Killing my product, loudly
How killing my own product earned me a seat at the adult table and a bunch of respect.
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. -Abe Lincoln
Often, despite mountains of ambition, we find ourselves faced with a harsh reality that our shiny north star is just a shitty, defective StarLink satellite crashing towards the earth. I've learned the hard way that sometimes, success isn't about pushing harder—it's about knowing when to pivot or stop. This is one of those moments.
At an online coupon company, we had 10s of millions of people come to us every month with very high shopping intent. Shoppers literally had their credit card out before hitting our site as they were looking for a coupon or a code for free shipping. It seemed obvious that with so many people and so much data about where they were shopping and what they liked to buy, that we could earn a fortune by making strong product recommendations. The company assembled a team that spent a few months dreaming up a “product recommendation” experience…this was a few months too long and then, the Product leader of the effort resigned.
I was called upon to take the place of the former Product leader. I was very new to “Product” and “Leadership”. Nonetheless, I had unbounded ambition and I started presenting a vision for our product offering – “Hot products at great prices”. With our data, we would curate popular products that were being offered at historically low prices. (i.e. A KitchenAid Mixer for $250 or a Kureig for $70). And with our scale, we would reach $400M in revenue in just 3 years! I actually presented this to our customers (large retailers) at an annual partner summit. **cringe**
We assembled a scrappy team and put our 'Hot Products at Great Prices' vision in front of millions of shoppers, certain we were onto something big. A month later, our annual revenue tracking to $1.5M — far short of the $20M target. We were getting side-eyes across the company. It was my failure, and the spotlight was on me to fix it.
At the same time, Jet.com launched their wildly successful site that promised “Any product you want at the best price”. They did this by using shipping and return terms to optimize their prices. For example, you could get a pair of Nike Flynet Racers for 20% off if you accepted a slower shipping time and waived your right to return them. Jet figured out how to optimize prices using logistical levers.
At the coupon company, we had been experimenting with discounted gift cards, cash back and we were already the king of coupons. This led to the epiphany that we could do better than Jet by optimizing prices around promotional levers. Instead of “Hot Products at Great Prices”, we could offer “Any Product at the Best Price (even better than Jet)” by stacking discounts. With this realization, it was clear that our current effort was a classic ‘cart before the horse’ problem. We needed to invest in discount stacking and robust matching of discounts to product SKUs before we could offer the best product recommendations.
Our operating cadence was anchored by the “Monthly Operating Review”. This is where us Product leaders went in front of the execs to explain how things were going. I was in my 3rd month and my product was failing, and there was no way to sugar-coat it. I decided to go into the boardroom with the recommendation that we kill our product and deploy the team onto other initiatives with better ROI. I also made the strong recommendation that we invest more heavily into discounted gift cards and cash back because I believed these capabilities were key to unlocking a successful “Product-first” offering in the future. Then, I left the meeting.
Later, after the meeting, our COO approached me and told me that she was impressed by my presentation. She said it “took guts” to kill my product like that. I was surprised and flattered. Sometimes, the smartest thing a product leader can do is admit defeat early and focus energy on more promising opportunities. That realization earned me respect, and more importantly, a chance to lead a new, successful initiative. Eventually I was asked to build out our gift card offering, as a “Sr. Director of Product”. More importantly, I learned that humility and honesty can coexist with a relentless pursuit of a path forward – which continues to drive my ethos today.