Lean Mean Product Machine – Dan Olsen on The Product Experience

After leaving the Navy and working on nuclear submarines, Dan Olsen embarked on a career that has spanned enterprises and start-ups, consulting, speaking, writing, and running the Lean Product & Lean UX meetup. He joined us to talk about product/market fit: what it is, how to know when you have it, and how to achieve it.
Quote of the Episode
[The definition of product-market fit:] When customers agree that your product creates enough value for them relative to the other options that are available.
There’s definitely no guarantee that you’re going to achieve product/market fit… You’re trying to navigate to a destination that doesn’t exist yet – that’s the exciting part.
Listen if you’d like to learn more about

* What is product/market fit? Understanding the 5 elements in the pyramid.
* How do you know you have it?
* How do you get it?
* Value proposition

Links mentioned in this episode

* Follow Dan on Twitter, check out his book, The Lean Product Playbook (US / UK / DE), and keep up with him at his site
* In Silicon Valley? Go along to his meetup, Lean Product & Lean UX
* Peter Thiel & Blake Masters, From Zero to One (US / UK / DE)
* Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky, Make Time (US / UK / DE)

Hosts
The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.
Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. Now the Product Director at Symec, Lily also runs ProductCamp in Bristol & Bath.
A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. Now a trainer, Discovery and Leadership consultant, he’s spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg and Manchester), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford, and Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music
Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more on their Facebook page
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