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Product Lifecycle

Definition

The product lifecycle model describes four stages every product moves through: Introduction (launch, finding early adopters), Growth (scaling adoption, improving unit economics), Maturity (market saturation, optimizing margins), and Decline (shrinking demand, harvest or sunset decisions). Theodore Levitt popularized the concept in a 1965 Harvard Business Review article, and it remains a foundational mental model for PMs.

Each stage demands fundamentally different product strategies. What works in the growth stage (feature velocity, market expansion) can destroy value in maturity (feature bloat, over-investment). The PM's job changes at each stage, and recognizing where you are determines which playbooks apply.

Why It Matters for Product Managers

Understanding lifecycle stage shapes nearly every product decision: roadmap priorities, investment requests, team structure, and success metrics. A PM running a product in the introduction stage should obsess over activation and retention of early cohorts. A PM running a mature product should focus on margin expansion, platform extensions, and defending against disruptors.

The most common mistake is running a maturity-stage playbook on a growth-stage product (too conservative) or a growth-stage playbook on a maturity-stage product (too aggressive). Evernote arguably fell into the latter trap -- pouring resources into new features and product lines when the core note-taking product was entering maturity. The features did not reignite growth, and the complexity hurt retention.

Conversely, Notion recognized it was still in growth and doubled down on templates, team features, and AI integration rather than optimizing margins. By 2024, Notion had reached $300M+ ARR by staying in a growth mindset that matched its actual lifecycle position.

How It Works in Practice

  • Introduction stage -- Focus: find product-market fit. Metrics: activation rate, early retention, qualitative user feedback. The PM's primary job is to talk to users daily and iterate fast. Dropbox launched with a simple video demo that got 75,000 signups overnight -- validation before building the full product.
  • Growth stage -- Focus: scale acquisition and optimize onboarding. Metrics: revenue growth rate, CAC payback period, net revenue retention. The PM's job shifts from discovery to scaling what works. Invest in infrastructure, automation, and self-serve. Figma entered this stage around 2020 and grew from $75M to $400M ARR in two years.
  • Maturity stage -- Focus: defend market position and extract maximum value. Metrics: operating margin, market share, customer lifetime value. The PM's job is optimization: pricing experiments, platform plays, and ecosystem development. Salesforce entered maturity in its core CRM and expanded through acquisitions (Slack, Tableau, MuleSoft).
  • Decline stage -- Focus: manage the sunset responsibly or find a pivot. Metrics: churn rate, cost per remaining user, migration completion. The PM's job is making hard calls about where to stop investing. Google killed Google+ but migrated the useful parts (business profiles) into Google Maps.

    • Common Pitfalls

  • Assuming linear progression -- Products can stall in introduction and never reach growth. Most products fail before reaching maturity. Do not assume growth is inevitable.
  • Ignoring the "within-product" lifecycle -- Individual features within a product have their own mini-lifecycles. Your core product might be mature while a new feature is in introduction. Manage them differently.
  • Premature optimization -- Optimizing conversion funnels and margins before achieving product-market fit wastes effort on a product that might need to pivot entirely.
  • Denial about decline -- Teams resist acknowledging decline because it feels like failure. But early recognition enables graceful transitions -- allocating resources to new products while the mature product still generates cash.

    • Related Concepts

    Product-market fit is the critical milestone between introduction and growth -- the signal that you have found a repeatable value proposition. Your go-to-market strategy should change at each lifecycle stage. For building the roadmap that matches your stage, see the product strategy entry.

    Related Terms

    Product StrategyProduct-Market FitGo-to-Market Strategy (GTM)

    Frequently Asked Questions

    How do you know which lifecycle stage your product is in?+
    Look at three signals: revenue growth rate, user acquisition cost trends, and competitive dynamics. If growth is accelerating and CAC is falling, you are in the growth stage. If revenue is flat but margins are strong, you are in maturity. If retention is declining despite investment, you are likely entering decline.
    Can a product move backward in the lifecycle?+
    Not exactly backward, but products can re-enter a growth phase through major pivots or platform shifts. Slack launched Slack Connect (cross-company channels) which opened a new growth vector from a maturing core. Apple turned a maturing iPhone hardware business into a recurring revenue engine through Services.
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