There are many presentations on how to build product as a new startup. However there aren't many presentations on building product as a high-growth startup. This is a case study for Sharethrough's product process as of 2014.

1. BUILDING PRODUCT POST PMF MORNING
BUILDING PRODUCT
AFTER “PRODUCT-
MARKET FIT”
CASE STUDY OF
SHARETHROUGH’S PROCESS
ROB FAN
CTO & Co-founder
Presented by

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@SHARETHROUGH
BACKGROUND
For the Rest of the Web
Powers In-Feed, Native Ads
for Modern Content Publishers

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BACKGROUND
Monetize
Monetize your site or app with
premium brand content across all
connected devices.
Sell
Sell your own in-feed ads through
our self-serve technology platform.
Promote
Increase exposure for your sponsored
content programs by promoting stories
across the Sharethrough Exchange.
Sharethrough For Publishers
The Complete Native Monetization Solution For Modern Content Publishers

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120employees
Foundedin2008
OfficesinSF,LA,CHI,NYC,LON
VotedBest Places to Work
AdWeek’s“NativeAdPlatformoftheYear”
Digiday’s “PlatformoftheYear”Finalist
BACKGROUND
Growth Stats

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GARAGE DAYS

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THE JOURNEY
Product-Market Fit
$
TIME

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THE JOURNEY
Lean Startup
AAARR
Customer
Development
MVP
Pivots
Growth Hacking
Product-Market Fit
$
TIMEMost Startup Thinking Only
Addresses This Timeframe!

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THE JOURNEY
There is life after
product market fit.

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THE JOURNEY
Pre PMF Post PMF
Green Field
(No Debt, No Users)
Technical Debt
Scalable Code
All New Customers
(No Demands)
Existing Customers
Demand Features
No Competitors
(or Only Startup Competitors)
Startup and
Incumbent Competitors
Customer Feedback
Cycles Immediate
Customer Feedback
via Liaisons
Small Team
(Everyone Knows Why)
Large Team
(Clocking In and Out)
Rules are Different

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*GASP*
The P-word.

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PRODUCT
PROCESS
Product Planning Software Development

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Ideas
Feedback
Hunches
Requirements
Product
Roadmap
Idea Funnel
PRODUCT
PLANNING

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• After our vetting process, we call each item a Milestones
• Only items that will take a pair of engineers >= 1 iteration (2
weeks) are included
• Smaller tasks are often bundled into a milestone
• Larger items are explored before entering this process
• Items are business problems, not solutions
= 1 Item of Work
PRODUCT
PLANNING

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PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4
PRODUCT
PLANNING
Product Exec Team
Sales
Customer Support
Engineers
Quarterly
Roadmap

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Phase 1: Gathering Ideas
• Strategic vision comes from product
exec team
• Iterative items come from department
‘dump and sort sessions’
• Requests are written out, voted on and
compiled in a spreadsheet.
• Net result is a spreadsheet of 80 items
from large strategic bets to incremental
workflow improvements
PRODUCT
PLANNING

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Phase 2: Shrinking the List
PRODUCT
PLANNING
• VP of Product, Engineering, and
myself spend a day whittling this list
down to 25 items.
• Initial order dictated by the votes
casted by each department
• We add another layer of votes onto
this list. Based on this criteria:
✓ Will this fit our workflow?
✓ Supportable?
✓ Can we do it well?

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Phase 3: Costing the Ideas
PRODUCT
PLANNING
• Art to estimating
• Goal is to come up with a dollar cost
for each item in the list
• $4 = 1 pair of engineering for an
iteration (our iterations are 2 weeks)
• Aim for a conservative estimate.
Need to also account for chores,
bugs, and small tasks.

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Phase 4: “Funding” Ideas
PRODUCT
PLANNING
• Half day is allocated for this. Product
executive team is in attending in-person.
• Items are printed out as “story cards” and laid
out on a table.
• Poker chips represent total engineering
capacity. Everyone is given an equal amount
of chips.

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Phase 4: “Funding” Ideas
PRODUCT
PLANNING
• Once we start, a very healthy debate ensues.
• First round of funding:
• 50% go completely unfunded.
• 40% are half funded.
• 10% immediately get funding.
• Keep going until all chips are allocated and
stories are fully funded.

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ROADMAP
EXAMPLE
Cross-Device
Targeting
Third-party Behavioral
& Demo Targeting
Enhanced Tablet Support Machine-Learning
Optimization Algorithms
Article Cards v2 Cards Refresh + Brand Logo
Improved Support
for Infinite Scroll
Data Exploration

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TAKEAWAYS
So, how is this going?

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TAKEAWAYS
• No one wonders what product and engineering are doing.
• Business has confidence in product. Product execution is
very low a risk factor in decisions.
• Works very well for our ideas/vision heavy culture.
• Just finished 5th time. We have slipped our schedules by
1-2 milestones, but everyone understands!
Results

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TAKEAWAYS
• Executives are allowed to “jump the process.” Can get
items straight to Phase 4.
• Keep the product exec team meeting regularly during the
quarter.
• When milestones don’t get finish, deduct $$ to finish it up.
• Keep milestones focused on the problem, allow the PM’s
and engineers to find the best solution.
• Mid-quarter “must-do” ideas have come up - when they do,
we pull a milestone out of the list.
Learnings

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TAKEAWAYS
A good process forms a way to repeatably
decide, decision-make, and build software
that is reliable and somewhat predictable.
Process is needed in a post
product-market fit world.

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DISCLAIMER
There is no “right” process,
only the process that helps
you build and ship product.

26. BUILDING PRODUCT POST PMF GOODBYE
THANKS!
@ROBFAN
@SHARETHROUGH