Product managers are often faced with a critical question: should we build this feature? The answer to the question should be based on data, not guesses, personal feelings, or opinions.
Today, good product choices come from understanding user behaviour, testing assumptions, and measuring how changes really perform. Moving from gut feelings to data-backed plans is what makes a product amazing.
Reuben Nkemjika Obasi, a respected product manager, is great at this. He champions a data-focused way of doing things.
Reuben doesn’t just create products; he shows they’re good. He uses data to guide choices, making sure the product strategy is based on proof, not just a hunch, and designed for real results. His work joins what users do with the product’s goals.
Reuben uses product analytics tools like Mixpanel and Amplitude a lot. He doesn’t just look at basic dashboards. His team uses these tools to really study how users act. They answer questions like: Which features are people using?
Where do they get stuck? What does their experience with the product look like? This data gives the team the information it needs to know how a product and its users are doing.
Reuben also uses behavioural funnels to find problems and ways to improve things. A funnel is a series of steps a user takes to do something, like sign up or buy something.
By watching these funnels, Reuben sees where users stop using the product. This helps his team make focused fixes to the user experience, instead of guessing what’s wrong. That way, a hard process becomes easy.
A key part of his plan is to have every team focus on a North Star Metric. This is one key measurement that shows the product’s main value and pushes growth for a long time. For a social network, it might be monthly active users.
For a streaming service, it could be total hours watched. Reuben connects every product choice back to how it might affect this goal. This helps teams stay aligned and focused on what’s most important.
His work shows that A/B testing at scale is needed. Netflix is a great example. With its testing system, Netflix can do many A/B tests at once, testing everything from button placement to wording. Reuben does the same thing.
He makes sure that data from tests supports every change to a product’s look or features. This removes guessing from product work, letting the team improve things bit by bit based on how users really act.
Reuben’s true worth isn’t just in the data he tracks. It’s in the way he creates a culture. By adding data and testing to the product team, he helps everyone make better choices. His leadership makes sure that success comes from smart, data-backed plans.
