Hello, welcome back to Networking Unleashed,
the podcast where connections aren't just conversations,
they're the currency of success. I'm your host,
Michael Foreman, and today we're talking about
one of the most exciting intersections in business
where product success meets the power of people.
My guest today is a seasoned product expert who
uncovered the five keys to product success. But
here's the twist. It's not just about features
and functionality. It's about the relationships
that bring a product to life. From co -creation
to customer discovery, from team dynamics to
strategic partnerships, we're unpacking the how
networking fuels every stage of building something
truly successful. Whether you're launching a
new product, scaling an idea, or trying to find
product market fit, This episode will give you
a fresh perspective on how your next big win
might come from your next big connection. So
buckle up, get ready to take notes, and let's
unleash the network behind the product. And my
guest today is David Fraden. And before I butcher
his background completely, I'm going to let him
do that for you. So David, how are you? Welcome
to the show. I'm doing great. My background is
I've been involved in product success for 55
years. I currently consult and teach product
management and product marketing. My number one
client is Cisco, and I and my trainers have probably
trained about half of the product managers at
Cisco worldwide. Okay, that's very good. And
what is it? And I read something in your background
about Apple Computer and a business manager.
Yeah, I was the business unit manager for the
Apple III product line. And at the time, there
was just two profitable product lines for the
company, the Apple III and the Apple II. And
Steve Jobs Macintosh was still under development.
And I was actually working for a computer company.
when all of that first came around. Back when
the Macintosh was, ever hear of a Macintosh Lisa?
Yeah. Okay. So that's when I started working
with the computers. So that long ago. Okay. So
let's delve right into this. How does networking
impact product success, especially in those early
ideation and validation stages? Well, networking,
I'm here in Silicon Valley, and one of the reasons
for Silicon Valley's success is the ease of networking.
In the culture of Silicon Valley, if I introduced
you to somebody else and you turned out to be
a bum, it does not reflect on me. It's just that
everyone expects everyone to network. In other
cultures, like the Japanese culture, If we were
in Japan and I introduced you to somebody else
and you or somebody else turned out to be an
idiot, then it would reflect poorly on me. They,
for many years, have had a culture of if a nail
sticks up, you got to pound it down. Whereas
in Silicon Valley, if a nail sticks up, you try
to help it grow and thrive. I see that the networking
around in the U .S., anyway, if I were to refer
you to somebody, and you turned out to be an
idiot, that would reflect poorly on me because
the end person would say, the last person that
Mike referred to me, he really didn't turn out
to be the best, so I'll just take him over with
a grain of salt. So I guess it really depends
on what part of the country you're from or what
country you're from. Well, that's what many places
like Silicon Valley, I think in New York and
in San Francisco and others have studied the
culture in Silicon Valley, which is about 45
miles south of San Francisco. And they've tried
to adopt the same level of entrepreneurship and
ease of networking. And some of them have succeeded.
Some of them have not succeeded because of the
cultural differences around the country and for
that matter, around the world. Okay. You talk
about five keys to product success. Can you walk
us through them and show and share how relationships
played a role in each one? Yeah, the five keys
are a mnemonic of my company's name, Spice Cow.
This is the word spice, where S stands for product
market strategy. P stands for repeatable processes.
I stands for having the information available
necessary to make important decisions. C stands
for understanding what it is that your customer
wants to do, when they want to do it, why they
want to do it, how they want to do it, where
they want to do it, how important is it for them
to get it done, what's standing in their way,
and how satisfied are they with the current solution.
And then the E stands for the employees and staff
and consultants for the company to ensure that
they have all 130 competencies or skill sets
that I've identified that are essential to product
success. Going back through each of them in terms
of putting together your product market strategy,
no one product manager can do it by themselves.
They have to get involvement of senior executives,
finance, legal, HR, engineering, sales, marketing,
purchasing, manufacturing. They have to be able
to easily network, mediate, and negotiate to
get everyone on the same page and on the same
product strategy. In the P area, that's a repeatable
process. And it was either Harvard or MIT found
that those organizations that had repeatable
processes that they enhanced and improved over
time tended to be more and more successful. I
had one client I was consulting with, and I asked
him if his company had repeatable processes.
And this VP of product management said no. They
introduced five new products. All five failed.
And then when they went into their retrospect,
everyone sat around pointing fingers at everybody
else because they didn't have a repeatable process
that everyone agreed to. The eye for information,
you have to network to get that information.
You may have to go to your corporate marketing
department and make sure that they subscribe
to the market research studies and reports that
are necessary for the market that you're in.
The C is composed of three or four steps of networking.
First, to observe what your customer is doing,
then interviewing your prospective customers
that fit the personas that you're targeting and
the target market, then surveying a representative
sample. Then if you have big data available,
you can do analytics on that and employ artificial
intelligence to mine that information. And then
lastly, in terms of the 130 skill sets that your
employees have to have, some of them or a lot
of them are going to just get picked up on the
job. So to be able to network with people, find
mentors that will help mentor and coach you through
developing the skill sets and the competencies
necessary for your success and for product success.
Okay. Okay. When building your product team.
How did your network influence who you brought
on board? It's usually their references, their
introductions, and then I would go on and interview
them from there, check out their references,
and before I'd offer them an opportunity. The
second thing I would do is also assure myself
that the values that individual holds. maps into
the values that I have and that the organization
that I'm working for has. Because if there's
a conflict of values, usually the chances for
success are substantially and severely diminished.
Right. So when you have an employee that's been
with the company for a while and they bring you
in, how do you deal with that when they really,
they don't match what you are looking for? Well,
one of the things I, every time I became a product
manager, I would go out to lunch with each of
the other people in the other areas that I mentioned
earlier, manufacturing, engineering, HR, legal,
and so forth. And as part of that lunch, I would
ask them, what is their personal goals in life?
Where do they want to go? And I told them, if
I can help you get there, I'll be willing to
do that. The result of that is whenever I would
go into a meeting and a decision needs to be
made, I know where that person is coming from
and where they want to go. And I can pitch the
decision along the lines that I know will help
them out in their personal aspirations. And therefore,
everyone can come together and be more successful.
It means a lot more to the employee when the
management is looking out for them. Yeah. Okay.
So how do you balance listening to your network's
feedback and staying true to your product vision?
By having the data to know what it is that your
product needs to do for the customer. I had one
instance where I was teaching the Botswanian
telecommunications company in Botswana. And I
wanted to go to Botswana because I was wondering
how can you get a country northeast of South
Africa? And a product manager from one of the
South African banks asked if he could come to
Botswana and sit in on the class. And he did.
And about halfway through the product management
class, he said that a person that was just hired
as a general manager in another area of the bank
convinced the president to cancel his product
line. And he had 12 engineers and two or three
product managers and they were all just scared
to death that they were going to get fired. And
I asked them, did this, if you had what's called
a DAISY or RACI chart, which is DAISY stands
for decision maker, who needs to be advised,
C stands for who needs to be consulted, and I
stands for who needs to be informed, which I
advocate everyone to do, put together such a
chart before they start their product exploration
and their strategy and development. Because when
it comes time to make a decision, not everybody
is the decision maker. Some people need to be
consulted with. Some people just need to be informed
what the decision is. And he responded that they
did not have that for this product. And I said,
if you did have that, would this new general
manager have been on the Dacey chart at all?
And his response says that general manager would
not be. So the thing to go back to when you go
back to Johannesburg is ask for a meeting with
the president. Show him your data as to why this
product is important to the bank's customers
and that he should resurrect the product. And
if necessary, tell the president he should ask
this new general manager as to what their data
is that recommends the cancellation of the product
rather than that individual's personal feelings.
Always bring the data. If you have the data to
back you up, there's nothing that they can really
say except for ultimately no. If you have the
data to back you up, you prove to be a great
argument for that. Can you give an example of
how a customer or a beta user, beta user connection,
led a breakthrough in your product? Yeah, I was
working for a company called DocuGraphics, who's
no longer around. And they were trying to build
a new computer workstation built upon Motorola
components. Also write a word processing program
and a computer -aided drafting and design program.
So they're trying to do something like WordPerfect
and AutoCAD plus a workstation sitting on top
of a relational database, which I think they
were writing from scratch, versus using someone
else's database. And so that was, they're trying
to accomplish with a few million dollars what
in four major areas, four multimillion dollar
companies were doing, like Apple, Microsoft,
IBM, Sun, WordPerfect, Autodesk, and so forth.
without the resources. So they were trying to
go after that broad market of desktop publishing.
So I went out and I interviewed the half a dozen
or so customers that we had and found that's
not how they were using the product. That in
fact, what they were doing is using it to create
and manage work instructions, manufacturing instructions
that are sent down to the floor. to show the
assembly people how to build the product and
also manage all the engineering change orders
so that the right components are used in the
right product. One of my lead customers was Lytton
Applied Technologies, and they made fighter jet
fuzzbusters. So they had this little device in
their jet, and when the enemy popped off a missile
at them, this fuzzbuster would detect the missile
and put out a signal to jam the incoming missile.
Now, if something's screwed up between understanding
that the enemy has changed their frequencies
and this fuzzbuster was not picking that up,
then the result was the pilot gets killed and,
of course, the plane is destroyed. So it was
absolutely essential and important that the right
version of the components for each build of the
product was done correctly each time. So I was
able to move the positioning of the product away
from the general word. publishing business to
focus specifically on manufacturing instructions
with the additional benefit that nobody else
was in that marketplace at the time. So we could
niche that puppy, as they say in the business,
and maximize focusing all of our resources on
that little market niche and become profitable.
Yeah, usually when in business, when your focus
isn't exactly focused, when you have such a broad
spectrum and then you focus in on one task, one
thing, you become light years better than what
you were before because you're focusing on that
one thing. You're not everything to everybody,
which really you can't be. So you're focusing
on your lane. And that really is very good. What's
the role of strategic partnerships and how do
you build those relationships from scratch? A
strategic partnership is very critical because
you always have to go through a build versus
buy scenario. And if you could find a partner
that can provide some holes in your product and
or in your service, it's far better to partner
with them than it is to try to go out and build
a duplicate of it. And the way you do it is you
approach them and say, hey, we're interested
in a strategic relationship. This is what we're
doing. I understand what you're doing. Can we
sit down and talk about some way that we can
work together? I had, when I was the business
unit manager for the Apple III, about 500 hardware
and software developers that had built products,
hardware and software for the Apple III. And
I sat down with them. all of them, to put together
a strategic partnership to make sure that the
money they were investing in my product line,
that they'll get a return on that investment.
And that included when we were getting close
to shutting down the product line, no longer
using it as a cash cow for the company, I focused
on moving all of my developers from the Apple
III platform to the Macintosh platform so that
they can continue to be a going entity. And when
you're talking about the Macintosh, it brings
me way back. I told you before that I started
when the Mac Lisa was still around, when the
SE30, SE80 was just that one little nine inch
black and white screen. So I really, it brings
me way back to my roots. A lot of founders struggle
with getting their first users. How can networking
accelerate user adoption? Well, I'll give you
an example. I joined a company that I was recruited
to join called Rich Relevance back in 2007 or
so. And they had a bunch of people come out of
Amazon's recommendation engine research and development
area. And they had built a personalized recommendation
system like Amazon's. And they got some venture
capital investments. And one of the venture capitalists
knew the... VP of IT at Sears, the holding company.
So he introduced us to Sears. I flew out to Chicago,
went to the Sears campus, which is off of one
of the suburbs there, met with that VP and with
the general managers and with the head of Sears
.com and worked out an agreement for them to
buy this recommendation engine and install it
on their website. It was like a $15 million deal.
And then in typical Sears style, they insisted,
since I was going to be a vendor of Sears, that
I also have to give them some stock in rich relevance.
And that's what Sears did for many decades with
many of the suppliers to Sears and turned owned
pieces of the companies that were supplying them.
We worked all that out as a strategic partnership,
and I emphasized the importance of making sure
it worked, even to one point after the president
of the company promised Sears that if his recommendation
engine, which is running on other servers, crashed,
it would not crash the Sears website. One morning,
about 5 o 'clock in the morning, I get a call
that says the Sears site is down. We think it's
rich relevance. Fix it. So I organized a task
force to jump in there and fix it before more
than several million dollars in sales were lost.
And they were happy with that to the point in
which I could ask them for references and referrals
to Kmart .com, SearsParts .com, and the rest
of the other 93 .com websites that Sears Holding
owned at that time. Wow. Wow, that was really
good. What networking advice would you give to
product creators who are great at building, but
not great at connecting? They got to get out
of their shell or find somebody for marketing
or business development or sales that are good
at that and let them go and don't be paranoid
about it. That's one thing that in my. talk.
So I go coast to coast and I'm a public speaker.
I always talk about introverts and extroverts.
The people building are usually introverts and
they always have to get with an extrovert. And
that's the sales and marketing and everything
else, part of the business, but the introverts
are the builders. So that's how I get to them.
You also run across a personality that thinks
they are number one. and they cannot allow somebody
else to take the lead. This guy that was one
of the founders of Rich Relevance was one of
those. And I remember we went to a conference
in Orlando, Florida, and the primary value proposition
for Rich Relevance is it helps increase your
sales, or what in the e -commerce business is
called Lyft. So I said, let's get a bunch of
balloons and put Rich Relevance on it and tie
them up to shopping carts, which is related to
the shopping cart on the e -commerce site. And
this was an e -commerce conference that was going
on with other companies there like Sears looking
for products like Rich Relevance, personalized
recommendations. So he got his nose a little
out of joint because I had come up with a...
better idea for marketing the company. And I
started talking on the floor with a lady from
Steva, which is an alternative sugar sweetener.
And he had to budge his way into that conversation
and brag about how much he likes Steva, which
had nothing to do with the strategic partnership
I was trying to put together. And as a result,
I wasn't able to develop anything there. Yeah.
So you have to tell these guys better off that
you keep your nose out of my business. Let me
do the thing that I do best and let the company
go. But you're right. But some people just don't
want to let go. And that's what happens. That's
what could happen. OK, so what's one relationship
that had a major impact on your product's trajectory
and how did you build it? I guess one thing that
comes immediately to mind is that When I took
over the Apple III product line as the business
unit manager, that was as a result of Steve Jobs
convincing the executive committee at the time,
this is 1983, to cancel the product line because
Steve felt that the Apple III was in the business
and office market where he wanted his not -yet
-shipping Macintosh to be. He had not yet learned
from Dave Packard and Hewlett Packard that it's
better for him to cannibalize his own products
rather than have someone else do it. After it
was canceled, I was called into the president's
office and he said, Dave, we canceled the Apple
III product line. I said, I know you did and
you didn't bother to ask me about it. I have
the full responsibility, but no authority. And
he said, so Scully says, what should we do about
it? And I said, what do you mean we, pale face?
get the joke. So I had to explain to him that
there was this fictional character, the Lone
Ranger, that more white, rode a white horse.
I got it right away. Rode a white horse, had
one silver bullet in his belt, and he rode around
doing good and fighting evil. And he had an Indian
sidekick by the name of Tonto. And when I tell
this story to Indian Indians, I have to say an
American Indian sidekick. And the story goes
is that the Lone Ranger and Tato are surrounded
in the desert by 10 ,000 yelling, screaming Indians.
And the Lone Ranger turned to Tato and says,
Tato, we're surrounded by 10 ,000 yelling, screaming
Indians. And all they want to do is scalp us.
What should we do? And Tato, who was an American
Indian, says, what do you mean we, pale face?
Yeah, that's right. Scully snickered and I explained
to him that I have all the responsibility, but
none of the authority. Give me. full authority
as an independent business unit, which he and
the executive committee later did. And as I was
running that, we had sold 23 ,000 of the 25 ,000
Apple 3s that we had in inventory, representing
about a third of all the Apple 3s that were sold
up to that point in time. And then the company
announced that they're going to have an Apple
II Forever event. And the same day, they're going
to announce the Apple IIc. And they're going
to have 24 demonstration stations at the Moscone
Center up in San Francisco showing different
Apple II products. But they would only give one
to me for the Apple III. director of communications
who had been around apple for many years at that
time came to me he says look we're just opening
up another can of worms to explain to the dealers
that the company's still behind the product but
only one out of 24 demo stations is the apple
iii and i don't think we can do that anymore
i don't think the dealers are going to believe
us or trust us so i think we should shut the
product line down so i did that day in april
1984 But in the process of doing that, I also
had as a customer a company out of Utah called
Sun Remarketing. Remarketing, no relationship
to Sun Microcomputers. And he would buy end of
inventory products from like Osborne and Compaq
and so forth and then resell them. So I flew
out to Utah and sat down with him and we cut
a deal for him to buy the remaining 2 ,000 Apple
3s so that when I shut the product line down,
all of them had been sold, all the profits had
been gained. It was enough money to help pay
for the finishing of the Mac development and
also to keep about 1 ,000 to 1 ,500 Apple employees
employed until the following January. In 1985,
Steve had cut the Salesforce, eliminated it.
He discontinued the Lisa product line that he
had been made general manager of in addition
to the Mac. And Mac sales dropped to four units
because there was nothing you could do with the
existing Macintosh at the time because the largest
program you could write was 10K and it had to
be an Apple Basic, which was not a very verbose
programming language. And a couple, three months
later, the board fired him and then moved on.
That's all right. I know I keep saying this over
and over again, but you're talking all about
your background in Apple and everything else.
And that was my beginning in the computer era.
And it's like old home week. That's really because
everything you're discussing, I was part of that
dealership. But I was also a systems engineer
with Apple Computer. So everything is all coming
together. If someone is just launching a product
today, what three networking moves should they
make in their first 90 days? Once they've started
putting together their product market strategy,
one component of that is their distribution strategy.
So that's what they figured out. Are they going
to use a distributor? Are they going to go direct?
Are they going to build a direct customer website?
Are they going to use a sales force? Are they
going to use a value -added reseller? Are they
going to use an original equipment manufacturer?
So you have to figure those things out as to
what is the best way to bring your product to
market. Do you want to do it in the United States
first, then Europe second, and then Asia third?
And then you start cultivating relationships
in each of those areas that your distribution
strategy tells you that you're going to do. That's
great. David, you apparently are very successful
and you're very knowledgeable in what you do.
What's your biggest mistake that you made and
how did you overcome it? I think the biggest
mistake that I've made in my entire career is
going to work for companies or organizations.
that either did not have a set of values or did
not follow those set of values. And third, did
not map into my values. And one of the things
I did when I was writing Building Insanely Great
Products, which is available on Amazon, is that
I was familiar because of my work in the high
-tech business and in dealing with the supersonic
transport and the space shuttle. When I was in
college, I was personally known to or knew of
the presidents of most of the Fortune 500 companies
in the first Fortune 500 list. And I had read
many of their annual reports. So I made a list
of those Fortune 500 companies and I had three
columns. The first column was, did they have
values? And if so, did they follow those values?
And the third column is, are they still in business?
And I found with almost without exception, those
companies that either did not have values or
did not follow values, they were no longer in
business. So that began to tell me how important
the values are. And I wondered if that applied
to my personal career. So I made a list of about
25 organizations that I've been associated with
throughout my career. These are for -profit companies
like Hewlett Packard and Apple and others, nonprofits
like the nonprofits that I started and the flying
club that I started at Michigan, and the homeowners
associations of which I've been president of.
Without exception, those that had either no values,
did not follow their values, and or did not map
into my values, I either got fired, and that
was a mercy killing, and I felt better the next
day, or I quit, and I felt better the next day.
But in those in which all three columns mapped
up, they had values, they followed values, like
Hewlett Packard and Apple, I thrived, and I was
very happy, and very happy to get up in the morning
and go to work there. So the number one mistake
that I made And those organizations that didn't
have that is I didn't examine that before I agreed
to join them. I had a property manager for my
rental property that I owned on the beach in
Maui. And he came back to the Bay Area and was
looking for a job. And I told him that story.
And I said, After they start interviewing you
and they finish their questions, you ask them,
what are their values? And then you decide whether
or not you're going to join that organization.
He said a few days later, he went out on an interview
and he started talking about values. And he talked
with the hiring manager for four hours about
values. They hired him and he said he's never
been happier in a job in his entire life. Sometimes
that's all you need is just a push in the right
direction to make sure that your values align
with the company's. And it's very good advice.
David, this was a blast. I love talking to you,
especially about Apple Computer. But if somebody
wants to get hold of you for whatever reason,
how would they get hold of you? They can go to
my website, to Spice Catalyst, oneword .com.
All my contact information is there. All my books
are there. All my training courses are there.
And then there's an extensive blog with hundreds
of articles about all aspects of product success.
They can also go to Amazon, any place in the
world. Look up my name, David Frayden, and all
my books will come up, including workbooks for
many of my courses that people can use to put
together their five keys to product success.
Fantastic. David, this was so great. I thank
you so much for coming on the podcast. Glad to
be with you. Well, hold on, folks. Don't go anywhere.
Let me just read a few of our sponsors that we
have. Struggling to reach success? Maybe it's
time to quit. In Quit Your Way to Success by
Rodney Davis, this reveals 27 steps to breaking
bad habits that hold you back. This powerful
book helps you rewire your mindset, take control
of your actions, and turn setbacks into stepping
stones. With real -life examples, motivational
quotes, and actionable lessons, especially for
sales professionals. You'll gain the tools to
quit, what's stopping you, and start winning.
Transform your future today. So Quit Your Way
to Success by Rodney Davis, available now on
Amazon. And this is a nonprofit called Revved
Up Kids. This is something I believe in wholeheartedly.
Revved Up Kids is on a mission to protect children
and teens from sexual abuse. exploitation, and
trafficking. They provide prevention training
programs for children, teens, and adults. To
learn more, go to revvedupkids .org. That's R
-E -V -V -E -D -U -P -K -I -D -S dot org. Well,
that's a wrap, folks. A huge thank you to our
special guests for sharing such incredible insights
today. And of course, a big shout out to you,
our amazing listeners for tuning in and spending
your time with us. Remember, networking isn't
about being perfect. It's about being present.
So take what you've learned today, get out there
and make some meaningful connections. If you
enjoyed this episode. don't forget to subscribe,
leave us a review, and share it with someone
who could use a little networking inspiration.
Let's keep the conversation going. You can find
me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or my website,
michaelforman .com. Remember, until next time,
keep practicing, keep connecting, and keep building
those relationships. This is Michael signing
off. Take care and happy networking.