Gone are the occasions when the sketch on a serviette out of your lunch was sufficient to safe your organization Sequence A funding. Within the present economic system, traders are far more fastidiously evaluating the place they may make investments their capital.
In the event you handle to catch their consideration, eventually within the course of your complete firm goes to bear a due diligence. In the event you’re a software program product firm, your product and it’s improvement will obtain a number of consideration. Consideration that may be utterly new and overwhelming to any product chief.
Throughout spring 2022, we went via the precisely such analysis and we efficiently secured $40 million in progress capital. And since there’s little or no data on-line about what you’ll be able to anticipate from such a course of, I’ve determined to share our expertise. On this article, I write about what inputs had been required from us throughout the very detailed product analysis, my recommended define, and my suggestions and finest practices for every half.
Even when your group is just not trying to find an funding for the time being, having a transparent understanding of the areas described on this article (and even higher, having them documented) is — for my part — completely mandatory for any present or aspiring product chief.
Let’s dig in.
Purpose: In underneath half-hour showcase your product’s distinctive worth proposition, key capabilities, and circulate to individuals who doubtless haven’t seen it earlier than. And who will doubtless get entry to the demo atmosphere later for deeper exploration.
Proposed define: Begin really outdoors of your product and put together 2–3 intro slides. Clarify the demo settings and what are the principle subjects that you just’re going to cowl. After which dive straight into your demo atmosphere.
My suggestions: Go sluggish and keep away from frantic clicking round. Use a cursor highlighter. Describe what you’re doing, spotlight the principle worth factors, and don’t be afraid to pause and summarize the previous few steps. Do not forget that that is doubtless the primary time your viewers sees the product in higher element. And don’t overlook to report it — it will probably come in useful later.
Purpose: Show how do you consider the way forward for your product. Showcase that you’ve got plan lasting longer than subsequent 6 months. Present confidence in your product’s longevity and nice future.
That is crucial a part of the due-diligence course of that may be delivered by you as a product chief.
That is the place it’s a must to be assured and shine. Don’t underestimate this half underneath any circumstances.
Urged define:
- Product roadmap inputs — What has affect over your product roadmap? What are the inputs and qualifiers?
- North Star metric — What’s the single metric that finest captures the core worth that your product delivers to your clients?
- Lengthy-term imaginative and prescient & differentiation— What’s your plan to win the lengthy recreation? How do you intend to face out within the crowded market? What’s your technique? What’s your distinctive worth proposition in the long run?
- Product core values/pillars — What are the core rules your product stands on?
- Roadmap outlook — A visible overview of your roadmap. This actually is dependent upon you and the way do you’re employed along with your roadmap. Do you have got a characteristic primarily based roadmap? Theme or OKR primarily based? Now, subsequent, later? Showcase it right here. In all instances, you will need to put issues into time perspective. And you may make certain, that this slide is the place all stakeholders pays consideration probably the most.
- Particulars on the product initiatives — Whereas itemized timelines are nice for visualization and placing issues into (not solely time) perspective, they inform solely half of the story. That’s why I like to recommend to dedicate a number of slides for added rationalization of the objects out of your roadmap. It doesn’t must be exhaustive rationalization, however don’t go away an excessive amount of room for misinterpretations.
My suggestion:
Pay additional consideration to this portion of the due-diligence and inform your product story — the place you’re coming from, what you need to obtain, how you intend to get there and what’s important on your success. In the event you don’t know how you can construction your pitch, I like to recommend this text from Andy Raskin.
Purpose: Showcase the maturity of your product improvement group by explaining the steps a person product enchancment goes via from the concept to the discharge.
Extra feedback: That is the second most necessary a part of the product due diligence because it exhibits how wholesome your product improvement is. Don’t underestimate this half. Furthermore, very doubtless you’ll want to mix your inputs with these out of your friends on the Engineering facet of your product group to supply a holistic view.
Urged define:
- Product necessities strategy — How, when, and the place do you acquire product necessities? Is there any methodology in place? Any specialised software program? How do you analyze the necessities and share them with the remainder of your group? How are the necessities reworked into improvement duties?
- Product group — How does the construction of the product group appear like? What are the roles and the way do they cooperate? How many individuals are fulfilling these roles?
- Product improvement course of — How are product necessities reworked into the ultimate product? What’s the lifecycle of a person product goal? What are the phases? When do completely different roles take part within the course of? What methodology/strategy is utilized? What’s the product workforce’s means of working? How do you handle product backlogs? How do you handle product upkeep?
- Finish-to-end practices & High quality administration — How do you strategy product releases? What does your CI & QA pipeline appear like? How do you strategy QA in your product group? What’s your (automated) check protection? What’s the degree of automation in the entire course of?
- Defects & Buyer Escalation strategy — What’s your challenge/incident escalation and determination course of? How do you categorize and strategy the decision of product points?
My suggestions: Every group has a special strategy to their software program improvement, but they’ve many issues in frequent, so the satan is within the element — concentrate on what makes you stand out, what are you doing in another way, and what have you ever discovered that works for you. You don’t want to elucidate what Scrum is. You don’t must showcase your JIRA challenge construction. Attempt to use visualizations at any time when potential (after-all one image is price a thousand phrases) as an alternative of prolonged texts.
Purpose: Present a fast performance overview of your product. Usually occasions will be joined with the architectural overview (Engineering due diligence).
Proposed define: One slide visible of your product’s general logical construction (performance areas). Then spotlight your prime 3–5 most necessary options.
My suggestions: Hold it easy. You don’t want to enter a lot element, however present hyperlinks the place folks can discover extra data if wanted. Make it work on 5 slides or much less.
Purpose: Showcase that you may holistically have a look at your product and its improvement group, that you just perceive the place it may be improved and what provides you a bonus out there.
Urged define: Don’t attempt to squeeze the whole lot into one slide as some templates counsel otherwise you’ll create an unreadable mess. As an alternative have one slide for Strengths, one for Weaknesses, and so forth. Separate the 2 SWOTs into two recordsdata, don’t combine them collectively.
My suggestions: For every class decide solely the highest 3 objects. That’s greater than sufficient. Then for every merchandise present further context reasonably than having them as an inventory of ambiguous bullet factors.
Purpose: Showcase maturity of understanding your person base by explaining who’re the principle customers and what are their motivations to make use of your product.
Urged define: Hold it easy. Briefly introduce on just a few slides the principle personas, their classes, and illustration in your product. Then ideally mix this along with your particular person personas “overview” into one package deal.
My suggestions: A pleasant visible illustration of your key personas goes a great distance. Deal with their objectives, motivations, and frustrations reasonably than on their demographic data.
Purpose: Once more, showcase your maturity of understanding your person and base by presenting their journeys with key worth moments (= moments once they understand worth).
Urged define: This half is closely influenced by whether or not and the way you have got your journey captured. In our case, it was one slide with the visible of the journey and two slides with explanations of our key worth moments.
My suggestions: The content material of this half is dependent upon how you have got your person journey captured — do you need to current a number of journeys for various personas or mix them into one? My suggestion is to with simplicity over accuracy (element), however not at the price of creating nonsense.
Purpose: Showcase the maturity of your product design strategy by explaining the position of the design & analysis workforce in your group.
Urged define: Once more, preserve it easy. Showcase your Design & Analysis workforce group, their predominant roles, and duties. Clarify the way you strategy Person Testing and Analysis and spotlight among the analysis tasks. You need to match inside 10 slides.
My suggestions: You’ll be shocked however many organizations don’t think about product design and analysis as necessary. That is your distinctive alternative to point out that your product group is mature and data-driven.
That’s it. That’s what labored for us and helped us to safe the capital. Nevertheless, keep in mind that in your case the required data is perhaps completely different as every investor and their strategy to the due-diligence course of is completely different. All the time tailor your shows to their necessities.
Nonetheless, you will need to take into accout throughout the entire due-diligence course of that you’ve got often just one shot to make a very good impression. Don’t waste it! Despite the fact that it looks like a number of work to organize the whole lot, make it rely. Put money into good visuals. Get skilled assist with the slides, should you want one. It would repay.
And even should you’re presently not elevating progress capital, it’s good to have the aforementioned data documented someplace in your group. They’re not solely an ideal on-boarding useful resource they usually’re typically required for numerous certifications (comparable to ISO), but additionally their preparation will power you to consider your product group’s strengths and weaknesses.
Lastly, let me know within the feedback if I missed one thing necessary — one thing that was required from you or one thing that made an impression. Let’s share the data!
