from communication with users to Crunchbase

from communication with users to Crunchbase

Greetings! My name is Olena Aladina, I am a GH lead at Alfa-Bank.

In the world of product management, visibility plays a key role. This is the ability to notice, analyze, and adapt best practices into your product, as well as making fewer mistakes, knowing about the failed cases of others.

The higher the level of supervision, the easier it is for you to make strategic decisions, find new ideas, and improve existing functions.

This article presents 14 proven ways to help a product manager in the following areas:

  1. Generation of ideas: Visibility helps the product find non-standard solutions and create new features by finding inspiration in successful examples of other products.

  2. Understanding trends: Visibility helps to be aware of current trends and needs in the market, as well as predict their development, creating products that will be needed in the future.

  3. Better understanding of users: Regular observation of user behavior and preferences in other products helps to adapt your product to the real needs of your audience.

  4. Ability to adapt to changes: Development of oversight helps to quickly recognize changes and implement required updates to the product.

To develop supervision, the product manager can use various tools: from simple to more complex.

1. Communication with users

The first and simplest tool is live communication with users. Find out from customers what applications or services they use in addition to yours, what appeals to them about competitors’ products, and what solutions they find most convenient. Ask colleagues, friends and acquaintances how they solve their daily tasks and which application helps them to do it most efficiently.

Example: Let’s say you’re talking to a colleague who’s talking about how they use task scheduling programs. He mentions that he particularly likes the automatic reminders feature in one of the apps, which helps him remember deadlines. This conversation may inspire you to implement a similar feature in your product if it meets the needs of your audience

2. Quantitative data and macro statistics

  1. Study the metrics of not only your product, but also other products in your company, this allows you to see the bigger picture and evaluate which solutions are working better and which need to be refined.

  2. Analyze macro statistics: for example, what is the income level of the population, how many entrepreneurs are in the country, how many Russians have deposits in banks — this can help you expand your vision and adapt your product strategy.

Example: If you’re working on an educational app, information about your target audience’s demographics and income can help you fine-tune your segments and improve your offer.

3. Marketing research

Marketing research, especially that commissioned by your company, can contain a lot of useful information. Even if they are not directly related to your product, it gives an understanding of the general market situation and helps to identify key trends and needs.

Example: If your market research shows growing interest in subscription-based ecosystem services, this may be a signal that your product may also consider adding a subscription model.

4. Competitors

Studying competitors is one of the important elements in the process of development of supervision. Become their customer, sign up for their services, go through the entire user journey to understand what works well in their solutions and what can be improved.

Example: Let’s say you are developing a delivery service. As you walk through the customer journey of a competitor, you notice that their app offers a very user-friendly interface for order tracking that is much simpler than yours. This can be a starting point for improvement in your application.

5. Reviews in pages

App Store and Google Play reviews are a real source of information where users share their emotions, problems and wishes. By analyzing this data in other products, you can find ideas for improving or adding new features.

Example: If a complaint about a slow interface or inconvenient registration is common in competitor reviews, this may prompt you to focus on improving these aspects of your product.

6. Analysis of other areas

Innovations are often born at the intersection of different industries. Explore solutions that are used in other areas: e-commerce, edtech, fintech – all these industries work with millions of users every day, shaping their behavioral patterns.

Example: You’ve noticed that taxi booking apps have an instant driver rating feature after a ride. This might inspire you to implement a similar feature in your instant feedback product.

7. Wordstat

Wordstat from Yandex is a great tool for analyzing search trends, which helps identify user requests, which can become the basis for developing new features or product improvements.

Example:

Let’s say you are developing an application for managing personal finances. Using Wordstat, you find that users often search for queries related to saving on groceries and managing the family budget. This might lead you to consider adding a feature to your app that offers tips on how to save on everyday expenses, as well as the ability to create a family budget where users can plan their spending together and monitor financial goals.

8. Google Trends

Google Trends helps you track global and local trends. By studying the most popular requests, you can look for promising product ideas or adjust your strategy.

example: If you’ve seen an increase in requests for online education, it might inspire you to add learning modules or integrate with educational platforms in your product to help users learn new skills within the app.

9. Crunchbase

Crunchbase is the largest database providing information on startups, companies, investments and venture deals worldwide. It allows you to monitor the activity of startups and see which companies receive funding. With Crunchbase, you can track investment trends and learn which niches are currently attracting the most attention from investors. It is a valuable tool for products, entrepreneurs and analysts, which helps not only to find new ideas, but also to understand where the market is going.

Example: Let’s say you’ve noticed that several AI healthcare startups have recently received significant investment. This may suggest that the market sees great potential in the application of AI to improve health diagnosis and monitoring.

10. Y Combinator

Y Combinator is one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in the world. Founded in 2005, it has backed more than 4,000 companies, including big names like Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Reddit.

Tracking new Y Combinator projects provides valuable insight into current technology trends and business models that have the greatest potential. It also allows you to discover innovative approaches that you can adapt for your products.

An example is the fact that nearly half of the startups in Y Combinator’s latest batch use AI technologies, spanning fields such as legal services, recruiting, and software development. This emphasizes the importance of artificial intelligence in modern business and opens new horizons for the development and implementation of such solutions.

11. Apple and Google application download ratings

Every year, Apple and Google publish rankings of the most downloaded apps and games, providing data on which solutions, ideas and features are most requested by users.

These rankings help you track trends, identify new audience needs, and see which categories of apps are popular (eg social media, health apps, or fintech). You will be able to analyze what attracts users to specific solutions (convenience of the interface, unique functions or effective marketing), predict future trends and adjust your products to the needs of the market.

Track the ratings and explore these apps on the App Store and Google Play.

12. Reviews of startups and ideas from experts

Follow startup reviews from experts like Oleksandr Gorny. He shares information about the most interesting and promising projects that can inspire you with new ideas and approaches to the development of your product. Also, keep an eye out for Arkady Morainis, who publishes a daily “Idea of ​​the Day” on his blog. These resources will help you stay on top of the latest trends and find inspiration from successful examples from the startup world.

13. Market leaders in the world

Study global market leaders to understand how successful companies innovate and adapt their solutions to user needs.

Examples from companies like Revolut and Rakuten are great reference points for finding ideas that can be adapted and applied to your market.

14. ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT to generate new ideas is an effective way to get inspired and find fresh solutions. Here’s an example prompt that a product manager working on an application might use:

“Hi! I’m working on improving the X app and I’m looking for ideas for new features that will improve user experience and security. What innovative solutions can you offer to improve the customer experience? Please provide examples of successful applications and explain how these features can help users”

The development of supervision is a process that requires constant observation, analysis and experimentation. Using all available approaches allows you to be one step ahead and create solutions that meet current user needs and shape future market expectations.

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