Fmr Rent The Runway Product Director on The 2020 Product Awards and Product Insights

Laura Burkhauser is the director of consumer products for the popular online designer dress and accessory rental company, Rent the Runway and an integral part of the 2020 Product Awards. In her role, she created the digital interface customers interact with at the premier designer rental destination from the personalization service that recommends sizes and styles, to the intuitive subscription service.

Recently, she discussed her role as a member of Products That Count’s Awards Advisory Board and provided insight and tips about being a product manager.

Being an Awards Advisory Board Member for the 2020 Product Awards

The Products That Count’s 2020 Product Awards celebrate the best in the field of products for product managers. If you want to join in the fun, nominations are still open for the 2020 Product Awards. The 2020 Product Awards are grouped into five main categories: conceive, design, build, operate, and collaborate. In total, we will hand out 19 awards.

Because recognition is important in every field, it’s nice to have an opportunity to help celebrate the thoughtfulness that goes into the products that help us do our jobs better.

I started thinking about products and product categories as a member of the Awards Advisory Board.

We are celebrating that difficult question: Where do ideas come from? Our categories in this phase get at an answer to that question.

Two of those answers are listening to customers and tracking trends.

I think there’s sort of an always-on antenna that you have up of what’s happening with customers right now.

With tracking trends, it’s asking what’s going on in tech, what’s going on in the larger economy.

I think it’s also really important to analyze the competition. It’s important to analyze and keep track of competitors— having a broad sense of who competitors are and just keeping up on the work that they’re doing.