Building Paypr – The Background Story

The Product Manager role in a tech company has been compared to that of a CEO, a janitor and the leader of a jazz band.

As the leader of the loosely-coupled cross-functional teams that have created Paypr, a product that will clean up our wallets by removing the need for paper receipts, I feel a connection with all of these descriptions.

But now, days out from launching Paypr, I will contribute my own perspective.  Product Management is both the most and least important part of bringing a new product to life.

Building any new solution takes a lot of effort from a lot of people. In the case of Paypr, there have been over 30 people involved for the best part of a year. Not only is the team big, but it’s full of highly-skilled and intelligent people, so if the end result of that precious time and effort is something that doesn’t matter to the world, it’s been a terrible waste. Imagine the opportunity cost.

Based on that it seems clear that the foundation for success of a project is choosing the right project in the first place. This is the role of the Product Manager more than anyone else – and by that definition, it’s very important.

But having chosen the right project, and having built the best team for the job, that means the Project Manager is faced with a difficult truth: everyone else, not the Product Manager, is making the product.

It is the output of the developers, the technology team, the marketing creatives and the legal team that actually produces the end result. Yes the Product Manager has to roll up their sleeves from time to time to keep things moving or to plug a gap (not in the code, I can assure you), but primarily the Product Manager is working to ensure that the other people’s work is the right work.

How do you do that? It starts with a vision. For Paypr, it was a society free from the hassle of paper receipts. That’s pretty compelling, relatable and easy to bring to life for people.

Then you build a roadmap – what path will take us from our current state to our ultimate state? The first step is the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – the first version we’ll launch publicly and build on over time. Interviews, prototyping, observation and iteration led us to define our MVP around three pillars:

• real-time digital receipts
• the fastest expensing solution
• guaranteed accuracy of data.

Of course the MVP doesn’t achieve the vision, but it’s a step towards it, and it’s a step that will offer unique value in the market.

The Product Manager tries to keep things simple, to remind people of the long-term vision and short-term goals, to ensure the market voice is never forgotten, to clear impediments and to get out of the way so the real work can be done.

You can spot the absence of Product Management every time you use a product that doesn’t actually solve a relevant problem. You can spot the absence of a great team of people when technology solutions have the right idea, but are delivered too late or at too high a cost, and miss the market opportunity.

With Paypr we believe we are delivering a product that will take New Zealand on the journey of eliminating the clutter of paper receipts, and give us all time back to do the things we love. A very real problem, a very relevant solution.

Matthew Court – Paypr Product Manager