As a product guy, I love product features that make me go “Wow, I don’t believe they thought of that.”
But it’s never the primary features of the product that make me say that. It’s the little things that seem obvious when you use them (“Of course the iPod should stop playing a track when you pull out the earphones!”)
Those little things are the hallmarks of great products. And they are the hallmark of great product managers, too.
Some examples:
- Facebook Ads: They provide a library of photos from Shutterstock to advertisers at no additional charge. And use of the photos is seamlessly integrated into the campaign creation workflow (Twitter, are you listening? :)
- Evernote’s Chrome Plugin: Does a great job at guessing which Notebook and Tags I’d want to use for a given web clipping
- Gmail: Tells you if you may have forgot to attach a file to your email
- Amazon Subscribe and Save: Gives me ample warning if I want to cancel my shipment
- Trello: Too many to list :) Since I have to pick one I’ll say making a checklist automatically if you write a checklist-like card description
If you can work “little” features like these into your product you can take a pretty darn good product and make it amazing.