Sprint 48 :: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade - Surviving Product Failure
How many times have any of us tried to launch a product that we thought was awesome, and failed miserably?
You recognize this issue? You’ve been trough it? How did you manage to get out?
It's likely that throughout your career you've had (Or will have) your fair share of product-related mishaps.
Don’t fear the failures, it happens to the best of us, the trick is how you deal with them and what you do afterwards.
Product failure might well be what defines great product managers!
The Bitter Taste of Lemonade
Embracing the undeniable truth: product failure happens.
That genius idea you thought was going to make you a millionaire might end up feeling more like a scene from a sitcom gone wrong. But worry not, for we're here to squeeze those metaphorical lemons into some delightful lemonade.
The Blame Game (With a Twist)
As we investigate the "whodunit" behind your product's nosedive, remember that sometimes, it's not just you.
Market misalignment can be as amusing as a comedy duo out of sync, and inadequate planning and research might lead you down the path of a slapstick adventure. Or sometimes, you did all the planning and research, but orders from above are… well… orders from above!
Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole
The rabbit hole of product failure can be quite the rollercoaster.
Recognizing the hilarious "last straws" in your KPIs can be like watching a comedy show.
And when user feedback starts to resemble a roast, it's time to fix those bugs without tripping over banana peels.
The Art of Pivoting (Without Falling on Your Face)
When your product's slapstick routine gets old, it's time to pivot.
Don’t be afraid, there won't be any juggling flaming swords here.
Dive into the power of iteration, where tiny changes can turn your product into a superstar. Do it step by step, iteration per iteration, until you are able to adapt your product to the niche you found and didn’t accept you!
The Comedy of Resilience
In the school of hard knocks and hilarious fails, we learn how to conduct post-mortems without turning them into a comedy of errors.
Explore how you can embrace your inner wackiness and drive a failure into and EPIC product! Study your niche, keep on going, muster the forces of your dev team and rise trough the ceilings of product management!
Never give up, trust your instincts (and the data, trust the data more)
A Triumphant Encore
As we wrap up, let's focus on rebuilding and turning your product's tragedy into a comedy of success.
Rebrand like a pro, manage resources without it becoming a circus act, and set new goals and metrics for your triumphant comeback.
Curtain Call
In the grand finale, remember that life is too short to take failure too seriously. Embrace the absurdity of product management, and the next time you're handed lemons, make the best darn lemonade stand on the block. Cheers to your future failures and the laughter they'll bring!
Extra Extra
Know when to quit. This is very important, sometimes a product just isn’t ready for the market, or the market isn’t ready for the product. You might even have found a niche where it seems there is a problem to solve, but, that problem might be one of the reasons that that niche exists and people might be more than happy with it.
Think motorcycles and rain, there have been a lot of inventions on stopping rain from pouring on motorcyclists, but most of motorcyclists are so used to it, and like it, that they don’t accept the products.
Knowing when to quit a product and jump into the next one is a important step for every product manager, not every idea is good enough to be out there, it might need a bit more time on brainstorm, or maybe it’s just not a good market fit.
But remember, there is always someone who likes their lemonade bitter, and those bitter lemonade lovers might save your product, listen to the user.
The Product Land ⛰️
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