AMA: Unity Director of Product Management, Laurent Gibert on Managing Mature Products

If you haven’t already, it’s helpful to start with the context of the question: “How do you define a mature product?” For mature products, analytics play a key role in optimizing value and reinforcing your competitive moat. This often becomes an obsession for product teams, but each new percentage point of gain tends to cost disproportionately more to achieve. This focus can come at the expense of sensing potential market disruptions. That’s why having a robust feedback loop with your user base ...Read More

If you haven’t yet, it’s helpful to start with the context provided in “How do you define a mature product?” Mature product teams often include deeply experienced domain experts at every level of the organization. These individuals may be former users, customers, competitors, or long-time employees, some of whom helped launch the product or even the company itself. They’re fully capable of making informed decisions, as long as the strategic business context is clearly communicated. This is the i ...Read More

This is the best way to kick off the AMA today. You can usually recognize a mature product through one or more of the following indicators: The adoption and growth have plateaued due to a saturation within the target audience where product-market fit has already been achieved. The pace of innovation has slowed significantly, and balancing quality with new change becomes increasingly challenging. The strategy shifts towards defending the product’s moat against commoditization in the market space. ...Read More

If you haven’t already, it’s helpful to start with the context of the question: “How do you define a mature product?” In today’s fragmented software landscape, having a strong integration ecosystem is essential. It bridges the gaps between tools and reduces friction during adoption. Mature products that were designed from the outset with extensibility in mind may have already fostered a healthy third-party integration ecosystem. Others may have built and maintained integrations in-house to ensur ...Read More

If you haven’t already, it’s helpful to start with the context of the question: “How do you define a mature product?” Finding success with new work on a mature product can feel daunting. It may seem like no update meaningfully moves the needle on churn, adoption, or user conversion. This is often because your target audience is already saturated, and user behavior has become fragmented across a multitude of tools and workflows. Users tend to rely on a small portion of the product’s functionality ...Read More

If you haven’t already, it’s helpful to start with “How do you define a mature product?” for context. With mature products, it’s easy to default to prioritizing contractual obligations, support commitments, and stability. After all, these products often generate the revenue that funds risk-taking and experimentation across the organization. But over-indexing on stability can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities, ultimately putting the business at risk of decline over the medium term. Infl ...Read More

If you haven’t already, it’s helpful to start with the context in “How do you define a mature product?” I’ve touched on optimization in “How do you know when a new feature or an update has been successful?” Here, I’ll focus specifically on cost and efficiency. In mature products, technical and design debt are pervasive. They often drive high maintenance costs and are frequently cited as the primary blockers to renewed growth. The common reaction is to push for a complete overhaul: a Version 2.0, ...Read More