Best of Pluggd.in in 2010 [Product Management Articles]

Here are the top articles (based on traffic and comments) published in 2010 under the category Product Management.

The Groupon Story –From WordPress Blog to $5Bn Company [Lean Startup]

Groupon started off as a WordPress blog and followed the cheapest way to do concept validation.

Building a Successful Business –The Mint.com Story (Interview with Aaron Patzer)

“Most investors told me not to bother to start a personal finance business. We had all the site securities  and product features, but the biggest thing we did for trust was to have a highly secured website. Trust is an emotional thing – you know if you are walking down a street in the night – the person coming from the opposite direction is a threat or not. Same thing with websites. We have a pixel perfect website that added to the trust.”

“Small is Big” – Of User Intent and How Great Products are Built on Small Features

One of the main reasons why users prefer one product over the other is trust – and you don’t gain trust by putting up your uptime numbers. You gain trust by helping your users in their decision, by helping them to not commit mistakes when they are using the product. You gain immense trust when your product exactly understands the user intent and is a ‘F**king Cool” experience.

Freemium Series

• Business Model 101: Making the most of the free users

• Business Model 101: The Free, The Mium and Mel Gibson

• Business Model 101: Number Crunching before you try Freemium

• Business Model 101: Why startups often fail at Freemium

Examples of Successful Product Companies/Collections

• Dropbox Founder, Drew Houston on Zero to Two Million User Jump [Lean Startup]

• Why Wesabe Lost to Mint? Product Lessons

• So you have an idea. Do you start with Product or PoC? [Aardvark Story]

• Product Management Resources For Startups [A Collection]

• Creating Differentiation in Crowded Market – Few Examples

Product Management Vis-à-vis Other Roles

• Product Messaging: What Language Does Your Product Speak?
• Use Case: Building Product For Negative Use Cases?
• Hiring: How Indian Startups should Hire Product Management Function?
• Sales: What do you sell? Holes or Drills?
• Base Role: How Products are conceived, discussed and Destroyed (Product Management)
• Usability: Can Product Usability be an afterthought?

We will restart the Product Strategy workshops in 2011 – expect more focus on this category, as we continue to explore the product startup ecosystem.

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