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The Product-Led Organization: Drive Growth By Putting Product at the Center of Your Customer Experience
A roadmap for software product teams on designing a great user experience
There was a time when companies could get away with mediocre product experiences. But not any more. Today, consumers expect products that delight. Once someone begins using a digital product, their unique experience unfolds. How you shape that experience is integral to customer satisfaction and future sales. The Data-Driven Product: How to Design, Build, and Evolve Software Customers Can't Live Without guides product teams and their leaders in designing a delightful experience directly inside their web and mobile applications. The book explains why some software products fail to measure up in the eyes of the users--and how to avoid that fate.
This book helps product managers, user experience designers, team leaders, and other stakeholders create software their customers love to use. It provides:
A holistic view of the quantitative and qualitative insights teams need to make better decisions and shape better product experiences A guide to setting goals for product success and measuring progress toward meeting them A playbook for incorporating sales and marketing activities, service and support, as well as onboarding and education into the product Strategies for soliciting, organizing and prioritizing feedback from customers and other stakeholders; and how to use those inputs to create an effective product roadmap The Data-Driven Product was written by a co-founder of Pendo--a SaaS company and innovator in providing software for product managers. The book reflects the author's passion and dedication to sharing what it takes to build great products.
There was a time when companies could get away with mediocre product experiences. But not any more. Today, consumers expect products that delight. Once someone begins using a digital product, their unique experience unfolds. How you shape that experience is integral to customer satisfaction and future sales. The Data-Driven Product: How to Design, Build, and Evolve Software Customers Can't Live Without guides product teams and their leaders in designing a delightful experience directly inside their web and mobile applications. The book explains why some software products fail to measure up in the eyes of the users--and how to avoid that fate.
This book helps product managers, user experience designers, team leaders, and other stakeholders create software their customers love to use. It provides:
A holistic view of the quantitative and qualitative insights teams need to make better decisions and shape better product experiences A guide to setting goals for product success and measuring progress toward meeting them A playbook for incorporating sales and marketing activities, service and support, as well as onboarding and education into the product Strategies for soliciting, organizing and prioritizing feedback from customers and other stakeholders; and how to use those inputs to create an effective product roadmap The Data-Driven Product was written by a co-founder of Pendo--a SaaS company and innovator in providing software for product managers. The book reflects the author's passion and dedication to sharing what it takes to build great products.
- GenresBusinessDesignNonfiction
272 pages, Hardcover
Published September 23, 2020
86 people are currently reading
362 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 25, 2022
This book is written the by co-founder and CEO of the company Pendo. Pendo's product is referenced throughout the book, which makes it feel content-markethingy.
The book is more relevant to product management for B2B companies - especially SaaS - than to B2B. Again, this fits Pendo's customer profile.
The book is full of frameworks and tactics and examples of how Pendo's product helps product teams solve problems. Unlike the title suggests, it's a bit light on "organization". Putting all this together; this is a decent book about Product Management.
The book is more relevant to product management for B2B companies - especially SaaS - than to B2B. Again, this fits Pendo's customer profile.
The book is full of frameworks and tactics and examples of how Pendo's product helps product teams solve problems. Unlike the title suggests, it's a bit light on "organization". Putting all this together; this is a decent book about Product Management.
January 26, 2023
Love the company, Pendo, and love their services (which we use a lot on my team). This was a pretty good product 101 book. It's in that format where each chapter could have entire books written, so it's just skimming the surface and leaving you desiring a little bit more and more depth. Despite this, I think this was a solid product book.
Book rating criteria; to help objectify my ratings.
1. Will I read it again?
No, probably not.
2. Would I recommend this to others?
Yes, I think this is a good intro to product-type book, that's pretty high-level and comprehensive.
3. Am I smarter, better or wiser as a result of this book (was the learning worth the time investment)?
Umm, I think I picked up a couple things from it, but nothing substantial.
4. Was I entertained while reading this/it kept my attention?
Yes, was pretty easy to read.
5. This book was just the right length?
Yes, just right.
Book rating criteria; to help objectify my ratings.
1. Will I read it again?
No, probably not.
2. Would I recommend this to others?
Yes, I think this is a good intro to product-type book, that's pretty high-level and comprehensive.
3. Am I smarter, better or wiser as a result of this book (was the learning worth the time investment)?
Umm, I think I picked up a couple things from it, but nothing substantial.
4. Was I entertained while reading this/it kept my attention?
Yes, was pretty easy to read.
5. This book was just the right length?
Yes, just right.
October 31, 2024
Definitely more of a product management book than an organizational book. I'd view this more as an addendum to Inspired by Marty Cagan than a book about building product organizations. With that lens, it's quite useful for those new to the field or 0-3 years removed from college.
January 14, 2023
The Product-Led Organisation: Drive Growth By Putting Product at the Center of Your Customer Experience by Todd Olson is an engaging and motivating read that outlines a refreshing approach to creating customer experience. It was well structured, contained original ideas, linked in well with referenced methodologies/concepts which Todd challenges where appropriate, and doesn’t oversell the use of Pendo (despite it being an awesome tool that I ❤️).
Todd’s book is built upon the idea that the customer’s experience with a product should be the focal point for a company’s growth strategy and provides a practical, actionable set of steps for all levels of product teams. By putting the customer’s needs at the centre of your organisation’s goals, Todd’s framework offers an approach that can be used to achieve maximum customer satisfaction, increased customer loyalty, and improved revenue and conversion rates.
The Product-Led Organization is a must-have resource for product teams, managers, and executives interested in creating an effective product strategy. Todd has delivered an important message that should be heard by product teams everywhere – that product development should be driven by customer needs, rather than what companies think their customers need. It’s a book that I highly recommend, and one that I plan to implement many of the ideas in. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
Todd’s book is built upon the idea that the customer’s experience with a product should be the focal point for a company’s growth strategy and provides a practical, actionable set of steps for all levels of product teams. By putting the customer’s needs at the centre of your organisation’s goals, Todd’s framework offers an approach that can be used to achieve maximum customer satisfaction, increased customer loyalty, and improved revenue and conversion rates.
The Product-Led Organization is a must-have resource for product teams, managers, and executives interested in creating an effective product strategy. Todd has delivered an important message that should be heard by product teams everywhere – that product development should be driven by customer needs, rather than what companies think their customers need. It’s a book that I highly recommend, and one that I plan to implement many of the ideas in. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
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December 31, 2023I bought this book mainly because it was written by the CEO of one of Raleigh's latest unicorns, Pendo, and I could add it to my collection of Raleigh CEO "The ______ Organization" books (see Jim Whitehurst's book on this list from 2015). However, as a product-focused machine learning engineer I'm also really interested in continuing to build my product development chops. The book turned out to be pretty standard product advice: empathize with your users, drive towards simplicity, instrument your product to measure engagement, and run experiments.
October 11, 2021
Timely and practical
There’s something here for everyone, and as long as you stay open minded as you read I expect you’ll learn something new, nod your head a lot, relate the content to a few of your own experiences, and see items that are interesting but not applicable to you.
Well worth the few hours it takes to read. Enjoy!
There’s something here for everyone, and as long as you stay open minded as you read I expect you’ll learn something new, nod your head a lot, relate the content to a few of your own experiences, and see items that are interesting but not applicable to you.
Well worth the few hours it takes to read. Enjoy!
December 9, 2023
A good overview of what it takes to become a product-led B2B company. If you’ve read books about product management or startups before, this won’t bring much new to the table. The book does however a good job pointing out critical things every business has to consider when it comes to their product.
February 1, 2022
I enjoyed this book. I think the author touches on a lot of great points to be a great product person. The area I found most interesting was onboarding because this is the start of any customer journey.
November 7, 2022
Very basic and heavily skewed to just be a funnel for the writers company. Felt more like a McKinsey report full of shallow words and things that could have been picked up easily. No depth that I was looking for in the book.
A few interesting areas, but mostly mumbo jumbo.
A few interesting areas, but mostly mumbo jumbo.
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February 7, 2024I'm not sure how useful of a read this would be for someone who is not using Pendo. But we've just started using it, so the book has been good at giving good for thought on how to track and measure features.
February 25, 2021
DNF: I feel like there could be good information in here but it’s not well organized and maybe I’ll just use it as a reference guide instead of full reading material
March 6, 2021
It was a bit all over the place at times, but generally there is a lot of good information about product management for people new to the space and there are even a few good tips for the old hats.
April 22, 2021
Primarily obvious points on good product management practices, with one two interesting points.
June 13, 2021
Great read with practical guidance and examples on what it means to be product-led.
August 8, 2021
Introduction into product management and PLG (product led marketing/growth)
April 5, 2022
A good book despite the fact there are a lot of distinct subjects in each chapter. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed.
October 26, 2022
It’s an extremely lengthy ad for Pendo but it has a lot of useful info about how to child a company around a product (instead of the reverse.)
September 21, 2023
Good and comprehensive overview of what PLG is. Perhaps a bit too much sneak-promotion of Pendo, the authors company
December 29, 2024
Solid strategic advice for product managers and other adjacent software roles. 7.8/10.
March 10, 2025
Inspiring; definitely planning to reread.
September 27, 2023
This was good except for the times it diverted into an advertisement for Pendo. The beginning and the end were the best parts, especially when it talked about Product Ops, which I believe to be the new frontier of the product management discipline.
July 19, 2021
Who: should read this book? Product Managers, especially Software Product Managers, and those that work in related fields, anyone working in a software company really.
Why: Software is eating the world, we better make sure it's creating value. Pendo's mission is to improve the world's experience with software. The company name literally means Value in Latin and Love in Swahili. They exist to make software people love and to love delivering value.
Todd founded this company after decades in software development, entrepreneurship and product management to deliver on this purpose. He has further collected the lessons he has learned from his own experience, that of his customers and partners in the product management ecosystem.
How: This book lays out how: the techniques and methods of modern product management with detailed and expansive options. This is in addition to the Pendo Product cloud platform (that Todd mentions but certainly does not push in the book.
What: This book is an extensive list of options, guidance and methods that will be handy for Product Managers to orient themselves and to refer back to dig back into detail on specifics when needed.
4 Star reviews mean I really enjoyed this book, I will likely read it again someday. I would recommend it to many people and it changed my mind about something important.
Why: Software is eating the world, we better make sure it's creating value. Pendo's mission is to improve the world's experience with software. The company name literally means Value in Latin and Love in Swahili. They exist to make software people love and to love delivering value.
Todd founded this company after decades in software development, entrepreneurship and product management to deliver on this purpose. He has further collected the lessons he has learned from his own experience, that of his customers and partners in the product management ecosystem.
How: This book lays out how: the techniques and methods of modern product management with detailed and expansive options. This is in addition to the Pendo Product cloud platform (that Todd mentions but certainly does not push in the book.
What: This book is an extensive list of options, guidance and methods that will be handy for Product Managers to orient themselves and to refer back to dig back into detail on specifics when needed.
4 Star reviews mean I really enjoyed this book, I will likely read it again someday. I would recommend it to many people and it changed my mind about something important.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews