Captain America’s Analysis Is Correct: Don’t Go Off The Deep End

Captain America’s Analysis Is Correct: Don’t Go Off The Deep End

Traveling to alternate universes, much like business conversations about pricing, can push you to the brink. So many questions may surround you that you even start to doubt your own existence like poor Giant Man in Avengers Annual #2. But Captain America’s words to Giant Man apply to Avengers stuck in alternate universes as well as Product Managers trying to align on pricing: “Don’t go off the deep end. It’s going to take all of us to get to the bottom of this.”

The product management business function in your organization may ultimately be responsible for pricing, but the overall pricing effort is a team sport. As Kyle Westra puts it in Complacency and Panic:

  • Sales know that the ultimate goal of the company is profit dollars, not volume.
  • Marketing helps sales understand and communicate value.
  • Product works closely with sales and marketing to understand what the marketplace wants.
  • Finance keeps tabs on margins at the company and product level to inform decision-making and room for margin improvement.
  • IT develops systems that enable sales, marketing, product, and finance to share data and better understand company dynamics.

Setting the price for your product could be product management’s responsibility. However, arriving at those prices is the responsibility of everyone in the business, so don’t shoulder that burden alone.

BONUS!

Avengers Annual #2 has two claims to fame: 1) It’s the first canonical alternative universe presented in Marvel Comics; and 2) it’s the first appearance of a character named “Scarlet Centurion” whom you might recognize by a different name: Kang. Why does Kang masquerade as Scarlet Centurion? Check out this video to explain his very messy history (yes, lots of time travel is involved):

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