AMA: Zendesk Former Group Product Manager, Abhiroop Basu on Product Management vs Product Marketing
March 2 @ 10:00AM PST
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Zendesk Former Group Product Manager, Abhiroop Basu on Product Management vs Product Marketing
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
I love this question since I recently made the PMM to PM transition! 1. Focus on transferrable skills. Three of the most important PM skills include: communication, leading through influence, and problem solving. PMMs looking to transfer into a PM role should ensure they are strong in a......Read More
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
PMM and PM roles vary greatly across companies, but there are some common differences: 1. PMMs are the market and competitor experts. Unless the company is very small, a PM who is an individual contributor typically "owns" a narrower segment of the overall product. In contrast, a PMM ty......Read More
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
Usually Marketing, but in some smaller companies Product. PMs and PMMs will almost always have very close relationships (and if you don't then that's a problem). So, it usually doesn't matter which organization PMM reports into. However, at larger companies there can be some misalignment of prio......Read More
731 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
PMs should always lead voice of the customer (VoC) programs While PMMs need to have their ear close to the ground when it comes to customer feedback, it's ultimately the PM who will use the feedback to make product decisions. Additionally, PMs should never be in a situation where product feedbac......Read More
1132 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
Pricing and packaging is typically a PMM function. 1. P&P is typically a business decision. In general, PMMs own business and go-to-market decisions, while PMs own the user experience and the product roadmap. And P&P falls into the former. 2. Product should have a perspective on which......Read More
829 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
Both roles are quite tough to get into without experience, but PM is marginally easier. 1. Companies will typically have more PMs than PMMs. The PMM to PM ratio is roughly 1:4. Even if the company prioritizes PMM roles, it's rare that the ratio will get higher than 1:2. 2. There are fe......Read More
1323 Views
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Abhiroop Basu
Square Product Manager • March 2
Trust is the most important factor in a PM / PMM relationship. When I was a PMM, I worked with many Product Managers who did not understand the role of a PMM. They believed that the PMMs only role was to communicate the launch of a feature. This misconception often stems from the fact that in so......Read More
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