March 24, 2007
Notes from Startup School - "A Crash Course in Product Management"
Max Levchin, Slide; founder at PayPal
Max Levchin at Startup School 2007.
engineers aren't as good at handing all details, product management is in making sure all bits get accounted for.
iterate over different ideas
hackers make the best PMs - Google does one thing right, having CS majors as their PMs.
product people need to really put themselves in the experience of the audience.
measure everything in order to determine what works. million packages out there --- they all aren't good enough, have to build your own
- focus on the metrics, pick out the patterns
- find the anomalies in the chart - things that user want to do
make your users commit - there is a balance between making things too easy (people will think that the payoff won't be as high) vs. too hard (too much commitment - people drop out)