The 30 Day Mission Product BW

30-Day
MISSION{PRODUCT}
A Step-by-Step Guide for getting started as product managers
by Karthik Vijayakumar of
The Design Your Thinking Blog
I dedicate this book to my dad Dr.Vijayakumar, who has been an inspiration for everything Ive
done, and my 2-year old son Vivaan, who continues to inspire me every single day.
Thanks to my wife Vijetha for being by biggest support all along.
2016 Design Your Thinking. All Rights Reserved
The information contained in this guide is for informational purposes only.

I am not a lawyer or an accountant. Any legal or financial advice that I give is my opinion based on my own experience. You should always seek advice
from a professional before acting on something I have published or recommended.
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No part of this publication shall be reproduced, transmitted, or sold in whole or in part in any form, without the prior written consent of the author. All
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is not responsible for the success or failure of your business decisions relating to any information presented in this guide.
30-Day
MISSION{PRODUCT}
6-WEEK Step-by-Step Guide for getting started as product managers
This eBook contains advice from my mentors that changed my life.
You perhaps have downloaded this eBook from my blog or maybe received it from a friend. Either which way, Im happy you
decided to read.
I wrote this guide because when I was desperately looking to change my career and was almost broke, good mentors and their
advice changed my life. Not only did it change my life to do what I loved doing as a Product Manager, but also it helped me
sharpen my axe as a maker, intrapreneur and an entrepreneur. The Design Your Thinking Blog, and this eBook are my ways of
giving back for all the good things that were showered on me ever since I was broke. My net worth grew over 100x by learning
to do what I loved doing, the right way.
This eBook is a guide, and its purpose is to offer you guidance. The goal of this book is to help you get started as a Product
Manager in the best possible way. It is not a magic potion that once consumed, will make you the kick-ass Product Manager. It
will however help you, step-by-step, think and focus your energies on doing things right, and help you do that effectively.
Though this eBook is focused on the first 30-days, the practices and discipline lasts a lifetime. If this eBook has made you get
good at just one thing as a Product Manager, the 1.5 months I took for writing this eBook is totally worth it.
Here is a shout to all my subscribers, followers and friends Thank You for your supporting me all along! I really hope this free
book can help repay you to whatever extent, the time and attention
youve given me. I wish you all success and happiness!
If you have any questions while reading this eBook,
please dont hesitate to get in touch with me on Twitter
@karthikvk. You can reach me in private at
karthik@designyourthinking.com. I invite you to join the
DYT community by getting onto my newsletter and get
access to tools and resources I talk about in this eBook.
Table of Contents
Get Ready To Jump..................................................................................... 1
Meet The Colonel & Mission Brief ............................................................ 2
Companies & Platoons .............................................................................. 6
Know Your People ...................................................................................... 8
The Colonels Order ................................................................................. 10
Lay Of The Land ....................................................................................... 14
Whats In Your Backpack? ....................................................................... 15
Mission Debrief ........................................................................................ 16
Some Final Words ..................................................................................... 18
\
2016 Design Your Thinking. All Rights

Reserved
First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar
Get Ready to Jump
Failed Products, Failed Career
The First 30 Days
Many Product Managers, new and

experienced, tend to jump into the
thick of things from day one. While
some jump into tactical design and
feature discussions and make
decisions, there are others who get
on calls with customers and make
commitments on features and
direction.
Product Managers who start to fail

either end up in low-impact roles.
Some Product Managers have
become Project Managers and some
have just straddled multiple roles from
Whether its your first time or not, the

first 30 days as a Product Manager is
crucial. Many refer to the first 30 days
as the honeymoon period in any job,
but I consider them to be one of the
most important times. Thats the
period I would use to establish my
base. I recommend you focus on 4
key areas:
Why do Product Managers

Fail?
People
From interviewing and observing

many Product Managers and their
stakeholders, Ive come to realize that
this boils down to 3 things:
Process
Product
Tools
Overconfidence
Lack of Discipline
Ignorance
There are many more, but these are
the biggest reasons why many Product
Managers fail. Good and experienced
Product Managers are sometimes
overconfident. Some lack discipline in
their Product Management practices
and some are just unaware of how to
get started.
Program Management to Product

Architect and others. Needless to say,
the products they managed have failed
in the period they were in the cockpit.
The results of not getting started on
the right foot can be disastrous, to say
the least.
In the following chapters Ill walk you

step-by-step through each of the
above areas, and guide you exactly
what I, and many successful Product
Managers do so you can do the same.
Thisis a themed book, and uses
analogies from military and warfare to
set you up for challenges every day.
Thank you one more time, for taking
time to download and read this guide.
More importantly, I hope it helps you
take action and up your game as a
Product Manager!
Good luck!
www.designyourthinking.com
Meet The Colonel &

Mission Brief
So where does it all start? Its a
new company and a new job, and
its time to meet your
manager. Did you know that
successful product managers
start engaging themselves
from the very first day?
The role of a Product Manager
can get daunting without clearly
understanding the products
purpose. In some companies,
this is nicely documented and
sometimes put up on the walls.
Nevertheless, its best you got it
from your boss. If you are
reporting into the Head of
Product Management or a
Group Product Manager, get on
their calendar with a clear
agenda - understand the products
business.
The Meeting Agenda

The agenda of this meeting with your
boss is pretty simple. The 6 questions
below is what you should be looking to
get answers for:
1. What is the companys vision?

What you are looking for here is to
understand a 100,000 feet statement
that your company makes in the press,
in the company website to
communicate the reason for its
existence. For example, Googles

vision is to "organize all of the data in
the world and make it accessible for
everyone in a useful way. This has
nothing to do with Google Search or
Gmail, which are its products. But it
certainly gives you a clear idea of what
not to focus on. For example, Google
would not focus on driver-less cars.
This also explains the reason why

Google split that part of the business
into a parent company Alphabet.
2. Why does the product exist?
This is to explain the motivation behind
the existence of the
product. To extend the
Google example, Gmail
was launched in a time
when Yahoo! Mail and
Hotmail were very
popular. Why did Google
choose to launch Paul
Buchheits project as
Gmail in such a time? It
was because thehigh
volume of internal email
at Google created "a very
big need for search. The
frequent usage of email
and Pauls ability to use
JavaScript as a means to
build that (when Hotmail and Yahoo!
Mail were HTML-based) is why Google
chose to launch Gmail to the world.
3. What is the products target
persona?
User Personas, as they are commonly
referred to, is what drives the Why
that we just described above. A good
user persona describes the target endusers goals, behaviors, and pain
points in sufficient detail so that the
motivations are clear. For example,
extending the Gmail example, the
target persona is very clear. To put it
succinctly, Gmail is built for users who
exchange emails a lot and who always
wants access and search for emails
from the past without having to worry
about space and bandwidth. Gmail
today has more focused user
personas (enterprise users, etc.), but I
hope you get the drift. Understanding
the user persona for your product is
very important for you to stay actively
engaged in conversations to follow.
4. What are the short and long term
goals, from a product business
perspective?
Product Goals are key to the
successful execution of any product.
They basically describe in an
actionable and measurable way, how
the product will achieve the companys
vision. They are typically measured in
increments from 3 months to a year.
Some companies have extended goals
that go beyond 12 months. If so, I
suggest not going beyond 2 years.
That is because technology and
economies (and more) change rapidly,

and that will impact your product goals
beyond the 24-month period. Try to get
a clear picture on how these goals are
measured and how frequently they are
measured.
To understand this, you need to

understand where to find your target
user persona - which country, which
age group, enterprise or not, etc. This
is where the details of the market and
the segmentation matter.
5. Market, Segmentation and Size?
Even in the identified market, there is

normally only a smaller portion of it
that you can access. We call this the
addressable market. Knowing the
addressable market and its size in
monetary value is going to be useful
for you in a lot of activities to follow features, monetization, marketing, etc.
Now that you understand the

companys vision, the motivation for
why your product exists, who is the
user of your product and the products
goals, its about understanding how
big the market is. In other words, as a
Product Manager, you are looking at
the product to generate revenue
because of the value it delivers.
6. How am I going to be measured?

Look for tangible metrics. Understand
how these metrics will impact the
goals and the mission.
This is probably your first job as a
Product Manager or probably not. Your
role could be more inbound or more
outbound. Either which way, you need
to be able to understand the above
and be able to mutually agree with
your manager on measurable goals
and MBOs. These goals and MBOs
should be tangibly driving business
results. Business results could vary
based on the nature of your business.
But some that you should consider are
Increase Customer Wins, Increase
Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty,

Product and Product Line Profitability,
Cost-effectiveness of the Support
organization. For every measurement
that you discuss and agree upon, ask
yourself how it will impact one of these
business results? What would be your
role in even moving the needle by a
millimeter?
Finally, try and get a list of important
stakeholders in the company who you
should be interacting with.
Key Stakeholders
Product businesses are successful
because of kick-ass teams. This
involves people from across multiple
functions in the company. A typical set
of key stakeholders would be:
You, the Product Manager
Marketing Manager
Sales Manager
Support Manager
Operations Manager
Legal Counsel
Schedule Meetings
One of the key highlights of your first
30 days is going to be the approach
you take to get a 360-degree view of
the product and how quick you do that.
While you are the new kid in the block,
the rest of these stakeholders are
busy. Getting to spend time with them
is important for you to get up to speed.
Try and schedule meetings with them
by blocking their calendars. The sales
managers are the toughest to get so
plan to schedule that meeting first. You
will most likely have more than one
meeting with each of these
stakeholders in the first 30 days, if you
plan and time it right.
Product Master Plan

The Product Master Plan can be
imagined as a folder of key documents
that are created and referred-to by
product managers, engineers,
marketing & sales, support and other
associated product functions all
through the lifecycle of the product. A
lot can happen in a products lifetime
Procurement Manager
Product Managers change
Logistics Manager
Companies can get acquired

Business models can change
Architecture may need to

change to support newer
business models, and much
more.
Alot of data can potentially fall through
the cracks if they arent documented.
The Product Master Plan, as the name
refers to,is themasterplan that gets
referred to, and updated during the
products lifecycle.
What does the Product Master Plan

contain?
The Product Master Plan should
ideally contain all key aspects of the
product like the Business cases,
Product strategies, Marketing plans
and strategies, Product / platform
technical architecture and architecture
decisions, Product lifecycle (when to
decide to sunset a product, etc) and
the other key ones. TheProduct
Master Plan should at least contain the
following documents:
Business case
Marketing plan
Competitive information
Product financials
Functional support plans
Business Case
A business case is a tool that will help
you understand and articulate the
products business better. If you are
working on an existing product, a
business case will help you rethink the
products business holistically. So what
does a business case really talk about,
you may wonder. Here are the key
constituents of a good business case:
market including, but not limited to,

target customers, product USP
(unique selling proposition), pricing,
positioning, promotion & distribution
strategies (aka the marketing mix),
marketing strategies (offline and
online), conversion, retention & referral
strategies.
Competitive Information
This contains information about
competitors and their products.
Product Financials
Assumptions made
Financials of interest include the P&L

projections, cash-flow projections,
capital expenditures, operating
expenses, any discount rates, payback
period, NPV (Net Present Value),
break-even analysis.
Financials
Functional Support Plans
Product Overview & Strategic fit
FSPs are basically clearly documented

literature of what each of the different
functions in the company are going to
be doing and how they would be
supporting each other as the product
releases gets rolled out.
Market Overview
Market Assessment
Project Plan
Risks
Questions & Recommendation
Marketing Plan
This document outlines the plan for
how the product will be taken to
Who Owns the Product Master Plan

& Who Uses it?
The Product Manager typically owns
the Product Master Plan, and is
accessible to other key stakeholders of
the product as the single source of
truth. TheProduct Master Plan aids
decision-making around the products
lifecycle and also is a source for
learning for newer team members.
TheProduct Master Plan is a well-lit
place that offers to act as a source of
truth for marketing and sales teams. It
also help support functions get a clear
picture on the core value and the
direction of the product, and helps
have meaningful conversations with
customers and product teams.
Exercise
1. Create a Product Master Plan
folder in a shared folder (use
Dropbox, Box or Google Drive)
2. Download Product Master Plan
templates
3. Download a Pomodoro App (link to
Pomodone App)
4. Block chunks of your time to go
through the Product Master Plan,
and get a good idea of your product
5. Reach out to your boss if you have
any questions.
Companies &
Platoons
Knowing your comrades is key to
your success as a Product
Manager. So whom should you
be connecting to first? What
should you be looking to get
out of these meetings?
understand how revenue recognition is

done in the company - this helps you
understand when salesmen get their
commission. Knowing their goals helps
you work better with them as you can
What should you look for in

these meetings?
Being the first meetings with each
of these stakeholders, these
meetings can quickly go off-track.
Discussions about your past gig,
connections, industry, etc. are
things you want to keep at bay.
Below are 4 areas that will help you
bring focus into these discussions, and
make both you and the stakeholders
feel good.
1. Understand their business goal
It helps understand what they are
being measured on. For example,
sales managers are measured on the
revenue generated while support
managers are measured perhaps
based on how happy customers are.
You can dig deeper in these meetings
too. For example, you can also try and
quickly figure out how you can make

each other successful in your roles.
2. Their top 3 needs and concerns
Products are successful in the market
when the product teams are
successful. Its important that you
understand the key needs and
concerns of the stakeholders upfront.
It will be good to follow-up on this one
after the meeting too, as sometimes
these could be something related to a
process or tool that can be addressed
quickly. Quick wins are nice to have!
3. Understand how you can help

them
Its natural for you to do your best to
help these stakeholders be successful.
But many a time, they have wonderful
suggestions on how you can help
them. For example, if your
predecessor was handling customers
in a way that it was not meeting their
expectations, the sales account
manager could have a suggestion for
you to setup quarterly meetings with a
select customers. Doing this could
perhaps just solve his problem. Again,
these help put out small, but nagging,
fires at times.
4. Two strengths and two
weaknesses of the product
Everyone has a perspective about
your product. The support manager
finds it extremely buggy, while the
sales manager finds it extremely
competitive. Its good to take stock of
what each of these stakeholders
thought was the products strength and
weakness. Usually I ask for 2 of each,
just to make sure they werent pulling
something from thin air, for the sake of
it.
(and more) efficiently. Some

people are blessed with very
good memory and recollection
and some arent. Here are two
sure-shot techniques that will
help you remember people,
their names and what they said.
How to document these

meetings?
Understand the existing challenges
each of these stakeholders have. I
usually use a mind map to take notes
of these meetings and try and
document their challenges in the mind
map too. I generally recommend not
recording these meetings, as that
defeats the purpose of having an open
discussion. Breaking the ice becomes
tougher with recorded meetings too.
1. Picture the Meeting
1. CreateMind Maps
Using Mind Maps is the next best thing
to recording a video. But mind maps
can get too big and sometimes not
work well if you dont approach it the
right way. I recommend using one
mind-map per stakeholder, and finally
(if required) consolidating the mindmaps (into a separate mind-map) after
all the meetings are over.
2. Consolidate Goals with a GoalImpact Cascade
Many of these goals that different
stakeholders express, can sometimes
be broken down to smaller ones.
Understanding how many of these
stakeholders have similar goals, and
the interdependencies with these
goals can help structure your thoughts

better. For example, the engineering
manager may tell you that his / her top
goal is to improve product upgrade
installation process. The customer
support manager may say his goal is
to reduce system down time during
upgrades. These two goals are interrelated, as the engineering managers
goal will positively impact the support
managers goal.
How to remember people?

30 days may seem too short a period
for us to remember people,
discussions and also learn the
product. But if you used the right
approach and tools, you can do this
How you wish you video

recorded the meeting! This
works well for in-person
meetings. In this technique you
take an A4 sheet of paper when
present in the meeting and start
to quickly draw a picture of the
positions of everyone seated in the
room. Dont worry too much about how
good you draw - just use any
representation to mark people and
their names. Once done, keep track of
conversations and note down anything
you notice about that person (was
wearing bell-bottom trousers and a
checkered shirt, had combed his hair
like Elvis Presley, etc.) The secret is to
make the descriptions as visual as
possible. Using words of favorite
celebrities and cartoon characters or
anything that we enjoy helps you
remember people better.
2. The Persona Card

Putting a face to the name is very
important. User Personas are a nice
and effective way of doing this.
Constituents of a User Persona
1. User Profile
start driving customer meetings in

a record time?
Try to get on any calls with customers
and observe the conversation like a fly
on the wall. Try connecting to key
customers account management
representatives to get an overview and
Age, occupation, relationship

status, location, archetype
Measurable goals
3. Motivations
Incentives, fears, power,
achievement, social
4. Frustrations
Observe peaks and valleys
Extrovert / Introvert, Think vs.
Feel, Judge vs. Perceive
6. Associations
Technology, People and
Brand associations
Know Your People

Knowing your customers is key.
Earlier you start, better it is. How
to understand customers the best
way? More importantly, how to
They key to creating customer profile

is to just do the following without
having to worry about making it
perfect. Its important you set the
foundation right so that you can reap
the benefits later.
5 Key Points for a Customer Profile
2. Goals
5. Personality
How to Profile a Customer?

(Share with Account team)
outline of challenges in each oftheir

accounts.
The key to a successful customercentric (and user-centric) product
management style is to understand the
customer / user the best way possible.
The first step in this journey is to
create a Customer Profile.
Description - Specifics about the

kind of company, market
position, demographics the
customer caters to, employee
demographics, psychographics
of the company as a whole,
companys outbound persona
(how they want to be perceived,
conferences and magazines
they sponsor, etc.)
Where are they from? - Office
locations and headquarters
How they make purchases?
How they research vendors,
products and other options, their
deepest needs and problems,
what do they look for in vendors
and products they purchase?
Why they are your customers?
What did they first buy from your
company? Why did they buy
your product? Why do they

continue to renew every time?
Who in the company are the key
stakeholders? Create Personas
of every key stakeholder. This
could be procurement head,
project manager, IT head, head
of a line of business, or whoever
has a key stake in the company
deciding to buy, use and renew
the product.
Create a SWOT for the Customer
Account
I talk about how to do a SWOT in
detail in the later part of this book.
When it gets to a Customer Profile,
focus on doing the SWOT for the
Customer Account. The questions you
should be asking are:
What are our strengths as far as
this Customer Account goes?
Examples are "Good
Relationship", "Strategically
Aligned", etc.
What are the weaknesses for
this Customer Account?
Examples are Poor strategic
alignment, Weak Customer
Influencer / Champion, low
Lifetime Value, etc.
What are the opportunities we

have with this Customer
Account? Examples are
Expanding business, etc.
What threats we need to be
aware of for this Customer
Account?Examples are
"Frequent comparisons with a
certain competitive product in
meetings", etc.
Decide a review frequency (pick one
to start with) and set recurring
calendar slots with links
Feedback is key to successful product
businesses. Being able to get
feedback from the actual end-users is
key. Capture a set of key users from
the customer that match your target
persona. Get them on your email list
and more importantly set up a regular
cadence with these end-users and
also the key stakeholders. Block your
calendar for these meetings, and
outline a clear agenda for these
meetings. Typically end-user meetings
are best when done in person. Use
these meetings to go with your user
experience team to learn more about
how these end-users really engage
with your product. Creating a
Customer Meeting template and using
it to capture agenda, key findings are

useful. I suggest you file them in your
Product Master Plan.
Start a Customer Journey Map
A Customer Journey Map is a simple
yet effective tool that helps you
understand the steps (and the
experiences) your customers go
through in engaging with your
company, its products, services, online
/ retail experience. Below are 5 things
you should attempt capturing in the
customer journey map:
Personas - main characters,
their feelings, goals, pain points,
expectations, thinking, etc.
Timeline - finite time continuum
or phases
Emotion - peaks and valleys of
good and bad emotions
Touch points - points of
interaction with your company or
product
Channels - where customers are
interacting with your company or
product (website, phone, app,
etc.)
The Colonel's Order

One of the most common problems
in fast-changing product
companies are that everyone tells a
different story of the product. How
can you make sure the whole
company tells one story?
A COLONEL ISSUED THE
FOLLOWING DIRECTIVE TO HIS
EXECUTIVE OFFICERS:
"Tomorrow evening at approximately
2000 hours Halley's Comet will be
visible in this area; an event which
occurs only every 75 years. Have the
men fall out in the battalion area in
fatigues, and I will explain this rare
phenomenon to them. In case of rain,
we will not be able to see anything, so
assemble the men in the theater and I
will show them films of it."
EXECUTIVE OFFICER TO COMPANY
COMMANDER:
"By order of the Colonel, tomorrow at

2000 hours, Halley's Comet will
appear above the battalion area. If it
rains, fall the men out in fatigues, then
march to the theater where this rare
phenomenon will take place,
something which occurs only once
every 75 years."
COMPANY COMMANDER TO
LIEUTENANT:
"By order of the Colonel be in fatigues
at 2000 hours tomorrow evening. The
phenomenal Halley's Comet will
appear in the theater. In case of rain in
the battalion area, the Colonel will give
another order, something which occurs
once every 75 years."
The salesman gets creative and tells a

convincing story to a customer in order
to make a sale. You dont discover this
until you start to hear the customer ask
for product capabilities that are
sometimes tangential to the
companys vision. Getting your hands
around this problem early is good.
Here is how you go about
understanding any differences in
perspectives and stories.
LIEUTENANT TO SERGEANT:
"Tomorrow at 2000 hours, the Colonel
will appear in the theater with Halley's
comet, something which happens
every 75 years. If it rains, the Colonel
will order the comet into the battalion
area."
SERGEANT TO SQUAD:
"When it rains tomorrow at 2000
hours, the phenomenal 75-year-old
General Halley, accompanied by the
Colonel, will drive his comet through
the battalion area theater in fatigues."
Product Demo Take #1

Get in touch with the best Quality
Engineer in the engineering team and
get a demo of the product. Ask a lot of
questions. Dont squelch those
seemingly silly ones.
10
Why is the Quality Engineers demo

worth your time?
Why is the Support Engineers

demo worth your time?
They are the ones that test the

product, write the test cases, green
light that the product works per the
specifications in the requirements
(PRD, Epics, Stories). They are the
first ones who need to get the
product story right, as without them
the product just cannot be made
available.
Support Engineers are the ones that
Meet with one salesman and get

them to demo the product to you.
This can lead to some key
revelations.
Why is the Salesmans demo
worth your time?
1. What personas do you enact

when you test the product?
Can you describe those
personas?
3. Why do you think someone

should buy our product?

Meet up with a Customer Support
Engineer and get a demo of the
product. Like you did with the Quality
Engineer, ask a lot of questions.Doing
this helps understand how the product
is understood by both these people.
3. Why do you think our customers

buy our product? Can you
explain this with 3 specific
customers?
3 Questions You Should Ask
2. What was the most recent

feature that was added to
the product? Why was it added?
Why do you think its the worst

customer case?
talks to customers and help them use

your product in the right way. If the
Support Engineers story is different
from theQuality Engineers story, you
have a problem to look into.
3 Questions You Should Ask:
1. What do customers not like
about this product? Can you
explain why?
2. Can you describe the worst
customer case youve handled?
Understanding the story that the

sales team tells prospects that help
convert them into customers can
help you understand why
customers have bought your product.
3 Questions You Should Ask:
1. Who are the top 3 competitors
that you bump into when you
meet prospects? Why do you
think they are competitors?
2. How do you go about evaluating
a prospective customer? What
makes you decide you should
pursue a lead?
11
3. Why do you think a prospect

should buy our product? Can
you describe by taking one
example from each of the
market segments we cater to?
The Real Story

The real story of your product is the
one that aligns with your companys
vision and the mission.
The Why part of the products
existence is the real story. Try and
understand that better by talking to
your boss, the executive management
and document if its not already. Again,
using a mind map is the best way to
capture this story.
into one working folder. Block your

calendar to go through all of them.
3 Things To Do
1. Identify (mis)alignment with
SWOT and TWOS analysis
2. Shortlist specific cases to follow
up with Sales on win/loss
analysis
3. Look for blips marked by fast
movements, oddities; Get them
clarified
Basic Financial Metrics

11 Financial metrics to be aware of,
before you schedule to meet with a
financial analyst:
1. Booking vs. Revenue
Booking is the contract value between
the company and a customer.
Revenue is recognized when the
product or service is actually provided.
Read GAAP for more details.
Like how Simon Sinek describes in his

book Start With The Why, the most
important aspect of any business or
product is Why they exist. The How
comes next and the What comes
later. The What is the product or
service.
2. Recurring Revenue vs. Total

Revenue
Battlefield Review
Get a dump of all the market data
about the product including
competitive information, analyst data,
and win/loss analysis and put them all
financials helps understand the

performance and work backwards to
identify its strengths and weaknesses.
Combining this information with the
market insight will lead to important
discoveries.
Check - Armory Levels

Schedule time with the companys
financial analyst to get a dump of the
financials. Understanding the products
Product companies are more valuable

from a financial perspective when a
majority of the total revenue comes
from product as opposed to services.
This is because product revenues are
recurring whilst services revenues are
not. 12% of total revenue is a good
benchmark for services revenues to be
at. ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)
and MRR (Monthly Recurring
Revenue) are two measures that are
12
frequently used. ARR is also done by

customer.
3. GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume)
vs. Revenue [applicable to
Marketplace businesses]
GMV is the measure of the total dollar
volume of merchandize transacting
through the marketplace in a certain
period
5. Gross Profit vs. Gross Margin

Gross Profit (GP) is the total revenue
minus the cost of goods sold (COGS)
Gross Margin is the GP expressed as
a percentage of Revenue. Gross
Margin is very important for your
product business as that provides the
cash required to run the business.
CAC is the total cost of acquiring

users. This can be money spent for
advertisements, referral fees, credits
and discounts.
I have written in detail about Cash

Flow and Discounted Cash Flow.
10. EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest,
Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization)
4. Deferred Revenue vs. Billings

[applicable to SaaS businesses]
Billing is a measure of total revenue

minus any changes in deferred
revenue. Done quarterly, this is a
direct measure of the true growth of
the product business.
8. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
9. Cash Flow vs. Discounted Cash

Flow
Revenue in this context is the total

dollar value that the marketplace takes
(viz. transaction charges, ad revenue,
sponsorships, value added services
like seller tools, etc.)
Deferred Revenue is the cash

collected at the time of booking, in
advance to the actual revenue
recognition. For example, if you have
booked a customer for a software as a
service for a 1 year time period, the
upfront cash is dropped by a value
equal to 1/24 of the booking value end
of every month.
LTV = (Revenue - Variable costs) x

Average Lifespan [All expressed for a
given customer]
EBITDA is the Gross Margin minus the

Operating Expenses
6. TCV (Total Contract Value) vs. ACV
(Annual Contract Value)
TCV is the value of a contract and
ACV is the value of the contract over a
12-month period. Your product is
healthy as long as you see a growth in
both cases.
11. Net Income

Net Income is the EBITDA
minusInterest, Taxes, Depreciation
and Amortization.
7. LTV (Life Time Value)

LTV is the present value of the future
net profit from a customer over the
duration of the ongoing relationship.
13
Lay Of The Land

To be an effective Product
Manager, its important we
understand how product releases
are made. Its also important to
automate mechanical activities that
dont contribute to
you being effective as
a Product Manager.
these releases have an impact in the

market. There is a cost attached to
making software releases happen.
Depending on the magnitude of
releases, these costs can include (but
not limited to) marketing (incl. videos,
How & When

Releases Happen?
Try to meet up with the
engineering team to
understand how they
work on building
software release
durations, development
processes (Agile,
Scrum, Waterfall,
Kanban, etc.). Not
knowing this can
sometimes throw in surprises,
especially when your past job
experience happens to be very
different than the current one.
Software releases are typically a factor
of both the complexity of the software
platform and market demand.
Understanding the release frequency
and intervals helps understand how
offer great flexibility like frequent

releases, A/B testing, etc.
Restocking Ammunition
Travels, conferences, trainings,
customer meetings, are some things
that you probably are going to be
doing a lot of. While you may feel
its nothing much to worry about,
these activities come with a bunch
of associated processes that could
take a lot of your time.
Understanding how travel and
discretionary expenses are
managed, approvals, etc. can go a
long way into helping you focus
your time on managing your
product.
Here are some tools that can help
you track bills and travel efficiently:
PR, campaign, training, etc.),

engineering time (consider the time
spent on testing, etc.), sales
education, legal, etc. Timing software
releases is important as every market
and industry has buying patterns.
The nature of the software being built
also has a great effect on the
business. For example, SaaS products
CamScanner - Phone app that

helps scan and sort bills and
vouchers for expense filing
Travel Checklist - Put together a
bunch of must haves while
traveling (whatever goes into
your suitcase, documents,
passport, etc.) into a nice
checklist (Microsoft Excel works
great).
14
Parades, Drills & Cadence

Knowing how frequently you have
product reviews with management,
board meetings, investor meetings,
and analyst meetings is key. As you
settle into the role, you will start to find
yourself dragged into every single
meeting and discussion. Your days are
packed with clearly defined To-Dos,
and some meetings are important for
you and the product - its best to slot
time to prepare for such meetings.
Even better, automate them.
6. If you have active analyst

relations going, connect with
them on social media, follow
them and make it a point to
connect with them in-person
every 6 months to 1 year.
Knives, Bazookas & Grenades

Get your favorite set of software tools
installed on your new computer. For
your success in the role of a Product
Manager, its important you focus on 3
things:
1. Time Management
5 Steps to Automate
1. Get your hands on the
templates used for these
meetings and put the broad
structure into a mind map
2. For each kind of meeting, write
down the goal and the audience
3. Block your calendar upfront to
mark these meetings (for the
calendar year)
4. Block times for preparation
5. Update the mind map every
week between one meeting and
the next. Helps just stitch the
data together for the next
meeting
Get all software that the organization

necessitates installed on your laptop.
This can sometimes get in the way of
your work when you realize that some
software was not configured has
locked your computer.
What's In Your
Backpack?
No matter what you do, there are a
few things that are just
indispensable - the tools, practices
and cheatsheets. Being effective is
more important than being efficient.
Gun & the bulletproof vest

Get your laptop and / or workstation
ordered from the IT help desk. In some
big companies this takes a lot of time
and unnecessary process.
Time Management is key to ending

your days feeling accomplished in
your new role. Here are 3 things you
can do to help you manage time
effectively:
1. Dont accept to attend a meeting
that you are invited to when they
dont have an agenda. If there is
an agenda, and you find it
vague, its a great idea to check
with the organizer as to what is
expected of you.
2. In the blocked time slots through
the week, just focus on your
planned agenda and avoid
entertaining casual talks this is
especially a pain if you happen
15
to sit in a place where people

walk by frequently. Wear a pair
of headphones if you think
people just are relentless even
if you arent listening to any
songs, people will think twice
before stopping by. Helps focus.
3. Keep your boss and the
executive management in loop
about your working style
socializing this during
conversations usually has
worked well in my case its a
win-win
The key is to work on only thing at any
given time. Just focus on one thing at
a time.
2. Information Management
The key behind all activities we do, as
Product Managers is to make sure
information is always accessible and
searchable. Here are 3 things you
should do to effectively manage
information:
1. Establish an effective set of
Categories and Tags for various
activities you do. Keep this as a
reference in a mind map. Take a
print and put it on a pin board for
quick reference to get started.
2. Use Evernote effectively by

creating different notebooks and
notes for different categories.
Tag notes in Evernote with the
tags you earlier identified.
3. If you are using Mac, tag your
folders appropriately.
3. Prioritization of Activities
Prioritization helps focus too. Just
using a flat To-Do list doesnt get
helpful as you keep getting requests
from every possible direction. Some of
these To-Dos are things that can get
done in a jiffy while there are others
that will require follow-up.
Here is an effective technique that
works: set up your To-Do list as a set
of 4 queues - New, Follow-up,
Projects, Now, Done.
New: Any request that comes
your way goes here
Follow-up: If the request is
something that you will need to
understand better, or contact
someone to understand more
details, they go here. If they are
here, the To-Do item has to
either be assigned to someone
or at least notified and a due-
date is set for you to pick it up

and follow-up.
Projects: If a To-Do is something
that will require a set of steps to
be done that will take more than
2 hours, put them here.
Example: Send email to a
customer to follow-up on
something.
Now: This is the queue that
contains that you are actively
working on. This should typically
not have more than 1 or 2 ToDos
Done: All completed To-Dos go
here.
Trello is my favorite software tool for
To-Do management. Trello also has an
App for mobile that makes To-Do
management quiet a smooth
experience. That said, there are other
tools that can be used to manage ToDos.
Expert Tip!
Get a demo environment setup for you
to use your product. I find this the most
useful as it gives you great comfort in
exploring the product first hand.
16
Mission Debrief
All good work needs to come to a
logical conclusion. But its
important you are able to quantify
and reuse information from your
30-day mission.
All along youve now created a lot of
mind maps and documented various
other things. Lets now put all of them
together in one place to prepare to
debrief. Create a folder called Product
Blueprint and start to put all your
learning into that.
The Product Blueprint will evolve
through the lifecycle of the product.
Update the Product Master Plan folder
with any changes and get them ready
for a discussion with your manager.
After discussing with him / her, you
can choose to either update the
documents there by creating a new
version of the document.
Create a Wiki page where you
summarize all your learning in the first
30 days and link them to the
documents and mind maps in Product
Blueprint. Create an overview
presentation of your learning,
highlighting the key learning and
present it to your boss and to the
executive management. You probably
are not ready yet to make any

suggestions, but the learning is pretty
insightful.
and entrepreneurs around the world.

So go ahead and give this a try
anytime.
Can I do this anytime in my

career?
Yes, of course. Please do try these out
anytime in your career. I have adopted
good tips, techniques and ideas from
many successful product managers
17
Some Final Words

Congratulations! If youve made it this
far, youve started to rock as a Product
Manager already! No, really I mean it.
Putting together this content was
challenging - I had to carefully pick tips
that wouldnt leave you overwhelmed.
Before I conclude, here are some final
words.
Rome Wasnt Built In A Day

If you havent been able to complete
some of what I suggested in this
eBook, no worries. 30-day is just to
help you set a goal and measure. It
sometimes takes a little more (or less)
time, depending on the company,
product and your style of working.
Sharpening the axe

Give me six hours to chop down a
tree and I will spend the first four
sharpening the axe. Abraham
Lincoln
It never is too late to work on
sharpening your axe. This book
hopefully helps you sharpen your axe
to get into action from Day-1.
Success Is Subjective
Being successful is very subjective.
Just set your objectives right and youll
be all right. Many of these tips and
steps I describe can be done with any
level of perfection. My advice is not to
seek perfection, but instead look for
building the discipline. The real world
has nothing thats perfect. But a
disciplined approach to Product
Management can go a long way.
Reach Out for Help!

Dont be afraid to reach out for help. I
couldnt have written this eBook had I
not got help from many kickass
Product Managers. Many product
managers, including me, are happy to
help you out. Just ask. As Steve Jobs
puts it, Dont be afraid to ask for help.
Youll be surprised to see the results!
Prepare for Awesomeness

As the Kung-Fu Panda says, There is
no charge for awesomeness. Now
that youve gotten past the first 30
days, you are ready to do more. You
can improvise on what you find in this
eBook and share with others. Embrace
your awesomeness youve started
your journey to be a Kick Ass Product
Manager!
Thank You So
Much!
Hope you enjoyed
reading this eBook as
much as I enjoyed
writing this with you in
mind. Your support for
my writing and other work on Design
Your Thinking Blog is something I
really value and cannot thank enough
for!
I thank you even more for downloading
and reading my eBook. If you had a
couple of minutes, Id love for you to
share your experience reading this
eBook.
Please leave a comment at https://
designyourthinking.com/ebook, or you
could drop me an email too, if you
preferred doing that. I read and
respond to emails pretty regularly, and
would love to have a chat.
If you havent already, do follow me on
Twitter @karthikvk and lets chat.
Shoot for the stars, its all yours!
Thanks!
Karthik Vijayakumar
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30-Day

2016 Design Your Thinking. All Rights Reserved

The information contained in this guide is for informational purposes only.

2016 Design Your Thinking. All Rights Reserved

2016 Design Your Thinking. All Rights

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

Get Ready to Jump

Failed Products, Failed Career

The First 30 Days

Many Product Managers, new and

Product Managers who start to fail

Whether its your first time or not, the

Why do Product Managers

From interviewing and observing

Program Management to Product

In the following chapters Ill walk you

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

Meet The Colonel &

The Meeting Agenda

1. What is the companys vision?

existence. For example, Googles

This also explains the reason why

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

economies (and more) change rapidly,

To understand this, you need to

5. Market, Segmentation and Size?

Even in the identified market, there is

Now that you understand the

6. How am I going to be measured?

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty,

Product Master Plan

Product Managers change

Companies can get acquired

Architecture may need to

What does the Product Master Plan

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

market including, but not limited to,

Financials of interest include the P&L

Functional Support Plans

Product Overview & Strategic fit

FSPs are basically clearly documented

Who Owns the Product Master Plan

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

understand how revenue recognition is

What should you look for in

quickly figure out how you can make

3. Understand how you can help

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

(and more) efficiently. Some

How to document these

1. Picture the Meeting

goals can help structure your thoughts

How to remember people?

How you wish you video

First 30 Day Guide for Product Managers Karthik Vijayakumar

2. The Persona Card

start driving customer meetings in

Age, occupation, relationship

Know Your People

They key to creating customer profile

How to Profile a Customer?

outline of challenges in each oftheir

Description - Specifics about the