Data-Driven Product Management: Insights from Ibrahim Bashir of Amplitude

Happy Monday, people - We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Ibrahim Bashir, VP of Product Management at Amplitude. Ibrahim's got quite the resume - from launching the first Kindle Fire at Amazon to helping take Twitter public, and now leading product strategy at one of the top analytics platforms out there. Oh, and did we mention he's running for local office in his spare time? Talk about a superachiever!

We dove into the nitty-gritty of how Ibrahim approaches product management, uses data to drive decisions, and balances customer feedback with strategic vision:

Q: Ibrahim, you've been at Amplitude for over three years now, most recently focusing on emerging products. Can you walk us through how you approach metrics and KPIs for both established and new product lines?

Ibrahim: Absolutely. For our core product, we've had a North Star metric that we rally around and decompose into different drivers owned by various teams. When I started, that metric was "Weekly Learning User" - a composite metric tracking active users creating charts and dashboards that are then viewed by others. Our research showed this correlated well with expansion and retention.

Over time, we've evolved this based on our priorities. For a while, we focused on simplifying the experience of getting to insights, so "Weekly Saving Users" became our key metric. Then we shifted to maximizing consumption of insights. Now, we're back to focusing on overall active users as our main North Star.

For new product lines, we treat things a bit differently. There, it's more about straight revenue as a goal, or proxies for revenue like letters of intent or handraisers. We're really trying to validate - is this actually leading to people buying more?

Q: That's interesting that you tie product metrics so directly to business outcomes. How do you balance that with more traditional product usage metrics?

Ibrahim: It's critical to connect the dots between product usage and business impact. Sometimes that's about revenue growth, sometimes retention, and sometimes margins. Different teams own different pieces of that puzzle.

But you're right, we don't ignore usage metrics. They're often leading indicators for those business outcomes. The key is understanding the causal relationship - how does increased usage translate to retention or expansion? We've done a lot of work to establish those connections.

For newer products or features, we might start with usage metrics to validate interest and adoption. But ultimately, we need to show how that usage drives business value.

Q: You mentioned getting feedback from a wide variety of sources - customers, prospects, churned users, internal teams, analysts. How do you synthesize all that input to inform your product roadmap?

Ibrahim: Amplitude is a very customer-oriented company. Literally nothing gets built without meaningful customer validation. But you're right, we cast a wide net for feedback. We look at Gong call recordings, Zendesk tickets, JIRA issues, social media - you name it.

Internally, we have a structured quarterly planning process where teams like sales and customer success can summarize trends they're seeing. But we also leave room for ad-hoc feedback - if a key customer threatens to churn over a specific issue, that obviously gets immediate attention.

The real art is in the synthesis. It's about pattern matching and judgement. Is this feedback corroborating or contradicting our existing strategy? Is it something we're already working on that we should accelerate? Is it a completely new insight that's hit a tipping point?

We try to have a clear point of view on the market and a strategy, and then use all this feedback to either validate or challenge that strategy. Obviously, we can't build everything for everyone, so there's always prioritization involved.

Q: How do you approach ideation for entirely new products or features?

Ibrahim: There are a few key sources we look at:

1. Existing customer usage: Our first major new product, experimentation, came directly from customers telling us they were already using Amplitude for that purpose. In B2B, your first adjacent product should feel obvious and natural.
2. Market trends: We pay close attention to industry consolidation. If we see customers spending budget on an adjacent tool, that's an opportunity to expand our platform.
3. Category expansion: We look for standalone tools that could be natural additions to our platform. Session replay is a great example - it's very complementary to our core analytics offering.

The key is balancing customer pull with our own strategic vision. We want to build things our existing customers will readily adopt, while also expanding our total addressable market.

Q: Last question - you've clearly built a strong, data-driven culture at Amplitude. Any advice for leaders looking to foster that kind of environment, especially as companies scale?

Ibrahim: Culture can be both an asset and a liability. At Amplitude, our strong customer focus was incredibly valuable, but we want to make sure that we’re not over-indexing on power-users. The danger there is that you end up with feature bloat and complexity that alienates more casual users.

As a leader, it's crucial to recognize these patterns and course-correct. We had to deliberately broaden our feedback channels and remind the team that we need to build for a diverse user base, not just our most vocal customers.

Tools and processes can help reinforce this culture. We use ProductBoard as a central repository for feedback, but it took work to get teams to consistently use it. Creating structured forums for cross-functional feedback sharing during planning cycles was also key.

Ultimately, it comes down to balance. You want to be responsive to customers, but you also need to maintain a clear vision and strategy. Data should inform decisions, but not make them for you. It's about arming your team with the right information and fostering an environment where they can make smart, customer-centric choices.

Conclusion

Well folks, there you have it - a masterclass in data-driven product management from one of the best in the business. Ibrahim's insights remind us that while data is crucial, it's the synthesis of that data with market understanding and strategic vision that truly drives product success.

Whether you're at a scrappy startup or a tech giant, there are valuable lessons here about balancing customer feedback with long-term strategy, tying product metrics to business outcomes, and fostering a culture of informed decision-making.

Big thanks to Ibrahim for sharing his wisdom and experiences. Now it's your turn - how are you using data to drive your product decisions? What challenges have you faced in building a data-driven culture? Drop us a comment and let's keep the conversation going!

Until next time, keep shipping awesome products and may your metrics always be up and to the right!

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