Ask the expert: Petra Wille, freelance consultant for product development
For our section “Ask the expert” we meet experienced and proven experts for an interview about their area of competence.
Petra Wille has been an independent product development consultant in Hamburg since 2013 who advises product managers and their organisations. She gained her first experience in product development at Hubert Burda Media and later worked with companies such as Xing and SAP. In addition to that Petra Wille takes part in the annual planning of the largest German product conference — MTP Engage — that is hosted in the Hanseatic city. In this interview, Petra Wille shares with us her expertise and many years of experience. She knows what’s important in product development and why Hamburg with its open startup ecosystem and the lively exchange is just right place to be.
Why did you pick Hamburg as the place to start your own business?
Years ago on my first visit, I fell in love with Hamburg, its architecture and its atmosphere. I moved to Hamburg and stayed for various reasons one of which was my business startup. The city has an exciting startup culture that provides a lot of variety and the community is very strong here. Everyone knows each other and there is a constant exchange of ideas. The spirit is very collaborative, rather than competing you help each other. Therefore, you don’t have to make every mistake yourself in Hamburg. I believe this cross-company exchange has helped a lot of startups. As far as our conference, MTP Engage is concerned, Hamburg as a location offers many advantages. Visitors are attracted to the city and enjoy the maritime atmosphere. We always add a lot of Hamburg feeling to the event — people love it. Even the collaborative nature of the event is received positively by the visitors.
Regarding product development, what have successful Hamburg-based companies such as Xing, AboutYou, MyTaxi or facelift done right?
Some companies I know from the inside, on the others I can only offer an outside opinion. I believe they managed to maintain an optimal level of professionalism by hiring a lot of all-rounders at the beginning and moving on to experts later. For product development, this is equally important as a healthy corporate culture. Of course it’s also very advantageous to have the right idea at the right time and the courage to try out new things. Product development is like a bet. You develop your product, and then you just have to wait and see how your product is received in the market. You need the courage to experiment.
What are the biggest hurdles in product development?
The biggest danger is to develop and build something, only to discover later that nobody needs what you’ve built. There are techniques to minimise the risk of this happening. Talk to the user early on and get used the possibility that many of your own ideas may not turn out to be good. A good product manager must be able to quickly and efficiently test which ideas are good and which are not. The biggest danger is to fall for the wrong idea, and the biggest hurdle is not knowing how to minimise that risk by experimenting a lot.
Is it all just about the user experience or can you also incorporate your own, possibly contrary, needs?
Product development really is all about balancing three conditions:
- Can we create value for the customer? And is it a value for which he is also willing to spend money — otherwise there will be no business.
- Can we design the product in such a way that the user can understand and use it?
- Are we technically and financially able to produce the product and do we have enough qualified people?
These are the three conditions you have to satisfy — they are not contradictory though. If you cannot reconcile them, you have no product, or if the economic interests outweigh the user experience, it is not a good product. Venn diagrams are often drawn to visualise this necessary balance.
User stories, how important are they in product development?
There are many definitions to the term “user stories”, but above all it’s storytelling and I believe that this is a very important aspect in product development. Good product managers are nearly always masters of storytelling. That’s why we’re talking so much about companies like Apple and Tesla: Because they tell us an emotional story of how the product creates benefits for me as a user. That’s what made Apple so very strong and successful.
Most people know the term “user stories” from agile development or from their scrum teams. Quite often, unfortunately, user stories are treated as a formality. As a result, they amount to nothing more than a zombie without content. That is not very helpful. You have to convey a believable and relevant story of how your product improves the current situation of the users.
What if I have a good idea that I want to turn into a product? What do I need to do first?
Write down your idea on two or three pages. Ask yourself how the world is now and how it would be if your product were available. Would there be any improvement for the user? This should bring some clarity to what you want to do. After that get your first round of feedback from your immediate circle. Then make a list of your hypotheses regarding your product (“I think the user would want to do this and that …”) and consider how you can validate your assumptions. And don’t forget: You are not the user. If this is your first experience with product development, get yourself some outside help. Perspectively from a UX agency or a development agency that is also strong in conception. Before you do, find out whom others have asked to help them in their own product development. Fortunately, there are many useful meetups and events here in Hamburg such as the “Product Tank” or the “Meetups of Hamburg Startups” where you can get in touch with professionals. Hamburg’s open and welcoming startup culture offers you endless possibilities to exchange views and further shape your ideas.
Minimum Viable Products (MVP) are an initial design of the product. Which product aspects must already be contained, which are not so important initially?
There is some debate whether the “P” in MVP stands for “prototype” or “product” as its definition is not so clear. Regardless, it’s about the question of what you really want to learn in this development step. What is still been missing from your product and what is not. If you want to find out if the product will sell, an MVP could be placed on a small landing page — like it already exists — to allow your target audience to put themselves on a waiting list. If there is a numerous and positive response, you know that there is a general interest in your product. In this stage, you’ve not worked on the actual solution much. A lot is still missing. If, on the other hand, you want to test whether people are ordering a physical product, use it and rate it afterwards, then you may need a small online shop where you can exactly test the case. I always call this a walking skeleton. The bones, the scaffolding, are all there, but the meat is still missing. Like I mentioned before, it all depends on what you want to test exactly.
If we treat Hamburg like a product, what would be its most important features, without which the product would no longer work for you?
I’m a product manager trough and through and I say: It depends. Of course, you have to look for which “customer”. A young family, a tourist, or a business traveller naturally has different needs that the city should meet. But at the end of the day, it’s Hamburg’s openness, its open-minded culture that I mentioned. You can tell that Hamburg was always a port city, was always open and that the world is always a welcome guest in Hamburg. I believe that’s the most important feature. Without it, Hamburg would not be the city or the product it is.
Thanks for reading! We, the Startup-Unit, hope you enjoyed this insight. We’ll be posting articles on a weekly basis about the hanseatic startup scene and everything related to founding a company. For further information about the city and its thriving startup ecosystem visit startup-unit.hamburg.
