I found this gem on Quora by Ian McAllister.
Question: What is Amazon’s approach to product development?
Answer:
For new initiatives a product manager typically starts by writing an internal press release announcing the finished product. The target audience for the press release is the new/updated product’s customers, which can be retail customers or internal users of a tool or technology. Internal press releases are centered around the customer problem, how current solutions (internal or external) fail, and how the new product will blow away existing solutions.
If the benefits listed don’t sound very interesting or exciting to customers, then perhaps they’re not (and shouldn’t be built). Instead, the product manager should keep iterating on the press release until they’ve come up with benefits that actually sound like benefits. Iterating on a press release is a lot less expensive than iterating on the product itself (and quicker!).
This is such a simple idea that makes sense. Why build the product first when you can simply test it to see if people are excited about it!
Awesome find! Thanks for sharing this Rishi.
Thanks Ryan – Based on the post I’m shifting the way we do build things.
That’s awesome. I really admire Amazon from a marketing standpoint, and now I like them even more.
Lately I’ve been taking a similar approach when creating information products. I outline the sales video, then I outline the product, then I finish the sales video, and then I make sure the product lives up to all the selling points.
This marketing-focused approach to product development helps make sure that you’re building something people will want, rather than just churning stuff out. The idea of creating the marketing/pitch before you create the product reminds me of a Peter Drucker quote: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”
Pete