Mark Suster (who has founded and built two successful software startups) recently blogged about hiring at a startup. It’s an excellent post and got me thinking about hiring product managers at a startup.
From my experience of having built Product Management teams at two different successful startups, and having been an early member of the PM team at a third successful startup – I believe all of Mark’s points apply well to hiring product managers at a startup too.
Read on for my comments on how some of Mark’s points apply to hiring product managers at startups…
3 Tips for Hiring Product Managers at Startups
Mark makes 7 excellent points in his post – here are 3 of them, along with my comments on how they apply to hiring PMs at startups:
- Only hire “A” players:
- At a startup, the product manager will very likely impact the work done by all of the engineers and sales reps.
- So it’s even more important (than other individual contributor hires) that the PM hired is an “A” player.
- Don’t worry about exact “roles”:
- Even if you hire someone with the title of “Product Manager”, he/she must be willing and able to play multiple roles at the startup. For example: PM, UI designer, QA tester, Technical writer, etc.
- PMs who are specialists and do only one thing are not as valuable at startups as they are at mid-to-large companies.
- Attitude over Aptitude:
- At a startup, a PM’s attitude is as important as (often more important than) his/her Aptitude.
- As HP Jin, Founder/CEO at TeleNav used to tell us “At a startup, you are set up to fail. You must be able to succeed in spite of it”. This requires the right attitude – especially for a product manager, who has no “formal authority” yet is expected to make a major impact across the company.
For the full list of 7 points, including details and valuable tips, be sure to check out Mark Suster’s post…
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3) Do not read this blog one sentence per day during your lunch break, while eating a
@ Geoffrey: Excellent point. Even at mid-to-large companies, the budget is not always available to have dedicated UI/UX staff for all projects.
For example: At one of the largest (and wildly successful) “web” companies HQ’d in silicon valley – some projects still do not get a dedicated UI designer. In such projects, the PM is expected to do the UI design herself – again making the ability to play multiple roles very valuable.
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@ Roger #3: I agree, many companies do not understand how valuable UX design is.
Never worked at a startup, but this all makes sense. Good PM’s in general are generalists, and are facile at wearing multiple hats, explicitly or implicitly.
I actually think that at mid to large companies (your 250 person guideline) it is still common to not have the differentiation in the roles, and the budget to have dedicated UI/UX staff. Your case B should always be the choice (I could show you boatloads of dev generated UI that would make the baby Jesus weep.)
Great post though!
I agree the reality is most small companies don’t hire separate UX designers. I do think it can be a big mistake, even for “typical” 40-50 person startups.
As I wrote in my blog entry on the role of UX designers, it is certainly possible that a single person happens to possess the skills for multiple roles. Unfortunately, in most cases I’ve observed, a product manager or engineer plays multiple roles merely because the company doesn’t understand UX design and it’s importance.
Roger – Excellent comments, thanks for sharing.
You’re indeed absolutely correct when you say:
“Some of the talents associated with great product managers don’t overlap with the key talents of great UX or UI designers.”
At mid-to-large companies (say, with more than 250 employees) – PM and UI roles, definitely, should be played by different personnel.
At smaller startups (say, less than 50 employees), such a luxury doesn’t exist in most cases. Even if it exists, it’s not likely to be available for 100% of the projects. Hence the need to find personnel who can play multiple roles effectively. Such “multi-tool” personnel are extremely important for the success of early-stage startups. Let’s consider an example…
A “typical” 40-50 person software startup in silicon valley. It will have about 20-25 engineers and 1-2 PMs. And zero UI designers. The only options for UI design then are:
A) Done by engineers
B) Done by PMs
I like “B” much better!
You picked the best three of the tips. The overarching theme is that you should hire for talent, not so much for experience in particular industries.
I would add as a caveat to the second tip you cited. Some of the talents associated with great product managers don’t overlap with the key talents of great UX or UI designers. It’s a big mistake to conflate product management with user experience design.