Maven

Reverse Engineering Product-Market Fit

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO of Superhuman

Gagan Biyani

Co-founder & CEO of Maven

Construct a survey to measure product-market fit using 4 key questions that reveal critical user insights

4 key questions to ask your users

How to analyze survey responses and segment your users to identify your most discerning (and valuable) customer

Identify your "High Expectation Customer"

How to focus only on the feature requests that matter to convert more users to love your product

Ruthlessly prioritize

To get the basics of Rahul's framework, check out his article before this lesson: https://bit.ly/3KQMeNe

📚 Recommended reading

Product teams often get stuck focusing on outputs and predictable delivery (what and when am I building a thing) instead of outcomes (what will change as a result of building this thing). This leaves out the critical element of making sure you are building the right (most impactful) things in the right way. Jon's has 25+ years of experience in technology companies from CNN to Google, and has created this course to provide you with a comprehensive set of tools to help you develop impactful products by shifting from output-based thinking to outcome-based thinking. You will deepen your understanding of your customers and their needs as well as identifying and de-risking the different kinds of hypotheses built into your roadmap. You will also work to understand how your work contributes to your company's strategy. You will learn and apply frameworks to ensure your features solve user problems that drive business impact which connects all the way up to your company's goals. We will also help you develop successful products by understanding customer needs, identifying opportunities, managing risks, and creating value for customers. Using a combination of lectures, interactive hands-on exercises, and case studies from Airbnb, Dropbox, Zappos, and more, the course will focus on practical application and provide you with the skills and knowledge necessary to level up and apply these tools in real-world product management scenarios.

Move from feature factory to customer outcomes and drive impact in your business

Inside-out thinking is where you focus on what you are doing to your product. Outside-in thinking is where you focus on the outcomes that your product can achieve for your users.We'll explore the benefits of outside-in outside-in thinking and how to apply it to your job. We'll also discuss common traps to avoid and provide tips for success.

Outside-In vs Inside-Out thinking

Customer journey maps are a visual representation of the user's entire experience while trying to solve the problem your product addresses. In this module, you will learn how to create customer journey maps, identify pain points, and improve user experience, and end up with a first draft of a customer journey map for your product.

Customer Journey Mapping

The Confidence/Risk Matrix is a tool for managing risk and uncertainty in product development. In this module, you will learn how to create a Confidence/Risk Matrix, understand the difference between MVP and RAT, and make informed decisions that balance risk and reward so you can "build to learn" or "build to earn"

Confidence/Risk Matrix

Impact maps are a powerful tool for product managers to align product development with business goals and outcomes. You will create an impact map and review with your peers. Then we'll workshop so you can prioritize your efforts for maximum impact to the business and your career.

Impact Mapping

Course syllabus

Four two-hour live sessions where you will learn with a group of peers via framework overviews, case studies, group discussions and live instructor feedback.

Live Sessions

Key Exercises:<ul><li>Creating your own Customer Journey Map</li><li>Creating an Impact Map</li><li>Developing your Hypotheses</li><li>Quantifying your Impact Map</li><li>Assigning Risk to your Impact Map</li></ul>

Projects & Exercises

Course Structure

You're a senior product manager who wants to delivering outstanding impact and business value to your users and your business.

You're an early career PM and want to level up your career and understand how to deliver business impact.

You're a startup founder who wants to validate ideas and develop products that meet customer needs and create value for them and your biz.

Who this course is for:

What you’ll get out of this course

You will learn how to identify the most impactful opportunities using Impact Mapping and other framing techniques and shift from output orientation ("what are we building?") to outcome/impact orientation ("what will change as a result of building these things?")

Learn how to prioritize the most impactful opportunities to move the needle for your business

You will learn how to better understand users and the problem space they are working in through Journey Maps that are customized for Product Managers

Grow your user empathy and customer discovery skills

By making explicit the different hypotheses in your plan and identifying the riskiest ones, you will be able to quickly validate the riskiest assumptions and improve your outcomes.

Understand the risks and hypotheses built into your roadmap

By working through user outcomes and how they drive business outcomes, you will be able to clearly tie your features to user behavior that drives business results.

Understand how your features tie in to the company goals

The course is designed to provide you with practical experience applying these tools to real-world product management scenarios. You will build actual journey and impact maps for your actual users &amp; products.

Create actual artifacts for your products

You will benefit from an instructor who has seen product management done well and poorly in his career as a product leader and consultant. Learn best practices and traps to avoid from companies like Google, CNN, Ford, and numerous startups and midsize companies.

Learn from an industry expert with 25+ years of experience

By developing these skills, you can enhance your PM career prospects and become a more valuable member of your product teams.

Boost your career

Learn with and from our community of product leaders from companies like Google, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and ServiceNow both in the course and in our community Slack channel for class alumni.

Become a part of a community of impactful product leaders

Up-level your PM career by shifting your thinking from outputs to outcomes and ship features that deliver results for your company.

Jon Harmer

Product Management Leader

October Cohort

Cohort 9

Top rated by tech founders &amp; product managers from U.S., U.K., Israel and India. ﻿Rated Top 50 Maven Course!-------------- Many early stage companies hustle to find product market fit hoping to get lucky.&nbsp;They launch the tech, get a bunch of early customers - and hope that they find the market.&nbsp;Hustle without a plan, hope without a strategy, doesn’t work.&nbsp; This bootcamp offers an alternative. Master the PMF Five Factors Framework, a market driven structured approach to: 1. Figure out the right customer to target2. Position your product offering, not just tech3. Establish your category point of view4. Lay out your go-to-market pathways5. Assess the key talent you need&nbsp; Tie it all together with a plan ready to test in the market.&nbsp; This cohort-based course includes live teaching, videos &amp; worksheets, peer feedback and solo projects to level up your entire PMF plan.

Gain insights to sharpen your product market fit - and execute smarter

Learn the PMF five factor framework (customer, product, category, GTM and talent).<ol><li>Learn why a structured approach to PMF matters</li><li>Practice the sharp questions to get familiar with PMF Five Factors Framework&nbsp;</li><li>Create your Baseline PMF Scorecard, using the framework&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ol> PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to score your baseline PMF

Setting Baseline: Find how good is your PMF today

<ul><li>Establish where your product fits in the software (tech) stack</li><li>Map your customer subtypes for buyers and users</li><li>Identify relevant value frameworks for each customer subtype</li><li>Build value drivers for each customer subtype</li></ul>Summarize your Hungry Customer archetype&nbsp; PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to calibrate your CUSTOMER Factor

CALIBRATE: Who is your Hungry Customer?

Define your Magical Product<ol><li>Discover your Brand Insight</li><li>Define your Brand Promise</li><li>Differentiate your Offering</li></ol>Summarize your Magical Product PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to calibrate your PRODUCT Factor

CALIBRATE: What is your Magical Product?

Set and play a New Game in Category<ul><li>Create your contrarian POV</li><li>Define your change criteria</li><li>Paint an inevitable future</li><li>Identify an early adopter segment</li></ul>Summarize your New Game in Category PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to calibrate your CATEGORY Factor

CALIBRATE: Where is your New Game in Category?

Determine your GTM pathways<ul><li>Find your customer orientation (intensity)</li><li>Set you GTM strategy </li><li>Choose primary pathway (PLG, ALG, etc.)</li><li>Choose your channel pathways, as necessary</li></ul>Summarize your Repeatable GTM<ul><li>Short list top GTM pathways, sequencing and metrics</li></ul> PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to calibrate your GTM factor

CALIBRATE: How to find Repeatable GTM?

Ready your team &amp; talent for PMF<ul><li>Ensure Founder to Category fit</li><li>Ensure CTO to Product fit</li><li>Ensure GTM Lead to Pathway fit</li><li>Prepare for key customer relationships</li></ul>Summarize your Ready Talent PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to calibrate your TALENT Factor

CALIBRATE: With whom to build Ready Talent?   

<ul><li>Assemble your story building blocks from calibration</li><li>Create your brand value story (positioning)</li><li>Build your value story test plan</li></ul> PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to create your VALUE story

HOW TO: Create & test your value story

Learn a risk mitigation framework and apply to:<ul><li>Identify key uncertainties (known &amp; unknown) for each factor</li><li>Define the information &amp; insights needed to lower risks for each factor</li><li>Build PMF sprint plan to execute in-market</li></ul> PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to build your PMF Risk Mitigation Plan

HOW TO: Build & test your PMF risk mitigation plan

<ul><li>Assess your final cut PMF calibration</li><li>Compare to your baseline calibration</li><li>Get ready for in-market sprint</li></ul> PRE-WORK: Videos &amp; ReadingsSOLO WORKSHEET: to calibrate your next PMF sprint

Final Cut: Testable PMF Calibration

ONE live sessions per week with instructor and peers

Tuesdays

Before Each Live Session~ Study 1-hour of async material beforehand (videos + readings) to learn concepts During Each Live Session~ Engage in 1-hour live session<ul><li>Recap of async materials</li><li>Group Exercises</li><li>Solo Worksheets &amp; Projects</li><li>Case Studies</li><li>Q&amp;A</li></ul>~ Bonus materials (optional)

Eight Week Course

You are expected to learn the core concepts through videos and worksheets BEFORE you come to each session. We recap the material briefly in class but you spend most time on hands-on exercises (group &amp; solo), case studies and live Q&amp;A to make progress on your PMF.

Async pre-work (videos & readings) before each session

<ul><li>You will get WORKSHEETS for each module to improve your PMF plan - in private. </li><li>You are expected to share your insights &amp; get feedback from your peers in class.</li><li>While not mandatory, you are expected to share your updated PMF plan in the last session.</li></ul>

Bite-size Solo Projects

Course Schedule

You're an early or growth stage B2B Tech Founder who knows the hustle. You need to speed up your PMF plan for lean times.

You’re a Product Leader that has a product [MVP] in a competitive market - but not enough customer traction yet.

You’re a GTM Leader (Sales or Marketing) with early customers. Though you are not sure of the ideal profile or the best GTM to reach them.

This course is for you IF...

Build a clear PMF plan and execute with confidence

You will have a baseline understanding &amp; score of your current PMF - what's good, what's not. You will uncover key risks in your plan that you should address.

A clear assessment of your current PMF

You will create a sharper company story ready to test with customers, investors or partners - all built around your value hypothesis.

A new customer & company story

You will have a smarter PMF plan ready to test in market that reduces your key risks of failure

An actionable PMF plan - ready to execute

Speed up your market success by building a comprehensive PMF plan using the Five Factors Framework 

Anurag Wadehra

Growth Coach & Advisor

Cohort 5

Cohort 6

Most people think that corporate partnerships are about selling and pitching, it’s really about listening, planning, and collaborating. Position your startup to work with corporates and win that first pilot, proof-of-concept, or deal.

Stop pitching and start listening

<ul><li>Knowing who is the customer is not always as easy as it seems and picking the right markets to focus on is life or death for your startup.</li></ul>

What markets do you want to reach?

<ul><li>You'll be able to identify key decision makers in your target customer and tailor your message to speak directly to them. </li><li>﻿You'll practice finding and listening for keywords that point to their biggest pain points which keep them up at night.</li></ul>

How do you map stakeholders?

<ul><li>See what it takes to get people over the hump and try before they buy. </li><li>Find ways for you to introduce new concepts and behaviors into a big company culture.</li></ul>

De-risking your solution

<ul><li>Demonstrate the case studies or proof points you need to keep growing and eventually scale!</li></ul>

Get the social proof to scale

Let's plan to test, learn, and iterate right away in your business.

Weekly projects

Founders and CEOsYou want to be more strategic in your approach when identifying the best markets and industries.

Business DevelopersYou want to find the right decision makers and establish traction by partnering with big companies.

Marketers and Product ManagersYou want to make progress even if you don't have product-market fit. We'll focus on how to get going.

Who is this course for

Key outcomes

Be more strategic when it comes to market size and sectors, find the best industries and decision makers who need their products, then understand how these prospects think.&nbsp;

Get the right strategic footing

Conduct world class customer development. Everyone's got problems in big companies. So are you good at identifying them? That's the secret to great customer development that makes your product better and creates new channels for your business.

Solve Valuable Problems for your Future Customers

How do you ask people to take a bet on you? I'll share the importance of building a pilot program. Together, we'll go create one. You will de-risk your startup's product/service for decision-makers so they will advocate for you.

De-Risk your Solution for Decision Makers

You'll need social proof to succeed. Turns that first win into a compelling case study for others to follow

Develop Results that Produce Momentum

Discover the secrets to influencing decision-makers and designing a pilot program that gets a YES. (Now in a one-day workshop).

Vijay Rajendran

20+ years of investing in and supporting entrepreneurs on their journeys

Cohort 7

Cohort 8

Many founders, marketers and product managers with great ideas or an amazing technology struggle to find the right customers for their product or grow it fast. In fact, according to a CB Insights report, lack of market need is the most common reason for startup failure. In 42% of cases, failed startups created a product or service that didn’t meet a real felt need in the market. It is also the case for feature or campaign launch. Navigating product market fit is not just about having a great digital marketing campaign or building an advanced technology. It starts from building the right product for the right group of people and communicating it in the best possible way. That's where "Unique positioning for your product" course comes in.In this course, you will: 🚀 Get clarity about market analysis, segmentation and trends to focus on🔍 Master the art of customer interviews to get actionable insights.🎯 Define clear product features and value propositions to communicate💡 Set-up the testing for the product or feature📖 Craft compelling product story for your pitch deck, demo, landing page or marketing plan Over the span of 4 weeks you will have access to 20 modules, 2 guest lectures and bi-weekly live office hours with Tata. Plus free access to:🎁 Pitch deck or landing page review and feedback🎁 Hands on positioning templates, GTM checklists and user interview guides🎁 Practical guide "how to use AI for marketing" All sessions are recorded - you can access it no matter what time zone you are in and how busy your schedule is. Course is designed to be hands on with well rounded approach to product positioning and will include slide presentation, checklists, templates and live Q&amp;As. Ready to rewrite your product's value proposition? Enroll now and redefine success on your terms.

Are you offering the right product to the right audience?

We will first discuss what is product positioning and how it helps you get your product market fit. And then cover all things frameworks, toolkits and how-to methods. Homework: your product deep dive using framework provided, it's features and value adds.

The Basics

In this module you will get a workbook to fill out and we will be going step by step through market overview, to competitor analysis, defining target segment and building questionnaire for your user research. Homework: fill-out first section of your workbook based on the frameworks provided: market segment data, research, insights from customers

Market and competitor analysis

There is nothing more important than obsessing over your customer group. Who they are? what do they do in spare time? what is important for them?We will review types of user research and quest-re examples. Homework: with quest-re ready, your next step is field work - you will go out there and talk with your current or potential customers.

Consumer deep dive and research

This will be our time to put all things together - your market research, your consumer insights and then using some of the frameworks experiment with your product story. You will walk out from this session with few ideas of how to position your product or feature.

Product positioning - building it!

When your product positioning is ready, you understand who your target audience is - next thing will be acquisition.We will learn together how to take all of the materials you have and define all pieces of story you tell - the narrative. We will also discuss how this could be used in identifying marketing channel mix and acquisition strategies.

From positioning to story

Run tests with your product positioning options and your narrative. Launch &gt; learn &gt; iterate &gt; test again

Testing and editing loop!

Course syllabus


18:00-19:30 CET/ 10:00 - 15:00 CET

Nov 12 - Nov 26, 2023

Expect to dedicate some time for homework

Course schedule

For early stage founders and tech leaders looking to bridge business knowledge gap, get pragmatic frameworks to build the right product

For product and marketing managers who are tasked to launch features and campaigns, create demos, landing pages and make it successful.

not a great fit for serial entrepreneursprofessionals, not expecting to work hands on

This course is

What you’ll learn

Review the core principles of product design, product positioning frameworksLook at industry and my practice examples how right product positioning drives growth

Understand product positioning and it's impact on growth

Market analysis, segmentation and trends to focus on

Chose market category and segment 

Or a big budget. Yes, you heard it right. Right after we cover some theory about types of research, guides questionnaire samples.You will also run your own project customer research.

Do research without a research team or a big budget

How to talk about the product benefits and test messaging, using basic understanding of human psychology

Use Communication hacks

We will get into the details how and which tools aside from ChatGPT to use to make your job faster.

How to leverage AI tools

Once you have product positioning defined, you can use industry leading examples of pitch decks and website wireframes to design yours.You will also get access also my custom GTM frameworks and plan samples to define your product's strategy.

Build website, pitch deck and GTM plans

Clear and easy to use frameworks and techniques + feedback on your website, pitch decks, GTM plans

Interactive feedback & special material

One of it's kind practical course to nail your product positioning and all what comes with it: landing pages, pitch decks and GTM strategy

Lightning Lessons

Reverse Engineering Product-Market Fit