Contributing myself and supporting my team can be at odds with each other.
Coaching and supporting my team is always my number one priority. There are
times when I simply need to say no and depriorit
Product Management Team
1 answer
Group Manager, Product Management at GitLab • March 7
13 answers
Senior Director of Product at The Knot Worldwide | Formerly Trello (Atlassian) • February 2
As a first PM, you will need to be very judicious with how you allocate your
time and resources. In fact, I think that’s true for larger companies as well.
There are always going to be more ideas than
VP Product Management, Cisco Wireless at Cisco • February 23
Honestly, the first product manager for a company is probably not ready to
establish a prioritization framework. The first PM probably needs to focus on
customer discovery, market discovery, MVP intu
VP, Product & Operations (WooCommerce) at Automattic • March 24
There are many great approaches to this question – and to some extent, it will
depend on what the company values. If you're a first Product Manager, it is most
important that customer needs / expectat
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
The great thing about being the first hire is something that is also great about
Product Management: there is room for interpretation. My philosophy has always
been more heavily focused on understandi
Group Product Manager at Airbnb • June 6
First PM in a company! I have not done it, nor have anyone in close network to
have a good understanding. My guess is that they have to establish right
roles/responsibilities on what to carve out from
Head of Product, Retailers at Faire • June 14
When you are the first PM, you are straddling several priorities: Finding
product market fit Scaling the team Scaling the product The biggest failure mode
is trying to do 2 and 3 before you do 1: As
VP Product at CookUnity • June 30
In my experience a prioritization framework is foundational to establishing a
great working relationship within your own team and stakeholders. I'd also argue
that if executed well in the beginning, t
Senior Director of Product, Central Technology at Zynga • August 2
There are a few different vectors to consider here. There is the effort/impact
matrix, which is pretty good at helping identify low hanging fruit - essentially
mapping out potential workstreams on a 2
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
Thank you for the question and I'm sure this is exactly not the answer you're
looking for which is, "it depends" You're balancing building trust and
relationships, understanding your users and the bu
Director of Product Management at Aurora Solar • October 27
The fundamentals of prioritization are not too different when you're the first
at a company. But in the early stages of a company or product, it's even more
important to focus. At an early stage com
Director of Product Management at GitLab • December 7
This is a great question about how to pave the way for two things: product
strategy and product management execution. I can see this being applicable to
not only first Product hires at start-ups, but
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 13
The product manager's primary responsibility is to ensure that the right product
is delivered to the market at the right time. In order to do this effectively,
you will need to establish a framework f
Group Product Manager at Gainsight • March 2
Know your customer - Often this can just be the investor in the company/company
owner. Meet their basic expectations from the product first, and win their
confidence. Aim to build a functional protot
1 answer
Senior Director of Product, Einstein AI at Salesforce • February 22
The ideal product manager-to-engineer ratio can vary depending on the nature and
complexity of the products being developed, the size and stage of the
organization, and other factors such as the devel
7 answers
Senior Director of Product at The Knot Worldwide | Formerly Trello (Atlassian) • February 2
I have been a part of small teams, large teams, a PM consultant and an
entrepreneur. I have yet to scale a PM team beyond the first PM but here are the
things I would consider: Structure your team ba
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
This is a situation that our team went through last year, scaling from 2 PMs to
10 over 12 months. Before hiring any additional PMs, we first took the time to
survey the teams that existed in our curr
Director, Technical Program Management at Meta | Formerly Microsoft • May 4
Building with intent is key. As a first PM or TPM, you are often running a
one-person show. You wear multiple hats and you tend to be scrappy, flexing to
what the business needs you to do. That approa
VP Product at CookUnity • June 30
The first PM hired into a company, or in a division of a company, will usually
be an individual who can wear different hats on any given day. (see one of my
favorite product management graphics: https
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
I'm not sure it is the most effective because I've really only used one
strategy, but it has been effective for me. Grow your own scope, take on more
than you can handle, do a good job of pitching th
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
Contrary to popular belief, it's not about writing a job description as fast as
possible and starting to hire! It's important to spend some time upfront
thinking about the team you are trying to build
5 answers
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
As I mentioned in another answer, lean on those around you; there is a wealth of
knowledge to be amassed from stakeholders and peers that have likely interacted
with the product that you've been broug
VP Product at CookUnity • June 30
Assuming this is an early stage company, the priority should be learning the
basics of the business and building relationships with as many colleagues as
possible. Use those learnings to construct a m
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
Absolutely, welcome to the discipline, you're in for quite a ride and I'm super
excited for you. Optimize for learning and honing your craft. There's a balance
to have the confidence to make decisi
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
If you are a junior PM who is the first product management hire, it would be
fair to assume you are working at an early-stage startup where likely the
founder is acting as the product leader. You were
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
Congratulations! Being the first PM at a company can be a really exciting and
formative experience, in shaping the product vision and the product
organization. Here's a few things I'd suggest: It's a
4 answers
Director of Product at Netflix • August 4
The candidate must “spike” (“8/10” or higher) in all of these areas, in order of
importance: 1. Critical Thinking Given how many decisions and complex problems
are thrown at PMs, this the #1 most im
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
I'm lucky in that Google has a really rigorous interview process that I benefit
from. Google is also known for taking a long time during that process but I
promise you that is largely because of the r
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
The product manager's job is to identify the most impactful problems to solve,
enable their team to build and ship solutions that delight users, learn, and
iterate. Product managers need a multitude o
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
There's a lot written about basic PM competencies
(https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/), and for
any PM on my team, they should be able to do all these things you'd ex
6 answers
Director, Technical Program Management at Meta | Formerly Microsoft • May 4
Expanding the team from 1 to multiple people comes with a set of pitfalls that
I’ve learned the hard way. And many other factors such as Org culture, line of
business, product lifecycle etc, have a te
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
Here's how I'd think about it: Some planning cadence where strategy and roadmap
can be reviewed at different levels of fidelity. (Annual, Quarterly etc.)
Product review with key cross functional sta
Director of Product Management at Aurora Solar • October 27
The most important process you can set up is a retrospective of some kind. I
talk about this in more detail in another answer, but as you add people,
ensuring that you have ways of sharing and improvi
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 13
Adding every new member to the team adds friction and operation overhead
increases. You will need to set up processes that allow the team to operate
independently and work with each other effectively
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
There are a few that I consider important to set up (and refine) as you grow
your team: Processes for top-down sharing: As your team grows, knowledge sharing
becomes harder but also more critical. PM
3 answers
Staff Product Manager, SDKs and Libraries at Twilio • February 10
I’ve worked with developer focused tooling for almost 7 years so I know exactly
what you mean here. On almost every new feature or product our teams put into
motion, we have a huge list of factors to
Executive Vice President Products at Snow Software | Formerly Rackspace, Dell • October 26
When working with products that are not monetized, it is actually more critical
to measure business impact to show the value of your work. Why? Often products
that are not monetized, are the first one
Director of Product at Shopify • December 14
Products must have some connection back to profitability, helping to either
increase income or reduce costs. You otherwise wouldn't want to make an
investment unless you're choosing to make a donation
5 answers
Principal PM Manager / Product Leader at Microsoft | Formerly Amazon • January 31
Such a great question! When you first set a KPI especially if you are in a new
market and/or in a new product/customer space, it can feel uneasy. The best way
I have learned is by setting something an
VP of Products at DOZR • February 22
I would start by understanding what is the company being graded on by its
investors and how is this new product going to deliver/contribute to that KPI.
Let's say your investors are keen on seeing rev
Senior Director of Product Management at Zendesk • April 20
+1 to arbitrary! I think setting goals for both new and existing markets may
feel like excel magic, some numbers that are based on mainly assumptions and the
product manager's gut. Its uncomfortable a
Director of Product Management at GitLab • July 26
This is a great question. I am a fan of actually being ambitious and setting
unrealistic targets or stretch goals and seeing where we end up in the first
couple of reporting periods. To get a dose of
Director of Product at Shopify • December 14
Setting KPIs should not feel arbitrary. That's a smell. It means that the people
choosing those metrics or setting their targets don't clearly understand how
they influence the business or the outcome
I'm currently struggling to define checkout error rates for our e-commerce platform. We're currently at 1.5%. Personally, I think it's too high. However, I have nothing to substantiate my opinion.
2 answers
Principal PM Manager / Product Leader at Microsoft | Formerly Amazon • January 31
I would recommend first building a relationship with your technical
lead/engineering counterpart. Have them show you how your e-commerce platform
(or product area) works end to end, from the backend p
Director of Product at Shopify • December 14
Service Level Agreements (SLA) are driven by three factors: (1) industry
standard expectations by customers, (2) differentiating your product when
marketing, (3) direct correlation with improving KPIs