I worked for one of the leading companies that develops solutions for the automation of the HoReCa segment and developed a product for microbusiness in the direction of FoodTech, namely a cash solution. The niche of fast food and street food grew very quickly, 2GIS research showed that every month, catering outlets in million-plus cities are almost doubling. The product was clearly in demand, because a competitor that appeared relatively recently reported attracting from 500 to 1000 new customers almost every month.

Take it and do it

They had been trying to put a product into production for six months before me. A detailed technical specification was compiled, which was essentially a tracing paper from a competitor's product that was already on the market. Partners wrote and demanded at conferences when you would release the product to the market. We're losing customers and not making any money from new ones at all.

That's what I inherited then

The company is used to selling an outdated product for a high price, which in fact has not changed in the last 10 years and developed without a clear strategy, closing the endless stream of requests from partners and major customers with features.

At some point, it became a monster with accumulated technical debt, an outdated technology stack and ceased to be innovative and a market leader.

And selling licenses and equipment for less than a certain amount was certainly not profitable. Monetization, among other things, was due to long training and customization to meet customer requirements.

An excellent model for a market in which there are no competitors.

"Hedgehogs pricked and cried, but continued to eat cacti"

At some point, the founders realized that while the company still has a brand, it needs to be sold and such a buyer was found. The new shareholders decided to change the management team and maybe this was the turning point when there was a request to create value for products.

But inertia, even with the change of management in the company, slowed down new approaches in the development of the product line for several more years.

The level of resistance was in all directions.

1. The company is used to working on waterfall.

"Detailed technical specifications for any task. Coordination with the service station, architects, and God forbid you still won't have everything set up in RedMine and not in Times New Roman font"+ Well, my team will work on Agile. Then all the teams with my influence and training began to switch to Scrum.

2. Finance Department. - "The SaaS monetization model does not suit us, we will lose benefits."Which ones I didn't understand. + I will find you a tax consultant and prove that, on the contrary, we will save on VAT when selling solutions based on the SaaS model. And yes, such agreements appeared and began to work

3. Partner Relations Department - "We will lose partners. We won't make money on your cheap subscription." + Launching a website, landing pages, attracting the most understanding partners. Voila, the sales have gone

4. The training department - "What are we going to teach? Everything is clear there. Your cheap solution didn't bother anyone." + Whichever product you launch, you will still need onboarding, knowledge base, video, etc. And we have a customer support portal.

5. Marketing Department - "We need cases. And come up with everything yourself and we will help"

+ I have to say thank you here. This is one of the departments that helped. Only the budget was not agreed upon for a long time

6. Sales Department

"Well, it's not profitable for us to sell such cheap solutions" + Attracted and trained your salesperson

And so on in a circle

And the founders also added.

"We have 20 years of experience, we know what the market needs"

Perhaps you would have asked, "And what did you do?" And I asked myself: "What am I going to do in such a seemingly stalemate?

Thesis, that's what:

+ Similar experience of implementing a product approach in a previous company, switching to flexible methodologies and the guys from ScrumTrek accompanied us in this (about this in another post)

+ At that time, I was motivated by my training as a "Product manager" in the Netology of cool products.Some of them are now either in the role of CPO, or have moved abroad and got a job in cool companies, someone has created their own startups or, like Ivan Zamesin, is one of the gurus of product management.

I gradually began to introduce into the work of the team and the company the practices that I received from colleagues from Yandex, Ivi, ChatFuel, FRII, etc.:

• Scrum, as I imagined it then

The most effective were daily dailies and Demos based on the results of the sprint for stakeholders (Retro and Planning took root only after 6 months of the start of the team), The main thing was that I found supporters in the team and the company who also drowned in order to switch to the Agile sect.

• The Discovery Process

I started a regular process of communication with the business, for whom we actually made the decision. Even QA and Frontend from the team started interviewing the owners and staff as part of a visit to the cafe)))

He inspired and infected his fellow products with the "Customer Development" framework. Now, before planning big features, we began to go around, first the block where our office was located, then we began to go to food courts, ala DEPOT, STREAT, etc.

• We started prioritizing tasks through the ICE tool

They fought off a bunch of tasks from stakeholders, partners "with the words, well, that's how I see it." The product backlog was overshadowed and anyone in the company could view it. There was a board in Trello for the partners, where they threw their wishlist and once a month, by voting, they selected 3-5 features among them, which they took into their backlog

• To work out the strain

and it was not a coincidence of the cultural code and the approach to product development that he agreed to become a speaker at a conference with the screaming title "404 error not found". Where did our product colleagues share our fakaps

After 12 months, it bore fruit. We have attracted partners in Tinkoff and Alfa banks. We went to the Evotor marketplace, which has more than 1.5 million smart terminals throughout the Russian Federation. And then there was our PAM (Potential Available Market).We entered the CIS markets and conducted the first pilots and connections. By the way, here's what we got when we released the first version of the product.

• For 2 years he was a teacher at the Product Manager course at GeekBrains and conducted an author's course at Bauman

I intentionally asked to conduct a module about analytics, Unit economics, so that I could figure it out even more and work out my knowledge and skills on student cases

• Literally a month after starting work at the company, I had a selection for the experts of the FRIA.

I got a hell of a lot of knowledge from experts and funders cooperating with the FRII. My grocery background came in handy and I think it was even easier for me than many of my fellow experts. The number of interesting projects was off the scale. There is at least one article or several about each one.

After 2 years, this led me to full-fledged freelancing, became a co-founder of a startup, experience in attracting investments and launching several more products…

What are the conclusions and tips for novice products

• Do not piss in defending your opinion about the development of the product. The CEO or shareholders are not always right
• Do more research. Discovery is the bread and essence of the product
• Look for supporters and invest in their development
• Do not be afraid to seek help from colleagues in the market. Look for mentors
• Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Without bumps and rakes on the head, you will not grow up as a cool product
• Share your expertise with your colleagues
• Try to show up as a speaker at a conference. It's such a boost in career and experience
• Keep learning all the time

And what is not your easiest experience in product management?