Enterprise Product Management

 The impact that a product manager has depends much more on the type of product team and its role in the company than on the product's market (B2B, B2C, SMB, mid-market, enterprise, &c). Even for

No one answer suits all situations!  Often the impact of a feature is not based on the size/complexity of the feature, but rather the 'value' it can deliver for our customers and most importantly - i

Taking for granted a baseline of solid product management fundamentals and team simpatico, I feel the following play an outsize role in determining success in the enterprise: Skeptical curiosity Stro

First and foremost - smarts. The basketball cliche is that you can't coach height. You can't coach a PM intelligence.  Next up, is a deep relentless customer focus. In B2C, you can get away being a m

PMs are responsible for defining a winning product and rallying a team to deliver it.  It’s one of the roles that requires a large breadth of skills, as PMs sit at the center of technology, business a

One of the core functions of an enterprise PM (on top of being a specialist and a subject matter expert) is their knack for 'abstracting' and 'generalising' requirements.  As such few (not an exhaust

Tactically, product managers can set the patterns that define successful customer accounts (e.g., via beta testing, early wins, clearly described use cases, &c.), engage with key customers to for

In my mind, we are always selling to a customer.  It starts with the initial sale, when we move an organization from a prospect to a customer.  Once they become a customer, our goal is to ensure they

Being able to support 'repeat sales' is one of the hallmarks of a scalable sales setup. As such championing the product USPs with powerful demos that bring out the best of the use cases is a task only

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rule of thumb: don't build before they buy. If this whale wants something specific, they should put skin the game, either through a services/customization contract or a purchase contract contingent o

Generally, the sales team should focus on selling what’s already on the truck.  However, if there are gaps that are deemed deal blockers for customers, one of the most important considerations is whet

This has always been a chicken and egg problem, and the challenge itself is compounded by the fact that larger customers demand more scrutiny, (longer sales cycle).  Depending on the maturity level o

 In the broadest sense, the role of the product manager doesn't change. The customer profile changes, the buying patterns change, and the routes to market change. The core PM responsibilities don't ne

Enterprise vs. mid-market vs. SMB customers are typically defined based on the number of employees in the organization and its revenue.  Regardless of the organization size, many of the core PM activi

I agree with the comments from other responses. There are a few additional items I would add: Additional requirements / taxes When targetting larger enterprises (and some certain vertical in the sma

A product usually graduates from the SMB mid-market customers to larger enterprise customers as it stabilises. Larger enterprises usually look for reference implementations before committing, which us

This is a big part of why I love working in the mid-market - we flat out refuse one off features for enterprise accounts. My roadmap is so much more scalable and predictable than when I was large ente

In general, I am not a proponent of building custom solutions for a single customer.  However, if there’s a large customer who wants something that will serve the broader customer base, then we’ll con

I usually ask myself a few questions when we are being asked to commit resources to 'tasks outside of the strategic product roadmap'. The primary aim is to not deviate from the core road map unless t

 Entry-level product managers for an enterprise product line tend to come in from two paths: technical background, and business background. Those with a stronger technical background might come from

Some key traits that would really help in a fresh PM interview situation: Passion for product, its inner workings, ability to interpret some of the best features and bad ones - Typically I ask the ca

There is always going to be some nuance to individual features or problem sets based on a company being SMB, MM or Enterprise. However, I do believe that many features can still be used across busines

Let me start from the commonalities: You are building something that solves a user problem and creates customer value that also generates business value in the process. The line between enterprise an

"Custom infrastructure platform" is nearly an oxymoron. :-) Anyway, it doesn't sound like a product; products are offered for sale to a market. A "custom infrastructure platform" is very likely an i