As startups grow and scale they’ll often look to adding a VP of Product to take on the role of product strategy and execution from the founder or CEO. However, founders and CEOs are tempted to hire a process person to drive the execution and often miss out on the other qualities that are critical so the success of the company. The VP of Product is a critical hire to drive the product strategy, road-mapping, and execution across the organization. Shiven Ramji, the Chief Product Officer at Auth0, has dedicated years being a VP, Product himself and has hired and mentored others into this role. In this session, he will share tips on what to look for and expect out of a great VP+ of Product.

1. What To Expect From a
(Great) VP+ of Product
Shiven Ramji
Chief Product Officer
Auth0
@thinkshiv
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Experience across
Product,
Data/Analytics/ML,
Program Management,
SaaS, Hardware, Software
Engineer, Biz Dev,
Marketing
Company types
Startups, Growth stages,
Establish companies
Product Discipline
Built, hired and scaled for
Product discipline multiple
times (including Design,
Engineering, Pricing,
Docs, Data, Competitive
Intel
Product led growth (PLG  DigitalOcean filed their S1 two weeks ago
Sales Led Growth (SLG  Auth0 acquisition by Okta got announced last week
Who am I?

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01.
Why and
when to
get a VP
of
Product?
03.
Key
takeaways
04.
Q&A
02.
Traits of a
great VP
of Product
Agenda

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🐣Company
Founding
🧰 $10MM ARR
PMF
🚀🚀$50MM+ ARR
SCALE UP
💰SERIES A 💰💰💰SERIES B-D 💰💰💰💰SERIES D+
Startup mode: Hustle & Grind
● Founder & instinct driven
● Execute fast
● Every idea is worth pursuing
and sell to anyone with a
pulse
● Generalists rule
● All about value discovery -
try many things to see what
works
Scaleup mode: Organized Growth
● Focus on what works best
● High cost of failures: measure
twice, cut once (research)
● Build for scale (enterprise
readiness)
● Specialists rule
● Mostly about value extraction
Source Visual/chart inspired by Tommi Forsström, VP, Product Teachable
Why and when?

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Strategy +
Execution
Communication Coaching
Customers
Trust
Org Design
Traits

7. ● Customer focus starts shifting from usually sell to everyone to sell to
personas with PMF
● They should be on customer acquisition mode - new trials, new logos, new
teams → growth mindset
● Need to manage stakeholders.
● Bring a strong prioritization framework. You can’t make it up on the fly.
● Communicate internally and externally
● Coaching PMs on alignment + empowerment
● Coaching / influencing the exec teams on what good looks like
● Execute the roadmap, continuous small wins
● Founder instinct is still relevant and valuable
● You may have to sign-up a big customer that you wanted to say no to but
is a great reference logo
● Hire a experienced VP who has a network and can bring experienced PMs
right away
● Begin your triad design / pod - PM, PD, Engineering
● Build trust and partnership internally (Sales, Marketing, Design, Ops)
● Build trust and partnership externally (Customers, Analysts, Trade Orgs,
Communities)
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Strategy +
Execution
Communication
Coaching
Customers
Trust
Org Design
Post-Series A (startup mode)

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● Continues to meet with customers - first hand, at all levels. Meet with
prospects and attend big customer QBRs
● Spends time with a manageable number of customers across sizes,
industries and geographies
● Over communicate at all levels. Repetition will be necessary
● Ability to communicate Product Strategy succinctly with the Company
Mission, Vision & Strategy
● Hire experts on complex technical or business domains and empower
distributed decision making through early alignment on overarching goals
and objectives
● Depending on the product, the product strategy may as well be the
company strategy so ability to do this is critical
● Major in business, minor in product. Can do 23 year financial planning
● Ability to map the market and look for adjacencies
● Plan your org design for 2 years out
● Set the pace and bar for your middle management - Sr. Managers,
Director, Sr. Directors, VPS
● Develop superior trust with all internal stakeholders including sales,
finance, marketing and legal to accelerate decision making and avoid
analysis paralysis.
Strategy +
Execution
Communication
Coaching
Customers
Trust
Org Design
Post-Series C/D (scaleup mode)

9. KEY TAKEAWAYS
Tips to avoid some common pitfalls
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10. 1. The right VP+ Product depends on the stage of the company.
a. Before Series A you can survive without one if founders have a strong product
culture. Can also survive to Series B and C even (maybe) -> but the more you wait
the bigger the organizational tax can be later.
b. Sooner rather than later you will find yourself needing a Product
organization/discipline because there is so much going on
2. Expect the journey from post Series A to Series B-D+ to be a painful one
a. Have patience - give them the time and room to show progress
b. Lots will be broken - but are they balancing strategy with constant execution
3. Find out quickly if they care enough
a. Are they delivering constant wins / building momentum?
b. Do they understand your domain quickly? Do they understand your market? Do
they understand your customer? The good ones will lap you :) -> and that’s a good
thing
4. Bonus: hire a leader with taste - process, hiring, prioritization, mentorship, communication
is all good but hire someone with an opinion on how things need to be :)
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Top Takeaways

11. THANK YOU
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12. Q&A
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