Jim Semick, Author at ProductPlan

The Critical Importance of Finding Time for Strategic Thinking and Planning

Jim Semick — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 15:08:12 +0000

Learn how strategic thinking and planning can help your product team develop strategies to hit targets and align organizational objectives.

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The Evolution of Product-Led Growth

Jim Semick — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:02:39 +0000

The evolution of product-led growth may seem to be a recent trend at software companies, but the underlying concepts have been in full force for years. Being product-led is a path to success: we’ve seen consistently that product-led companies achieve faster growth once they achieve scale. Companies like Slack, Zoom, Calendly, Hubspot, and Dropbox are […]

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Taking the Leap: Why Product Managers Make Better Entrepreneurs

Jim Semick — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:14:21 +0000

I’ve spoken with so many product managers who have a dream of becoming an entrepreneur or launching their own product one day. Every one of those conversations is exciting because that was my dream too. After a decade of working with others to launch successful SaaS products, I took the plunge to launch a startup […]

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A Product Manager’s Guide to Roadmapping as an Essentialist

Jim Semick — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 20:42:49 +0000

This article tackles one of the areas that gets the most interest from product managers: how can they use an essentialist approach to create and communicate better product roadmaps?

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Lean Market Validation: 10 Ways to Rapidly Test Your Startup Idea

Jim Semick — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 23:25:13 +0000

This article outlines the advice I gave students and includes updates on some of the concepts to my current thinking on lean market validation. For many first-timers with great ideas, the process is exciting but also a bit intimidating. I believe that the tactics can help both entrepreneurs and product managers launch better products with […]

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The 5 Top Trends in Product Management to Watch in 2021

Jim Semick — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:23:38 +0000

The year 2020 shifted the world in fundamental ways. It changed the way we work, learn, play, travel, and socialize. It catapulted some industries into dominance (video conferencing, food delivery) while decimating others (hospitality, tourism). In fact, 2020 brought us so many shocks and surprises that it made identifying top trends in product management more […]

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Your MVP is Not the Minimum Product

Jim Semick — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 10:16:38 +0000

If you’re a product manager or part of a startup, you’ve likely heard about the Minimum Viable Product concept for getting products to market faster. In my opinion, the definition of an MVP is often misunderstood, and I’ve seen entrepreneurs and product teams misinterpret it with unfortunate results. Those that take the concept of “minimum” […]

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Why Distributed Product Teams are Here to Stay

Jim Semick — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 17:25:46 +0000

There is no going back to “normal” for product teams. The idea of simply translating what we did in the office can’t be matched in our distributed world. At a minimum, I believe we need to start thinking remote-first. While we will eventually head back to our offices, we want to prepare ourselves to do […]

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The Ultimate Motivation: What Gets Product Managers Out of Bed Every Morning?

Jim Semick — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 18:15:45 +0000

No matter how much we love our career, we all have some days when we’d rather stay in bed. So what motivates product managers to get out of bed and show up? I recently moderated a panel of experts to talk about the intersection of happiness and product management. We found that our panelists and […]

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The Essentialist’s Way to Building Better Products

Jim Semick — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 16:54:40 +0000

“Am I working on the right things?” “How can I fit it all in?” I find myself asking these questions almost daily, both in my personal and professional life. How can I spend my time working on the things that matter most? Even with the world in upheaval and our shift to distributed work, these […]

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How I Learned to Embrace Uncertainty: Tips for Product Managers

Jim Semick — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 17:10:18 +0000

I’ll admit it, in the past, I’ve wrestled with needing to control uncertainty. For years I thoroughly planned most everything and felt the need to know the eventual outcome of decisions. I had expectations, and if the expectations weren’t met, I was disappointed. Whether it was a product I managed or a vacation I took, […]

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Patterns of Pain: How Product Managers Solve High-Value Problems

Jim Semick — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 23:42:48 +0000

The most successful product managers think of themselves as finders of pain, not finders of products. In my experience launching ProductPlan and prior products, I’ve learned that talking early with potential customers to identify pain can lead you to create better, more innovative solutions. Although it may seem obvious, that’s not how many companies start—they […]

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