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Why You’ll (Eventually) Need a Product Manager at Your Startup
The document discusses the necessity of having a product manager in startups as they grow, outlining the roles of product managers in large companies and the challenges faced by small teams. It emphasizes the importance of managing priorities, customer needs, and organizational structure, particularly as startups scale beyond 20 employees. Additionally, it highlights the need for effective product management practices that allow for adaptability and strategic focus.
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Why You’ll (Eventually) Need a Product Manager at Your Startup
- 1. Why You’ll (Eventually)Need a Product Manager at Your Startup Rich Mironov Sportsbet, Melbourne 4 Dec 2014 © Rich Mironov, 2014
- 2. ABOUT RICH MIRONOV • Veteran product manager/exec/strategist • Business models, agile, organizing product teams • 6 startups as “product guy” or CEO • The Art of Product Management • First Product Camp, first agile product owner track, blogging since 2001 w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 2
- 3. AGENDA • Whatdo big-company product managers do? • Why (small) startups don’t have them • Q&A / Issues Backlog w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 3
- 4. WHAT DOES APRODUCT MANAGER DO (AT A BIG COMPANY)? market information, priorities, requirements, roadmaps, epics, user stories, backlogs, personas, MRDs… Marketing & Sales Development Customers product bits strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence budgets, staff, targets Field input, Market feedback Markets & Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing, qualification, demos… Executives Product Management w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 4
- 5. 5 WE CANPRODUCT MANAGE OURSELVES
- 6. STARTUP DON’T NEEDORG CHARTS OR ‘FORMAL’ PROCESSES CTO CEO Dev/UI Dev Dev/Build Pitch, funding, biz model, vision, BD, sales, markeRng, PR, legal, office space, payroll… w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 6 Architecture, code, hiring, customer pitches, hiring, code, resolve tech disputes… Front end, code, UX/ UI, mobile client, code, “how it works,” user support Back end, code, cloud, data & APIs, code, security, code, performance, code… Code, repository, build, code, backup, plaXorms, testbed…
- 7. DISCUSSION • Forthose at small startups (1-8 people), what product (management) issues are you seeing? • Those at 9-24 people, what issues? • 25+? w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 7
- 8. SUCCESSFUL STARTUPS GROW w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 8
- 9. 20+ PEOPLE FORMAN ORGANIZATION CEO Mktg Sales US EMEA ROW Bus Dev COO Finance RecruiRng Eng Team1 Team2 SysOps w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 9
- 10. PROBLEMS AT SCALE • Departments • N2 employee conversations • Current customers expectations • Multiple deals from sales/BD • Focus on immediate revenue • What’s the status of x (and can we ship it NOW)? w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 10
- 11. GOOD IDEA TRAIN • Pulls into product station every day • From customers, sales, CEO, eng, competitors, surveys… • Unloads hundreds of “good ideas” each day • Most are not new, inconsistent, not worth displacing current work • Eng can implements 2-3 good ideas per week w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 11
- 12. MAGICAL BACKLOG THINKING My urgency somehow creates resources • “CEO says it’s really important.” • “We already promised it to a big prospect.” • “How hard could it be? Probably 10 lines of code.” • “We’ve been talking about this for months.” • “Engineering should be more productive.” w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 12
- 13. PRIORITIZATION LAWS OFGRAVITY • Requests always >> capacity • Fulfilling all requests is bad • Can’t A/B test everything • Bottom-up feature lists don’t create strategy w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 13
- 14. SOMEONE NEEDS TOMANAGE THE PRODUCT DAY-BY-DAY 1. One backlog despite pressures and promises 2. Represent customers/users 3. Details and facts: what does it really do today? 4. Curate the product/target segment 5. Work the issues, speak the truth w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 14
- 15. “JUST ENOUGH” PRODUCT MANAGEMENT • Get more (of the right things) done • Lightest/leanest tools, fewest meetings • Templates don’t replace judgment • Be a mensch, not (just) an MBA w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 15
- 16. CONTACT Rich Mironov,CEO Mironov Consulting 233 Franklin St, Suite #308 San Francisco, CA 94102 Rich@Mironov.com RichMironov @RichMironov w w w . M I R O N O V . c o m 16