CEO vs so called "mini CEO"
Sales Manager ab se PM. On a serious note, how many agree with this. Pls no hate for any job function, yu to har cheez imp hai wrna kuch bhi nhi hai
Thoughts?
One interview, 1000+ job opportunities
Take a 10-min AI interview to qualify for numerous real jobs auto-matched to your profile 🔑
Agree, because he mentions the stage of startup. It is not that the hire will be bad or role is wrong, the alignment of vision of product generally gets diluted if you add too many people.
Though I think 100 is a big number, <50 employees is still understandable.
Mostly yes.
When they are not, why do they need to hire someone to derail the product. They are very well capable 😂
I don't agree. Founders role is to lay down the strategy on what needs to be done. The PM's job is to polish it out as a product in a multi stage multi year journey working with both tech and business teams.
It makes sense to not have a PM for a team size 5-10.
If a founder is like I can manage a 70-100 team by myself in the name of efficiency then he is breaking a basic management rule of delegation of authority and may actually be more inefficient.
And planning and derailing won't happen if you solve using first principles and actual customer feedback and market assumptions.
Derailing happens because everyone is a little bitch with a big ego or you have shitty luck.
This guy runs political propaganda for 50% of time in LinkedIn and rest of time speaks BS . As long as founding team (founder,cofounder and initial 2-3 employees) is building the product and selling it in their initial stage , there is no question of having a product manager . Rather you should have a person in founding team who was a product manager before so that he can take get insights from market and work with developer . Once you grow your product and if your strategy is based on product lead growth , you must have a product manager dedicated in building and shipping features fast . The reason why a founder specifically shouldn’t be engaged in this is because he has too many other things to work on - be it HR and hiring next people , finance and accounting , investor search , compliance and protocol , branding and strategy and most importantly developing the sales pipeline . You can’t expect the founder to make PRD and work with design team to ensure the notification button is rightly placed . Rather he should review their north start metrics and involve team in doing what’s best for the product /company . On another note , an online coaching company no matter big or small , is a sales lead growth rather than product lead growth and which makes me sympathise with his knowledge a bit more
Hey ankur, yours is best analysis I found explaining this tweeet, I had previously worked in an edtech initially as a APM before switching to PLG b2b SaaS product, I can feel the difference clearly and agree with your comment. PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE THIS PLATFORM SO ENRICHING, WE GET TO LEARN SO MANY VALUABLE LESSONS ON GRAPEVINE EVERYDAY.
Thank you . Glad you find it helpful 😊
Founder definitely is the GPM/Director/VP of products until there is strong PMF (revenue momentum, repeat revenue, user retention)
Is the founder however going to
- write the PRD or review it,
- iterate designs with UX or review once it is iterated,
- do Engg walkthroughs and do ensure LLD is done ask if it is done,
- Test the pre build for bugs and iterate fix them or review the final build
- Is he going to look at the early traction and outcome analytics and get insights or review the insights
My sense is the later for all the above and hence he will need PM/LPM for execution at pace with rigour
Now if the LPM can also generate non trivial insights to enable the founder then great
Would love to know if the above founder is ready to do all of the above if there are no PMs or who would be doing it?
Agreed
Truth is harsh.