Your product briefing
Skills - Component oriented thinking for product managers
Product managers need to make it clear that product designers aren’t necessarily being judged on their ingenious ability to invent new ways of doing things. Yes, there is a time and a place for explosions of imaginative creativity but there is much to admire in a designer who takes a pragmatic approach to building new forms of value by re-purposing existing design patterns. (Department of Product)
Process - How to run remote usability testing
Choose a website or app completely unrelated to the one you plan to test, and ask participants to use it, briefly. In this practice session, don’t show users the actual website or prototype that you plan to test, and don’t have them attempt test tasks. If participants need to physically sign consent or NDA forms, now it is the time to discuss the logistics and ensure that they can access the documents and know how to send them back to you before the session. (NN Group)
Strategy - 8 laws that determine success in tech products
What separates success from failure? These 8 laws contain some of the most influential ideas that the biggest tech companies use to run their operations, design business models, and build products. These tech “laws” describe why a given network’s value rises exponentially with the volume of participants (Metcalfe’s Law), why most marketing channels eventually produce diminishing returns (Law of Sh*tty Clickthroughs), or why starting with simple iterations leads to better long-term products (Gall’s Law). (CB Insights)
Industry analysis - The VR winter
Now that we’re all locked up at home, video calls have become a huge consumer phenomenon, but VR has been not. This should have been a VR moment, and it isn’t. (Benedict Evans, Andreessen Horowitz)
New product launch - Square launches online checkout to take on PayPal
With Online Checkout, Square is catering to all manner of business, regardless of whether they want a Square-powered website — or any website, for that matter. An online fitness instructor who is temporarily giving classes over Zoom might not have any desire to create an entire online store, so a solution such as this could work well. In terms of fees, Square charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. (Venture Beat)
Interview - Spotify CEO Daniel Ek
Daniel Ek, chief executive officer of Spotify Technology SA, shares his thoughts on podcasts, and whether he'd ever sell his company to another streaming giant, Netflix. He speaks exclusively with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. (Bloomberg Technology)
Leadership - How to lead your team in a post pandemic world
During the Covid-19 crisis, I’ve spoken with many CEOs who have shared that a key priority for them, naturally, has been the safety and well-being of their employees. And there are many examples of inspiring actions taken by CEOs and companies in support of their employees. But as we’ve come to recognize that this crisis will last more than a few short weeks, companies are now defining their approach for the long haul. (Harvard Business Review)
New product features - Google updates the Docs share menu
We’re updating the interface you use to share files from Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms on the web. This will replace the previous interface used to share files and manage members of shared drives. These changes will make it easier to share files only with specific people without expanding access beyond what’s needed. (Google Product blog)
Startups - Challenger bank N26 raises $100m
German digital bank N26 has raised an additional $100 million in funding, as it braces for economic uncertainty from the coronavirus pandemic. The investment, backed by existing investors such as Chinese tech giant Tencent and Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, is an extension to the company’s Series D investment round announced early last year. It brings the total raised in that round to $570 million, while the company has now raised $770 million to date. (CNBC)
Podcast - Practical advice on building a product platform
This podcast compilation contains a range of platform insights from the likes of Slack’s Director of Platform Marketing Ceci Stallsmith, Box’s Chief Product Officer and Chief Strategy Officer Jeetu Patel, and VP of Facebook Workplace, Julien Codorniou. (Intercom)
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