1. What is Product Mgmt and Why
Should You Care?
By Isaac Souweine
Head of Product Management @ Frank & Oak
Presented to Founder Fuel
Feb 26, 2014

2. Personal Intro
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Columbia (Religion)
Scholastic
INSEAD
Yahoo
Pollenizer
Frank & Oak

3. Group Checkin

4. I. why should you
care?

5. product managers
partner with devs,
design and
business to bring
products to market
that drive business
value
http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2011/10/what-exactly-is-a-product-manager/

6. discussions of product management typically
assume highly specialized organizations
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
Customers
VPs

7. and that diagram is a massive
understatement
HR
UX
FIN
M&A
LAW
strat
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
Cust
svc
Customers
BI
INF
Ops
VPs

8. the context is appropriate considering who
invented product management
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
Customers
VPs

9. and who practices it at scale today
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
Customers
VPs

10. meanwhile, this is the context
of an early stage startup
Biz cofounder
Tech cofounder
Customers

11. or maybe this
Biz
Tech
Customers
Design

12. also known as
Huster
Hacker
Customers
Hipster

13. or perhaps your hipster is
more on the marketing side
Biz
Tech
Customers
Mktng

14. whatever the case, your team is tiny.
whereas product management is about
managing complex organizations.
so why should you care?

15. II. why you should
care

16. Early stage startups are temporary
organizations in search of product/market fit
market
product

17. They seek product/market fit by conducting
build/measure/learn cycles
LEARN
market
MEASURE
product
BUILD

18. Big company PMs are actually
trying to run similar cycles
LEARN
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
BUILD
VPs
Customers
MEASURE

19. They just have a lot more people
involved in the process
LEARN
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
BUILD
VPs
Customers
MEASURE

20. which means a lot more
stakeholder engagement
LEARN
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
BUILD
VPs
Customers
MEASURE

21. and a very long and filtered
learning process
LEARN
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
BUILD
VPs
Customers
MEASURE

22. all that complexity should not be that
interesting to early stage startups
LEARN
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
BUILD
VPs
Customers
MEASURE

23. But the way PMs run
build/measure/learn is relevant
LEARN
UX
design
BD
Mktng
PM
PMO
Eng.
Sales
BUILD
VPs
Customers
MEASURE

24. III. what is product
management?

25. so here is a list of what these big
company PMs do
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understand
strategize
prioritize
specify
analyze
grind
+
● communicate
● negotiate
● motivate

26. you can divide the list into two areas
●
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understand
strategize
prioritize
specify
analyze
grind
Manage complexity
+
● communicate
● negotiate
● motivate
Build, Measure, Learn

27. of course we care more about the stuff
on the left
●
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●
●
●
understand
strategize
prioritize
specify
analyze
grind
Manage complexity
+
● communicate
● negotiate
● motivate
Build, Measure, Learn

28. a list which maps pretty well to the
B/M/L triangle
LEARN
● understand
● strategize
● analyze
● grind
MEASURE
BUILD
● prioritize
● specify

29. understand
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know your market deeply
market size and dynamics
competitors
trends (macro and micro)
customer profiles
use cases

30. strategize
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craft a compelling vision
value proposition
feature set
KPIs
brand alignment
monetization
acquisition flow

31. prioritize
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decide what to build
ROI
technical understanding
speed vs. scale

32. specify
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describe what to build
user stories
wireframing
copy
edge cases
errors and help
success metrics

33. analyze
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understand what happened
web analytics
funnel analysis
spreadsheets
data integrity

34. grind
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do whatever it takes
customer engagement
qa
developer enablement
late nights and early mornings
wrangling of all kinds

35. there are a few paths to the product
management role
● marketing > PM
● engineering > PM
● UX > PM

36. IV. so should you have
a product manager?

37. a lot of what PMs do is extremely relevant to
early stage companies
●
●
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understand
strategize
prioritize
specify
analyze
grind
Biz
Tech
Mktng

38. but does that mean someone on your team
should be a product manager?
Biz
Tech
PM

39. of course the short answer is that it depends
Biz
Tech
?

40. Pollenizer (AU) runs
three person teams
with a designated lean
product manager. In
this setup the LPM
covers customer
development and parts
of growth.
Biz
Tech
LPM

41. A designated PM
role can also make
a ton of sense for
larger startup
teams
Biz
Tech
Tech
PM
Mktng
Design

42. On the other hand, the
marketing function can
double as PM (reverse
Pollenizer model)
Biz
Tech
Mktng

43. In other cases, the
business lead can
share product
management
responsibility
Biz
Tech
Mktng

44. Or simply owns it
completely in a two
person team
Biz
Tech

45. In design heavy teams
the designer can play
the PM role, especially
if she comes from a
UX background
Biz
Tech
Design

46. in the end, it doesn’t matter so much whether
you have the formal role of PM
LEARN
product
market
PM
MEASURE
BUILD

47. what matters is that your team is set up to
drive effective B/M/L cycles
LEARN
market
MEASURE
product
BUILD

48. THANK YOU!!