Casey Winters Dives Deep Into Prioritization, Second Product Mishaps, Meta & Square

Casey Winters Dives Deep Into Prioritization, Second Product Mishaps, Meta & Square

Casey Winters Dives Deep Into Prioritization, Second Product Mishaps, Meta & Square

Get Your Priorities Straight: Lessons from OutKast and Casey Winters

We start today with a blog post from Casey Accidental, Casey’s Product & Growth Blog. In “Wood Grain Steering Wheels,” Casey writes about a misplaced prioritization pattern he sees time and time again.

🎶 OutKast's Wisdom 🎶

Casey uses a line from OutKast’s Aquemini to snap ambitious thinkers back to reality. “If you ain’t got no rims, don’t get no wood grain steering wheel, for real.” It’s a powerful reminder for product teams. It's about focusing on the fundamentals before chasing the shiny, new features.

🌟 Silver Bullet vs Lead Bullet 🌟

Teams often gravitate towards the shiny, silver bullet solutions. But the truth is, the lead bullet solutions - the ones that might not be as exciting but are solid and reliable - are often the best way to go.

For example, Casey sees a lot of teams playing with AI when their core PMF isn’t strong. Launching an AI add-on isn’t going to fix the underlying problem.

Other examples include teams wanting to focus on growth hacking but don’t have strong retention or teams that want to do something technically interesting that doesn’t provide value to the customer.

🏗️ Nail the Fundamentals 🏗️

Advisees consistently turn to Casey for advanced guidance on SEO, activation, or paid acquisition. The underlying issue is often not in their ability to achieve advanced wins, but rather in their ability to nail the fundamentals. This could be due to lack of focus or simply relying on past successes without maintaining the basics.

Similar to a house, neglect leads to decay in products.

“There's this fantasy that once software is built, it works and it's a 24 percent activation rate and it's gonna stay that way unless we go screw it up and do something. It won't ever require any engineering maintenance at all. But products are like houses, right? If you don't live in a house and no one takes care of it, and you don't cut the grass and you don't touch anything, it starts to rot and decay.” - Fareed Mosavat

🎲 Learn From Facebook’s Gamble on Retention 🎲

When prioritizing, consider the risk and impact of each task. Facebook, for instance, prioritizes retention over user growth. They ask, "Should we drive users to this feature?" before asking, "Can we drive users to it?"

Ravi says, “people say that Facebook hasn't had a great track record of launching new products. But, if you actually look at the history of products that Facebook has launched, they've launched a lot of them and they've killed a lot of them because they've always prioritized retention over user growth - the thinking being that we know that we can drive users to something. The question is should we drive users to that thing? And, if you can't get engagement and retention really right, then it doesn't make sense to take the scarce resource of where we send users and send them to something that isn't working. I think a lot of companies do the opposite.”

Fareed adds, “The other thing that they've been relentlessly good at is just nailing details, especially on the growth side. When you hear about the types of things Facebook worked on around growth, for decades, it was like, make sure it's easy to log-in in every single country, no matter whether I have an email or a phone or a smartphone or a not phone. It was nail the basics, nail notifications, nail invites, etc.,”

Next time you're planning your product roadmap, remember OutKast's wisdom. Get your priorities straight, nail the fundamentals, and take one step at a time. 🚀

The Second Product Conundrum: Navigating the S-Curve 📈

Ever wondered why your second product isn't hitting the mark? You're not alone. The struggle is real and it's more common than you think. 🤔 It’s why our guest Casey wrote a series of articles on Second Products including “When and How to Build Second Products” and “Is My Second Product Failing”

🎯 The Dual Purpose of Second Products 🎯

Second products need to solve a current core customer problem and pave the way for future growth. But striking this balance is easier said than done.

🧩 The Product Market Fit Puzzle 🧩

The traditional framework of product market fit often falls short when it comes to second products. Why? Because it doesn't account for the unique challenges of building on an existing success. You might end up with a product that has a smaller TAM or slower growth rate than your core business.

🌈 Chasing the Pot of Gold 🌈

When developing a second product, it's crucial to keep your eyes on the prize - the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But what if the destination keeps moving further away? Or worse, what if you lose sight of it altogether? These are clear signs that you might be veering off course.

The key to reaching that pot of gold lies in breaking down the journey into manageable steps. Apple's path to Apple Pay may seem straightforward now, but it involved numerous pivotal steps, from fingerprint to face ID to Apple Card development, ensuring seamless integration with various payment systems, etc.,

♦️ Know When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em ♦️

If you launch a new product and the numbers aren't immediately where you hoped, how do you decide whether to continue improving or to abandon the effort?

Ravi believes it's about making a distinction between the bets we're experimenting with and the bets we must win.

“If you zoom out, Facebook had to win to some extent in video because that market share, that time share, that attention share was going to go somewhere video centric and it could either go to TikTok, Snap or YouTube, or it could stay on Facebook.” - Ravi

However, along the way, Zuckerberg did decide to discontinue several initiatives, including Facebook Live and Facebook Originals, despite their considerable resource allocation and interest. They didn't retain users well, but he never gave up on the goal of excelling in video. “Through the process of doing that iteration, they figured out actually the thing where people retain on video is not longer format. It's not highly produced. It's more of sort of in between what your uncle is posting and the really high produced stuff are things that are produced by influencers that have a knack for creating really quick content, the same sort of content that's doing well on TikTok.” This ultimately led them to their current position.

Fareed recommends, whenever you face a new significant task, to ask if it's a must-win or an experiment being tested.

🎰 The Portfolio Approach or The Platform Play 🎰

Finally, consider whether your business is a product, a portfolio, or a platform. Each of these models requires a different approach to second product development. For instance, a platform business like Stripe can add new product lines onto its existing payments platform.

With a portfolio approach, instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, why not make multiple bets and see which one pays off? This approach can be particularly useful when the core business isn't quite cutting it and you need to find a new direction.

Ravi says, “I think a really good example there is Ro and Hims started by creating a business around erectile dysfunction drugs. And today, they have a portfolio of businesses around hair loss and skincare and other types of healthcare needs. And so they were able to find out that there's this one particular product that works, but it's not enough on its own. And so we need to take more of a portfolio approach to our business. I think Match is also in that example with Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, etc., No one dating app, even though Tinder has gotten pretty big, is enough to sustain a company on its own.”

Square's Org Change: A Shift Towards a Unified Ecosystem? 🔄

Square recently announced a shift from a GM-type, product unit organization to a more traditional functional organization. This move has sparked some interesting conversations around the structure of multi-product companies. 🏢

Square's decision to transition from a GM-based model, where each product operates as a mini company within Square, to a functional organization is intriguing. This shift could indicate that Square now views its suite of products as a single entity rather than a series of independent products. But why now?

⚖️ The Power of Conway's Law ⚖️

Square's shift could be influenced by Conway's Law, which suggests that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. The key is to mitigate the downstream effects of the chosen structure, ensuring that the seams of the work structure are less painful to the customer.

🚀 The Cash App Factor 🚀

The success of Cash App could be another factor driving this shift. Cash App has grown to become a fundamental part of Square's ecosystem. To create cross-product connections, it makes sense to integrate Cash App back into the small business ecosystem, which is difficult with independent GMs.

🎯 The Power of Autonomy 🎯

Historically, successful multi-product companies have been business unit organized. This structure allows each unit to operate independently, solving specific customer problems effectively. But Square's recent shift suggests a different approach. Could it be that they now see their suite as their main product, rather than a series of independent products for SMBs? 🤔

🍏 The Apple Exception 🍏

Apple is a notable exception to the business unit model. Despite offering a broad range of products, they operate as a single, unified entity. Their success lies in the high interoperability of their products, creating a powerful ecosystem that customers buy into. Could Square be moving in a similar direction with their payments platform and ecosystem? 🌐

🎲 The Trade-Offs 🎲

There's no perfect org model. It's all about trade-offs. The question is, what do you want to make people accountable for, and where do you want people to collaborate? Both org models end up converging on a matrix structure. In a functional org, you end up with quasi GMs, and in a business unit org, you end up with shadow functional organizations.

So, what's your take on Square's org change? Is it a strategic move towards a more unified ecosystem, or simply a response to changing business needs? Let's discuss! 💬