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How product managers can challenge ideas to achieve long-term success.

We can learn a lot from examining the journey of a product and this interview looks at the product story of Badger Maps, the market-leading route planning app for field salespeople.

I spoke with Jimmy Hooker, the Head of Product at Badger Maps, to get the story. He’s been with Badger since the beginning, where his initial responsibilities were designing and implementing the web app front-end along with designing the mobile apps. Since then, he’s taken on product management, managing the marketing website, SEO strategy, and analytics. He’s passionate about product and obsessed with making useful easy-to-use tools.

From the discussion you’ll learn:

1. Sources for product ideas,
2. How to validate your plans for solving the customers’ problem, and
3. Ways to form the vision for a product.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[1:48] What is Badger Maps?

The main goal is to make outside salespeople more efficient by optimizing their routes and look at the map in a strategic way. It works in a browser or on a phone.

[3:23] What stage was the company in when the product was developed?

We were an unfunded startup. We were a very small team and we were all very green; it was our first time creating something from scratch. We built the design and UI and product market fit. It was exciting, but challenging to figure out without the resources of a large company.

[5:30] Were you hired for a product management role?

No, I was hired as the lead designer. I had worked in Linux operations and done design contract work on the side. I really wanted to do it full-time and a friend of mine was Badger’s CTO so he brought me on. I ended up using my Linux knowledge for deployment, but I was brought on initially to design the product and design the website.

[6:48] Where did the idea for Badger Maps come from?

Our CEO, Steve Benson, had worked in sales at Google. He worked with G-suite and Google Maps doing a combination of inside and outside sales. He heard from a lot of customers asking about custom Google Maps overlays that integrated something about their business or their customer base. Badger was created to meet that need, but we ended up refining it to specifically serve outside salespeople. Steve’s experience brought us a lot of credibility in that area.

[9:20] How did you validate your solutions?

The main goal initially was to create optimized routes for field sales reps. Steve would call his former colleagues and convince them to use the product and give us feedback. It was very bare bones at first and early adopters were willing to come along on the journey with us. It took a long time, but we found something that really worked for people.

[16:38] What was the product development team like in the beginning?

We hired contractors for a few specific things and eventually brought in Agile and Scrum. Early on, the CTO and I had a very close working relationship. I could mock something up and he would know what needed to be done to make it work technically. We’re now doing test-driven development and more traditional product management. We learned those skills when we outsourced developing our iOS app. We weren’t getting what we wanted because we gave them information that wasn’t as well-defined as it should be. We weren’t critical of our design and our process because we hadn’t needed to be.

[20:40] How did product management become part of your role?

I realized that I needed to become much better at defining a feature and creating a workflow around it in order to get my ideas into the app. I learned how to be self-critical and become a better communicator. If you had something off that hasn’t been evaluated enough or has holes in it, it’s going to get kicked back halfway through development and waste everyone’s time. I didn’t anticipate how much thinking should be done before the real work begins.

[23:30] Where is the product’s vision now?

We have a huge amount of customer feedback. They love our product and want more. We have a clear idea of what the most important features are that we want to implement next based on what we hear from customers. We’re also trying to see problems before customers do and create solutions that will solve them. In the beginning, I would just go for it when I had an idea and that mindset still exists. Other times, we’ll look at the data or draw from customer feedback. All of those elements come together in a holistic way.

[27:43] How are you reaching new customers?

Our PR person does a good job of getting exposure for us. SEO is also really important for us. When we first built the blog for our website, it was on Tumblr. The traffic increased dramatically when we moved it onto our site. We also have email campaigns and didn’t realize how important they were early on. We also use Adwords and do other types of outreach. Luckily for us, salespeople appreciate a good pitch and don’t mind being cold called. Sales also has high turnover so we’ve benefitted from network effects.

[31:03] What have you learned about product management?

The ability to accept an enormous amount of criticism and challenge your own thinking. It can be easy to think of product ideas as intuitions handed down from on high that you pass along to developers and designers. In reality, you’re handed a block of marble and need to chip away at it until it becomes an idea. Being able to subject your ideas to scrutiny and criticism is the most important thing I’ve learned and I’ve come to enjoy the process. I’ve learned to divorce myself from my ideas — I enjoy them but their success is not tied to my well-being.

Useful Links

• Badger Maps
• Connect with Jimmy via his LinkedIn profile

 

Innovation Quote

“A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Our decision-making is better when we draw on the collective knowledge and unvarnished opinions of the group.” -Ed Catmull, Pixar

 

Thanks!

Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it on social media.