CEO of The Sterling Woods Group, which works with content creators to monetize their content. Prior served as C-level executive for niche media and e-commerce firms seeking rapid top-line growth and profitability improvement.
I have rapidly grown several niche content companies, primarily through launching new digital products and services (e.g., premium paid memberships, online learning, e-commerce portals, research/data products). Started career at McKinsey and have applied advanced strategy, analytics, and product management principles to niche businesses.
I've used content and advanced analytics to grow a prospect list, and then nurture leads into paying customers using a structured methodolgy. Continue to engage customers to drive repeat and renewal sales.
Led transitions from "traditional" business models to "digital" business models. Includes setting a vision, communicating the vision, building the right team to execute, and having the right metrics in place.
I would give them similar metrics to the ones you give to your marketing folks. If the tech team builds a good, customer-focused product, on time, with few bugs, then the business results will follow. I have seen too much "gaming the system" with milestone or bug-related metrics. If you want to encourage innovation I have found the best practice is, instead of metrics, to give the tech team he space and privilege to do so - e.g., the Google idea to spend 20% of time on whatever they want, quarterly hack days, etc.
