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AMA: Zendesk Former Product Marketing Director, Abhiroop Basu on Influencing the Product Roadmap
January 12 @ 10:00AM PST
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Zendesk Former Product Marketing Director, Abhiroop Basu on Influencing the Product Roadmap
Top Questions
Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
In almost all cases you want to have Product Marketing creating the roadmap deck and delivering it, rather than Product. There are two main reasons for this. First, some PMs (please don't hate me) tend to focus more on describing the feature rather than articulating the value and benefit. Of cou......Read More
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
Discussing the roadmap with customers is a critical step in product development because it helps validate and clarify your strategy. It’s tough to give a one-size fits all rule for when to share the product roadmap as it depends on the industry, customer maturity, segment, and numerous other fac......Read More
1232 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
You would assume that being in the product organization would allow a PMM more influence. However, I’ve actually found the opposite to be the case. For a brief period of time at Zendesk, Product Marketing reported into the product org. This let us foster very close relationships with our prod......Read More
1502 Views
1 request
Should product marketers be "influencers" or "partners" in product roadmap decisions?
As an influencer you might just share market and customer research, competitive intel, etc. as another input for PM to consider in their own decision making; whereas if you're a true partner, you're discussing and debating with them, as equals, what product roadmap decisions should be and why, where PMs and PMMs bring different inputs and value to the table as equals. Thoughts on being an "influencer" vs. being a "partner" in guiding the product roadmap? Thank you.
Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
You’ve done an admirable job of describing the differences, however the reality can be a lot more nuanced. There are many situations in which I have felt strongly about adding something to the roadmap and have argued with PMs to get it built. In other instances I’ve played a more supporting role ......Read More
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
It comes down to which aspects of the role excite you the most. Depending on the company you are working at, Product Marketing and Product Management can have a lot of overlap. I’ll first discuss some of the similarities and differences in the roles before summarizing how you should think about m......Read More
1652 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
This happens a lot more than you might think. The Product team looks at the market and decides to build a feature. The feature is rolled out as an early alpha and customers are disappointed. What do you do? This is actually one of the easier scenarios in which to influence the roadmap. A few yea......Read More
948 Views
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How does your customers' (or the market) willingness to pay influence your product roadmap?
Do you prioritize features based on their revenue potential?
Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
The mistake some Product Marketers make is to only think about net new revenue potential. For example, let’s say you are deciding between two features that will take equal amounts of development time. Do you build the feature that will help you attract new customers or one that will retain your e......Read More
886 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • January 12
This is a really interesting question. Leadership typically look at a number of factors when determining what goes in the roadmap. For example, at Zendesk we look at industry trends, innovative use cases, new market expansion, our competitors, partners, and of course customer feedback. For custo......Read More
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