Role of product manager in early stage startups

Role of Product Manager

A product manager is a crucial role in an early stage startup. A product manager is responsible for defining the product strategy and roadmap, working with the development team to execute on it, and getting buy-in from key stakeholders. The product manager is also often involved in marketing efforts, engagement strategies, competitive analysis, etc. Needless to say this role requires a balance of technical knowledge as well as business acumen.

The responsibilities of a product manager can vary somewhat depending on the stage of the company they are at (early stage vs established company), but their job remains generally constant throughout: define what to build based on market opportunity/demand that will provide value to customers & users. To accomplish this they must understand both their customer/market as well as other competing products/companies within that space because ultimately they’ll be making product/feature decisions and recommendations based on market trends, competitors behavior, and customer feedback.

To put it simply: a product manager is responsible for what. engineers are responsible for the how. Therefore there’s no need to tell your engineer what you want built if he has a thorough understanding of your customers as well as any other competing products within that space. Ultimately they should be able to come up with ideas & solutions by themselves through deep analysis of user feedback that will provide value to those users. They just need your guidance in the form of clear product vision and goals so their efforts translate into real business results.

It is what ties together the three main areas, outlined below:

Design – Making sure that your design and development teams are working on the right things and have a plan to get there, 2. Marketing – Getting people aware of your product and excited about it so they’ll tell their friends and buy it, 3. Sales – Turning those new customers into active users of your product who keep coming back for more.

The best product managers I’ve worked with excel at all three of these things, but not because they’re superhumanly talented (they are). They do it by being effective collaborators across functions. They everyone’s jobs well enough to understand what they need to succeed in their own roles.

And, when everyone’s working together, product management itself becomes the easiest part of the job.

What do we actually mean by “product management?” 

There are two main definitions you’ll see floating around: 

1) Product Management = managing products and 

2) Product Management = making products successful. 

The first definition is too broad because it includes any kind of project management (“I’m working with marketing on our new campaign!”). The second definition is incomplete because product development encompasses much more than just building the thing (e.g., design, testing, etc.). 

The role of a Product Manager is about managing all three sides of the triangle:

1) Building products that users will love. 

2) Planning how to build those products while taking into account business goals and constraints. 

3) Leading a team throughout this process.

A product manager is ultimately accountable for all three sides of this triangle because it’s their job to ensure that the right things get built in the right order so that users have a great experience from start to finish . This often includes cross-functional coordination between engineering, design, marketing and sales teams (more on organizational relationships below). The PM makes decisions along each step of the way based on data , best practices and input from others. Wherever a product manager is in a company’s organization, this basic framework applies.

A product manager will work with multiple functions and people on a given project.

In more detail, the product management process can be broken down into five steps:

1) Start with the big picture – from an idea to a roadmap 

2) Gather requirements  – user research, feedback analysis 

3) Create a plan for building it  – define specific features 

4) Get buy-in from stakeholders – demonstrate ROI 

5) Deploy & maintain the end result – communicate new value to users

These steps aren’t always linear or sequential, oftentimes a PM might return to a previous step after moving along to another task based on what else is going on at the company. For example, if there are delays in development or lots of feature requests coming in from users, the PM might send out a survey to prioritize what features should be built next, come up with an updated plan for getting everything done on time and within budget, and get stakeholders’ approval before moving forward.

This may seem like quite a bit of work! But it all makes perfect sense when you start thinking about timing–the earlier the PM can do this planning, the better! By gathering requirements ahead of time through user research , market research , et cetera , any changes made during development will have minimal impact on overall project costs . Also, since everyone is already on the same page when it comes to the product itself at each design review, the approval process is more likely to be painless.

And on top of all that, considering what needs to happen first ensures no time is wasted later in the project when you realize (often with some panic) that something on your plan forgot to account for some necessary step!

These are just some examples of why it’s good practice to keep requirements organized throughout a workflow. By having everything written out and easily accessible by team members, everyone can stay on the same page. And, as discussed earlier this week , keeping track of what’s been done means there’s less risk of “scope creep” during a project–a major win for agile teams!

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