Google

I would consider the following factors: * What are the goals at that time? How best are the goals served? e.g need a product-2 to monetize and sustain product-1, which is growing but no line of sight to monetization  * Competitive value - What is the best way to build or defend moat? Is the sum going to be greater than parts? Vertical or horizontal integration? Solution offering rather than piecemeal feature offering? * Execution confidence- Are we in the position to take on a second product? Can we deliver, maintain and do justice to both?

Start with a Total addressable market (TAM) * share of TAM you can get in next 3-5 years *confidence level *Revenue per user per year * 3-5 years. In the RICE framework, you would divide TAM * Share of TAM (influence) * Confience/ Effort to then help prioritize. (Desc) Calculating Share of TAM you can get in next 3-5 years is a art more than science. Do a SWOT analysis for yourself, incumbents in the market, if any and emerging players. Also keep in mind that market/users may not always be ready to adopt. So factor in the barrier to adoption/switching costs. Confidence level is bas...

I would say there is no substitute to real user data.   User research is table-stakes. But in my experience, not always representative of "actual" usage, so don't overindex on specifics. Rather validate if the problem statement is indeed important for the user segments. Because if it is, then they mught be more patient with your iterations towards solving their needs. Else they are very likely to abandon very early on and never return. A good way to test is whether they are willing to pay for the solution. Paper mocks UXR is helpful once you have narrowed themes and want to develop MV...

I recommend thinking about these questions: 1) Is this worth solving? * What is the problem statement? Who are the users? * Is this a real problem? * What is the TAM? What can we influence?  * What is the definition of success 2) Why us? Why now? * Are you the right team/org/company to solve this problem? * Should you work on it now? What happens if you do not? 3) How Might We break up the problem? What sub-problems should we go after(repeat steps 1-2) ? 

In my experience, real human interactions help in building relationships and trust. There may be other effective ways of achieving this too. Once you establish those, working remotely does not adversely impact delivering best products. In fact, I have seen hyper productivity working remotely in some instances.

1. Not validating the problem statement enough. Is this really a problem? 2. For a B2B product, I think its important to think through early on whether this is a problem they are willing to pay for. Often times, this is an after thought and expensive to pivot. 3. Giving up too soon. Its easier said than done to valudate the problem statement. Sometimes this take iterations where you get live feedback from real users. So you might be dancing around the problem space for a bit and that's okay. 

I will share first two steps that I follow. Step 1: Is this problem worth solving? 1.1 Problem definition and user segmentation * B2B product: A business customer must have a genuine painpoint that they are willing to pay for. Some problems are not big enough problems, hence not high priorirty for the business users, these are not worth pursuing. Fine tune the problems till they hit   * B>B>C: The business user/stakeholder may have rightly identified a problem but may not have the best ideas in terms of what solutions can work. Validate the problem is real with user ...

I'll directly answer the question, but then challenge it. The most typical path that I've seen has been starting as an Associate/Junior PM after completing either a Computer Science, Information Systems or Business undergrad degree. However ... in my opinion, PM is a craft that benefits more than any other from diverse backgrounds. I've worked with PMs who were previously marketers, project managers, engineers, business development managers and designers. In fact, due to the varied backgrounds from each of the PMs I work with, I learn about new ways to approach problems. All that to s...

Be your customer as much as you can. Try everything you make multiple times in different scenarios. There's a reason companies like Starbucks and DoorDash have programs in place that put their corp staff on the ground - it opens your eyes to things that you might not have otherwise spotted. I'm also a huge fan having a regular forum for your teams to interact with your customers. In the enterprise setting these can be Early Access Programs that have select customers try out new products ahead of time for unfiltered, early feedback. In a more consumer world you can build the scaffolding f...

Without going into specifics, the biggest challenge has been cross-organization influencing. My time at both Microsoft and Google has exposed me to lots of intra-organization projects with varying levels of buy-in from each team. The level of effort and coordination required to pull not one, but two organizations in the same direction can be enormous. As a PM - at any level - it's your role to effectively communicate why what you're trying to acheive makes sense for other teams, your company and ultimately your customers. Even if you're aligned on principles and strategies, there are doz...