AMA: Matterport VP of Product, Preethy Vaidyanathan on Building a Product Management Team

Establish a Framework: Establish a framework that works for the product and company stage. Simplicity is key. Organize requirements using a straightforward framework like MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have) or a Value vs. Effort matrix. Then, create a prioritized list by ordering requirements based on customer value, business value, or team voting. Prioritization Goals: Deliver Value/Early Wins: Focus on demonstrating the value of product management. Prioritize and execute on ...Read More

Three areas to focus in your first product management role:  Learn and Connect: Your initial priority is learning, and make sure that includes understanding the business. Seek to understand how engineering works, how customers use your product, go-to-market strategies, company strategy, and goals. Ask many questions, listen attentively, and document everything. This documentation will be invaluable as you onboard future PMs. Communicate: Keep stakeholders informed about your progress and decisio ...Read More

Show-and-Tell:  Start with a small, well-defined project where a PM can work closely with an engineer or two to demonstrate the value of the role and achieve some early wins. Share the impact of these wins with the wider team. For example, a feature improvement or a customer problem resolution can demonstrate a win for both the team and the business. Demonstrate Value to Engineering:  Beyond showcasing the overall value a PM brings, clearly demonstrate and communicate the specific benefits to th ...Read More

Product manager to engineer ratio can range from 1 PM to 5 or 6 engineers all the way to 1 PM to 10 to 12 engineers. It all depends on the seniority of the product manager as well as the company and product stage.  Few areas to consider as you scale:  Make sure there is sufficient product management and engineering capacity to get feedback from customers and improve existing functionality as well as have the capacity to prototype and build new features to grow the customer base.  Periodically ev ...Read More

There's no single right answer; the best approach depends on the urgency of the need and how quickly you can hire. One approach is to start with some foundational, lightweight processes and then build a small but mighty team that can scale those processes as a collective group. This involves prioritizing the following: Early Impact: Demonstrate some immediate impact. Examples include sharing a well-defined roadmap, creating a forum to receive customer feedback, or establishing a simple prioritiz ...Read More

It's better to have a small team of highly skilled and motivated PMs who align with company values and help meet company goals. Especially in an early-stage company, where ambiguity is high and agility across customer targeting, sales processes, product development, support, and more is key, ensure that your hires are comfortable with ambiguity yet capable of executing and making decisions based on available information. Plan your hiring needs based on projected company growth. Think holisticall ...Read More