Dan Schmidt

Dan Schmidt added an answer.

Step #1: Use your current qualifications to get a job in an area of a business where there is strategic white space. This implies that the business is stagnating in a key realm due to lack of clearly defined vision and there isn't a clear person whose role it is to define and execute the absent strategy.

Step #2: Fill the strategic white space. This implies articulating the need to define a strategy in this key realm, driving the process to do so in collaboration with others, and connecting the necessary dots to implement the strategy you defined.

Step #3: At this point, you will be operating as the product manager in addition to the responsibilities of your original job. However, assuming a healthy organization, it should be straightforward to make the case to management that the business would benefit from you focusing exclusively on product management, while handing off your previous responsibilities to someone else. They should recognize that enabling you to completely pour yourself into the product manager role is a means to take the business a fundamental step forward.

See question on Quora

In Product Management: Dan Schmidt added an answer.

I believe that the primary thing for a product manager to prioritize above all else is keeping yourself in a situation where you dictate what you and what your team does. This entails spending the time to think deeply about the vision and strategy for evolving your product, and socializing your plan with management and your team so that they are fully bought in, understand what you're doing, and trust you to execute it. This takes quite a bit of time and focus.

When I say "dictate what you do," it should not imply that you are closed to ideas from team members and unresponsive to directives from management. Instead, openness to input from others is a crucial ingredient in developing an optimal strategy. However, you must be the clear owner of your product; the primary synthesizer, filterer, and communicator of ideas pertaining to the strategy. When you do what's necessary to maintain this state (which is an ongoing effort), all other prioritization unfolds naturally based on the tactics of applying your strategy and the roles of other team members.

The primary difference I've seen between product managers who thrive versus those who struggle is whether they dictate what they do. Those who do not, end up on a treadmill of executing other people's projects that lack sufficient unity and direction to make meaningful impact.

See question on Quora

In Borders Books: Dan Schmidt voted up an answer.

This is a question that many of us at Borders asked ourselves frequently and I think the answer is not a simple one. As someone who has given this a tremendous amount of thought and was Director of Merchandise Planning & Analysis for many years, I've outlined my assessment below:

1. Failure to adequately address the internet sales channel and the subsequent ebook market. Specifically, the decision to outsource Borders.com to Amazon.com. To be fair, Borders.com was costing the company millions of dollars in losses each year ($20m I think when they decided to outsource) and one could argue that the outsourcing solution was a case of letting the most efficient etailing organization (Amazon.com) handle the job and turn a big negative into a profitable business. In the short-term, this saved a lot of money. In the long run, the internet is too important to outsource in this manner and Borders' branding, multi-channel strategy, and customer base suffered. They also dropped the ball on ebooks, but by the time this became an issue they were just trying to figure out how to keep the whole house from burning down around them, so I find it more understandable.
2. Poor real estate strategy - Borders leased space that was too large, the storefronts did not compare well to B&N, and they were complacent in picking and relocating existing stores to the best locations. Some of this is subjective as I don't have great data to back this up - just my own educated assessment based on observation.
3. Over-investment in music - while this was a big plus for Borders in the early to mid 90's, it was a disaster in the long run. This is why the stores were too big once the music business cratered - stores were sized and modeled to provide a large music CD business which largely disappeared. In addition, infrastructure was sized to support this business, including a dedicated warehouse distribution facility. This last part has been addressed over time, but soaked up money, time, and energy. Music was also part of what made Borders a destination for many customers, so when music sales tanked, other product categories' sales suffered as well.
4. Over-reliance on assortment size to compete as opposed to efficient operations - Borders was renowned for its wide and quality assortment of titles. The very large assortment size was an advantage early on before Amazon. However, by its very nature the internet was better at quickly and efficiently connecting customers with obscure titles and bringing the "long tail' to market. Thus, competing on assortment size was especially vulnerable to internet retailing and Borders suffered disproportionately as the "long tail" customers abandoned them.
5. Failure to build efficient systems and processes - While Borders legendary "expert system" was considered cutting edge and an advantage early on, the company failed to successfully build upon this foundation and create new, better assortment, replenishment, and supply chain systems and processes to keep pace with the changing state of technology and efficient retail operations. B&N invested considerable time/energy/money through the 90's in systems and processes. To provide one example, a lower ranked title that sells out in a B&N will be replenished from a central warehouse within 2-3 days. The same process could take up to 16 weeks for Borders. Borders sought to upgrade systems with two large efforts in the 00's: first one was a home grown effort called Common Systems. Second was a "buy and integrate" project to implement Retek and E3. Both failed spectacularly. The Retek effort dramatically hurt the Walden chain, the only business unit that was managed by the system. With both of these efforts, large sums of money and, perhaps more importantly, human resources and time were squandered.
6. Branding failure - In addition to the Borders.com problem, Borders never reached the mindshare that Barnes & Noble did for a variety of reasons. Also, Barnes & Noble secured the exclusive U.S. Starbucks partnership, a major branding and traffic-driving win for them.

See question on Quora

In Borders Books: Dan Schmidt voted up an answer.

This is a question that many of us at Borders asked ourselves frequently and I think the answer is not a simple one. As someone who has given this a tremendous amount of thought and was Director of Merchandise Planning & Analysis for many years, I've outlined my assessment below:

1. Failure to adequately address the internet sales channel and the subsequent ebook market. Specifically, the decision to outsource Borders.com to Amazon.com. To be fair, Borders.com was costing the company millions of dollars in losses each year ($20m I think when they decided to outsource) and one could argue that the outsourcing solution was a case of letting the most efficient etailing organization (Amazon.com) handle the job and turn a big negative into a profitable business. In the short-term, this saved a lot of money. In the long run, the internet is too important to outsource in this manner and Borders' branding, multi-channel strategy, and customer base suffered. They also dropped the ball on ebooks, but by the time this became an issue they were just trying to figure out how to keep the whole house from burning down around them, so I find it more understandable.
2. Poor real estate strategy - Borders leased space that was too large, the storefronts did not compare well to B&N, and they were complacent in picking and relocating existing stores to the best locations. Some of this is subjective as I don't have great data to back this up - just my own educated assessment based on observation.
3. Over-investment in music - while this was a big plus for this in the early to mid 90's, this was a disaster in the long run. This is basically why the stores were too big once the music business cratered. So, stores were sized and modeled to provide a large music CD business which largely disappeared. In addition, infrastructure was sized to support this, including a dedicated warehouse distribution facility. This last part has been addressed over time, but soaked up money, time, and energy. Note that music was also part of what made Borders a destination for many customers, so when music sales tanked, other product categories' sales suffered as well.
4. Over-reliance on assortment size to compete as opposed to efficient operations - Borders was renowned for its wide and quality assortment of titles. The very large assortment size was an advantage early on before Amazon. However, by its very nature the internet was better at quickly and efficiently connecting customers with obscure titles and bringing the "long tail' to market. Thus, Borders suffered disproportionately as the "long tail" customers abandoned them. Thus, competing on assortment size was especially vulnerable to internet retailing.
5. Failure to build efficient systems and processes - While Borders legendary "expert system" was considered cutting edge and an advantage early on, the company failed to successfully build upon this foundation and create new, better assortment, replenishment, and supply chain systems and processes to keep pace with the changing state of technology and efficient retail operations. B&N invested considerable time/energy/money through the 90's in systems and processes. To provide one example, a lower ranked title that sells out in a B&N will be replenished from a central warehouse within 2-3 days. The same process could take up to 16 weeks for Borders. Borders sought to upgrade systems with two large efforts in the 00's: first one was a home grown effort called Common Systems. Second was a "buy and integrate" project to implement Retek and E3. Both failed spectacularly. The Retek effort dramatically hurt the Walden chain, the only business unit that was managed by the system. With both of these efforts, large sums of money and, perhaps more importantly, human resources and time were squandered.
6. Branding failure - In addition to the Borders.com problem, Borders never reached the mindshare that Barnes & Noble did for a variety of reasons. Also, Barnes & Noble secured the exclusive U.S. Starbucks partnership, a major branding win for them.

See question on Quora

Dan Schmidt voted up an answer.

I just recently became aware that it was possible to run ads on StumbleUpon. I've been running a campaign for three weeks. The pros that I see so far are:

1. It is kind of like priming a pump. Running the ads increases the view count, likes, favorites and reviews for a link. As these numbers increase it causes people who are browsing categories on StumbleUpon who may see the link to infer that the link is worth visiting. Also as people favorite the site it gets pushed out to their followers. Both of these seem to result in an increase in "free stumbles" as the campaign progresses.

2. Expanding your audience and reaching "new visitors." In our case the new visitor rate from StumbleUpon is higher than Google Adwords and organic search (90% new visitors vs. 55% with Adwords).

3. It is targetable by topic, age, gender, and location.

4. I agree with Sean Ferguson who noted that it is easy, cheap traffic. I am paying 5 cents a click currently.

The con mentioned about high bounce rates is certainly a possibility depending on the site or page you are advertising and whether or not it lends itself to a subsequent action on the site (I am seeing a 33% bounce rate). There has to be some sort of hook that draws a person in on the page or else you will waste your money! Keep in mind people are clicking the "stumble" button and up pops your site. Within just a few seconds they will have decided if it is interesting enough to look at for awhile or click "stumble" again and move on to the next site. I think pages with humor / entertainment tend to do better than general / informational pages.

Every website is different. What works well for one site may not work well for another.

See question on Quora