What Product Leaders Should be Focused on during COVID19 Crisis

Melissa Perri shares advice gathered from experienced operators on what product leaders should prioritize during the COVID-19 crisis. Her core argument is that survival comes first: preserve cash, shift the roadmap toward retention, act quickly rather than over-analyze, and communicate transparently with both employees and customers. She frames the crisis as a sequence of phases (a continued downturn, a new recession normal, then recovery) and urges leaders to focus on getting through the first two with as many customers and as much cash as possible. The advice matters because it translates broad executive concerns into concrete product decisions during a period of extreme uncertainty.

01Key takeaways

• Build and protect runway first, making hard cost decisions while still investing in product and team quality.
• Prioritize roadmap items that quickly improve customer value and therefore reduce churn.
• Add retention mechanisms such as cancellation-stage offers and bundled add-ons to keep at-risk customers.
• Favor fast, high-confidence improvements over long optimization experiments during a period of unusual customer behavior.
• Over-communicate with your team and customers, and delay or adjust launches when they could disrupt customers' survival efforts.

02Key sections

Cash is king

Survival depends on runway, so leaders should make disciplined cuts while still investing in product and team quality. Raising money will be hard, so preserving cash is the first priority.

Retention as the primary focus

With new sales slowing and churn rising, product work should target features that quickly increase customer value. Cancellation flows and retention offers can also keep customers who would otherwise leave.

Speed over analysis

Delay compounds damage, so teams should choose direction quickly and favor changes that show impact in days or weeks. Experimentation should be scaled back in favor of proven improvements to core flows.

Transparency and empathy

Leaders should over-communicate with employees and customers, explaining decisions and changes. Adjusting marketing messaging and delaying launches thoughtfully signals partnership.

This too shall pass

The crisis will unfold in phases, and the goal is to survive the early phases to be positioned for the post-recession economy.

03From the post

“As CPO in Residence at Insight Partners, I have access to career operators who have managed many companies through crises. The managing directors and operating partners at Insight each have decades of experience helping tech companies thrive…”

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.