Maven

How and When to Pivot

Tara Viswanathan

Co-founder & CEO of Rupa Health

Gagan Biyani

Co-founder & CEO of Maven

Advice for founders to stay laser-focused on the problem rather than attaching to the solution

How to fall in love with the problem (not the solution)

The story of how Rupa Health shipped their virtual clinic MVP in under a month without full-time engineers

How to build an MVP on an aggressive deadline

Strategies for deciding when to pivot and when to push through using intuition and logic

How to pair gut feelings with logic

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

If you are :﻿✔️ An aspiring entrepreneur who wants to build a world class technology product✔️ An existing founder who wants to maximize their runway✔️ A startup founder who is building a tech startup but lacks technical background✔️ A startup founder who wants to explore outsourcing This is the single most valuable resource for you. In my career spanning 17+ years I have been fortunate to have played the role of a startup founder who wants to build his MVP as well as of a technology consultant who works with startup founders to help them bring their startup dream to fruition. I have used this unique mix of experience from both sides of the table to assist multiple startups successfully traverse their 0 to 10 startup journey. I have now distilled all of this experience in to a concise and actionable learnings in the form of this course. This course is specifically built keeping in mind the needs of a new startup founder who if bogged down with huge amount of content telling them the theory of building their startup and MVP but does not provide them the tools and actionable items which they can start using immediately. Once you have completed this course you would have learned how to : 🏆 Clearly define a truly lean and minimal MVP.🏆 Get feedback from your ideal customer profile without needing to write a single like of code.🏆 Take key technical decisions about your product which have the potential to make-or-break your startup.🏆 A framework to identify the correct partners for you, be it hires or outsourcing agencies.🏆 Avoid common mistakes/gotchas that could end up as a huge drain of your time, money and effort.🏆 Have complete ownership over your IP while working with multiple third parties🏆 Actionable checklists, frameworks, templates and references to jumpstart your startup journey. I want you to immediately get to work towards building your startup MVP as soon as you finish this course. That is the guiding principal of how this course has been designed.

Jumpstart your startup journey by building your MVP the right way. 

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

The course will be conducted over a span of 2 days with 4 hours sessions on both the days.

Thursday and Friday

The next cohort goes live on Oct 3rd 2024 and will start at 8:AM EST

Oct 3, 2024

We will practice all that we learn, as we learn, in the form of a do-along case study. In this we take existing popular, complex startup product and go through the complete journey of building the MVP together.

Do-Along Case Study

Course schedule

Aspiring entrepreneurs who want to build a technology product by do not know where to start.

Existing startup founders, bootstrapped or funded, who want to maximize their runway.

Non technical founders who want to build, manage and scale a successful technology product.

Dreamers who are planning to build their startup soon.

Who is this course for

This course is much more than explanation of concepts and dos and donts. My goal is to equip you with tools that you can start using the very same day to start building your dream startup. I will provide you with actionable checklists, frameworks, legal templates and contacts.

Get actionable checklists, frameworks, legal templates and references to supercharge their startup product building journey

What used to take weeks can now be done in days (any many times hours) using the powers of GenAI. I will tell you how you can use AI tools to significantly speed up your MVP development without breaking the bank

Use GenAI to significantly speed up all aspects of MVP development

You will not have to wait for the final MVP to be built before you can get feedback from your target customers. I will teach you how you can build prototypes quickly so that you can collect valuable feedback quicker and course correct faster. Without writing a single line of code

Learn to get feedback on your idea without spending a single dollar on development

Converting ideas in your mind to actionable specs is an art that I have perfected over the last 17 years. I will teach how you too can build specs that are extremely cost and time efficient and will be loved by your designers, developers, contractors and you.

Convert ideas to actionable specs faster without ambiguity. Specs that your developers and partners will love.

A new founders journey is full of decisions, all of which can make or break the startup. I will teach you the framework using which you will maneuver decisions like which contractors to choose and how to hire your team making sure that you do not lose valuable resources and time.

Learn to Identify the correct partners to build your startup. Make informed decision on whether to hire devs or find agency.

Working with others is hard. Its even more challenging when you are a new fonder with not enough time and funding. I will simplify and codify the process for you so that you can ensure a smooth working relationship with partners while maintaining complete indemnity and onwership

Learn to avoid the common pitfalls when working with third parties, safeguard your IP and avoid unnecessary hiccups in your startup journey

MVP is just the beginning. You want to build a product that will scale with time as you grow. Something that will make prospective investors comfortable when choosing to invest.

Build a scalable and investable business.

I will teach you how you can maximize your capital efficiency by simply tweaking some product development decisions and significantly improve your runway. This is even more crucial if you are a bootstrapped founder.

Increase your runway significantly

Leverage GenAI to fulfil your startup dream by learning to validate your idea, translate idea to MVP & find right partners for your startup

Akhil Gupta

Cohort 2

Cohort 3

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

Course Schedule

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.

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

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

How and When to Pivot