BUS 31 — How to Bring Products to Market: Creating a Frictionless Customer Experience
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Lakshmi Sharma
Date(s): Jun 26—Aug 14
Class Recording Available: No
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 6:30—8:00 pm (PT)
Tuition: $555
Refund Deadline: Jun 28
Unit(s): 1
Enrollment Limit: 40
Status: Registration opens May 20, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Summer
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 8 weeks
Time: 6:30—8:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jun 26—Aug 14
Unit(s): 1
Tuition: $555
Refund Deadline: Jun 28
Instructor(s): Lakshmi Sharma
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Enrollment Limit: 40
Recording Available: No
Status: Registration opens May 20, 8:30 am (PT)
Today’s top B2B and B2C tech companies know how to do one thing most others don’t: create buying experiences so frictionless and compelling that customers are inspired to purchase. Companies that employ this approach often see faster growth and more efficient customer acquisition than others that use an engineering-led approach or rely heavily on marketing—tactics that often have difficulty scaling because they don’t prioritize simplifying new customer onboarding, support, and retention. This course teaches students how to create compelling customer experiences with products as a focus. Students will learn how to hyper-personalize products for customers, proactively anticipate customer pain points before they arise, and diversify and sunset product lines to fix stagnating growth. Students will leave the course having developed prescriptive methods for aligning an organization around a winning product strategy with a sharp focus on growth and profitability.
LAKSHMI SHARMA
Former Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Fastly; Startup and Nonprofit Advisor
Lakshmi Sharma is an industry executive with over 25 years of experience launching, growing, and advising on products and services for businesses and consumers such as Cisco, Brocade, Juniper, RIFT.io, Apcera, Target, and Google. She is an expert in corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, negotiations, and organizational leadership, with a track record in maintaining optimal profitability while conceptualizing and growing startup, medium, and large company products. Sharma serves on nonprofit boards and as a startup advisor. She has been coaching founders, entrepreneurs, and professionals for over 10 years, helping them transform careers, secure investments, enable successful acquisitions, and drive substantial company growth. Textbooks for this course:
(Recommended) Clayton M Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma (ISBN 978-1-63369-178-0)
(Recommended) Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm, 3rd (ISBN 978-0-06-235685-7)
(Required) Donald Miller, Building a Story Brand (ISBN 978-0-7180-3332-3)
(Recommended) Wes Bush, Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself (ISBN 9781798434529)
(Recommended) Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm, 3rd (ISBN 978-0-06-235685-7)
(Required) Donald Miller, Building a Story Brand (ISBN 978-0-7180-3332-3)
(Recommended) Wes Bush, Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself (ISBN 9781798434529)