Balancing Innovation with Comfort
“Smash hit” products maximize innovation with limited change in levels of product familiarity. PMs can achieve this through defining a beachhead market that is more receptive to change (ex. early tech adopters), and then leveraging the entry market to create a sense of “FOMO” to push those who are more change-resistant to convert. PMs can also employ pricing strategies which attract large volumes of early adopters while lowering barriers to entry for resistant consumers. For example, PMs can use initial low prices and free trials to drive volumes. After the initial investment in user education to develop product familiarity, PMs can raise prices to benefit from premium pricing when consumers are more comfortable with buying the new product. Finally, PMs can think about how to create products which solve multiple user needs at once. For example, if I were the PM of Tesla, I would want to think about how I can improve the driving experience, battery life, charging efficiency, and vehicle maintenance lifecycle, all within the next Tesla generation.
Embracing Loss Aversion
Loss aversion is what causes customers to overvalue products that they already own which psychologically diminishes the potential gains from a new product. PMs can overcome this by designing products which minimize required behavior changes. For example, if designing a new version of a social media app, a PM could think about how to utilize the familiar behavior of holding down a text to provide a reaction (heart, thumbs up/down, etc) to enhance the experience of connecting with a new person. A PM can also deploy strategies to minimize perceived risk by offering free trials, money-back guarantees, and demo days to develop widespread familiarity with the product. Finally, a PM can create a sense of urgency by communicating with customers that old features and versions will not longer be supported and maintained, highlighting the potential losses to balance out the loss aversion.
Avoiding Feature Creep
Feature creep is the tendency to continuously add new features and fixes in addition to the original roadmap during the development cycle. Negative impacts of feature creep include misalignment with the original user need, longer development times (often leading to delays), resource drain (higher costs), and increased learning curves for the user (more new features = more time needed to learn and adapt). To avoid falling into this trap while still meeting demand, it is important for the PM to continuously and clearly communicate the product vision and ensure that all proposed features align with the vision. PMs should also stick to a strict feature and financial budget to implement a firm ceiling on the number of features and feature costs during development. Most importantly, PMs should always make data-driven decisions based on user research (usability testing, A/B experiments) when deciding whether or not to add a new feature to the roadmap; this will help ensure that all features align with the core user need and can act as concrete evidence for justifying every feature to stakeholders.
