What is Reddit's opinion of Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group)?

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Umm I think the question is probably too broad to get good answers. I'd suggest grab yourself a couple of books (the accidental project manager) and a good book on product management. E.g. here's a good one if its a tech product:

So Agile in its true form? Also, if you like what this guy is saying, I highly recommend Marty Cagan’s “Inspired”: Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119387507/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_GFXTY44ZRVT6D34BSKX1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1.

Marty says in the book software engineers are often have the best ideas in terms of product direction, and have the advantage of knowing what it takes to get those features implemented.

I have done product design for startups for 20 years. You have quite a long road ahead. Here is my suggestion:

• First validate that people want your product and will pay for it
• Build a prototype and put it in front of your core audience. My suggestion for a low cost way to do this is to use Balsamiq. If you have a better budget and good design skills, I suggest UXPin. Working with either of these will force you to start thinking about minor details of the product.
• If you struggle with design and flow and the product isn't working or you aren't happy with the design, hire a UI/UX designer. Have them create a few screens for you. Learn from their work. This should cost you $40-$85/hour.
• Now you are ready to see if your product is wanted. Sit down 1 on 1 with a person who is your core audience. Show them the product. Record the experience. I suggest using Screencastomatic. It records the screen interactions and records the person speaking with the webcam. It's free to start. Test your design with at least 10 people, 15-20 if you can. Make sure these people are not friends or family. Don't tell them you created the product. You want them to tell your their real thoughts. You don't want them to afraid to hurt your feelings. Offering a $15-$50 gift card for 1-2 hours of their time is typical in the industry. You might want to rent a conference room at a coworking space to have a professional and comfortable environment to conduct the testing.
• Before testing write a script. Here is a good article that will guide you to write the script.
• Listen hard to what people have to say. If there is a way to ask for money at the end of the test, do it. This is the real question, will someone pay for what you are building.
• Now you should start your marketing. You need to be marketing BEFORE you have a finished product. Create a simple, coming soon website. Have a single CTA (call to action) for the site. Use Wix or Squarespace or maybe even simply a Typeform embedded on single webpage. Collect an email or phone # with your CTA so that you can reach back out when your product is ready.
• To do marketing right you will need a logo and overall brand. These need to be good enough that people are confident in your product and marketing from your brand. But you can probably get a logo for less than $500. I would suggest 99 designs. They have a package for social media headers and logo for $399.
• You will need a domain that also has the social media accounts available for your brand name. Your product design should match for branding.
• Now start posting about product on social media regularly. Make sure you are building a following. You will need this for when you have finished the product.
• When you learn things from the user testing go back and make changes to the design.
• Now you will need to hire a developer. This will cost money. Only do this IF you have been successful in the previous steps. If you can't get people interested in your product from marketing and testing, don't build it. It costs too much to build before you have proven you can reach an interested audience.

• You can hire a freelancer or an agency. But either way make sure you hire someone who can show you their products in the App and Play stores if it is a mobile app. Ideally you won't be leading this on your own. You likely aren't qualified to know what is the right path and what is a reasonable cost and time. Things like whether you should build a PWA vs Native vs hybrid apps will be very important in the direction of the build. Each developer will be more skilled in one or the other. They will likely push what they're best at. If you can find someone to partner with who is technically skilled, you should, but that is hard to do. Take your time hiring this developer. If you happen to be in Dallas, I can recommend people. If not, try to build connections in your city in the tech community. So, when the time comes, you will at least have people to help guide you.

• Lastly, I'd recommend you read Inspired by Marty Cagan. This book will give you an idea of the venture you are undertaking.

Good luck!

You might consider a quick read-through of Inspired or Swipe To Unlock over a weekend. They may help demystify the process of launching a product and empower you to evaluate this opportunity yourself more effectively.

These books have helped me start and grow as a PM. Highly recommended regardless of your seniority.

• Inspired 2.0
• Crucial Conversations
• The Lean Product Playbook
• Think Again

Podcasts on my commute, about an hour during the work day reading a book of some sort. Finally getting around to Inspired after it's been on my shelf for a year+.

When technical up-skilling was a priority for me, I always had some sort of FOSS or side projects that I'd chip away at in my free time. Learning Go is a great book but I got way more out of farting around with the Prometheus and k8s codebases.

Just started my first PO role really recommend this book. I already had a scrum background but this fills in some of the gaps for me

https://www.amazon.com/INSPIRED-Create-Tech-Products-Customers/dp/1119387507

Two recent favorites:

https://www.amazon.com/INSPIRED-Create-Tech-Products-Customers/dp/1119387507

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239

Anything from SVPG or Marty Cagan sparked great discussion.

The big book that everybody suggests for PM is Inspired by Marty Cagan. See here:

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https://www.amazon.com/INSPIRED-Create-Tech-Products-Customers/dp/1119387507