AMA: Matterport Sr. Director of Product Management, Abhijit Limaye on Hardware Product Management

3 Main considerations to start thinking about this - Size of the pain point - What is the size of the problem the feature is solving and is that the most important problem to solve? Return on that investment - Think about how you will measure that importance, and then maximize that metric. ROI can be revenue, competitive edge, user delight, customer satisfaction. Decide what works for your team / organization. Time frames & Resources - Especially when it comes to hardware, you start dealing ...Read More

Great question. The only certainty in forecasting is that it will be wrong. The question is to what degree? And how can you reduce the variance? Forecast is an estimate. There are 2 approaches to estimating the demand for your product. I recommend using both, and then to perform checks and balances, using the 2 methods. Top Down (Entrepreneurial method) - If you are a category-defining business, you are creating new markets. Evaluate what products are customers currently using and how does your ...Read More

The list is long I am afraid. Thankfully most of those were logistical challenges, and not related to user experience or customer satisfaction. Be sure to run your product through sufficient number of early adopters, Beta testers. Here are a few logistical challenges - Forecasting - In one of my product launches, we ran out of our product in less than 1 week as we completely underestimated demand. It took us 3 months to ramp up to the actual demand. The lesson learnt - Think ahead and decide how ...Read More

Before jumping to any traditional metrics, be sure that you understand the Business Objective. For example, your organization may use the hardware to create interest, generate consumer loyalty and may be a loss-leader. And in other cases, hardware product may be your whole business and you want to protect your margins. So the first goal is to make sure that your post-launch metrics are in-line with the company goals. Few traditional metrics - Sales, number of units sold, increase or decrease in ...Read More

Teams working in silos can be one the main challenges in HW projects. This can be Engineering vs manufacturing or supply chain or logistics or marketing. The success depends on teams that are 100% aligned with the goals of the business. Be sure to keep clear lines of communications. Engage functional leaders to make sure that they are all aligned with the business objectives, timelines. It takes a village to build a HW product and launch it. No job is small and everyone makes a difference. Make ...Read More

First and foremost, HW & SW product management ultimately run on the same concepts - Customer needs and wants. You are still thinking about launching the right product for the market. You are still identifying pain points of a customer, and delivering what the market needs. So you already have a great deal of familiarity. Now, familiarize yourself with the HW product development life cycle. Know that the time between making one prototype and making 100,000 can be more than a year, even if it ...Read More

Avoid cost-based pricing as it can be one of the biggest pitfalls related to HW pricing. HW costs can and will change based on the number of units you produce. So if you can afford to, take a longer term view of the business. Price the product based on the willingness to pay (to match the value generated by your product for the customer). Think about the pricing roadmap over the life of the product (not just the Price-at-launch). Does the launch price give me optionality to offer promotions? Do ...Read More

Managing innovation can be highly contextual, depending on how much your organization can afford. This affordance can be either monetary or time to market. Large Vs Small companies - Large companies can afford to wait and perfect a product before they launch, or they can decide to launch an imperfect product because they know they will launch the next iteration in 1 year anyway. Smaller companies will have greater time-to-market (TTM) pressures and may struggle more. Let's assume that you cannot ...Read More

2 main frameworks to think about here. Can you identify a white space in the market? (Blue Ocean Strategy). What is the market missing? And do you have the big unlock that the market is waiting for? Don't get too attached to your ideas and feel free to ditch those that provide only an incremental improvement to the customer experience; What is your special niche. Is it technology? Is it distribution? Is it the software that you pair it with? Focus on the small section of the market. Knowing that ...Read More

Hardware products are increasingly becoming integrated products, i.e. HW is either a part of a service or sold with a piece of software. The more you treat HW/SW as separate entities, the harder it will become to present a holistic, comprehensive vision for the 'product'. Embrace the changes. Understand the ecosystem, and how hardware is going to become an enabler for selling those integrated services or software. Exploit the cool features of the hardware for the benefit of the 'product'. Embrac ...Read More

Here are a few - Longer timeframes - The further the launch window, the harder it is to hit the bull's eye. You are predicting what the market will need 1 or 2 years from now. And you will need to make the investments now to succeed much later. End of Life. Managing EOL inventory will be difficult than phasing out support for a SW feature. Incremental costs - for selling SW products are practically $0, but hardware products will cost you money every time. Higher bar for managing your inventory D ...Read More

Not sure if this question is in the context of iterations in terms of product launches or managing expectations internally with your exec.s / C-suite. Framework for customers- Make sure that the product iterations are clearly differentiated and provide a clear benefit to the customer. HW purchases are usually typically larger $ amounts (than your monthly SaaS subscriptions for e.g.) and have a longer life with a customer. Be clear about the benefits from incremental changes versus a fundamental ...Read More