Product management is less a well-defined role and more a set of skills. It lives between everything, a white space that morphs based on the customer, the needs of the business, and the abilities of the humans involved.
Tony Fadell in Build
Tony Fadell
Highlight from ‘Build’ by Tony Fadell
An almost impossible combination of structured thinker and visionary leader, with incredible passion but also firm follow-through, who’s a vibrant people person but fascinated by technology, an incredible communicator who can work with engineering and think through marketing and not forget the business model, the economics, profitability, PR. They have to be pushy but with a smile, to know when to hold fast and when to let one slide.
Tony Fadell in Build
Highlight from ‘Build’ by Tony Fadell
Every product should have a story, a narrative that explains why it needs to exist and how it will solve your customer’s problems. A good product story has three elements: » It appeals to people’s rational and emotional sides. » It takes complicated concepts and makes them simple. » It reminds people of the problem that’s being solved—it focuses on the “why.”
Tony Fadell in Build
Highlight from ‘Build’ by Tony Fadell
He used a technique I later came to call the virus of doubt. It’s a way to get into people’s heads, remind them about a daily frustration, get them annoyed about it all over again. If you can infect them with the virus of doubt—“Maybe my experience isn’t as good as I thought, maybe it could be better”—then you prime them for your solution. You get them angry about how it works now so they can get excited about a new way of doing things.
Tony Fadell in Build
Highlight from ‘Build’ by Tony Fadell
Make the intangible tangible so you can’t overlook the less showy but incredibly important parts of the journey. You should be able to map out and visualize exactly how a customer discovers, considers, installs, uses, fixes, and even returns your product. It all matters.
Tony Fadell in Build
Highlight from ‘Build’ by Tony Fadell
If we hadn’t thought through installation with the same care and attention that we lavished on the thermostat, it would never have occurred to us to put a screwdriver in every box.
Tony Fadell in Build