WorkOS · Product sense · Senior · 45 to 60 minutes

What should WorkOS launch with first?

WorkOS makes developer tools that help software companies make their apps ready for enterprise customers and IT teams. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product strategy
Prioritization
Customer empathy
Platform thinking
Executive communication

The situation

It is early 2019. WorkOS is not yet launched. Michael Grinich has spent many months interviewing three groups: founders and CTOs at software companies trying to sell into enterprise, people who previously built enterprise features at companies like Dropbox, Slack, and Asana, and IT admins who approve or block new software. The research suggests a real opportunity in helping modern SaaS products become enterprise ready, but the audience signals are mixed. Founders often see enterprise work as distracting and boring, while IT admins care deeply about security, control, and compliance and can veto adoption. WorkOS is about to hire its first engineer, and the company needs to decide what first release should include, how polished it must be before launch, and how to sequence the platform from there. The candidate feature pillars on the table are SSO, directory sync, audit logs, and role based access control. Michael asks you, as the PM leading product strategy, to recommend a v1 plan that can earn trust with developers and enterprise gatekeepers without taking so long that the company misses its timing.

What to produce

A 2 page product strategy memo.

Your answer must

State the core problem, the primary initial customer, the end user, and the gatekeeper, and explain why each matters.
Recommend the v1 scope across SSO, directory sync, audit logs, and role based access control, including what to launch with, what to defer, and the order of follow on work.
Define the launch bar for a trust sensitive developer platform, including product quality, docs, onboarding, and any non feature elements that must be ready.
Outline how you would validate the plan before launch and in the first weeks after launch, using leading signals rather than mature revenue data.
Discuss the biggest tradeoffs and second order effects of launching too narrow, too broad, too early, or too late.

Constraints

WorkOS has no live customers or usage data yet.
The team is just forming, with only a small number of engineers available before launch.
Your recommendation must stay within the four feature areas already identified by research.
You need to earn trust from both developers and enterprise IT from day one.

Format

Use sections for customer and problem, product thesis, v1 scope and sequence, launch bar, validation plan, and risks.

How WorkOS actually played it

Founder describes spotting an untapped enterprise-readiness market, building four features in sequence starting with SSO and shipping a minimum awesome product. A guide to scoping a first release.

Boring problems can be big markets
Aim for a minimum awesome product, not just viable

Built from WorkOS' Path to Product-Market Fit: Why Your Bad Idea Might Be the Best One by First Round Review.