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I had the opportunity to attend YC Startup School last Saturday with Peter from the Startup Digest. If I had a key insight about building great products from the speakers, it is this:
Axiom: Be obsessed about your product. Nothing else matters.
Which made me wonder. If you are not a founder-product manager, but rather an employee product manager, just how obsessed can you be about your product?
Jan Koum's obsession to building a great product lead to a $19B sale to Facebook!
His obsession meant he never compromised his user experience. The technical details were immaculate. He took the long-term view for his product. He ignored press. He kept the team small.
There is a corollary to this product obsession.
Corollary: Be obssessed about your users. Nothing else matters.
For most employee product managers, there is probably already a product-market fit. Which means it all comes down to knowing your users. Knowing them so well, that you can tell them what they want to hear, while giving them what they really need.
How well do you know your users?
For founder product managers, this is not an issue. It is not an issue, because they built the product for themselves. For those of you who didn't build your own product, how well do you know your users and their needs?
Would you like to share your exprience with other product managers?
“All of your hard work is in vain unless you do a good job of understanding and addressing your users’ needs. The most important person in the room is the person you are designing for.”
The Inertia to Innovation at Scale and How To Overcome It
“While every established tech firm aspires to create an innovation culture, it takes a deliberate set of practices to ensure innovation teams within such firms have the right ingredients to succeed.”
What Makes a Great Product Manager? 10 Product Experts Weigh In
“Really good PMs are capable of identifying and moving the key pieces of a product forward, even with a thousand pieces of feedback/ideas/technical challenges flying by. Great PMs can deliver clarity by sensing an opportunity, envisioning the ideal outcome, and then defining the steps needed to get there.”
Silicon Valley and SF
October 15: How to Transition into Product Management with Carlos Villaumbrosia, via Google Hangout. (online and FREE)
October 17: Product Growth Q&A with Chris McCann, via Google Hangout. (online and FREE)
October 22: How PMs Make Your Business Scale by Products That Count. ($25)
October 30: Measuring Product Value Using Job-To-Be-Done. (FREE)
November 3: From Yammer to Do, PM Q&A with Jason Shah, via Google Hangout. (online and FREE)
November 4: UX for Everyone with Andi Galpern, via Google Hangout. (online and FREE)
If you find any value and encouragement in the PMFT Digest, please consider becoming a Supporter with a small recurring or one-time donation of your choosing, between a cup of coffee and a mission taco.
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If you find any value and encouragement in the PMFT Digest, please consider becoming a Supporter with a small recurring or one-time donation of your choosing, between a cup of coffee and a mission taco.