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Product management is riddled with buzzwords—growth loops, power user curves, big data, AI—and the sheer number of metrics, retention types, charts, and frameworks can overwhelm attempts to understand users and make better products for them.
But strip away the jargon, and the problem that product managers are solving today suddenly becomes very clear. The specifics will vary by product and market context, but essentially, every product manager wants the same thing: to build products that customers find valuable.
Makes sense. If COVID-19 can teach us anything about product management, it’s this: there’s no room for products that don’t bring value to the customer. The pandemic has put every single product and service to a value test. It has also put every single business to an agility test: How quickly can you adapt and pivot when the lives of your users change dramatically?
That, of course, depends on how well you understand your users—which depends, in turn, on your ability to ask the right questions and use data to get the answers you need. From defining product value, to measuring it and prioritizing what’s next, this book is about using product analytics to build a sustainable path for growth.
We wrote this book in collaboration with dozens of product leaders, people who earned their stripes at companies like Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter. We wrote it for product managers, but it’s really for anyone who wants to deeply understand how people use products—without coding or asking a data analytics team. Because when more people can ask product questions and get answers quickly, companies move faster, build better products, and create more value for everyone.
The questions in this book are grouped into broad but practical categories that will help you learn such important things as:
- What exactly do I need to measure in my product?
- How do I account for different types of users in my analysis?
- How do I narrow my focus around a single conversion flow to iterate faster?
- Where are my best users coming from?
Lastly, we are a product analytics company, so throughout the book, we’ll show you some hands-on examples of how you can answer these questions with Mixpanel. And just like with any digital product today, this book will be continuously updated. You can find the most up-to-date version at mixpanel.com/content/guide-to-product-analytics/.