PRACTICAL TIPS FOR CREATING AND
MANAGING NEW IT PRODUCTS
This cheat sheet offers advice for product managersof new IT solutions at startups and enterprises.

Responsibilities of a Product Manager
Determine what to build, not how to build it.
Envision the future pertaining to product domain.
Align product roadmap to business strategy.
Define specifications for solution capabilities.
Prioritize feature requirements, defect correction,technical debt work and other development efforts.
Help drive product adoption by communicating withcustomers, partners, peers and internal colleagues.
Participate in the handling of issue escalations.
Sometimes take on revenue or P&L responsibilities.

Defining Product Capabilities
Understand gaps in the existing products within thedomain and how customers address them today.
Understand your firm’s strengths and weaknesses.
Research the strengths and weaknesses of yourcurrent and potential competitors.

Understand similarities and differences between thesegments in terms of needs and business dynamics.

Establish the pricing schedule, setting the priced
based on perceived value.

Consider how you’ll reach prospective customers ineach market segment.

Account for the minimum desired profit margin.

Engagement with the Sales Team

Understand the intricacies of deploying the solution.

Understand the nature and size of the sales forcealigned with your product.

Determine the effort required to operate, maintainand support the product on an ongoing basis.

Explore the applicability and nature of a reseller
channel or OEM partnerships for product growth.

Determine for the technical steps, personnel, tools,
support requirements and the associated costs.

Understand sales incentives pertaining to yourproduct and, if applicable, attempt to adjust them.

Document the expectations and channels ofcommunication between you and the customer.

Look for misalignments, such as recurring SaaS
product pricing vs. traditional quarterly sales goals.

Establish the necessary vendor relationship for
product delivery, if necessary.

Assess what other products are “competing” for thesales team’s attention, if applicable.

Clarify which party in the relationship has which
responsibilities for monitoring, upgrades, etc.

Determine the nature of support you can offer thesales team to train or otherwise support their efforts.

Allocate the necessary support, R&D, QA, security
and other staff to maintain and evolve the product.

Gather sales’ negative and positive feedback
regarding the product.

Obtain the appropriate audits and certifications.

Understand which market segments and use-cases
have gained the most traction in the product’s sales.

Ability and need to iterate faster to get feedback.

The Pricing Model

Product Delivery and Operations

Product Management at Startups
Willingness and need to take higher risks.

Understand the value that customers in various
segments place on your product.

Lower bureaucratic burden and red tape.

Determine your initial costs (software, hardware,personnel, etc.) related to deploying the product.

Often fewer resources to deliver on the roadmap.

Understand your solutions key benefits and uniquevalue proposition.

Compute your ongoing costs related to maintaining
the product and supporting its users.

Product Management at Large Firms

Strategic Market Segmentation

Decide whether you will charge customers recurringor one-time (plus maintenance) fees for the product.

Define the smallest set of requirements for the initial(or next) release (minimum viable product).
When defining product requirements, balance longterm strategic needs with short-term tactical ones.

Market segmentation often accounts for geography,
customer size or industry verticals.
Devise a way of grouping customers based on thesimilarities and differences of their needs.
Also account for the similarities in your capabilities,
such as channel reach or support abilities.
Determine which market segments you’re targeting.

Understand the nature of customers’ budgets,
including any CapEx vs. OpEx preferences.
Define the approach to offering volume pricing
discounts, if applicable.
Define the model for compensating the sales team,including resellers, if applicable.

Much harder to reach customers.
Fluid designation of responsibilities
An established sales organization, which provides
access to customers.
Potentially-conflicting priorities and incentives withgroups and individuals within the organization.
Rigid organizational structure and bureaucracy.
Potentially-easier access to funding for sophisticatedprojects and complex products.
Possibly-easier access to the needed expertise.
Well-defined career development roadmap.

Authored by Lenny Zeltser, who’ve been responsible for product management of information security solutions at companies large and small. This cheat sheet, version 1.0, is released under theCreative Commons v3 “Attribution” License. For additional information security and technology guidance, visit zeltser.com/cheat-sheets and zeltser.com/security-product-creation-framework.