I wouldn't be a card-carrying product manager without some thoughts on product management. My latest product management interest has been following a trend known as Customer Development, advocated by Steve Blank . It's a business model for developing new products, mostly applicable to startups but I think it also applies to more established companies. The main message is actually fairly intuitive: you develop a successful product by continually iterating it in a tight feedback loop between developing the product, getting customer input, and then making changes. Rather than spend a lot of time upfront in creating the product, you develop a minimum viable product (MVP) : the product with just the necessary features to get money and feedback from early adopters. Then you let your early adopter customers tell you what works well and what needs to be changed. This model sounds intuitive but by far the most prevalent development model for Silicon Valley startups looks somethi...
Lessons after 20+ years in the product trenches