5 Tips to Become a Successful PM in a Startup

* From Sep 2021 - Scroll down *

It’s been 4 years since I joined Prolaborate, a niche collaboration software that enables Enterprise Architecture and Digital Transformation efforts to go Agile in Global Enterprises.

When I joined Prolaborate as the first Product Manager (PM), there were less than 10 team members and no paying customers. The product was at the alpha stage.

Today, our team has grown by 5x and the customer base has grown to 225+ global companies. Here are some highlights:

In 2018, we were acquired by the largest player in architecture modeling tools, Sparx Systems.

Additionally, we started a Cloud business that has grown leaps and bounds after 2020 and is contributing to the revenues significantly.

To summarize my experience, I could not have asked for more. The whole journey has been incredible and transformative. More than a better PM, I have become better as a person and leading a happy life now (Touch wood!)

* From Sep 2021 - Scroll down *

Looking back at my last two stints taking products from 0 to 1 and 1 to 10, I realized that I have learned most of the important things the hard way. I always had this feeling “I wish I knew this when I was young (started as a PM)”.

So, I decided to share my top learnings through this blog post to help Product Managers in early-stage startups learn the important aspects in advance and be ready to make their product a success.

Be Passionate

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you - Oprah Winfrey.

As a PM, if you are not excited about your product and the problem it solves, it is better to move on because, believe me, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

Passion is the only quality that will help you to do great things, contribute proactively, and stay positive no matter how hard and uncertain the journey is.

One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested – E.M. Forster.

Even in reality, the kind of work a PM does in the first year of an early-stage product company will be done by at least 2-3 teams in another 2 years even if there is decent growth.

Jack of all Trades

But what does it mean to be passionate?

It is always being ready to roll up your sleeves and get things done; no matter what and where!

All you want is to make the product a success and you are the only one who can do it.

One of the first roles I took up in a company was that of a manual tester. I wrote hundreds of test cases and tested a couple of releases. This is on top of the PM, Sales, Support, and Marketing roles that I had.

While this might sound overwhelming, hectic, and maybe irrelevant to the core PM role, all these roles helped me immensely to grow ‘quickly’.

All the learnings from various roles helped in defining strategies and building the right roadmap.

I am not asking you to do everything but if that is the case, embrace it. If not, ensure to develop a good relationship with these teams.

Ultimately, as the months pass, you must become ‘the’ point of contact for the product.

Tip: If you think a role is not adding value to you as a PM, it is better to recommend a new hire so that you can concentrate on what matters.

Be Organized

Being organized does not mean taking notes but being reliable. I have seen that listening and being organized are difficult skills to master.

Just think about how you will make your CEO and the teams feel when they never have to repeat something to you or follow up with you in just your first month.

While adding value to the product would require some time, adding value to the process could start a lot earlier.

Here are some tips based on what I do:

1. Keep a Note and Pen with you at all times and ensure all takeaways or tasks go to a single place. I use Excel for maintaining my task list and notes
2. Listen properly, take notes, and ensure every single input from important discussions goes where it needs to. For example, feature requests, ideas, enhancements, etc., should always go to the backlog without fail.
3. Set Appointments with yourself if you want to be reminded of something
4. Attend meetings on time and if you are facing any issues, ensure to update in advance.

These qualities will easily set you apart in your career.

Note: Believe me when I say this is a scarce skill!

A Happy Team is more important than a Happy Customer

In the early stages, the team size would be small and the customers would be less. But, when it comes to choosing who is more important between these two, always choose the team; even when your team does not deliver on a customer expectation that they promised for some reason.

You can lose a customer and get another one. You cannot lose the team’s respect for you and gain it later. (At least it would be a long and hard process).

Delays and issues are bound to happen. Be on top of what’s happening and try to complete the goals.

These are the times when you can add value and also start to develop a good rapport with the teams.

Be a product champion with customers and a customer champion with the Engineering team

Note: I am not asking you to accept everything the team does. Just do not develop a negative mindset.

Streamline Processes

If there are no proper processes in place, do not try to learn the best ways to do it based on the articles on the internet. There are high chances that this method will backfire (It did for me at least 😊)

The first step in streamlining the processes is to understand the current process, constraints, and issues by talking to each of the stakeholders. Then, you can identify areas where you can reduce issues keeping the constraints in mind.

In this way, you are adding value to the way things work at that time and not asking everyone to start doing things differently.

Remember to take it slow with less expectation in the earlier weeks or months.

Note: You should be on the thin line between what is best and what the team is ready to do.

Empower the Team

Micromanagement is not an option with this team size in a fast-paced start-up environment. Try to create autonomous and empowered teams.

It is best if you can establish a flat hierarchy where everyone is connected as a team to achieve the larger goal.

And when it comes to building a positive culture, one critical thing that I learned is to play by a person’s strengths.

Just to share, one of the best bosses I worked with always focused on my strengths and helped me grow them exponentially. This is what I did to my team and this is what you should also do for your team!

At the end of the day, if the overall score (strengths – weaknesses) of a person is positive, it is a good sign of greater progress.

Conflict Resolution

Despite all the passion and positive efforts, there will be conflicts of all sizes.

Like how there cannot be a marriage without any fights, noone cannot build a product without any conflict between Product and Engg.

No matter what conflict it is, ensure your ego takes a back seat and only the product takes the front seat.

Resolving conflicts by bringing in the product’s strategy always (mostly) works!

In cases where you cannot come to an agreement, go with the option that has no negative impact on the team's emotions, product, release cycle, customer promises, etc.

Note: Remember the above point that a happy team is more important and conflicts are natural with empowered teams.

Prioritization is the Key

If you look up the top skills a PM requires on Google, you can see that Prioritization will be present in all the blog posts. And this is for obvious reasons!

While there are a lot of prioritization frameworks online and I would also be sharing my experience here, note that these are all references.

Only a passionate PM who is keen on learning the complete landscape – the 5Cs: Company, Customer, Climate, Competition, Collaborators – can get prioritization right over time.

How to Prioritize, exactly?

A clear vision and strategy are extremely important. But, in reality, "clear" is not possible and so, "with enough conviction" is what we should aim for.

If enough efforts are not invested to develop that conviction, it would be very tough to move ahead and make proper decisions amid the uncertainty and constraints. So, spend time doing "enough" research.

Strategy is what will drive your roadmap and release. Nothing specific to advise here are all this completely depends on your product but some points to note:

1. Make Data and Customers your two eyes
2. There are two good times to jump on a call with the customers: When they are frustrated about an issue and when they are happy about the product/support.
3. Ensure to talk with Sales and Customer Success/Support teams to understand the market demands and customer feedback. A short meeting once a week will be good so that they don't have to prepare anything and they can just share what's on top of their mind.
4. If applicable, discuss with Partners and market experts to gain additional insights. These could happen once a month or after every release whichever is later. This will help you understand the larger trends.

Note that data is not necessarily product analytics because in some cases like Enterprise B2B products, it might take a long time to reach a time where you have enough data to analyze

Here are some other areas and my comments based on my experience in a company:

Perfection is the enemy of Prioritisation.

It is easy to take a capability and then give 5-10 suggestions on UI, UX, and functionality. Do not get carried away by perfection.

Sales Requirements

There would be instances where a large brand wants a specific feature. You cannot say Yes immediately to satisfy them before understanding further and you cannot say No as adding that logo to your home page can drive sales.

So, what do you do? Follow this process.

Tips:

1. Explicitly ask about the priority. Many say it is just good to have after asking this question although they had said it was important earlier.
2. Consider working only on an MVP focusing on the goals and not developing a solution in a way expected by that one customer.

Note: Prioritization is a vast topic and so, I am intentionally not going into the details.

Develop Communication Skills

This section is not at all about the importance of verbal and written communication skills which everybody knows.

How to Provide Feedback?

This is about the importance of ‘words’ and feedback.

In my early days in one of the companies I worked for, my boss used to ask me to prepare marketing collaterals and I used to prepare ‘something’.

But, every time the feedback would be positive. At times, he would say “Awesome! But I have made a few minor changes” and pretty much rewrite the whole thing :D. He ensured I never felt anything negative and he showed how it should be done with zero criticism.

To date, I have followed this route (or at least tried majorly) and it has worked like a charm. Here is a format that you can use for providing critical feedback:

1. Positive comments about the efforts, delivery, etc.,
2. List of questions to think about from an understood and established ‘product’ perspective
3. High-level suggestions for improvement

Words can hurt a lot even if the intentions are good.

And hurtful words in emails are worse as they stay forever!

So, always ensure the person getting the feedback feels comfortable and motivated. Offer to help or do it if the whole task is going in the opposite direction.

This is one more place you can add value and improve rapport with the team.

Note: I am not talking about giving false appreciation but about being 100% positive when it comes to feedback.

Look at the Bigger Picture

This is critical, especially in customer interactions – be it in sales, support, or product calls.

What I had done initially and seen many do is to go after the content of an email or conversation and dig deeper into that. The goals and intentions that are not explicitly stated are ignored or not clarified.

To take an example of a support ticket, many prospects reached out to us regarding the security of our product. While we answered them properly point by point, there were mostly more questions.

What we did not do earlier was share the names of large customers and build confidence. After we started doing it, the whole process went comparatively smoothly.

Communication should target the intent and not the words

With this habit, you will always look at the goals and intentions rather than the explicit requirements and design ideas stated by the customer.

Never lose your Composure

You will face arrogant and entitled customers who feel happy tearing your product apart for no specific reason. Because of all the love and passion, you should not get offended and abuse the customer.

Always remember, never email in a bad mood

Once a customer, one of the largest telcos in the world, raised some security concerns with our product. As security should take high priority and they had some urgent timelines for their deployment, we dropped all the current priorities and involved the whole team to work on it.

After many weeks of concentrated efforts amid all the taunts, we delivered as promised.

However, the customer ‘felt’ something was not right and started abusing our product through an email to our CEO (I was in cc). It was one of the(or the only) worst emails we have ever received.

I was like “It’s about time we give it back!”. As it was late in the night, I thought I would discuss this tomorrow.

The next day, when I opened my inbox, I saw a reply from our CEO stating just the facts about all the efforts that we have put in and clarifying the concerns that were raised. The tone was polite and I could never imagine someone replying softly to such an extremely harsh email.

When I spoke with him, he said he was also highly upset but he did not reply immediately. He diverted his attention to other tasks, went for a run, passed the time, and replied politely the next day.

That customer stayed with us and this is easily one of the most important learnings in my career.

Note: This does not mean you should let customers disrespect you or the team. You should stand firm and take care of the situation accordingly in almost all other cases.

Keep it Simple

Simplicity is a highly underrated skill as far as I have seen working with highly paid architects and consultants in the largest companies in the world.

Always remember that a good solution that is simple is better than a great solution that is complex.

This quality should be inculcated in your product and work culture.

To give an example outside the product, simple pricing plans went on to become one of our major differentiators and even a competitive advantage in one of the companies that I worked for.

We had listed all the prices on the website; there were no other charges or even taxes on top of what our customers saw on the website. This helped them in getting quicker purchase approvals.

While you will be looking to provide better UX in the product always, it is imperative to ensure a smooth Customer Experience (CX) in the complete journey they are with you. So, always look out for opportunities for improving CX and keeping it simple.

Conclusion

If someone asks me “What does a Product Manager do?”, I always say "Everything that is needed to make the product a success".

Be sure to enjoy the fantastic ride and create good memories.

Thank you for your time and all the best for your product to succeed.