What It Takes To Be A Product Manager

It feels good to be writing again. I am the first to admit, I have been a complete slacker and just lazy to write lately. I went on sabbatical in early 2015. For those that do know me, YES, I took some time off to hang out with the family, sit by the beach in San Jose del Cabo, sleep until late and just do NOTHING!

 The funny and unexpected part about all this is that by the second month I was already going crazy and itching/anxious to get myself busy and involved with a new project again. Six (6) months later I decided to finally get back into it and spend some time with JewelsScent, one of the companies we're involved with through Zerimarventures. I helped out there for six months and then decided it was time for a little overseas adventure.

 Currently I live in London, where I work for eMoov, a Zerimarventures company we backed in 2013. I am acting as their CTO, firming up their tech stack and driving their product forward. Yes, product, it just seems that I can't get away from it ;). This is a truly amazing company with a strong team and run by an excellent CEO. Nevertheless, I must admit we have had our good share of challenges with product and tech, which is what prompted me to write this post about what, in my opinion, a product manager is all about.

 Early in my career when I was at Ovesrtock.com, the product manager role didn't even exist. As a matter of fact, the culture there was such that any title with the word manager used to be looked at as a bureaucratic burden. However, we did have roles such as business analysts, which, if I need to be honest, I regard as completely useless. I have experienced organizations where a simple project had a project manager, business analyst, product manager, and UX designer, all of them asked to do a simple feature any smart kid out of high school and thealmighty Google can easily coordinate by themselves.

 Oh, I almost forgot, this particular lineup I mentioned above didn't even include the director of engineering, the lead engineer and finally the guy that would write the feature. Hahahaha, this is fucken ridiculous, right? I am serious about this! Insane  don’t you think?

I talk to a wide variety of entrepreneurs and hungry peeps looking to make a mark on a daily basis. The one thing I constantly hear is that they all feelthe need of a rockstar product manager in their startup, or they want to get involved in a company as a product manager. Why a PM? Is it because someone like Sundar Pichai (Google's new CEO) was once a product manager at Google, and look where he's at now? Is it because it's the "IN" job title to have nowadays? Who knows?!

Personally, I think the reasoning behind all this is because it's one of those jobs that actually don't require you to be an expert at anything. After all, don't they say experts just fuck things up, right?

Here is a list of things I have read in multiple articles where they talk about the product manager role.

• You’re a Mini-CEO

• You're the boss

• You get to lead others

• You're the subject matter expert

• The products look and feel is on you

• You're the most important person in the company

All this sounds great, which most likely influences people to get into the role. But let's face it, it sounds fucken great! The Mini-CEO! Who doesn't like that?!

OK, it’s time for a reality check now! Over the years, I have developed a picture of what a product manager is all about. This picture has come into focus with years of being neck-deep into the role and as a result of working with many useless PMs.

When I started CommerceInterface I focused 100% on the sales and business development, and delegated and/or hired others to handle things like tech and this so called “product role”, until I finally realized things weren't going as well as we thought.

Let me remind you that I ended up in the role out of necessity. Don't they say "necessity is the mother of invention". Yeah, one of these PM's I describe above; was driving the product into the ground. Ultimately, it was my fault, since I was the one letting it happen.

I decided to hand sales and business development to a colleague who was kicking ass in the business and got into this product role. Here is what I managed to learn out of all this and how I would describe a valuable product manager:

Humility: If you don't have this, just go home! You need this in order to listen.

More listening - less talking: Often you will find yourself asking tons of questions, even if they seem dumb and/or obvious, but if you  are not able to listen, how will you ever learn and know what your customers really want? Listen, listen, listen!

Passionate about the problem, not the solution: You can get way too caught up in the solution. Problems are easy to spot and we can formulate solutions pretty quickly. Remember to listen and deep-dive into the problem, and worry about addressing the problem later. The solution will come organically.

Loves to help: Believe it or not, some people don't like to help. They like to delegate, give orders and usually hate talking to customers. You really need to love helping customers.

Values the customers point of views: How many times have we sat down to make fun of the customer for bringing up an issue we all feel is stupid? After all, we get it and they don't. Probably it wasn't well designed to start with or we didn't listen enough. If you truly value your customers feedback, they tend to always accept your product with ease.

Realizes  there are two types of customers (Internal & External): If you're servicing an external customer, you're likely servicing an internal customer as well. The internal customer (e.g. knowledge frontiers) interact with customers daily, they know the tone customers like, they have the customers pulse, etc. They are also our customers  and your best sales agents at the same time. If your internal customers love your product, they will be positive about it to your external customers.

Ability to move fast: I am all for the process approach within a product and tech organization, but don't let this get in the way of moving fast. There will be times you will need to move fast, which means no need of requirement docs, just simple feature descriptions straight into the ticket. it’s vital to make sure you use some sort of change management system (e.g. Jira, Pivotal Tracker, Trello, etc.) so you can keep all the communication on a feature within that system.

Always delivering, even if it's in small bites: Customers love new feature releases. Define natural cut points in a feature and get features out fast and frequently. It will also make you feel like you’re getting shit done. It may not feel like you are since they are small features, but guess what, you're being extremely productive this way.

Attention to detail: There is nothing worse than having a feature that just lacks attention to details. We have all been guilty of saying something like "It's good enough for release, a few small details left, but that can be done later". I hate this line of thinking! if it's a small detail, then why not handle it immediately?! My favorite quote on this is from Jack Dorsey: “Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.”

Loves to tell a story: Your product needs to follow a story line. Support articles and “How to…” videos are all great ways to show customers how to use your product. The best way however, is to simply make them feel enamored through the user journey you take them through. Beware! This is not rocket science. You get people talking all this fancy BS about user journeys and blah blah blah. It's simple, listen, listen and listen and there is your user journey. You don't need a UX designer for this task. You just need to listen, value your customers point of view and be passionate about the problem.

Team player: You will have to make many sacrifices in order to win. Just remember one thing: don't ever ask anyone to do anything you're not willing to do yourself. A true leader leads by example and helps others become successful.

Gets it done with limited resources: Another common thing I hear: "I need more resources if you want me to complete that in addition to the other projects". Please don't fall in that mediocre behavior. Busy people get shit done, and bosses always notice and respect it. If you take something on in addition to other projects and it happens so that you miss delivering it, I guarantee you, they will respect you for taking it on and trying to drive it to completion no matter what.

Makes no excuses: People love excuses. Don't be afraid to say: "I dropped the ball on that and I haven't done it yet". It's quite likely that it slipped because you're doing many valuable things for the organization. Just learn to admit it, pick it up and get it done! Ultimately, “done” gets more respect than any excuse.

Not afraid to make mistakes: If you work with the fear of making a mistake, you're guaranteed to make one. We all make mistakes and I am one that believes we should work to get things approximately right rather than precisely wrong.

I truly hope this helps the reader in understanding the product manager role better. Some may be like "this Ivan guy is oversimplifying this and taking all the glamour out of this", while others will just get it!  In reality, it's actually quite simple.

Product management is one of the hardest jobs to define in any organization, partially because it’s different in every company. So, what's worked for me may not necessarily work for you, but I do think the basic principles I describe here are applicable across the board in many different shapes, sizes and colors. Feel free to make use of them as you see fit.

Ultimately, a product is a process of ongoing improvement, which will have many developments and iterations to make it better. Just remember that at the end of the day the best product managers are those that just always find a way to get shit done.

Seedcamp Blog Post #2: 20 Things You Should Know Before Becoming An Entrepreneur

Here is my second guest post for Seedcamp's blog. Wrote on 20 Things You Should Know Before Becoming An Entrepreneur. 

If you're an entrepreneur, or looking to become one, this is a must read and something to keep handy as you go down this very amazing journey. 

About Seedcamp: Seedcamp is a new kind of fund, supporting startups from the pre-seed and seed stage. We back ambitious founders from around the world and help them build billion dollar global companies by providing them the right access at the right time to Learning, Network, and Capital. We invest initially from $0-$250K and accelerate them across the P/M fit, traction, growth, and scale stages from seed funding to IPO.

Shortest CEO Speech Ever - IMPACTFUL

Brian Kim, an executive coach I interact with shared this amazing speech with me this morning, and just had to share it. 

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit– are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest. Value has a value only if its value is valued.”

                                                                      -   Bryan Dyson, former CEO of Coca Cola.  

Get Off Your Ass and Just Do IT!

The toughest part of starting a business is actually getting off your ass and doing it.

There are so many people with great ideas, but they just don't execute. How many times have you heard people say, "I had that idea... first," or "They took my idea!" There's no fucking excuse that should hold you back from starting a business, just do it- get it done! Right? You gotta be a doer, and do, do, do.

I have heard excuses like; "I don't have experience in this,  "I'm not talented enough in that, or "I just haven't had the time to get started.", etc., etc." Guess what? This is BULLSHIT! No more excuses, just take the plunge and get started. When it comes time to celebrate, the procrastinators are going to be wishing they could have just made something happen, looking at the doers and hating on them cause they had the balls to do something.

Our VC firm Zerimar Ventures, just recently made an investment in a company called eMoov, a leading online estate agent in the UK. Russel Quirk, the founder, is a talented guy, loaded with love, passion, and humility with a knack for seeing and doing BIG. As a third generation estate agent, he knows the industry, and he knows how to make things happen in this space. When Russell started eMoov several years ago, he didn't know a single thing about technology, online marketing, and what it would take to build an online company, all he had was a vision to disrupt the estate agency space. This is a perfect example of a DOER who never made excuses for anything. He rolled up his sleeves, put his head down, and used the shit out of Google to learn those things he didn't know. No excuses baby, no excuses!

On one of my recent trips to London, my wife Angela and I went to visit the company offices in Essex, a county north east of London. It was so freaking cool to see the culture he's built in this company and what a great business they have built lacking all the expertise in things like technology, marketing, pr, etc. This is why we love this company so much and why we jumped in to be a part of this passionate group of people out to make a mark in the space. This is a great example of someone who looked at an existing process within an industry that's been around for decades, and saw a better and more affordable way to provide the service. However, the most important part about this example is that I am sure there have been many people with this idea, but guess what, Russell was one of the ones that did it without thinking of all the things he didn't know.

Russell Quirk is a DOER.

That's the hardest part of starting a business- finding or having somebody with that kind of drive and passion. That can take all the excuses and push all the naysayers off to the side. It's not capital which is the most important part of a business... It's not capital at all. It's a matter of executing- NO EXCUSES!

Look at Google...this is one, if not the best tool that's been introduced to society in the last few decades.  I always say that there is no such things as an ignorant person anymore, but there will be a lazy one. Many of the businesses and products being created today are not new concepts, they are old ideas that are being rehashed, improved, flipped on its head, or taking traditional businesses and computerizing them. Steve Jobs didn't create the mp3 player. There were hundreds of mp3 players out there on the market before the iPod came out, he just made them more user friendly and sexier than all the others. He also didn't create the smart phone, he just made it better and SMARTER than all the others. Look around you and look at things in a way no one has ever looked at them before. Don't think that because something exists, it's been  created and there is no room for improvement. There will always be room for improvement or different solutions to problems.

There world has many unsolved problems. We need to continue driving change in the world by looking at problems in different ways or improving upon existing processes that were set up years ago by those innovators of the past. Do something BIG, start thinking and looking at what surrounds you, the ideas are floating around, we just need to grab them and execute on them.

When are YOU getting started?

What are YOU waiting for?

Introducing... The Product Management Rockstar!

Constantly staying cutting edge is the only thing one of these dudes needs to focus on as they are running from one piece of the massive project puzzle to the next. From product development to message seeding, team management to strategy maintenance, corporate needs to front line execution. Today’s product managers need to possess a wide range of skills to be successful in a rapidly evolving technology landscape. And, it has been increasingly important for them to bridge the customer’s needs with the product that is being engineered, while defining the go-to-market strategy in a landscape that spans dozens of channels. Turning customer requirements into a product roadmap is not a revolutionary idea. Nevertheless, it’s hard to find individuals who can effectively communicate product value, quickly become a subject matter expert in the business, AND speak the language of engineers.

Why not reevaluate the job requirements of our product managers to cope with the pressures of a new world? Have one person who can master the full gamut of tasks from product inception to product delivery.

Introducing the Product Management Rockstar!

He’s overseeing the product’s developmental lifecycle while he’s seeding the market with compelling messages of the product’s arrival; he’s training and creating materials for sales teams; he’s approving ad copy and overseeing the PR, social media, and analyst relations strategies; he’s working with demand generation teams and generally making everything about that product, and its success, his top priority.

Combining the product manager and marketer removes friction from the product development, marketing, and sales cycle.

Years ago, start-ups had to hire one person to do both jobs out of necessity (budget constraints and all that), but it quickly became apparent that this new type of product manager thrived. This newfound efficiency allowed them to iterate quickly during the development cycle and launch products to the market with speed and agility.

Here is a list of things that Rockstar should be doing:

Technical Requirements

• Analyze market and customer needs
• Define product requirements
• Create user interface mock-ups
• Understand technical details around integrations with third-party systems
• Understand enough about technology, programming languages, databases, and system architecture to know why technologies are leveraged
• Work in lock-step with engineering as products are being built.

Marketing Requirements

• Analyze market needs and define value proposition and key positioning
• Create/write product collateral, white papers, presentations
• Work in lock-step with sales and provide sales tools and sales support
• Act as liaison to creative, press relations, analyst relations teams
• Help drive demand for products
• Work with events teams on content and provide support at trade shows

It will be vastly more efficient for technology companies to hire a few rock stars to fill their product management positions and staff assistants under them. Allow that one person to own strategy and development start-to-finish, and I guarantee you will see the impact on your bottom line. By removing friction from the equation, you’ll make the development, marketing, and management processes faster and get products to your consumers faster—products they’ll love.