Product: Knowledge

If you ask Mom what she thinks about your new product, she’ll lie and tell you it’s fabulous — even if nothing could be farther from the truth. When you’re launching an innovative product, product-market fit is essential. That means knowing a sufficient, reachable customer base will be more excited about the product than you are. Conducting validation research is crucial. But the questions you ask...

Manufacturing in China is different. How different is hard to describe if you’ve never seen it. It’s not that there are cities with factories. There are cities OF factories. And those cities often specialize in a particular kind of manufacturing. Competition is extreme and cutting corners is common. Having a good idea for a product is one thing, but you can’t exactly open the yellow pages and find...

Paragraph A licensing deal can be transformative to an inventor or product brand. It can open up new markets and create ongoing passive income. But doing it wrong can be a nightmare and leave piles of money on the table.  In our fourth instalment of Product: Knowledge, we did a fly-over of intellectual property with Erika Murray , an Intellectual Property Lawyer and Director of Innovation at PCK I...

A little research into “Product Marketing” and the name Justin Jackson will show up, a lot. Whether he’s running his podcasting platform Transistor.fm, his bootstrapper community MegaMaker, writing his blog, juggling multiple podcasts and Twitter accounts while being daddy to his four kids, Justin Jackson is remarkably prolific.   Justin thinks about product launches and marketing a lot, because h...

A little research into “Product Marketing” and the name Justin Jackson will show up, a lot. Whether he’s running his podcasting platform Transistor.fm, his bootstrapper community MegaMaker, writing his blog, juggling multiple podcasts and Twitter accounts while being daddy to his four kids, Justin Jackson is remarkably prolific.   Justin thinks about product launches and marketing endlessly, becau...

Video, at least television, has been around for a long time. Commercials and product demos have been around forever. So why are we talking about video as though it’s something new and mysterious? We’re talking about video because digital marketing adds complexity and sharability.   Video is a cool medium: the audience is passive. They feel what - more or less - what they're shown to feel. But emot...

If you’re preparing to launch a new product—or have ever relished the experience of removing one from its packaging—this episode is for you. The popularity of “unboxing” is just one illustration of how important product packaging has become. Packaging is no longer merely to “protect, deliver and entice;” but a highly experiential differentiating opportunity for smart product brands. Guest Dave Hop...

Filip Valica is a mechanical engineer who has worked for large corporations and as founder of The Product Startup has coached numerous product brands through his development and launch process, a comprehensive view of the product lifecycle that begins with an original idea and culminates with sales. In this episode, he describes how product design extends into every stage, and why each is importan...

Part 1 of 2: Alan Klement wrote "When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become great at making products people will buy." The book provides a new way of thinking about your business: people don't buy your product for features, they hire your product to do a job: to make their life better. Klement's "Jobs to Be Done" (JTBD) idea is game-changing, transforming how product marketers approach and understand pr...

Part 2 of 2: Alan Klement wrote "When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become great at making products people will buy." The book provides a new way of thinking about your business: people don't buy your product for features, they hire your product to do a job: to make their life better. Klement’s perspective on “Jobs to Be Done” (JTBD) is game-changing, transforming how product marketers approach and und...

Bryn, Laurier, and Andreas discuss ideas from the classic book, “Crossing The Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers” by Geoffrey A. Moore. Until Moore’s book codified and revolutionized how marketers think and talk about product marketing, a “customer” was perceived as anyone who might potentially buy a product. But there are vastly different optimum buyer types...

Life in the information age has transformed what we mean by "products." A product used to be anything you could taste/touch/feel. Today, information about a products is just as, or more valuable, than the product itself. Securities laws and Intellectual Property (IP) law are all about the legal protection of information. Episode 7 puts a spotlight on IP. Intellectual Property is Erika Murray's spe...

Haagen Dazs and Doritos are made-up words, meant to sound Norwegian and Spanish. Your own name is the sweetest sound you've ever heard. But what would have happened had Jeff Bezos given Amazon his preferred name: Cadabra (as in Abracadabra)? What if Starbucks had used its first choice: Cargo House? Names can be a boon or a bust. Laurier Mandin and Andreas Schwabe talk with Bryn Griffiths about bra...

Obsession brands are everyone's standout favourite. Consumers will pay more, wait in line, or travel out of their way to get the brands they're obsessed with. But what's really so special about one brand versus another? Why do consumers flock to one product, and ignore nearly identical competitors? Bryn Griffiths talks with product marketing expert Laurier Mandin about how to make obsession brandi...

Welcome to Episode 1 of Product: Knowledge is an introduction to Product Marketing, which isn't just marketing products. Graphos specializes in Product Marketing - which takes businesses from product development, market research, and consumer engagement. Host Bryn Griffiths talks with Laurier Mandin, CEO and Principal of Graphos, and Andreas Schwabe, Graphos' director of Media Services to talk abo...