Revolutionizing Product Management: The Story of Tara Intelligence and Its Founders' Vision
Company profile
Company business details
Motivation to build the product
The founders were motivated by the challenges they faced in product management, particularly the inefficiencies and fragmentation in the development process. They aimed to create a solution that would streamline product development and enhance collaboration among teams.Problem that their product solves
Tara Intelligence addresses the problem of inefficient product development processes faced by founders and product managers. The end users are product managers and engineering teams in enterprises and mid-market companies, and solving this problem is crucial for improving productivity and ensuring timely product delivery.Their unfair advantage
Tara's unfair advantage lies in its use of artificial intelligence to automate scoping and milestone management, which significantly reduces the time and effort required in the product development process compared to traditional methods.Strategies
Pre-Launch (Product Development & MVP)
Data Scraping for AI Training
During the early stages of Tara Intelligence, the founders, Iba Masood and her co-founder, spent two and a half years developing their product by scraping open-source platforms to gather data. They collected data from approximately 5,000 software projects to train their AI system. This data was crucial in understanding typical milestones and timelines for various types of software projects, which would later inform their product development process.
Investment Memo Creation
Amber Atherton and her team at Zyper created an investment memo to streamline their fundraising process. They researched existing memos, including the famous YouTube memo, and tailored their own to highlight Zyper's mission, the problem they were solving, and the potential market size. This memo was sent out alongside their pitch deck after initial meetings with potential investors, effectively doing part of the VCs' work for them.
Structured Launch Planning
Iba Masood organized two major product launches each year, strategically scheduled for April and October. This approach involved setting clear timelines and aligning the entire team around these launch dates. The marketing team operated on their own sprints, focusing on community engagement, outreach to waitlisted users, and creating promotional materials in advance. This structured planning ensured that the product was ready for public feedback, which was crucial for the team's momentum and growth.
Launch Stage
Manual Scoping Process with Product Managers
In the initial phase of launching Tara Intelligence, the team employed 10 to 15 product managers to manually run the scoping process. They compared the results of the AI's scoping capabilities against the manual efforts of experienced product managers. This hands-on approach allowed them to identify that 70% of a product manager's time was spent on scoping, highlighting the potential for automation and efficiency through their AI platform.
Structured Fundraising Process
During the Series A fundraising process, Amber Atherton emphasized the importance of having a structured approach. She created an Excel sheet to track potential investors, organized meetings, and set clear timelines. This methodical approach allowed her to focus on building out their pipeline and closing the round efficiently, which ultimately took about two months.
Learn more about Tara Intelligence
How to Raise $400k in Funding Before Landing Your First Customer
Amber Atherton of Zyper and Iba Masood of TARA on Raising a Series A as a Female Founder