Gave a lecture in Hilary Gosher’s class, Entrepreneurship for the New Economy.

1. Digital Product
Development
March, 2015

2. Agenda
2
Introductions
Overview of Originate
Product Vision
Shared Understanding
Product Development Risk
Prototyping
Define a Product Vision (exercise)
Next Steps

3. Objectives
3
1. Learn from each other on how to effectively communicate about digital products
2. Understand how a product vision is set and used for effective communication
3. Learn about shared understanding and how to build it
4. Understand the various types of risk in building digital products
5. How we use prototyping to reduce risks and increase shared understanding
6. Practice putting together a product vision for an iPhone app
Key Takeaways
Please write down key things or ideas that come to you on note cards. I am especially
interested in what you want to try to apply. At the end, we will review as a group.

4. 4

5. Originate
5

6. 6
We are a digital product development and
venture firm. Our mission is to enable everyone
in the world to create extraordinary technology.

7. 7
We partner with forward-looking enterprises and high
growth startups to create modern mobile, web and data-
driven software.
Our partnership model ensures full alignment toward
the same vision of building useful, compelling and
successful products.
We have partners, not clients.
• Founded in 2007
• 140 employees
• 9 global locations
7

8. Focus On
Partnership
We seek long lasting
productive relationships
Our Philosophy
8
Ambitious
Problems
We embrace and prefer
tough technical challenges
We start with
the end in mind
We develop and hold
ourselves accountable to
learning objectives
Shared Risk
Shared Reward
We believe in what we do,
and we invest in what we
do

9. Our Strategy
9
We ensure high quality through each step of building a product using these key factors
Full Team
Access
Entrepreneurial
Individuals
Test Driven
Development

10. End-to-End Expertise
10
It takes a wide range of expertise to deliver great products
Product
Management
Front End + Back End
Development
Testing & Quality
Assurance
User Experience &
Design
Technical
Architecture
Business
Strategy
We have expertise across all disciplines and work with our
partners to combine the right skill mix for every project.

11. Technical Capabilities
11
We combine our deep technical experience with a passion for
problem solving to make informed technology recommendations.
Web Mobile Languages Server Database
HTML 5, Javascript,
jQuery, Angular.js,
Ember.js, WordPress
iOS, Android, Windows
Phone, PhoneGap, Unity
CoffeeScript, Ruby,
Scala, Python, Go, Swift,
Java, PHP, C/C++
Rails, Play, Node.js,
Tomcat, Lift,
Locomotive, PaaS
MySQL, Cassandra,
MongoDB, DynamoDB,
Riak, Postgresql, MSSQL

12. Global Reach
130+ engineers,
designers, and
product strategists
across 9 global
innovation centers
New York Los Angeles San Francisco Las Vegas
Boston Orange County Silicon Valley Hangzhou, China Stockholm

13. Our People
13

14. End-to-End Experience
14
Eli BozemanBen EcholsPaolo SuayaTaylor CraneMarci PasenelloAlex Niemi
Gerry TanoAngie HaydenKevin SmithAlm JoacimAram AlekyanParsa Kamali
Doug Von KohornVipul PatilDrew MinnearAli ShanriyariMatt HandlerDaniel Hawthorn
Engineering
Design
Product

15. Past Experience
15

16. 16
Product Vision
UX & Design
Development
Opportunity
Develop an entirely
new home repair
marketplace,
optimized for the
mobile experience.
Result
Successful
development of
two stand alone
applications – SnapFix
and ServiceTown. After
widespread adoption in
the market, Angie’s List
incorporated the apps’
features and design
into their flagship app.
Mobile
iOS, Android
Web
HTML, CSS, JS
Database
Neo4j
Server
Scala

17. 17
UX & Design
Architecture Strategy
Development
Opportunity
Accelerate progress
by supplementing
Updater’s
engineering assets
to re-platform their
tech stack, validating
their design and UX,
and train their team
on the new
architecture.
Result
Updater has gone
on to serve over
500,000 Americans
and raise $8M from
leading venture
capital firms.
Web
HTML5, jQuery, JS
Database
MySQL
Server
Ruby on Rails

18. 18
Product Vision
UX & Design
Development
Web
HTML5, CSS, JS
Database
DynamoDB
Server
Scala
Opportunity
Completely
transform the
architecture and
UI for an education
product used by over
1,000 institutions
and 2 million
students and teachers
across the globe.
Result
Dramatically
simplified the UI
based on the different
needs of each user
type. Implemented
an ultra scalable
cloud-based
architecture.
Cloud
Amazon Web Services

19. Our Partners
19

20. A Three-Phased Approach
20
2
Week
User Research Origin
11
Week
Learn &
Iterate
Weekly
Ongoing

21. Origin
21
1
Week
Origin
Workshop
Prototype
Design
2
Week
Product
Release
8
Week

22. Product Vision
22

23. What makes a great digital product?
23
Valuable
UsableFeasible
Product is too difficult or
expensive (time and money) to
build or maintain
Product needs too much education for potential customer
to understand its value
Product is not useable and/or
doesn’t really solve a problem

24. A product vision is…
24
A shared understanding of how a product is going to solve a problem
for a set of customers and deliver on its value proposition when it has
been released into the market

25. What can happen when you don’t set a clear vision?
25

26. Why is it important to set a vision before you start working on a product?
26
1. Meaning for decision making
2. Creates a common language
3. Paves the way politically
4. Allows concept testing to start reducing risk
5. Speeds up the build

27. Shared Understanding
27

28. What is shared understanding?
28
Shared understanding is when you and another person, or group, both understand
what each is imagining and why.

29. What does shared understanding look like?
29

30. What does shared understanding look like?
30

31. What a lack of shared understanding looks like:
31

32. What a lack of shared understanding looks like:
32

33. What a lack of shared understanding looks like:
33

34. What a lack of shared understanding looks like:
34

35. Context is critical
35

36. Product Development Risk
36

37. 4 Types of Software Product Development Risk
37
Market
Product
Technical
Business
Technical Risk
Can this product be
feasibly built given
resource constraints?
Business Risk
Does the project have the
right funding and people
support? Can we build the
right processes to support
this business?
Market Risk
Is there a real need in the
market and does the
market want the solution?
Product Risk
Does the product solve the
problem in a way that
users need and enjoy?

38. 38

39. Examples of market risk
39
Is there a real need in the market and does the market want the solution?

40. Examples of product risk
40
Does the product solve the problem in a way that users need and enjoy?

41. Examples of technical risk
41
Can this product be feasibly built given resource constraints?

42. Examples of business risk
42
Does the project have the right funding and people support? Can we build
the right processes to support this business?

43. Prototyping
43

44. When are people prototyping?
44

45. Why we prototype?
45
1. Build a shared understanding within the team of the product at a deeper level
before building
2. Product manager engaging with the product at a deeper level, which improves the
product backlog immensely
3. Communicate to business people and technology people
4. Increase clarity in decision making as the product is being build
5. Test assumptions before building

46. What are the different types of prototypes?
46
Paper Wireframe Functional Technical

47. Paper
47

48. Wireframe
48

49. Functional
49

50. Technical
50

51. Levels of fidelity in prototyping
51
Data Visual Functional Context

52. Examples of fidelity
52

53. When to use the different types of prototypes
53
Paper Wireframe Functional Technical
• Always
• Early on for
exploring really big
directions
• Need for speed
• Layout and design
options
• Information
architecture design
• Exploring design
and UX options
• Defining a product
backlog
• Testing assumptions
about users
• Answering difficult
technical questions
• Make technical
architecture
decisions

54. How to think about fidelity
54
CommunicationValue
High
Low High
Amount of time/effort to change/fidelity

55. Define a Product Vision
55

56. Background – “Pre-reading”
56
A marriage to remember

57. Background – Alzheimer’s1
57
Alzheimer's
disease
(AD)
accounts
for
60%
to
70%
of
cases
of
demen@a.
It
is
a
chronic
neurodegenera@ve
disease
that
usually
starts
slowly
and
gets
worse
over
@me.
The
most
common
early
symptom
is
difficulty
in
remembering
recent
events
(short
term
memory
loss).
As
the
disease
advances,
symptoms
can
include:
problems
with
language,
disorienta@on
(including
easily
geLng
lost),
mood
swings,
loss
of
mo@va@on,
not
managing
self
care,
and
behavioral
issues.
As
a
person's
condi@on
declines
they
oMen
withdraw
from
family
and
society.
Gradually,
bodily
func@ons
are
lost,
ul@mately
leading
to
death.
Although
the
speed
of
progression
can
vary,
the
average
life
expectancy
following
diagnosis
is
three
to
nine
years.
The
cause
of
Alzheimer's
disease
is
poorly
understood.
No
treatments
stop
or
reverse
its
progression,
though
some
may
temporarily
improve
symptoms.
Affected
people
increasingly
rely
on
others
for
assistance
oMen
placing
a
burden
on
the
caregiver;
the
pressures
can
include
social,
psychological,
physical,
and
economic
elements.
In
2010,
there
were
between
21
and
35
million
people
worldwide
with
AD.
It
most
oMen
begins
in
people
over
65
years
of
age,
although
4%
to
5%
of
cases
are
early-­‐onset
Alzheimer's
which
begin
before
this.
It
affects
about
6%
of
people
65
years
and
older.
1Wikipedia Entry on Alzheimer's

58. Background – Still Alice
58

59. Forget Me Not
59

60. Product Canvas
60
Problem
Cost Structure Values Streams
Solution Unique Value
Proposition
Advantage Customer
Segments
Key Metrics Channels
Top 3 problems Target customers or
groups
Top 3 features Single, clear,
compelling
message that
states why you are
different and worth
buying
Can’t be easily
copied or bought
Path to customersKey activities you
measure
Customer acquisition costs
Distribution costs
Hosting
People, etc
Revenue Model
Lifetime Value
Revenue
Gross Margin
Parking Lot
(Knowledge gaps,
questions, ideas)
Personas Narratives / Prototypes
Learnings
Tech StackInspiration
Anything that inspires with business model, brand, design or functionality The technology we want to use or explore to build our solution and the tools
we want to utilize as we work together
Capture anything that
comes while creating a
canvas, ideas, questions,
places to explore further
Characters (or user roles) created to represent the various
customers in the target groups
Step-by-step stories of a personas using the solution and a visual/
functional representations of those stories
Hypotheses,
experiments and learning

61. Directions
61
1. You should prepare to create multiple canvases, one for each customer group, and
to test them in parallel
2. Each canvas should take anywhere from 15 minutes to 5 hours to create, but no
more than 5 hours
3. Each canvas should be done in a single session with as few breaks as possible
4. Be concise: the core canvas and all text should fit on a single page
5. Think in the present: things on the canvas should be based on what you know
now (make sure to record any gaps you find in the knowledge gaps section)
6. Take a customer centric view: think of your customer first
7. It is ok to leave blanks where we don’t have enough information
8. Quickly write a first draft, review and discuss, then revisit and break things apart
and prioritize thoughts in each section

62. Problem
62
What problem are we trying to solve?
1. A problem can also be thought of as a job that customers want you to complete for them
Tips

63. Customer Groups
63
Who suffers from our problem? Who is going to use our product?
Who is going to pay for our product?
1. Create a list of customer segments within your group.
2. Distinguish between customers and users: Customers pay for your product but may not use it. A user
uses your product but may not pay.
a) Example: you are a user of Facebook but you don't pay, so you would be a user and not a customer.
Advertisers pay to advertise on Facebook, thus they are customers.
3. Split large groups into smaller segments. This may need to be a place to iterate as you build the canvas. It
is always better to err on the side of specificity.
4. Specify who is going to be the early adopters within that segment (an even smaller group who will be the
first to purchase your solution). These will be the people you initially target with your marketing.
5. Identify other user roles that will interact with that customer and make sure to denote that they are users
rather than customers.
Tips

64. Inspiration
64
Who else has solved this problem with a product? Who inspires us
with their design or functionality?
1. Inspiration is anything that inspires you with its business model, brand, design, or functionality.
2. Pull in anything but make sure to focus on the two following areas:
1. Existing alternative solutions to your problem: how do your customers current solve this problem?
The answer may be nothing, but typically you're competing with something. If there are not
alternatives, you should ask if the customer pain is large enough to warrant a solution.
2. Find other unique value propositions (UVP): study what works about companies who have clear
UVPs that you like. Use what you can from those to revise your UVP.
3. Take notes on positives and negatives and note ideas that might be good to borrow.
Tips

65. Unique Value Proposition
65
Why is our product different and worth others’ attention?
1. Think of the UVP as the big statement on a landing web page. It needs to distill the essence of the
product in a few words that can fit into a headline.
2. This is one of the main places to iterate.
3. Tips on how to create a first UVP:
a) Be different, but make sure your difference matters. Deploy the problem statement in the UVP.
b) Target early adopters, they need to know that the product solves their specific problems.
4. Focus on end-user benefits over features. How will your customers have benefited from using your
product when they are done and how long will it take to get that benefit?
5. From Dane Maxwell: Instant Clarity Headline = end result customer wants + specific period of time +
address the objections
6. Pick the words you use to define your solution carefully. They can be used as keywords to drive SEO.
7. Answer what, who, why. If you can't get the why in, create a sub heading.
Tips

66. Solutions
66
What does our product need to do to solve the problem or deliver on
its Unique Value Proposition?
1. This box is only half the size for a reason. While the solution can feel like the safest part, we don’t know
enough about the problem yet for it to be worth a lot of thinking.
2. We want to articulate just the top 3-4 features.
Tips

67. Channels
67
How are we going to get in front of customers (early adaptors)?
1. If the idea requires access to large numbers of customers right away for it to succeed (network effect) , we
may want to reevaluate the idea.
2. We want channels that can eventually be scaled.
3. Free versus paid: there is no such thing as a free channel. Channels we normally associate as being free,
like SEO, social media, and blogging, have a time and effort associated with them.
4. Inbound versus outbound: Inbound channels use “pull messaging” to let customers find you organically,
while outbound channels rely on “push messaging” to reach customers.
5. Direct sales versus automated sales: First sell manually, then automate.
6. Direct versus indirect: To maximize learning, go direct to customers rather than trying to start a
partnership or hire a salesperson.
7. Retention before referral: While referral programs can be very effective in spreading the word about your
product, you need to have a product worth spreading first.
Tips

68. Value Streams
68
How is this product going to deliver value or make money?
1. Don’t think in terms of 3-5 year projections (which will be wrong). Instead think about what happens if
the product is in the market tomorrow.
2. Plan to deliver enough value with the product that people will pay what you’re charging from the very
beginning (unless you’re never planning to charge at all).
3. Price is a huge part of the perception of the value and should be articulated on the canvas.
4. Inspiration is a great place to get ideas on how to price things.
Tips

69. Cost Structure
69
What is this going to cost to build? What are the on-going costs?
1. What are we going to need to get the first version of your product to market and keep it running for the
first 3 months?
2. Focus on present costs, not future costs (we don’t know what those are going to be).
3. Factor in the price of time!
4. Looking at your costs and your revenues, what is your breakeven point? If there are multiple revenue
hypotheses, calculate the breakeven for each.
Tips

70. Key Metrics
70
What are we going to measure to show that the product has been
successful? What is the one metric that matters?
1. Focus on leading rather than lagging indicators. Leading metrics give you a predictive understanding the
future where as lagging metrics explain the past.
a) Leading metric: sales prospects in a pipeline. Predictor of sale volume
b) Lagging metric: churn (customers who have stopped using the product). They are already gone.
Tips

71. Key Metrics - Pirate Metrics
71
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Revenue
Referral
Generate attention through a
variety of means, both organic
and inorganic
Traffic, mentions, cost per click,
search results, cost of
acquisition, open rate
Turn the resulting drive-by
visitors into users who are
somehow enrolled
Convince users to come back
repeatedly, exhibiting stick
behavior
Business outcomes (which vary
by your business model:
purchases, ad clicks, content
creation, subscriptions, etc.)
Viral and word-of-mouth
invitations to other potential
users
Enrollments, signups, complete
onboarding process, used the
service at least once,
subscriptions
Engagement, times since last
visit, daily and monthly active
use, churns
Customer lifetime value,
conversion rate, shopping cart
size, click-through revenue
Invites sent, viral coefficient,
viral cycle time

72. Advantage
72
What advantage do we have that can not be easily copied or bought
by others?
1. Examples
a) Insider information
b) The right “expert” endorsements
c) A dream team
d) Personal authority
e) Large network effects
f) Community
g) Existing customers
h) SEO ranking
2. It is ok to leave this blank for a while as the true advantage can revel itself after work has started
Tips

73. Personas
73
Who are the individuals (what do they look like and act like) that are
going to be using the product?
1. Give each persona a name, background points, goals (why they want to use the solution), and
frustrations (why they feel compelled to use the solution).
2. Create only relevant points in the background section (e.g. if the product is about email, it is not relevant
what car the persona might drive)
3. Create as many as needed to describe the various customer groups and or roles.
Tips

74. Narratives
74
How might those individual personas use the product?
1. Write down step by step what would happen as one of the personas used our solution.
2. Use names from the personas where appropriate.
3. Create a “back bone” of major steps then break them down in detail.
4. Record any questions, ideas, or issues that arise.
5. Build a list of terms as they are defined or mentioned.
6. When starting a new idea, avoid sign-up or onboarding stories (come back to those later)
7. Go back through the story and organize any data terms in a hierarchy.
Tips

75. Paper prototyping
75
What does the solution look like as the persona is using it?
1. Draw each screen in the narrative map and add as much detail as needed.
2. Sketch quickly, discuss, and explore. Don’t be afraid to throw things away.
3. Try to keep data fidelity as high as possible using the terms defined in the narrative.
Tips

76. Functional prototyping
76
How does the solution behave as the persona is using it?
1. Using a prototyping tool of choice, turn the paper prototype into a functional prototype.
2. Show the prototype to customers and get feedback
Tips

77. Next Steps
77

78. Problem Validation
78
1. Validate that the problem is real
2. Interview possible customers
3. For more information on problem validation see:

79. Solution Validation
79
1. Validate that the solution will solve the problem for customers
2. Start a landing page (forces a release, testing of the UVP, etc.)
3. Interview possible customers with the prototype
4. For more information on problem validation see:

80. Quick-start Tip: New Project
1. Use the worksheets, agenda, and materials here to run your own workshop
2. Always do it with the whole team (or all key players)
3. Designate someone as time keeper/facilitator
4. Start sketching and gathering inspiration ASAP
5. If interested in using the tools shown today, send me an email: josh.wexler@originate.com to help get set
up
80

81. Key takeaway review
81
Please send me your stories of success and failure at trying some of these things!
josh.wexler@originate.com

82. Josh Wexler
Director
Originate – New York
917-902-6253
josh.wexler@originate.com