how pm helped build a billion dollar business

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2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. 1 Adobe Acrobat: Creating a Billion Dollar Product Sarah Rosenbaum Director of Product Management July 12, 2006

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Adobe Acrobat: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business by Sarah Rosenbaum at SVPMA Monthly Event July 2006

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Page 1: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.1

Adobe Acrobat: Creating a Billion Dollar Product

Sarah Rosenbaum

Director of Product Management

July 12, 2006

Page 2: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

22006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Products Begin as Ideas

Ideas can take a while to reach market

Acrobat history:

“Camelot” idea paper published in 1991 by John Warnock

Version 1.0 shipped in 1993

What’s your window of opportunity?

Page 3: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.3

Understand and Evaluate Business Dynamics: Packaging

Packaging

Make it easy for customers to understand and purchase

Separate components or bundled?

Where is the market maturity?

1993

1996

2003

Page 4: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.4

Understand and Evaluate Business Dynamics: Pricing

Business model: per unit, volume licensing, subscription, etc.

Integrator, end-user, other

Revenue mix you’re targeting

Competitive landscape

Page 5: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

52006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Understand and Evaluate Business Dynamics: Placement

What channels are most available and appropriate?

2-Tier distribution, Direct sales force

Value Added Reseller (VAR)

Systems Integrator (SI)

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)

Distribution

Retailers Catalogues VAR

Page 6: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.6

Understand and Evaluate Business Dynamics: Promotion

Brand

Channels – how/what?

Word of mouth? Web?

Direct sales force

Advertising

Page 7: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.7

Understand and Evaluate Technology: Product Definition

For whom?

What problem does it solve?

How critical is the pain?

Is it usable?

Page 8: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.8

Understand and Evaluate Technology: Features

Transforming: new, major capabilities that transform the uses of the product

Tuning: improving functionality that already exists

Acrobat 2.0 Acrobat 3.0 Acrobat 4.0 Acrobat 5.0 Acrobat 6.0

Plug-in arch.

Full-text search

WWW integration

Print-publishing capabilities

Fillable forms

Paper Capture

Native Japanese support

Digital Signatures

MS Office integration

Web Capture pages

Enhanced commenting tools

Additional Print-publishing

New UI

eBooks support

R & C workflow creation, monitoring

AutoCAD, MS Visio, MS Project integration

Prepress features

Layers

Take comments back to Word

Enhanced security

Page 9: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.9

Understand and Evaluate Technology: Market Changes

Birth of World Wide Web and Acrobat 3

Applications of your technology –

Did you foresee them?

What can you do to improve them?

Page 10: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.10

Understand and Evaluate Technology: Build, Buy, or Both?

NIH syndrome – where is your engineering group?

Quickest path to execution – can you tolerate the cost of licensing other technology?

Is the technology so fundamental that you MUST own it?

Built Licensed Bought

Web Capture

Sticky notes

Microsoft Office integration

AutoCAD integration

Encryption libraries

Search engines

Fonts

Prepress capabilities

Enhanced commenting capabilities

OCR engine

Page 11: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.11

Considerations – it’s a Balancing Act

Revenue achievement and timing

Personalities

Available resources

Company direction

Organizational changes

Gross margin achievement

Customer demands

Competitive landscape

Competitors’ actions

Customer demands

Channel partners

Technology developments

Analyst/Press reviews

Internal Drivers

External Drivers

Page 12: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

122006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

$0

$100,000

$200,000

$300,000

$400,000

$500,000

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Acrobat Revenue and Release History

Acrobat 1.0 Acrobat 3.0 Acrobat 5.0

Acrobat 2.0 Acrobat 4.0 Acrobat 6.0

Note: Revenue numbers are approximate and not exact

Page 13: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.13

What Product Management Can Do

Know your competition

Monitor their actions, announcements, press/analyst coverage

Complete regular SWOT analyses

Include all functions of the company who contribute to your product

Talk to customers

Talk to potential customers – they’re your growth opportunity

Research the market developments and changes

Research and understand technology developments and trends

Read, search, attend appropriate conferences and meetings

Maintain a holistic view of the business

Don’t limit yourself to your authority area; get to know all aspects

Don’t be afraid to try and fail and change what you’re doing. Nothing is exactly right the first time.

Page 14: How PM Helped Build a Billion Dollar Business

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.14