What’s the right strategy for a product in a category that doesn’t exist? 

If you’re transitioning from a big company to a zero-to-one startup or just looking for fresh ways to validate new ideas, this session is for you. We’ll explore innovative tools, budget-friendly strategies, and tips to avoid common testing pitfalls - including when to move on and take a leap of faith. 

Over the last decade or more, product managers and tech companies have gained influence and a seat at the executive table.
Rich will talk about moving from internal translators of technical stories to directly gathering customer insights, driving strategy, and focusing on end customer value in addition to revenue.

Bio:  Rich Mironov is a 35-year veteran of software product management including 6 B2B startups. He is a smokejumper product executive – parachuting into software companies to run product teams on an interim basis – and has coached scores of product leaders. He founded Product Camp, has been blogging about software product management since 2002 and his “Art of Product Management” was one of the first books on the subject.  Rich thinks a lot about product organizations, working with company executives, and the economics of software.

In this talk, I share the story of how the founders' request to create a marketplace at our startup, led to an unexpected solution. Spoiler alert: we didn’t build a marketplace. Faced with the challenge, we pivoted away from simply fulfilling the request to deeply analyzing what would truly drive growth while keeping the core idea in mind. This talk reveals how we aligned our solution with business outcomes, utilized customer networks for growth, and prioritized long-term value over quick financial gains, transforming a straightforward request to build a marketplace into a robust growth engine

Everyone says that there is no playbook for product management, but yet all the top Silicon Valley companies are doing product in the same way. Why do all top companies work in squads? Why do all of the top PMs spend 80% of their time validating problems? Why do all top companies implement OKRs? Because it works, and it’s how you build trillion-dollar businesses. This presentation will give you insights into how they do it and how you could become an impact driven PM.

Building products based on customer data requires new skills.
It requires a different approach in discovery, data analysis, mockups, development, and launch.

We will learn together some of those new skills, how to put the focus on the customers' business needs, iterate with your customers using their own data, build your team with the right skillset and how to find the "must-haves" for your next product.

As AI continues to expand with every passing second, it's time for an AI product management playbook. The talk will delve into the essential process of integrating AI into our products, covering practical key practices throughout the AI product lifecycle and providing guidance on formulating a strategy for incorporating AI into the products of the future.

Imagine starting a new role where expectations demand a first release in 90 days and a comprehensive vision presented to 600 customers within 40 days. Sounds intense? It was my reality.

Join me as I share firsthand insights from navigating this daunting challenge. Learn how to excel from day one in a new company and domain, crafting a roadmap with confidence to captivate a large audience at your company's premier customer conference. Discover strategies to transform your onboarding into a journey of productivity and success, ensuring you not only survive but thrive in the face of high-stakes expectations.

We all know how critical it is to engage with your customers and users. In my session we will speak about design partners and how to leverage them for improving your business results. 

At the end of my session if you don't have such partners, you will probably want one, and if you are already paired with one, you may get some new ideas on how to better leverage your relationship

Generative AI has created many opportunities, with hundreds of startups emerging this year. With our extensive experience in AI and drawing from our hands-on work developing Generative AI since the beginning, our journey sheds light on the unique challenges in navigating this new landscape. 

How does FOMO impact decision-making in developing Generative AI products? 

What new approaches are crucial in this transformative journey? 

Challenges like the disruptive effect of new KPIs on productivity and the need for a fresh skill set reshape the implementation landscape, disrupting the classic product life cycle dance, challenging product managers and data scientists to collaborate in new ways.

In this session, I’ll take you on a journey through the real-world experience of building an auto-pilot product from the ground up. From deciding to actually pursue an auto-pilot solution, to defining a clear vision of success, and leveraging an operations team to execute efficiently—this session will provide an in-depth look at the key steps involved. I’ll share the challenges, lessons learned, and strategies that helped bring the product to life, offering actionable insights for anyone looking to build smarter, automated solutions.

The customer success (CS) department is holding so many valuable inputs & information which can be a game changer for making an impact, the issue is they simply don't know they do.

 When used correctly, CS inputs (support tickets, product demos, customer calls etc.) are an amazing source to generate user context & insights that will help crafting great products & make an impact.

 In this talk, I want to share with you a variety of methods & processes to leverage CS inputs that we've implemented at monday.com and offer a few simple ways you can get started with implementing them as well.

This year's keynote talk offers a strategic perspective for product managers. Einat Guez, CEO of Papaya-Global, shares insights into a significant strategy change impacting all company departments, especially the product team. Discover the catalysts for change, decision-making processes, and the associated challenges. Gain valuable insights into guiding a product group during substantial transformations and bringing a new strategy to market. Explore tough decisions like terminating relationships with once-ideal customers and understand the pivotal role of the product team in a strategic change

A view of product management from a sales perspective, and how PMs can help in the sales motion and make a real impact on the business.

Two years ago we made a decision in Salesforce to build an entirely new optimization engine for our Field Service solution. It took about 20 years to build the current engine which includes very rich functionality and solves many use cases. It was clear that reaching the same level of functionality will require a substantial investment of time and effort and so we found ourselves in a difficult conundrum - How do we swap a great and well-accepted engine with a new unfamiliar one, in minimum time and still provide added value to our customers?

In a world where product success is often measured solely by immediate metrics like OKRs and KPIs, Mor invites you to delve deeper and explore the true health of your product beyond these surface indicators. Is your product growth sustainable, and can it continue in the long term?

Join her to discover how to identify and leverage essential health metrics that drive sustainable growth and ensure your product stays aligned with market demands. Mor will share effective strategies for promoting cross-functional collaboration, fostering a culture of transparency, and implementing robust measurement frameworks. Drawing from real-world experiences at Payoneer, she will provide actionable insights to help your product not only thrive in the market but also build resilience against future challenges.

With a focus on the hidden factors that contribute to long-term success, this presentation will equip you with the practical tools you need to navigate the complexities of product management effectively. Additionally, these insights will be invaluable for risk management, helping you anticipate and mitigate potential issues before they become critical.

This is a great opportunity to transform how you approach product growth and ensure your team is set up for sustained success in an ever-evolving landscape!

Although many startups dream of being acquired, making the transition from a relatively small team to part of a colossal organization is not without its own challenges. With so many startups getting dissolved or shut down, how do we, as an acquired group, make a difference within an organization the size of a small country? In this session we’ll discuss how we, product and engineering together, can work together to stay relevant, take advantage of existing capabilities, and discover business opportunities, and how you can do the same!

Ever been pleasantly surprised when a vendor offers products across different categories, perfectly complementing your needs? It's like discovering a clothing store also selling the perfect accessories, completing the perfect outfit.

Join me for the real story of JFrog's journey - From aiding Engineering Teams with DevOps solutions to empowering Security Leaders with Application Security solutions. Among other success factors, we'll focus on the crucial role of Building and Leveraging Trust as ongoing drivers for growth and customer satisfaction

This talk dives into the story of Wix's evolving strategy, the Open Platform, and the continuous growth it delivers. We'll share the why, what, and how of our open platform strategy, including our "aha moment" of realizing that opening the platform was the right move. We'll discuss both the high-level strategy and the tactical tips that helped us iteratively open our platform.

We'll share stories from two perspectives: Rephael, Wix's Product Professor and Strategy Specialist, will discuss the strategic rationale behind the Open Platform. Noa, Wix's Dev Tools Product Manager, will showcase the tactical aspects of opening the platform by simplifying tools that empower external developers to expand Wix. This talk will have you asking - should I open my platform to grow my product? And with the right tools to start doing so.

We want to demonstrate how as a product manager you can create true commitment and positive interaction within the entire company that powers real impact. 

We present an e2e process from creating a shared narrative to jointly defining the goals. 

The process enables us to have a broad assembly of ideas from different groups and backgrounds. 

Although this intense collaboration process requires extra effort from the product teams, the fruits are clarity and simplification of the entire decision-making process which powers smooth execution. 

We are extending Marty Cagan's notion of 'product-teams' from Product<>Engineering<>Design to the entire company. 

We have led this kind of process successfully in small startups as well as large enterprises.  

Choosing metrics that matter can be a hard and messy task for any product scope or level of maturity. In this talk we’ll explore a practical framework for choosing the right metrics that align to the broader mission and strategy, while avoiding the mistakes I made along that journey. 

This talk dives into the story of Wix's evolving strategy, the Open Platform, and the continuous growth it delivers. We'll share the why, what, and how of our open platform strategy, including our "aha moment" of realizing that opening the platform was the right move. We'll discuss both the high-level strategy and the tactical tips that helped us iteratively open our platform.

We'll share stories from two perspectives: Rephael, Wix's Product Professor and Strategy Specialist, will discuss the strategic rationale behind the Open Platform. Noa, Wix's Dev Tools Product Manager, will showcase the tactical aspects of opening the platform by simplifying tools that empower external developers to expand Wix. This talk will have you asking - should I open my platform to grow my product? And with the right tools to start doing so.

It’s great when your product team and stakeholders get the big picture. When everyone agrees who the customer is, what their key needs are, and how your product can (or will) address them better than others. Sounds like the PM promised land, right? The good news is there’s a tried-and-proven process, based on 5 simple questions, that will help you get there. 

 Cellebrite introduced a Premium solution in 2016 for selected customers with a very high price point.

 2 years later a competitor came with an offering for a much lower and disrupted the market.

 Learn how Cellebrite reacted quickly & changed the business model and leveraged its install base to develop a new offering that grew the adoption by X10 and boosted the ARR.

I am the proud father of an 18-year-old girl who has been part of Benjamina's robotics groups for the past 6 years. This year, she serves as one of the team captains, and just a month ago, her team achieved first place in the World Robotics Championship - FRC, surpassing thousands of teams worldwide. Over the years, I've delved deeper into this world, discovering unique methodologies and strategies that offer valuable lessons for product managers in high-tech companies.

In the FRC competition, each year presents a new challenge where teams must build a robot within a tight schedule. They start competing just six weeks after the global announcement of the competition's structure and rules for that year. Unlike product launches that allow for adjustments, there's no room for rejection; teams must innovate and compete with the resources available. The process involves meticulous planning, rapid production, extensive software development (for the robot and supporting systems), and continuous iteration over the two-month competition period. This team continuously refines its methodology year by year, achieving unprecedented success - no Israeli team has previously won at this level, which is usually dominated by teams from the USA with budgets ten times larger and support from sponsors like NASA, Boeing, and Apple.

For us as product managers, learning from a group of young individuals (alongside mature mentors who have integrated into the high-tech industry) who represent the future of technology is both fascinating and invaluable. These insights will be showcased in my upcoming lecture, providing concrete examples of innovative strategies and methodologies.

What’s the right strategy for a product in a category that doesn’t exist? 

How do you prioritise, design and monetise a product that everybody needs, but no one expects?

OK, so when fighting the loneliness of older adults living alone, the focus is on creating Companionship. But what will make ageing, lonely Americans accept a talking robot into their homes and lives? What do you focus on, implement, and measure - to know your product is on the right path - when it has no utilitarian purpose, and everything it aims to achieve is a growing set of experiences, gradually defined as a “relationship”. 

What is the role of the hardware? How do awareness and context blend in? And inevitably - any LLM / GenAI to speak of?

First impression is established in the very first seconds and affects the way the environment perceives us.

We are all "standing in front of an audience" -Small talks, networking, presentations, dates, job interviews, managing employees and basically in every interaction!

So how can you improve your communication skills, unlock your carisma and Present the best version of yourself?

Through an effective experiential methodology, you will learn how the knowledgeable use of body language can improve interactions and generate positive change in your professional and personal life.

What will you get?

Tools for upgrading your non verbal messages

Basic principles for analyzing body language

We will reveal what each part in the body transmits

What do our hand movements deliver?

Face and facial expressions

Body tilts

How can you transmit power and presence through the voice and more..

Our digital products are fast becoming a hub of customer experience as sales activities, marketing messages, support, education and training begin to converge inside our applications. While this is arguably a good trend—the ability to self-service help, education and purchasing empowers users—it also presents new challenges for product teams, requiring an entirely new strategy for delivering products. In this session, learn how product teams are evolving from shipping code to driving adoption of products, factoring customer feedback at every stage of product development, and creating “product ops” to organize and rally entire companies around the product. 

 Join Pendo CEO and co-founder Todd Olson for a presentation and discussion around this key theme from his book, “The Product-Led Organization: Drive Growth by Putting Product at the Center of Your Customer Experience.”

Todd Olson is co-founder and CEO of Pendo, which provides software that makes software better. A three-time entrepreneur, Olson teamed up with fellow product leaders and technologists from Red Hat, Cisco and Google to launch Pendo in October 2013. The Raleigh, N.C.-based company has since raised $356 million in venture capital, landed more than 2000 customers and now employs 800 people across seven offices around the globe. In 2021, Pendo landed on the Forbes Cloud 100 and Inc. Best Workplaces lists for the fourth year in a row.

What do Cinderella, Jane Eyre, Aladdin and the Ugly Duckling have in common? Their plot.

 Two decades ago the author Christopher Booker argued that throughout history there were only seven basic plots that writers have used. One of them, rags to riches, fits the four stories above.

 In the lecture I argue that throughout history there were only five basic stories that marketers have used (quite different from those identified by Booker). Knowing and understanding these five can be very useful to marketers, especially today – when marketers are frequently encouraged to tell stories. In the lecture I describe these basic stories as well as four storytelling methods that advertisers should use to overcome the major challenges advertisers face.

I integrated a GenAI model into my products and lived to tell the tale.

Since ChatGPT burst into our lives in November 2022, the hype around Generative AI (GenAI) has reached new heights. Today, there is hardly a tech organization that isn't integrating or considering integrating GenAI into their processes and products, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not.

As product leaders, we are often seen as those who need to bring the vision and insight on how to incorporate this technology into the products we manage. In this talk, I will attempt to cut through the hype and simplify the topic with practical tools for product managers, based on my experience working with GenAI capabilities in Microsoft's health group over the past year.

By the end of the lecture, I hope you'll have the knowledge to:

When and why it is appropriate to use GenAI

The available options, along with their advantages and disadvantages

How to consider aspects of Safety, Security, and Responsible AI

Now is the time for Product Ops.

First, tech organizations were introduced to the sales operations function. Then, marketing developed their own operations role. Now, as the Israeli tech scene booms, rapid scaling becomes a necessity, and as Product becomes even more strategic - it’s time to also meet Product Ops. How do you create a smarter product org where your customer...is your PM. 

In this talk, we will explain what Product Ops is, which organizations can benefit from it, and how to start going about building such a function in your company.

I will share with you a method I developed during my last 20 years in the field of Branding, UI and UX in Israel and around the world.
The method will help you understand your product more deeply, connect you emotionally to them and more than that - the purpose design method will turn your products from technologies into unforgettable characters in the lives of your customers.

So, how does it work?

We will go through a program made up of 6 steps that you will need to implement in order to build a unique experience and create an emotional connection between your team, your product and grow trust and loyalty with your customers.
The methodology will help you understand how to include the purpose of your product in each and every feature
and help differentiate the product in the market and improve your ability to compete and inspire.

 Discover how the Wix Analytics Chatbot is making website data easy to understand through simple conversations. The talk will share insights from its development, highlight its capabilities, and discuss the challenges and lessons learned along the way

Launching a product is a big deal. From marketing to business aspects, a successful launch is what we all aspire to have. But when did a successful launch become the goal when really, it’s merely a means to an end?
This session is all about what the product org needs to do, pre, during and post launch, in order to have a true impact on the product. Spoiler alert: Launch is not the end of the process. 

Join us for a practical and results-oriented lecture on product discovery. Learn how to navigate the process of uncovering customer needs, and build your product strategy for success. Gain hands-on tools and takeaways to drive your product development forward. Don't miss this opportunity to chart your course towards strategic excellence.

Your product is excellent, customers love it. Now is the right time to scale! But you can’t. Your product is supported by too many employees: from salespersons to customer success managers, customer service, technical support, business analysts, and more. New customers lead to more recruitment, more training, endless meetings, and cross-function collaborations. There is a way to avoid this, and it requires a balance between "high-touch" and "low-touch" approaches to the product. 

In this talk, I will describe how I moved the company from a high-involvement product to a range of products that require minimum dependency on human interaction. 

 The Microsoft Security Group has been at the forefront of providing device security solutions for enterprises. However, when we identified an exciting new opportunity to expand our reach to the SMB (Small and Medium-sized Business) market, we suddenly found ourselves feeling like the new kid in town.

We needed to familiarize ourselves with the dynamics of a new ecosystem, adapt to the needs of a different market segment, and face the harsh reality of a crowded, incentive-driven market.

In this session, I will share how we handled this challenge, including cost reduction, pricing adjustments, refining feature sets, and changing sales strategies.

Join us as we explore the lessons we learned, strategies we employed, methodologies we used, and the best practices that enabled us to effectively penetrate a new market segment.  

In SparkBeyond, we decided to take our legacy product, which demanded significant involvement of professional services, and turn it into a low-touch product. To do it right, we created a Validation Plan that helped us make sure we were BUILDING THE RIGHT THING in every step of the way.

 In this session we will sprinkle practical magic to help you do it too.

Dive into the world of AI explainability and witness how it has transformed Intel's chip validation process. Discover how our AI-based product has simplified complex processes, making them more understandable and efficient. In this lecture, we will explore the pivotal role of AI explainability techniques in fostering customer understanding, building trust, and driving widespread adoption. 

• Building a great product is not enough. Having Product-Market-Fit does not guarantee your growth and success. Understanding the fine relations between Product, Market, Business model, and Acquisition channel is key to building a lasting and solid product strategy.
• In this session, I will discuss how to create a sustainable product growth strategy and how to expand your product down and upmarket. I will cover some key considerations you need to take to ensure growth in your current market and expand your product to new markets, Enterprise to SMB, SMB to B2C, etc.  

How a vision of one sentence inspired us in the process of designing and shaping our new app.  

How as a product manager you manage to bind all the pieces together: business, marketing, product, UX, UI & development into one coherent story that serves your brand vision & strategy and most importantly can tell one simple story to your customers 

Pango went through a thorough journey of shaping its vision which was led by designing and rebuilding our new application interface. As Pango VP product, I had the privilege of leading this process.  

I will share with you our takeaways, what worked for us, what didn't work, what we learned and what can serve you on your day today's work.  

And... will also have very interesting numbers to share, how this all merged into business KPIs and goals.  

Products produce a single revenue stream, while platforms that connect two or products with synergy can accelerate it.

A large number of the world’s most valuable companies by market capitalization are platform companies and although some of those companies started with platforms, many started with products.

 Not every company, however, makes the leap successfully.

In this session, I will tell the JFrog platform story, what the product team should consider before and after taking this leap forward and what can make the difference between effective transformations and a failure.

A new category in the market? Check. A new industry for me? Check. A new group in the company? Check. All the ingredients were there to present challenges. And opportunities. 
Join us as we explore the journey of building a new product team in a cutting-edge, deep tech scale-up. From building a multi-disciplinary team of domain experts, to leading market education with innovative solutions, to opening back-doors to customer interaction - we'll explore how we navigate uncharted territories on a day-to-day basis.

A few unlocks to building customer trust and why is it so important

It's only by changing roles that you can shift your perspective and see what was just in front of you, but you weren’t able to see. Join us for an insightful talk where Noa Danon, a seasoned product leader turned CEO, shares a candid journey of realizations and revelations. Transitioning from a product-centric role to the helm of a company, she encountered a series of eye-opening surprises about the business world. This talk will dissect several stark assumptions commonly held by product professionals and contrast them with the gritty realities of leading a business. This session is not just about the transition but also about the lessons learned that can empower product leaders to think more broadly and better perform when working with business roles and CEOs. Whether you’ve been told you need to have more of a business mindset, or you are heading the product department, you'll leave with a new perspective on the intersection of product management and business leadership.

Few people have journeyed from being developers and UX designers to product managers, startup management team members, and finally, founders and CEOs. These transitions have given me unique perspectives on various roles and motivations. I made mistakes that only became clear when I changed positions. Working closely with sales doesn’t mean you truly understand business, and the same goes for marketing or being a CEO. This talk provides an authentic reflection on how product professionals are viewed, which I believe will resonate deeply with the audience.

3 years ago at Klarna we redesigned our way of working in order to remove

dependencies between teams; enable them to run faster; and ship high quality

products that our customers will love. Quickly.

We realized that modifying the product manager role is key to achieving this goal.

That’s why today, product managers at Klarna are also “Accountable Leads”.

What does it mean to be an accountable lead?

How does this change impact the product manager role?

What have we learnt about this model in the last 3 years?

In this talk, I’ll share my two cents on this topic, as well as provide you with a

starter kit for adopting this model in your company.

When I first learned I needed to get my software product FDA approved, I panicked. Then I figured I could hack it. I was wrong on both counts.
This is the story of how I learned to love the regulatory landscape in which my products live and thrive.

The sudden events of October 7th caught us off-guard, as they did everyone. Within hours, we received a call to action from an aid organization, tasking us with creating a system to help secure shelter for families who had suddenly found themselves without a home. What unfolded in the following seven days was nothing short of extraordinary. Our team rapidly developed a product that became a critical tool for hundreds of command centers nationwide, enabling them to coordinate relief efforts across the county effectively. In this session, we'll share our journey, the critical insights we gained as product managers, and the human lessons we learned while responding to a crisis of unforeseen scale

In my presentation, I share the journey of transitioning from a "never went to production" product to an innovative startup solution that transformed the restaurant industry. Our breakthrough was an iPad-based mobile POS system for waiters, initially receiving mixed feedback. This led to key insights:

1. Market Analysis:
• Customers needed a seamless integration with existing management systems.
• Established software providers resisted collaboration, leading us to create a comprehensive management system.
2. Understanding the Customers:
• Most potential clients were independent restaurants and small businesses.
• These customers required user-friendly technology that supports various restaurant operations.
• We developed a one-stop-shop solution tailored to their needs.
3. Empowering the Customers:
• We provided White Label solutions, allowing customers to adapt technology to their brand, thus reaching new audiences and strengthening their brand identity.
• This approach saved marketing costs and enhanced operational efficiency.

Conclusion:

Key questions explored:

• Are you an addon or a full product?
• How do you handle competitor resistance?
• How do you identify and cater to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?

This presentation highlights the importance of market understanding and innovative thinking in creating impactful products while taking risks.

Selling a product in a zero/low touch based SaaS is both challenging and fun. In this talk, we'll present 3 steps we took to increase the awareness and engagement of the developers community with our database optimization product. We'll discuss our tool based marketing approach, our specially crafted emails, and the engagement of our potential customers with our product.