Product Collective - Choosing your product tech stack

Putting together the right product stack

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What is a Product Stack? A product stack is the array of options - or tools - a product manager can bring to bear in order to get the product to the marketplace. This is also referred to as a ‘development stack’, ‘toolkit’, or ‘tech stack’. The folks at airfocus explain that the tools within the stack may also be divided up in a variety of ways. Many tend to be classified exclusively as software applications and might be used widely across an organization, or, are bespoke and used exclusively by the development team alone.

(via @airfocus)

Collection, analysis, action: A beginner’s guide to the product stack. Data is at the core of good product management. Making the most of the data that organizations collect is a process that’s often hindered by unnecessary complexity. There are more than 7,000 tools in the marketing technology landscape along—up from 150 just 8 years ago. Oz Nazilli explains that the product stack provides a useful framework for cutting through the set of tools available whether you’re building a new product or have a product that hasn’t reached its potential.

(via @mixpanel)

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What is Product Adoption: How to Measure + Examples (2021 Guide)

Product adoption is not something that companies can afford to ignore. After all, it's not profitable to build a product that no one is willing to purchase. You need loyal customers that regularly use your product, and product adoption can help you find those customers.

RIP LinkedIn Stories

In what’s probably the most shocking product news of the year, LinkedIn recently announced that they are retiring their “Stories” feature. After September 30th, it will be no more. 

Okay, maybe it isn’t a shock to most people. Many saw that feature as a copycat add-on, mimicking the likes of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and others. Especially for a business-focused app, did that feature even make sense?

But let’s not be so quick to dunk on LinkedIn for that feature. Are copycat features necessarily a bad thing? Sure, we’d all like to think that features we launch in our products should be creative, novel, and something that delights our customers and users. But what if a feature doesn’t necessarily do those things… but it does help us meet our business objectives?

There are a couple of considerations to make:

First, when you copy a feature that already exists elsewhere -- particularly from a product you’re competing with --  there’s a good chance that the team that created it is already working to evolve it and improve it. By the time you’ve launched that copycat feature, users might expect something even better.

You also may have a hard time describing to others why your product is unique and special. If the majority of your features are “influenced” by features from other popular products… you may simply look like a “me too” product instead of a category leader.

Despite all of that, some of today’s most-used apps certainly do take cues from other apps. What’s most important is that it actually makes sense to integrate that particular feature -- that your customers and users are better off for it. 

Were people better off using LinkedIn Stories? That’s debatable. Perhaps LinkedIn is now admitting that people weren’t, which is why they’re moving on so quickly. And if that’s the case, kudos to them for coming to that conclusion and retiring a feature. Sometimes, that’s hard to do… regardless of whether it was “influenced” by another product or not.

An Essential Guide to Building Out Your Marketing Tech Stack. When you’re building out your marketing tech stack, you’re not just dealing with the big suites. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, after you’ve chosen and implemented your core MarTech software, you have a massive array of these point solutions to consider. Mike Ward shares some thoughts on how you can build a marketing tech stack that you can also apply to a product stack.

(via @OpenViewVenture)

The modern product manager’s tech stack.  The majority of your work as a product manager is to communicate and make sure everyone has a clear idea of what exactly is being worked on and which problem is being solved. You have a responsibility to keep everyone aligned and eliminate surprises. Stefan Sabev introduces the double diamond framework and explains how you can use it to shape your product stack.

(via @productboard)

Inside Amplitude’s Tech Stack: Our Product Management Software. Mike Ottavi-Brannon gives you an inside look at Amplitude’s tech stack within three categories: analytics, product development, and communication. Some of these tools are for managing everyday tasks, while others are critical for making strategic product decisions.

(via @Amplitude_HQ)

Get some Product Therapy with Christian Idiodi during the next season of Rocketship.FM!

Churn rate is one of the main metrics of any SaaS business, with figuring out how to reduce it a key priority at every stage of growth. At LiveIntent, the team prevents churn and encourages repeat product adoption by building campaigns with rules to automatically engage users with either an email or in-platform message. In this discussion, Jessica will dig into why churn is such an issue for companies — and can share strategies for combatting churn (spoiler: a part of it involves Customer Success!).