Enzo Avigo

A tech company adding AI to its product...

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Pleading guilty: June.so/ai 😅

Traditional product management is useless at early stage.

It adds frictions, decreases the delivery pace, and reduces impact.

But you can adjust that.

Product management in pre Product-Market Fit (PMF) is a very little understood concept.

Product managers, you are not to blame.
You learned your job in post PMF environments.
Or reading books written by leaders that worked there.

Your job isn't the same job as the one described in these books.

→ In post-PMF: someone needs to be the voice of the customers otherwise it gets lost.
← In pre-PMF: someone needs to spend time collecting feedback.

Don't follow product management books blindly.
Actually don't even waste time reading them.
99% are totally irrelevant for where you're at.

Here are the DOs and DON'T of product management in pre-PMF
(I learned them the hard way 🤬)

❌ DON’T
- build roadmap, especially beyond 3 months. Your product changes too fast.
- write user stories, EPIC or any kind of abstraction. They slow you down.
- drive user research. Just ship it, you’ll learn faster.
- try to influence people. If you have an opinion say it loud, and act on it.

✅ DO
- talk to customers every day. Continuously share learnings with your team.
- write problem statements. Prioritize them, not “roadmap items“.
- get real. Prototype stuff in Figma, QA the product, etc. Do everything you an to increase the delivery.
- collect feedback on your releases. Most things require an iteration.
- empower people to make product decisions. Centralized decisions will slow you down.

Building an early stage startup is one of the most exciting things that exists.

Don't waste your time :)

#productmanagement #pm #productmarketfit

Product management is broken for pre-PMF startups.

Slow delivery. Limited impact. Unreliable learnings.

❌ ✅ Here are the DOs and DON'Ts of PM for startups:

Traditional product management methods don't work at startups.
In particular early stage ones.

You either realized that already, or you're about to.

Traditional methods work for late stage companies.
FAANG and Big Co created them.
Mainly to remain user-centric when their organization scales.

But these methods don't work well for startups.

They create unnecessary friction.
They decrease your delivery pace, and reduce your impact.

I learned that the hard way after working for years in product,
then starting my company.

Here are DOs and DON'Ts of product management in pre-PMF:

❌ DON’Ts ❌

- Build a roadmap: Especially > 3 months. Your product changes too fast.
- Write user stories & EPIC: Abstraction will slow you down
- Do too much user research: Chances are you’ll get lost. Instead, get real.
- “Influence” people: If you have an opinion say it loud, and act on it.
- Set & forget: Building and releasing something is only the beginning.
- Listen to everyone. Find out who loves you and pick a niche.
- Don’t get stuck on strategy docs. Have a clear positioning and execute.

✅ DOs ✅

- Write problem statements. Work on key customer problems.
- Prototypes, QA, etc: Do everything you can to increase the delivery pace.
- Ship it: Just ship it, you’ll learn faster 😉
- Pick big swings: “What’s the highest impact work we can do this week”?
- Empower people: Centralized decisions slow you down.
- Get feedback on releases: Most things require an iteration.
- Start a community: until your product is ready you can start a community.
- Talk to users every day: keep sharing learnings with your team.
- Set one single goal: One goal will increase your chance of success.

Any principles I'm missing?

Hope this helps 💜
Enzo

#productmanagement #PMF #startup