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Product Management @ Mobile Internet Start-up

Yue ZhugeCo-Founder/CEO Ivy Gallery

April 3, 2014Session 4

A Four-session Series for Students at xlab, Tsinghua University

Session 1:

• Product management basics and skills

Session 2:

• From customer needs to quality product: requirements and design

Session 3:

• Project management and execution

Session 4:

• Product management at a start-up company

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PM in a Startup

Business Model

Branding and Marketing

Mobile Advertising Management

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Internet/Mobile Business Models

Consumer Pay

Paid App or Service

Freemium （ Upgrade)

In-App Purchase (One-time)

Subscriptions (Membership)

Business Pay

Advertising

Lead Gen

Transaction Royalties

Data and Info Service

Platform and Software Service

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Myth #1: Users = $$s

Reality: engagement metrics – frequency, session length, stickiness are as important

Reality: not all app are good for advertising

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Myth #2: Data = $$s

Reality: Data is only valuable after it becomes large enough

Reality: Data is only useful if it produces more value than the cost of extracting the value

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Myth #3: Publicity = $$s

Reality: many ‘interesting feature’ type of products go viral for just a short period of time

Reality: link any other business, value creation should be the ultimate goal

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PM in a Startup

Business Model

Branding and Marketing

Mobile Advertising Management

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Technology Adoption Cycle

04/10/2023 Yue Zhuge 9Courtesy of blog.heatspring.com

Branding and Positioning in an Information Age

Give the product a good name

Occupy a space that no one else does

Offer a unique message

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Positioning Tips for Startups

• Be #1 in a sub-category• Associate with a known brand but show the

differentiator• Take advantage of the fact that known brands

have their well-known position• Keep repeating your message

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Marketing

• Communicate the value of your product to the consumers

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Marketing ConsumersProduct Value

Example: Ivy Core Messages

Connecting clouds

Smart organization

Flexible sharing

Simpler Message

Too many photos

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Exercise: Elevator Pitch

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PM in a Startup

Business Model

Branding and Marketing

Mobile Advertising Management

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Advertising your APP

• With content provider (e.g., FB, Yahoo)• With ad network (e.g., InMobi, AdMob)• With search engines (e.g., Google, Bing)

• Organic traffic from the app stores

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How to Pay

• CPM: pay for impression

• CPC: pay for click• CPI: pay for install• CPA: pay for action

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impressions

clicks

installs

actions

CTR: Click Through Rate

IR: Install Rate

An Example Funnel

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impressions

clicks

installs

actions

200,000

15000

600

CTR = 7.5%

IR = 4%

What’s the expected CTR and IR?What are you paying for and what’s your CPI?What about organic traffic?

If I spend $100, then my CPI = $0.166

Watch for Channel Quality

• What kind of inventory• What kind of user targeting• Incentivized or not• Uninstall rate• User activity after a period of time• Your conversion metric (e.g., $$s earned)

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KPIs: Three Categories of Metrics

Marketing Effectiveness

• Installs, channel quality metrics

Product Quality

• Active users (DAU, WAU, MAU), retention, session length

Product Functions

• Function usage, path, exits

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PM in a Startup

Business Model

Branding and Marketing

Mobile Advertising Management

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Hiring PM: Look for Raw Quality

Product interests

• How good she is as a user, how excited when talking about a product

Critical thinking

• Can he critique product features and elaborate on reasons

Logic

• Can she generalize and specialize on product functions• Can she justify a decision

Problem solving

• Can he provide different solutions to a request and compare them• Can he analyze and handle complex situations

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Keep Growing

• Learning and broadening the product and domain knowledge

• Improve communication• Appreciate the different styles of product

managers• PM ratio in an engineering team: 1PM to 4-6

engineers

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Product Management is an Art, there is no Manual

Some references• Inspired: How To Create Products Customers

Love Hardcover by Marty Cagan • The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs

Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Hardcover, by Eric Ries

• Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore

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Always Read More in Different Areas

Design Psychology Culture

Decision Making

Behavioral Economics Marketing

Advertising

Best Practice

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Thank You!

• Email: yue@ivy.ag• Twitter: @yuezhuge• Weibo: @诸葛越 Yue

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