Why Your Product Expertise May Be Hurting You with Tanay Agrawal, former PM @ Atlan

On today's episode, I sat down with Tanay Agrawal, former PM @ Atlan and Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon University 

Tanay had spent the first two years of his career as a software developer but quickly made the transition to product management. After two years as a PM, Tanay decided to pursue his Master's in Product Management at Carnegie Mellon University. 

While studying to become a better PM, Tanay started blogging. His blog is a mental download of all the things he learned in his two years as a PM and the things he wish he knew when he started.

On today's episode, we dive into one of his Medium articles, "You need to unlearn your product every day as a product manager" 

https://productcoalition.com/you-need-to-unlearn-your-product-every-day-as-a-product-manager-dbe01d15d4e8 

Tanay shares how PMs often fall into the trap of what I call the "omniscient" product manager. We know our products inside and out, and our in-depth product knowledge can often disconnect us from the experience of first-time users. To avoid this disconnect, we must unlearn our product with each new feature. 

Each new feature launch should create a delightful experience. Customers should be excited to use your feature, not dread HAVING to use it. Slack ingeniously executed this with their Google Drive integration through "contextual onboarding"

We also discussed the "pricing conundrum" that we can find ourselves in as our products grow and evolve. Tanay shared why more features don't necessarily mean more value and how pricing should be leveraged with customers through their lifetime with your product. 

In the same way we need to unlearn our products with new features, we need to take a step  back from our product's pricing tiers from time to time as well. Pricing complexity can be  a big barrier for new customers, but it doesn't have to be. 

Another issue with pricing pertains to growth levers. Many companies focus on user acquisition to drive growth, but not enough companies look to leverage existing customers as sources of revenue growth. 

The third pricing issue happens when companies under-price their products to gain market share. 

Pricing and feature strategy should coincide to help users are they progress through their journey with your product. 

Tanay shares why it's so hard to maintain a consistent "voice" within your product as your company and your team grows. Even documented guidelines can be ineffective, so Tanay shares  how to prevent this disconnect in your product. 

Follow Tanay on Medium, LinkedIn, and Twitter:

Medium - https://productcoalition.com/@tanayagrawal19

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanayagrawal19/

Twitter - @tanayagrawal19