Product Habits publishes case studies on how companies like Duolingo, Adobe, Trello, and Grammarly built their products and grew.
Commenters cite it as a product resource and use its Adobe SaaS article as evidence in a debate about free versus paid models.
I think this article is an example of attribution error. To conclude that it is a free model that has caused Canva, Figma, or Notion to take the lead is missing on multiple fronts. To me, the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products, and that they created fundamentally different user interactions.
I can't remember where I read it, but I read a great article that argued that Google Docs was successfully not because it duplicated Microsoft Word (many had tried and failed with this approach), but because it focused on how work had changed and the need for collaboration.
Canva is very, very successful, but I don't think that's at Adobe's expense. By any measure, Adobe is probably one of the best examples of a company shifting to SaaS:
https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/. Also, regardless of whether they offered their products in a SaaS model (Adobe introduced them in 2012 I believe), there was still free trial.
Maybe a better explanation is that Canva tapped into a different audience - people that needed to produce graphics but did not have design capabilities.
On Figma, it seems to me to be a better online collaboration design tool than what has been offered by other companies. The author seems to forget that companies like InDesign existed at the same time, offered a collaborative tool, and had a similar freeium offer.
I won't belabor the point - freeium might have helped these companies succeed, but I think it is…
Great something I can comment on;
Here's the links I think you might found useful - They're not books, but videos, newsletters and articles. -
- https://producthabits.com/
- https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/
- https://www.ycombinator.com/library/?categories=Product
- https://twitter.com/shreyas (Read this guys tweets)
- https://www.sachinrekhi.com/
- https://coda.io/@yuhki/figmas-approach-to-product-requirement-docs (And lastly CODA library, there are a lot of PM docs over here which explains how companies like Figma manage their PRD, just copy the process and simplfy it. Don't use them how they use like. Why? Because you don't need that complicated process w/ 6 people)
In terms of books, there are only few great ones like;
- Hooked by Nir Eyal
- Inspired by Marty Cagan
- Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (Not a PM book but you should read as a PM)
It does, as OP mentioned, they’re making money doing it and it’s a better business model for number of reasons.
For example, Adobe is the largest SaaS by revenue:
https://www.mikesonders.com/largest-saas-companies/
— Model clearly works if you look at Abobe’s revenue per year since 2004:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266399/revenue-of-adobe-systems-worldwide-since-2004/
— Here’s a detailed history of Abobe, if you’re interested in the SaaS part, just search for “SaaS” on the page:
https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/
Taking the right amount of time on the right decisions is key - gathering experience in turn ultimately provides it if you have it, or in hindsight.
As much as making quick decisions is valuable, its painful/permanent impacts to the group are high if they aren't flexible decisions, or aren't revisited.
Technical Research is critical. https://producthabits.com/everyone-forgets-technical-research/
Fantastic summary. What do you think about Hiten Shah's solution which is to use hourly estimates and in depth upfront technical research?
https://producthabits.com/overcome-the-guess-work-of-product-development-with-hourly-engineering-estimates/
Adobe made a very successful switch from one off payments to SaaS for their creative suite, there's a pretty clear before and after to look at. https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/