Where do you get data?

Broadly speaking, Mostafa posits that there are three sources of insight – data insight, user insight and strategic insight. In building their fintech product at Snapcommerce, they started off with data insight. Data insight was discovering that 60-70% of their customers made payments using debit cards. That was interesting because it was higher than the average.

Digging in, they sought to get user insight as to why that is. User insight involves things like surveys and questionnaires to figure out why you got a certain result. They chose to conduct a quick survey to understand why people were using debit cards as opposed to credit cards. They received numerous responses. 

For example, many people said they had applied for credit cards but were not approved. These responses set more hypotheses for the team: “why can’t they get credit cards? What are their credit scores? What is their income?” and these in turn, validated their hypothesis that a lot of their customers are low income earners and that’s why they could not get credit cards.

Strategic insight relates more to them looking at the business climate before they release their product. In this case, that meant looking at the Fintech trend especially as it related to embedded financial services. Ten years ago, it would have been much more difficult to run a fintech product but because of what exists now, they were able to build that aspect of their company in a shorter time than it might’ve taken.

Impactful uses of data

Mostafa finds data to be infinitely helpful in making quick decisions on how your product can move forward. In their company, one of the co-founders had a hypothesis that customers would like to leave tips at the end of their service. In this case, there were two options.

1. The company could spend a lot of time building a tipping function that would capture that payment separate from the route through which original payments are processed and of course, this would come with its own set of issues; or
2. They could pretend they have their feature and create a fake door feature and monitor how many people actually click on it. This would be a little annoying for those who click on it, but it would be used for a short period of time and it would provide very actionable data.

User research can help you know what people are going to do but usage data gives you way more conviction. (P.S. the fake door feature worked, loads of people did want to tip and now tips account for a good chunk of the company’s revenue)

Key Points for Aspiring Product Managers

In addition to teaching us how data guides you to the truth, Mostafa also shared a few tips that will be helpful to any new or aspiring Product Managers.

To start with, he shared his metrics for measuring how right a company is for him and whether he’ll remain there. He says that first, he thinks about growth and he does this in three different dimensions: a) Skillset growth, b) Career growth and c) Monetary growth. If a company provides room for him to grow in these three areas, then it’s a company that he would be happy working in.

His next metric is Values. He tries to work only at companies whose values are aligned with his. Obviously, it won’t always be a perfect fit but ultimately, if your values aren’t in sync with those of your peers at the company, it will be a tough time there.

For those looking to break into Product Management he suggests a few paths. One is finding an Associate Product Management role. This path has the most intense competition because many people want to get into product management and there just aren’t enough of these roles. 

Another option is to join Co.Lab and get experience that improves your chances of getting the role. This is similar to his own trajectory as he actually started his own company before going into Product Management. This was a major talking point during job interviews and he used it as a springboard to be able to land a role in product.

Some have also found it helpful to build domain expertise in a certain area and then transition to be a Product Manager in that specific area. Although thi  might be a more long term plan as you want to first gain expertise in that area and then take that experience to begin as a Product Manager.

The most successful method of pivoting to Product Management is, in his opinion, moving from another department into a Product Management role within the same company because you already understand the product, the customers and the company’s initiative.

For his parting words, he recommended Ravi Mehta’s ‘Product Manager Competencies’ for all who need clarification as to the distinguishing factors of Product Managers from Associate Product Managers all the way to Executive Level. Mostafa believes that understanding what is expected of you allows you to produce your best work as a Product Manager.

With Product Management, there’s no limit to what you can be. As you execute the role, simply remember Mostafa’s advice to always err on the side of data and you’ll hardly be disappointed.

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This article is an excerpt from a discussion we had with Mostafa. You can find the full discussion on our YouTube channel. Be sure to check out our Instagram for the details of our next discussion!