Building Digital Products
The Ultimate Handbook for Product Managers
The Ultimate Handbook for Product Managers
About The Book
About The Book
Building Digital Products is designed for the new product manager who feels in way over their head, the experienced product manager looking to step up his or her game, and the expert product manager who understands that there is always more to learn.
Building Digital Products Now on Amazon!
Building Digital Products Now on Amazon!
Building Digital Products is now available on Amazon! Grab a paperback or Kindle copy today or buy one for your favorite product manager.
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What's In the Book?
What's In the Book?
Time is your greatest commodity.
What will you learn in "Building Digital Products"?
Time is your greatest commodity.
What will you learn in "Building Digital Products"?
Problem Identification
Problem Identification
Building the Right Team
Building the Right Team
Selling Your Solution
Selling Your Solution
Promoting Your Product
Promoting Your Product
Achieving Your MVP Goals
Achieving Your MVP Goals
Solution Ideation
Solution Ideation
The Right Data to Track
The Right Data to Track
Defining and Sharing Success
Defining and Sharing Success
Supporting Your Products
Supporting Your Products
Integrations
Integrations
Build vs. Buy
Build vs. Buy
Checklists to Keep You Sane
Checklists to Keep You Sane
It's easy to get overwhelmed as a product manager. Stay in control with simple checklists for many common challenges. They're not everything, but they'll get you started on the right track.
100 Tools for Product Owners
100 Tools for Product Owners
The right toolkit is the difference between a good product manager and a great one. Check out our list of the 100 most important tools for a product manager, including products for Idea Management, A/B Testing, Collaboration, and Customer Engagement.
The Product Development Timeline
The Product Development Timeline
Every product development timeline is different. However, there are many similarities about what parts of the timeline cause the most stress, have the highest financial value, and lead to the lowest morale.
Case Studies
Case Studies
Learn from the mistakes and successes of product managers at Webs, Pagemodo, Vistaprint, and other technology companies through in-depth case studies.
The Agile Urban Dictionary
The Agile Urban Dictionary
You know the traditional definitions for all of the agile buzzwords. Learn what they really mean with this Urban Dictionary for Agile.
Who Wrote This Thing?
Who Wrote This Thing?
Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell
Sr. Product Manager
(Webs/Pagemodo/Vistaprint)
Sr. Product Manager
(Webs/Pagemodo/Vistaprint)
Alex is passionate about creating and growing powerful web and mobile products that make a significant impact in millions of people's lives.
He currently works for Vistaprint as the Sr. Product Manager and Head of the Websites and Domains products. Previously, he's managed the Social Media Marketing Product for both the Vistaprint and Pagemodo brands. Additionally in his prior role, he managed the Local Listings Product for both the Vistaprint and Webs brands.
On the weekend, you're likely to find him on the National Mall playing flag football.
Find more about Alex at www.alexmitchell.co
Feedback? Let us know!
Feedback? Let us know!
Are we missing something? Let us know and we'll add it to the next version of Building Digital Products.
Are we missing something? Let us know and we'll add it to the next version of Building Digital Products.
Top 100 Tools for Product Managers
Top 100 Tools for Product Managers
IDEA MANAGEMENT AND SYNDICATION
• Medium: Everyone’s stories and ideas.
• Javelin: Test your startup idea without wasting time or money.
• Germ.io: Get from idea to execution.
• Skitch by Evernote: Your ideas become reality faster.
SURVEYS and A/B TESTING
• Typeform: Free beautiful online survey & form builder.
• Qualaroo: Get feedback from users with an interactive survey widget.
• Optimizely: One optimization platform for websites and mobile apps.
• Tally: Create polls in no time.
LEARN
• Coursera: Free online classes from 80+ top universities & organizations.
• Khan Academy: Free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.
• Skillshare: Unlock your creativity with free online classes & projects.
• Codecademy: Learn to code interactively, for free.
• How to Start a Startup: As an Audio Podcast or As Online Course
• Startup Notes: Startup School invites amazing founders to tell their story.
• ThePitch (Podcast): Where founders pitch their startups to investors.
• Pricing Course: A free 9 day course on charging what you’re worth.
• GrowthHackers: Exactly what it sounds like.
EMAIL MANAGEMENT
• Mailchimp: Send 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers for free.
• ManyContactsBar: Free contact form sits on top of your website.
• Hello Bar: Get more email subscribers.
• Sumome List Builder: Collect email addresses with light box popover.
• Sumome Scroll Box: Capture more email addresses, politely.
ORGANIZE & COLLABORATE
• Trello: Keeps track of everything.
• Evernote: The workspace for your life’s work.
• Dropbox: Free space up to 2GB.
• Slack: Free for unlimited users with few limited features.
• HipChat: Free for unlimited users with few limited features.
• Google Hangouts: Bring conversations to life with photos, emoji and group video calls.
• Join.me: Free screen sharing and video/phone calls.
• FreeConferenceCall: Decent conference call quality (even international) for $0.
SUPPORT AND ENGAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS
• Intercom: A fundamentally new way to communicate with your customers.
• Zendesk: Brings companies and their customers closer together.
MOBILE
• Mobile Action: Killer app store optimization and analytics platform. All you need in addition to iTunes tracking to understand your app under <100k downloads.
• Parse: A free push notification service (up to 1MM messages/month) to integrate into your app.
• Apptentive: The tools you need to listen to, engage with, and retain your mobile customers in-app.
ANALYTICS AND EVENT TRACKING
• Mixpanel: Define and track events, segments, and funnels quickly and easily.
• HeapAnalytics: Mixpanel without any development work needed to create events.
• Google Analytics: Your go-to free platform for tracking site visitors, mapping behaviors, and creating live dashboards.
FIND CONTENT AND TRACK TRENDS
• Buzzsumo: Analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor.
• Feedly: Compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize & share.
• Google Trends: A new way of displaying trending searches.
SEO + WEBSITE ANALYZERS
• SimilarWeb: Analyze website statistics for any domain.
• Open Site Explorer by Moz: A comprehensive tool for link analysis.
• Ahrefs: Site explorer & backlink checker.
• Quick Sprout: Complete analysis of your website.
• SEO Site Checkup: SCheck your website’s SEO problems for free.
• SERPs Rank Checker: Free keyword rank & SERP checker.
• Google Pagespeed Insights: Check the performance of your site.
• Pingdom: Test the load time of a site.
SCREENSHOTS/MOCKUPS OF APPS AND WEBSITES
• Dunnnk: Beautiful mockups.
• InstaMockup: Create beautiful screenshots of your app or website.
IMAGE EDITORS
• Canva: Amazingly simple graphic design for bloggers.
• Social Image Resizer Tool: Create optimized images for social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA + COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
• Pagemodo: Everything you need for a powerful Social Media presence.
• SocialRank: Identify, organize, and manage your followers on Twitter.
• WriteRack: The best way to tweetstorm.
• MyTweetLinks: Increases Twitter traffic.
• Latergramme: Easily plan & schedule your Instagram posts.
• Justunfollow: Follow / unfollow people on Twitter & Instagram.
• Ritetag: Instant hashtag analysis.
• Bitly: Create, share, and track shortened links.
• Addthis: Get more shares, follows and conversions.
• App Review Monitor: App reviews delivered to Slack and your inbox.
• Presskit Generator: Generate a Press Kit for your iOS App for free.
DESIGN RESOURCES AND INSPIRATION
• Invision: Connect your comps together for easier demos and user testing.
• Freebbble: High-quality design freebies from Dribbble.
• Google Fonts: Free, open-source fonts optimized for the web.
• The Noun Project: Thousands of glyph icons from different artists.
• Premium Pixels: Free stuff for creatives.
• Fribbble: Free PSD resources by Dribbblers curated by Gilbert Pellegrom.
• SketchAppResources: Free graphical resources.
• Squarespace Free Logo: You can download free low-res version for free.
• Site Inspire: Web design inspiration.
• Land-Book: Product landing pages gallery.
• Icon Finder: Free icon section of the website.
FREE STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY
• Stock Up: Best free stock photo websites in one place.
• Pexels: Best free photos in one place.
• All The Free Stock: Free stock images, icons, and videos.
• Unsplash: Free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos.
• Startup Stock Photos: Go. Make something.
• Super Famous: Photos by Dutch interaction designer Folkert Gorter.
• Picography: Free hi-resolution photos.
• Pixabay: Free high quality images.
QA AND TESTING
• Window Resizer: See how your site looks on various screen resolutions.
• CrossBrowserTesting: Test your site on the same browsers and devices your customers use.
DISCOVER TOOLS & STARTUPS
• Product Hunt: Curation of the best new products, every day.
• Launching Next: Get the best new startups delivered to your inbox daily.
• Inbound: Get trending inbound marketing info in your inbox.
• Angellist: Where the world meets startups.
• Beta List: Discover and get early access to tomorrow’s startups.
NEWSLETTERS THAT DON’T SUCK
• Startup Digest: Personalized newsletter for all things startup in your area.
• Tech.co: A refreshing alternative to TechCrunch.
• TheSkimm: An edgy update on what happened in the last 24 hours.
OUTSOURCING
• Elance: Now apparently called UpWork.
• Guru: Find and hire talented freelancers for anything.
• Gun.io: Find the development help you need. You even get a “Hacker Ambassador” to show you the way.
LEGAL
• CooleyGo: Incorporation Packages and other free legal documents:
• Kiss: Free legal docs for startup founders and investor.
• Docracy: An open collection of free legal documents.
• Shake: Create, sign and send legally binding agreements in seconds. Free for personal use.