Tips on managing Product at early stage startups- HIT ME!
Ido Lavi
1 reply
Hey PH,
I recently sold my startup where I was CEO and joined a new company as VP Product.
As my previous company was 8 people strong, Product Management was split between myself and the CTO, but did not run in a methodical process. Today, I'm looking to implement a methodology-based product management system.
What are your top tips for great product management at early stage startups (aside from the obvious "talk to your users" ones).
Thanks!
Replies
![Kiran Kanakadandi (yugahq.com)](https://ph-avatars.imgix.net/3617577/b4a28528-e567-4519-8c7c-c586269dbd33.jpeg?auto=compress&codec=mozjpeg&cs=strip&auto=format&w=36&h=36&fit=crop)
Kiran Kanakadandi (yugahq.com)@kirank5a
I'd like to see this conversation going (and hear views from others), so here goes my view: if the company has a VP Product, you might want the full works of product management. Process, tools, team (and even titles!). As for the process, assuming it is all software, the recipe typically is:
- build a backlog of features; when you "talk to your users", start adding your responses (not user views) into the backlog
- sort backlog by RoI: cost vs value; ideally, a low-cost v1 exists for every feature and so spec every feature to ship increments based on feedback-based iteration; if you've not considered no-code, consider bubble.io; pure RoI gold to ship feeatures (and discard if needed)
- plan and execute (spec, design, dev, uat, enablement/outreach) each sprint's payload
- do "backlog grooming" periodically, based on priorities
This is intentionally generic and I'd love to see others fill in more -- may be the nature of product (SaaS, mobile app, APIs, etc.) and team size can help them. Good luck!
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