Four Mistakes That Can Kill a Software or Hardware Product

mistakes that kill software and hardware products

Day-to-day operations. Customer communications. Demands from Sales and Marketing, and of course, details about your next release. It seems that the product manager’s role is death by a thousand small problems. Even for a product hitting its stride in the market, it can be hard to keep focused on the big picture.

But it’s important. Here are four mistakes that even the best product managers can fall victim to. These particular examples are from enterprises with deep pockets. But not every organization can recover from mistakes like these.

1. Forgetting That Your Product Is for End Users — Not Sales or Marketing

Product managers have input from every direction, including inside their own heads. They must balance all of them while keeping in mind their ultimate stakeholder: the end-user.

Sales and marketing teams will no doubt bombard PMs with tons of asks they think will boost profitability. But temporary bumps in sales performance have no bearing on the experience and value end users get from a product. At the end of the day, PMs must ignore anything that doesn’t benefit their end customer or business client. This includes their own instincts to guide the product to something they would enjoy.

In these situations, user surveys and research are critical. Look for metrics on how your users navigate and use your product. Combine these with subjective feedback. Always let your end users have the last say, and don’t underestimate their needs and wants.

After months of hype, the PCjr was launched in Nov 1983. Somehow on the road to production, no one noticed that the product had a poor quality keyboard (that BYTE magazine called

2. Not Focusing on Core Value

When implementing new features or changes, everything should look back to the core value the product offers to the end-user. Think of it as navigating through dead reckoning; you know where you’re going by knowing where you were and how far you’ve come. Keep in mind this quote from entrepreneur Chandra Kalle:

“It’s incredibly tempting to add a new feature and making it live. But adding features can (and often does) have the reverse effect – it can destroy the product.

“Keep these factors in mind when making day-to-day decisions and setting priorities. Don’t try to please every customer. Always prioritize end-user needs and what can make their use of the product more transformative as well as enjoyable.”

In 1997, Microsoft’s product team didn’t seem to understand that their already feature-bloated product did not need Clippy the office assistant to randomly prompt users to ask for help. It was mercifully killed off by Microsoft in 2003, but Clippy remains a beloved model of random obnoxiousness in parodies and memes.

3. Ignoring Your Product’s Place in the Tech Ecosystem

Your product doesn’t exist in a bubble. There are most likely other, bigger players who will affect the marketplace. In turn, your project guidance should always keep in mind the peripheral apps, products, and ecosystems that your end-users interact with.

A great example is Salesforce. If your product is used in relation to client or account management, chances are good that the Salesforce CRM will be involved in some capacity by a majority of end-users.

Know your niche within the big picture of the tech/software landscape. Connect your product within relevant ecosystems to deliver the most value to your end-users. Make compatibility a priority deliverable with any future updates or feature add-ons.

Toshiba thought the new HD DVD format they launched in 2003 would succeed standard DVDs. But by early 2008, companies with major stakes in the video industry (Netflix, Warner Brothers, Walmart and Best Buy) all dropped support of the technology in favor of Blu-ray. The loss of participation from major players like these ended the product within a matter of months.

4. Not Being Able to Communicate the Value of Your Product

Every product manager should have their short “elevator pitch” for their product that is expressed in plain, jargon-free language. This explanation is critical for end-users as well as internal teams and stakeholders.

Without it, you can have many people confused or disagreeing about your product’s central purpose and value proposition. No one should have to get out the tech manual to get everyone on the same page.

The Peek, launched 2008, was an email-only mobile device with a simple UI designed for use by the general population. It is hard to imagine that a decade ago that NOT having access to apps, games, or even a phone could be a compelling selling point. Even after adding some support for social media platforms, the product was dead by 2012.
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