1. Product Principles The difference between good and great

2. Every company has a Mission Statement An agreed upon, lasting statement that all employees know by heart 3. As PMs, we translate the Mission Statement into Product All the decisions we make should be consistent with, and advance the mission 4. But, translating lofty Mission Statement to Product is tough How does To re-imagine commerce in ways that build a more fullling and lasting world help me design a new review system for Etsy items? 5. Product Principles make the Mission Statement actionable Set of rules that we as PMs can use to make decisions 6. Examples Lets go through a few 7. Instagram Product Principles Make every picture beautiful Make it super fast to upload a photo Share to all places and people at once Example 8. Venmo Product Principles Easy Fun Trustworthy Example 9. Customer.io Product Principles Make it hard to make mistakes Make our users feel like they have superpowers Make our users success easy to share Example 10. Oscar Product Principles Simple Friendly Smart Example 11. Difference between Good and Great Why have product principles? 12. VP sign-off not required Codied principles enable autonomous, consistent decision-making at every level 13. Claries when to say yes and no Prioritization and resource distribution becomes clearer 14. Data isnt necessary to justify every decision Easier to gain consensus on decisions hard data cant answer 15. Easier to think of delivery drones Less copy-cating, more rst-moving 16. Forming Product Principles What qualities should Product Principles have? 17. Easy to remember No more than 5. Ideally 3. Everyone at the company should know them by heart. 18. Written in clear, direct, decisive language Help PMs and others make decisions 19. Play at some emotional level Get at how your users should feel as they use your product. 20. Specic to your company Emphasize your POV and how youre different from competitors 21. Product Principles at Etsy Working with PMs to form product principles 22. Steps 1. Clearly articulate your company mission II. PM / decision makers write down 3-5 times when theyve faced tough Product Decisions III. Group by common questions, summarize. IV. Generate clearly articulated POVs for each common question. V.Translate into Product Principles 23. Questions? @ashaegupta