Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

Why shipping more features won’t guarantee growth and what to do instead

Melissa Perri

2018

8 Key Insights

About This Book

Imagine transforming your organization from a frantic feature factory into a strategic, outcome-driven powerhouse. Escaping the Build Trap guides you on a clear path: you’ll discover how to align teams around customer value, establish product visions that drive measurable business results, and redesign processes to foster a culture of experimentation. Through vivid case studies—from companies stuck shipping dozens of unused features to innovators unlocking explosive growth—you’ll learn to shift from outputs to outcomes, build a truly product-led organization, and avoid costly pitfalls. Embrace proven frameworks, real-world examples, and practical exercises to accelerate your journey toward sustainable, customer-first products that fuel long-term growth.

About the Author

Melissa Perri is CEO of Produx Labs, a consulting and training firm dedicated to teaching product-led practices to organizations worldwide. With over a decade of hands-on experience as a product manager, UX designer, developer, and consultant, she has led transformations at multibillion-dollar companies and mentored thousands of product professionals. Melissa is a recognized conference speaker, educator at the Product Institute, and advisor to Chief Product Officers. Her practical frameworks and real-world insights have helped companies escape output-driven traps to achieve sustainable growth.

Biggest Takeaway

By reading this material, you’ll learn to redefine success metrics—moving from sheer feature counts to customer outcomes that spark loyalty and revenue growth. You’ll master the Value Exchange System to deeply understand user needs and design products that solve real problems. You’ll adopt systematic experimentation to validate ideas early and reduce risk before costly development. You’ll align strategy and execution across your entire organization, unlocking cross-team collaboration and streamlined decision-making. Finally, you’ll overhaul policies and incentives so every employee—from engineers to sales—contributes directly to long-term value. Implementing these shifts will deliver faster innovation cycles, higher product adoption, and a resilient, growth-oriented culture.