There’s only one letter that doesn’t appear in any U.S. state name. Can you guess what it is?
See the bottom of this newsletter for the answer.
Amazon Prime Day
As I sit down to write this, Amazon Prime Day is wrapping up (by the time you read this it will be long gone). It's easy to get caught up in the frenzy of deals and discounts, but let's take a step back and appreciate the brilliance behind this manufactured shopping holiday.
Prime Day wasn't born out of a desire to simply boost sales (though that's certainly a nice side effect). Its origin story is rooted in a very real business challenge: how to stress test Amazon's technical infrastructure to prepare for the holiday shopping season. The solution? Create a mid-year event that mimics the intense traffic and transaction volume of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
But here's where it gets really interesting. Amazon didn't stop at solving their technical problem. They turned this necessary evil into a massive commercial opportunity. Prime Day now serves multiple purposes:
It stress tests the system.
It drives new Prime memberships.
It boosts sales during a traditionally slow period. (Emarketer forecasts that Amazon will grab 60% of all online spending over those two days – more than $8B in sales for Amazon.)
It clears out warehouse space for incoming holiday inventory.
…and how it relates to Product Management
This, my friends, is product management at its finest. It's about finding solutions that not only address the core problem but also create additional value for both the customer and the business. Too often, we fall into the trap of thinking that meeting customer needs is enough. Don't get me wrong - that's crucial. But truly great product management considers the entire ecosystem. It asks, "How can we solve this problem in a way that also benefits our business?"
Marty Cagan, of Silicon Valley Product Management, talks about four key risks that all products face:
Value Risk: Will customers buy it or use it?
Usability Risk: Can users figure out how to use it?
Feasibility Risk: Can we build it?
Business Viability Risk: Does this solution work for our business?
That last one - business viability - is what I want to focus on today. It's often overlooked, but it's absolutely critical. Every product decision should be evaluated not just on its ability to solve a customer problem, but also on its potential to drive business value.
An example from my past
Let me share a personal example from my time at Qualcomm, specifically with FLO TV. We had invested heavily in building out a state-of-the-art production and broadcasting facility for our mobile television venture. We're talking a massive control room with walls of screens, satellite dishes - the works.
A picture of the MediaFLO / FLO TV Control Room - circa 2007
Now, did we need all of that to deliver our product? Honestly, probably not. But we found a way to extract additional value from that investment. Before every meeting with a potential customer or partner, we'd take them on a tour of the facility. It was a way to physically demonstrate our commitment to the business and technology.
Was it directly related to our product features? No. But it added value by impressing partners, building credibility, and influencing deals. It turned what could have been seen as over-investment into a strategic asset.
Conclusion
The lesson here is clear: always be on the lookout for opportunities to create additional value. Whether you're solving a technical challenge like Amazon, or trying to impress partners like we did at Qualcomm, there's often a way to turn a necessary task or investment into something more.
As product managers, our job isn't just to build great products. It's to build great products that also drive business success. So the next time you're tackling a problem, challenge yourself to think beyond the immediate solution; because the best solutions don't just solve problems - they create value in unexpected ways. That's the art of product management, and it's what separates good products from truly great ones.
Break a Pencil,
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Content Recommendation
I just finished reading this book and, in a world where numbers and data are vital to telling any compelling story, I really appreciated the number of different methods the authors presented - each with numerous examples. Here are some of my favorites:
Instead of saying… | Say… |
|---|---|
A very small percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. | Among Fortune 500 CEOs, there are more men named James than there are women. |
The distance to the nearest solar system is 4.25 light-years. | How far away is the nearest star from us? Well, imagine shrinking the solar system down to the size of a quarter. You leave a quarter at the goalpost of a soccer field and walk toward the goalpost at the other end of the field. When you reach it, drop another quarter to represent the solar system of our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri. Everything between the quarters is just cold, dark space. |
Six Sigma is 3.4 defects per million objects. | To achieve Six Sigma as a baker, imagine baking a batch of 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies every night. You could do that for 37 years before finding a cookie that is burned, raw, or doesn’t have the perfect number of chips. |
Answer: You’ll find a Z (Arizona), a J (New Jersey), and even two X’s (New Mexico and Texas)—but not a single Q.