Ep 162: A product manager’s POV on building an app

In this episode, app marketers will learn about a product manager’s perspective on the process of building an app product, how to prioritize various requests for product features, and the keys to fostering excellent collaboration and communication among all stakeholders throughout the journey.

Reut Lazo is the Senior Product Manager at Akili, an app to help kids with ADHD. Akili is the first FDA-authorized prescription video game treatment for ADHD. Reut began her career as a product manager at Meta Co., an augmented reality headset company, before moving on to become a product manager at IMVU.

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• Where do you start with product strategy when you join a new company?
• What are some ways to do market research that work well, particularly for the product you’re trying to release?
• How do you prioritize the features users want based on feedback?
• How do you balance the needs of the various internal teams for product features, such as the marketing, monetization, and engineering teams?
• What are some of the things you think about when building out a product roadmap?
• How flexible should you be when putting together a product roadmap and how do you monitor the progress?
• How do you foster good internal communication and teamwork around the process of building an app product?

• 1:34 Reut’s background
• 5:24 Getting started with product strategy
• 7:28 Market research strategy
• 9:39 Prioritizing product features
• 11:40 Balancing stakeholder requests for product features
• 13:41 Building your product roadmap
• 15:33 Staying on track
• 18:30 On teamwork and communication

(9:46-9:58) “There are many ways to think about how to prioritize features: the functionality of your product, how it will affect the user, the impact of the feature itself, how big it is, and how urgent it is.”

(13:41-14:05) “The product roadmap is a visual representation of your product strategy. It outlines the key milestones, the features, and the timeline of your product and development process. Creating that product roadmap will help communicate to stakeholders and help everybody align on what we’re trying to achieve and the goal of it.”