep them coming back? Whereas the first moment of value realization can be quite focused (maybe 1, max. 3 Aha moments for different user categories), what 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 looks like will differentiate exponentially per user. We're not looking at 1 moment in time, but hundreds, trying to detect patterns. The image attached shows an example for a B2B SaaS product analytics tool (a Mixpanel/ Amplitude competitor). Value prop: Easily build & share out-of-the-box reports, run search queries in natural language. You see how the funnel toward Aha is still pretty straightforward. However, the habit stage takes the form of an ever-expanding loop, which can look slightly different for each user. Detecting & optimizing patterns in this mess is the real challenge. 🔷 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: Introducing the 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 feature at the 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 time. What's the right feature, and what's the right time, you ask? Well - that depends entirely on the user. 🔷 For startups: 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. You can optimize your onboarding funnel until the cows come home, but it's useless if there's nothing new behind the curtain. If you're not solving anything 10x better or cheaper than what's already in the market, why would users stick around? Forget about the funnel, think about the loop. @samuel salzer thanks for the inspiring coffee!

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