Market Segmentation For A Product Launch

Problem

"I was asked to take on Product Management for Youtube Live Streaming. I was basically given the brief that I needed to just figure it out. At the time we thought there was a 50/50 chance of the product being really successful or of the product needing to be shut down."

Actions taken

First, I undertook work to understand what was already happening in the live space. Taking time to segment the market was key. "It's really bad for a product or engineering team to have to wait for an entire year in order to launch a product that had everything you want. You don't get feedback fast enough, it demoralizes your team, and you don't learn quickly enough." I came up with a list of four different kinds of users and found that the product would need to be a little bit different for each type. I then came up with a list of features that each segment would need and we began working on each segment one at a time, based on revenue opportunities and our technical capabilities. This was a complex product because live-streaming was inherently expensive at the time, so we needed to work out a way to manage costs and develop a revenue model. Over the next two years, we had a series of launches in a very structured way. We made an event out of each launch so we would get press from the launches and could talk to creators.

Lessons learned

I learned how to maintain a team's momentum, segment customers based on their needs, and create launch momentum. "You should prioritize based on your users, revenue, constraints you have, and your goals, and I learned how to take all of these things into account and come up with a plan." If I were to be faced with this situation again, I would broadcast what I was doing more. Internally, there was a lot of clarity and the engineering team understood what we were doing. However, articulating my long-term vision more regularly would have helped to clarify the reasoning behind your decisions.