Better pricing & product strategy
for SaaS, AI/ML, startups, legaltech, marketplaces, edtech, apps, martech, browser extensions, logistics & ERPs, e-commerce, retail tech & technology companies
What is pricing & product strategy?
A rigorous and structured approach to addressing these questions:
How do we set & optimise pricing to affect the KPIs which matter to us most?
How should we monetise our products?
Specifically what capabilities should we build & prioritise which our target market wants to use and pay for?
Real examples of my projects (anonymised)
Real examples of problems companies have asked me to work on (anonymised)
“We’re launching this new product. How should we price it?”
“We’re thinking about acquiring a company. Realistically, how much incremental revenue will it deliver post-acquisition?”
“A few of our customers are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of our revenue. How are those customers different from the others, and how do we grow average revenue from the ‘long tail’”?
“How can we calculate & track LTV if we’re unable to accurately attribute revenue on a per-user basis?”
“We want to make our internal software tool available to third parties as a SaaS proposition. How should we turn it into a necessary proposition for our target customers, and how should it be priced?”
“Our proposition has failed to find product/market fit. Why has this happened, and what should we do about it?”
“We’ve got a range of products & services, but need to figure out how to prioritise them so as to accomplish specific objectives and improve these KPIs”
“Our customers vary considerably in their ability to pay. How do we amend our pricing and value proposition to deal with this?”
“How do we turn an existing ad-hoc de-centralised multi-sided marketplace into one which runs through our SaaS?”
“We’ve identified several opportunities adjacent to our core proposition. These could expand our addressable market and drive new revenue streams, but we’re not sure which — if any — we should pursue”
“We’ve got users, but we’re not monetising them effectively. What should we do now?”
“We know we’ve messed up our pricing. How do we fix it?”
“How do we transition from a perpetual license model to annually recurring revenue SaaS, and how can we further monetise the customers who already purchased perpetual licenses?”
“We’ve an opportunity to enter the Chinese market. How much should we change our product roadmap to do so?”
“Our new customers spend a long time onboarding, but too many of them only use our proposition once or twice, and then never come back. Why are we losing those customers, and what should we change in our pricing or our product to improve their retention?”
“How should we ‘productise & package’ this combination of tools, content & training into a value proposition which customers want to use and pay for?”
“We’re trying to do too many things, but aren’t sure how & what to cut”
“How should we structure & price the paywall on our content while we also try to boost engagement from non-paying customers?”
“How do we calculate churn if we have no visibility on when our product is uninstalled?”
My public writing on pricing & product strategy
All my clients have at least one of the following problems (and most have at least two)
They've launched a product with sub-optimal pricing and now need to go back and fix it.
They're about to launch a new proposition and want help setting optimised pricing.
They’ve not segmented their customers well (or at all) by requirements and willingness to pay.
They've developed impressive technology but want help converting (or “productising, packaging and pricing”) that tech into a proposition that customers want to use and pay for
They are struggling to find product/market fit
They're working on too many things but aren't sure how & what to cut back
They have too many opportunities and aren't sure what to focus on
About me
For 8 years I’ve been a pricing and product strategy expert. Before that, a founder/CEO; a Director of Revenue Strategy, an Information Architect and a chicken farmer. I’ve worked with a bunch of companies on pricing, revenue strategy, product strategy, monetisation, price optimisation, KPI modelling, ‘red team’ analysis, and opportunity analysis.
In 2009 I founded a company called InvisibleHand* where we developed & patented technology for algorithmically matching millions of SKUs across merchants around the world. We had a B2C browser extension which won a lot of shiny awards and got millions of downloads. And a B2B API, which didn’t win any awards, except that when we got acquired by Skimlinks in 2013, it was the world’s only source of accurate real-time price data. In fact, a top Amazon engineer told me they’d tried to reverse engineer InvisibleHand because it was so much better than Amazon’s own internal tools. Happy days.
Directing Revenue Strategy at Skimlinks was super-interesting. Firstly because Skimlinks is a fascinating place to work, with all kinds of opportunities for exposure to different revenue strategies, product strategies & business models.
Secondly, I got to speak to, learn about and work with a lot of different companies. I often found myself being asked to advise these companies on matters of revenue & product strategy – going well beyond the immediate concerns of their prospective partnerships with Skimlinks.
I started consulting in 2016 off-the-back of three insights I gained from advising many third party companies at Skimlinks. I saw the same issues occur over-and-over, and realised that too many underperforming companies or product failures occur when:
A. Key unstated/obfuscated assumptions underly the founders’ (or product manager’s) belief in the success of their product. It’s extraordinary how often that happens, including companies which are big enough & old enough to know better.
B. Talented & capable teams are tasked with building a ‘great product’ while insufficient attention is paid to:
- the quantifiable ROI it’ll deliver to customers
- how that ROI is perceived by customers vs how it’s perceived by the product team.
C. Pricing is set (sometimes fatally) via a finger-in-the-air exercise, without necessary attention to customer segmentation, unit economics or perceived customer ROI.
After leaving Skimlinks, I took a consulting CEO role at a SaaS startup which provides operations automation for manufacturers & distributors. There I designed & implemented a new pricing structure from scratch, including value metrics, feature stepping and margin optimisation. I defined the company’s customer acquisition strategy; led product strategy and closed five-figure ARR deals with new customers – including the company’s first customers in US.
I’ve since advised many more companies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Before InvisibleHand, I was a consultant and Information Architect for 5 years, and worked in various startups. And before that, I received my MSc in Human Computer Interaction from University College London.
I live in London with my wife and children.
*The product at getinvisiblehand.com is not powered by InvisibleHand IP.