{"id":14913,"date":"2015-04-18T16:43:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T16:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newindsum.wpengine.com\/?p=14913"},"modified":"2016-02-18T11:40:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T11:40:03","slug":"how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">A product manager\u2019s life is never easy.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>When you\u2019re running product for a startup, life can be even more tricky.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>On one hand, there are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of new features and products that are already queued up which you\u2019d love to launch.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Yet, at the same time, you know in your heart that it\u2019s critical to get real customer input throughout the process.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The reality is that even if you were to get to the very end of your product\/feature wish-list queue \u2013 the information that you were basing that specific product\/feature off of is already outdated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Currently, I serve as the President of\u00a0Movable \u2013 a B2B platform that inspires groups to move more.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>We have our own line of fitness activity trackers (<a href=\"https:\/\/shop.movable.com\/devices\/movband2.html\"><span class=\"s2\">Movband 2<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.movable.com\/devices\/movband3.html\"><span class=\"s2\">Movband 3<\/span><\/a>) and our own Dashboard that is designed specifically for groups.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Like many other startups, we run a fairly lean ship.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Everybody is busy, and we all wear many hats.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Late last winter, we had just received a new batch of prototypes for our newest product, Movband 3.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Yet, we had some critical decisions to make about the product.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>What color wristband should be included out of the box?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Did it need to be thinner than the prototype wristband we received?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Would users even want to wear the product on their wrist?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Or would it be more comfortable on their hip?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">We could spend tens of thousands of dollars and several months to work with a<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>research firm to help us answer these questions.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>But we\u2019re a startup company.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>We have sales forecasts to hit \u2013 and a budget to stay within.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Yet, I didn\u2019t feel comfortable just making these decisions at random.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Even our talented Creative Director would be making a guess (albeit, probably a more educated guess than I could make).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Something wasn\u2019t sitting quite right with me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I went to the mall.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Sort of.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Employees of large enterprise-organizations represented one of our larger customer segments for Movband 3.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>It just so happened that around noon each day, hundreds of these employees congregate in one of the handful of food courts that are spread out within Downtown Cleveland, Ohio \u2013 just a short drive from our suburban office.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>I had a crazy thought.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>What if we were to just \u201ccrash the food court\u201d and put our prototypes in the hands of these employees \u2013 and simply ask them a few questions?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">No doubt, my suggestion resulted in some eye-rolling and smirks around the office.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>More than a couple of my colleagues suggested that if I didn\u2019t get kicked out, most people would surely give me the cold shoulder.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Yet, nobody could find a good reason why we shouldn\u2019t at least try.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>So, try we did.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The result?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Two of us went to that mall during lunch armed with a handful of prototypes and a moleskin notebook.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Within 90 minutes, we had come across over 20 people who fell right in our target customer demographic who were not only willing to talk to us, but seemed excited to provide feedback.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>That feedback that we received helped us make the call on a couple of urgent open questions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Did we make the right call?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Was the feedback we received quantitative enough to be statistically significant?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Who knows.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>But what I do know is that the decisions we made weren\u2019t just pure guesses and \u201cgut feels.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>We took what we learned by talking to real people and combined it with some of our own internal instincts.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s yet to be seen whether we made the right call, as we\u2019re early into our launch, but as a product leader, I\u2019m much more confident in the decisions we made as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Do you have some questions that need answered about your product?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Have you been struggling with which route to go?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Depending on your product, perhaps a visit to the mall (or the park, or a caf\u00e9, etc) might help. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">If you&#8217;re interested in meeting other like-minded product people and learning from product leaders like Nir Eyal, Trevor Owens, Mina Radhakrishnan and others, you should meet me at <a href=\"https:\/\/industry2016.wpengine.com\">Industry 2015<\/a>. \u00a0We&#8217;ll be spending 2 days focused on &#8220;product&#8221; in my hometown and heart of the &#8220;Rust Belt Revival&#8221;, Cleveland, Ohio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A product manager\u2019s life is never easy.\u00a0 When you\u2019re running product for a startup, life can be even more tricky.\u00a0 On one hand, there are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of new features and products that are already queued up which you\u2019d love to launch.\u00a0 Yet, at the same time, you know in your heart [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product - Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product - Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A product manager\u2019s life is never easy.\u00a0 When you\u2019re running product for a startup, life can be even more tricky.\u00a0 On one hand, there are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of new features and products that are already queued up which you\u2019d love to launch.\u00a0 Yet, at the same time, you know in your heart [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/productcollective\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-18T16:43:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-02-18T11:40:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1100\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"337\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Belsito\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mike Belsito\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/\",\"name\":\"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product - Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-18T16:43:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-02-18T11:40:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#\/schema\/person\/24d4c079e1398ba4f15e5f82e613f5ff\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png\",\"width\":1100,\"height\":337},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/\",\"name\":\"Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference\",\"description\":\"For people who build, launch and scale world-class software products.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#\/schema\/person\/24d4c079e1398ba4f15e5f82e613f5ff\",\"name\":\"Mike Belsito\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/mikebelsito-12-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/mikebelsito-12-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Mike Belsito\"},\"description\":\"Mike Belsito is a startup product and business developer who loves creating something from nothing. Mike is the Co-Founder of Product Collective which organizes INDUSTRY, one of the largest product management summits anywhere in the world. For his leadership at Product Collective, Mike was named one of the Top 40 influencers in the field of Product Management. Mike also serves as a Faculty member of Case Western Reserve University in the department of Design and Innovation, and is Co-Host of one of the top startup podcasts online, Rocketship.FM. Prior to Product Collective, Mike spent the past 12 years in startup companies as an early employee, Co-Founder, and Executive. Mike's businesses and products have been featured in national media outlets such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, NPR, and elsewhere. Mike is also the Author of Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of us, one of the top startup books on Amazon.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/belsito\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/author\/mikebelsito\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product - Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product - Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference","og_description":"A product manager\u2019s life is never easy.\u00a0 When you\u2019re running product for a startup, life can be even more tricky.\u00a0 On one hand, there are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of new features and products that are already queued up which you\u2019d love to launch.\u00a0 Yet, at the same time, you know in your heart [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/","og_site_name":"Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/productcollective","article_published_time":"2015-04-18T16:43:20+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-02-18T11:40:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1100,"height":337,"url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Mike Belsito","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mike Belsito","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/","url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/","name":"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product - Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png","datePublished":"2015-04-18T16:43:20+00:00","dateModified":"2016-02-18T11:40:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#\/schema\/person\/24d4c079e1398ba4f15e5f82e613f5ff"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-18-at-12.45.54-PM-e1429375616591.png","width":1100,"height":337},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/how-a-trip-to-the-mall-helped-me-launch-a-new-product\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How a Trip to the Mall Helped Me Launch a New Product"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/","name":"Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference","description":"For people who build, launch and scale world-class software products.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#\/schema\/person\/24d4c079e1398ba4f15e5f82e613f5ff","name":"Mike Belsito","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/mikebelsito-12-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/mikebelsito-12-150x150.jpg","caption":"Mike Belsito"},"description":"Mike Belsito is a startup product and business developer who loves creating something from nothing. Mike is the Co-Founder of Product Collective which organizes INDUSTRY, one of the largest product management summits anywhere in the world. For his leadership at Product Collective, Mike was named one of the Top 40 influencers in the field of Product Management. Mike also serves as a Faculty member of Case Western Reserve University in the department of Design and Innovation, and is Co-Host of one of the top startup podcasts online, Rocketship.FM. Prior to Product Collective, Mike spent the past 12 years in startup companies as an early employee, Co-Founder, and Executive. Mike's businesses and products have been featured in national media outlets such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, NPR, and elsewhere. Mike is also the Author of Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of us, one of the top startup books on Amazon.","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/belsito"],"url":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/author\/mikebelsito\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}