Pricing - What You Wish You Knew - with Dan Balcauski

On today’s episode, we have Emilia Kortrynska, Head of Marketing at UserPilot. In the discussion with Emilia, we talk about some incredibly interesting research that came out of UserPilot recently about how Sales Led Growth appears to beat Product Led Growth in many categories. Which to PLG evangelists like myself, really caught me off guard. But we discuss why quant data is only one piece of the story and why you need to balance quant with qual research and the benefits of research in general.  PLG vs SLG research data If you're looking for a better way to tie research to your company goals, try out ResearchRepo for free If you're trying to get into product management and need experience to accelerate your path to product, sign up at Path2Product and start getting experience today Outline: 0:00-0:53 - Episode Introduction 0:53-2:35 - Emilia’s Background and Intro 2:35-7:48  Emilia’s Role In Research for Userpilot 7:48-10:59  Marketing’s Role in User Research and PM Collaboration  10:59-13:00  Product-Led SEO 13:00-15:25 Research Feedback loop on usage and user segmentation 15:25-16:10 The fallacy of category creation in positioning 16:10-26:54 Sales Led vs Product Led Success Rates 26:54-30:07 How can we make research matter more at our company

It's a hotly debated topic, whether you should always pay customers for their time when sourcing and conducting interviews. Spoiler alert! I think you're doing yourself a huge disservice if you make it a habit of paying customers for feedback. In this episode, we unpack all the reasons why you should never pay customers for interviews and the benefits you'll see as a result. If you're looking to get into product management or interested in up-leveling your product sense through a portfolio project, check us out at Path2Product For the article this episode is based on, check it out at the Path2Product Blog

There are pros and cons to preparing for user research. As they say, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. And the same is true with prepping for research. On this episode, we break down the benefits of user interview preparation and the potential drawbacks if you let perfection become the enemy of progress. If you're looking to get into product management but lack hands on experience, check out Path2Product where you get high-quality PM training AND the ability to put your learning into practice to get hands-on product management experience that you can show off in a portfolio project.

After taking a year off to focus on work and life, we're back and excited to be back! We've been building ResearchRepo for Product teams to collaborate, consolidate, and communicate research that ties back to company goals and objectives. I've started a new role as VP of Product at Terlumina But we're doubling down on Path2Product to help aspiring and junior product managers get the experience and practice they need to land their first job or uplevel their product sense

This is a crazy and turbulent time in Tech. Companies are hitting financial hard times or restructuring as the economy is forcing extreme prioritization of resources. If you find yourself on the unfortunate end of these layoffs, I have someone on the show who has been through several and helped several others through this process. Don't miss the great advice on this week's episode of Lessons in Product Management!

Dan Balcauski is a pricing expert and dropped by the pod to share key insights, hot takes, and practical advice for product teams and leaders to help unpack the pricing process, key variables, and mistakes to avoid. Show notes: 0:00-0:30 - Episode Intro 0:30-1:55 - Dan’s Intro/Background 1:55-4:55 - From Engineer to Pricing Guru 4:55-6:42 - Biggest Pricing Pitfall 6:42-19:00 - Segmentation Myths and Realities 19:00-21:00 - defining value (3 Types) 21:00-26:35 - The Value Cascade 26:35-36:45 - How customers shape pricing 36:45-43:00 - Willingness to pay (WTP) (40:12) 43:00-47:30 - Pricing in B2B 47:30-56:50 -  Freemium Good or Bad? 56:50-57:48 - Contact Dan 57:48-58:02 - Outro

There are great frameworks for prioritizing features, but what if prioritizing features isn't the right approach? We dig into why opportunity costs are the most underrated variables in prioritizing Product decisions. If you're looking to get into product management, come join us at Path2Product to gain the hands-on PM experience you need to land your first product role.  0:00-4:20 - Episode Intro 4:20-6:54 Opportunity Cost in Action 6:54-8:50 - Economics in Product Management? 8:50-17:52 - NFL Draft Example

This week's lesson in product management is brought to you by Derek Osgood, Founder and CEO of Ignition. If your product launches are less than ideal, you should listen to what Derek has to say. Even if you're launches go well, there are great tips on how to optimization the success of your launches.  0:00-0:32 - Podcast intro 0:32-2:30 - Derek’s Intro 2:30-4:15 - Who is Ignition for? 4:15-4:40 - Where to find Ignition 4:40-8:40 - The PM/PMM Disconnect 8:40-10:23 - Aligning PM/PMM Teams 10:23-13:10 - Overlooked aspects of product launches 13:10-18:30 - Why Run Betas in B2B? 18:30-21:20 - How to price your new product? 21:20-24:00 - The future of software for PMs and PMMs 24:00-25:00 - Podcast Outro If you want to connect with Derek, shoot him a request on LinkedIn  If you want to check out Ignition, go to their site If you're looking to get into product management, get your hands dirty and gain real experience on Path2Product

As you wrap up the last 30 days of your 30, 60, 90-day onboarding, it's time to start drafting strategy. In this episode I break down how to do that with a simple framework and how to shrink the timeline if you don't have 90 days to get it done in a new position.  Here's the episode with Randal Whitmore  Here's the link to the product strategy development course on YouTube Join us on Path2Product if you're looking for the Product Management experience you need to land a PM job

Many answers to the question of "why do you want to be a product manager" have some variation of "ideation." While ideation and solutioning are definitely part of product management, it's by far NOT the most important thing to get right. If you're looking to get into product management, join us at Path2Product to streamline your path to product management