THE DREAM IN ACTION

Recently, I’ve heard a lot of startup type people say, I’m a product guy. Without to much analysis I’ve always taken that to mean, the business guy, not the developer. I was mostly right with that snap judgment, but as I heard the term/title more and more I decided to jump into the details of the product manager role and the “product guy”. I found that there are those who dislike the product guy title, the self proclaimed “product guy bigots” and there are those who epitomize the role of “product guy“, and likely bask in it. It seems to be just generic enough of a title to get criticism from all angles, so what does it actually mean?

WTF does it mean?

Tony Wright wrote this about the product guy:

It feels like product entrepreneurs are oftentimes “cowboys”. Flying by the seat of their pants, they rally a small team to build a product that people want. It’s no surprise that this is really freakin’ hard and requires a mythical combination of brute force time and effort, insight, customer empathy, and a huge pile of luck.

Here’s my take on what the product guy should do:

• Scrub & rinse new ideas
• Write the product definitions (specs & reqs)
• Create the initial version (user experience)
• Connect: Customers <> Designers <> Developers
• Own the road map
• Define and measure success

Great slides on product management basics

Here’s a much more detailed slide about the details of product management.

It seems to me that whether you’re starting your own, or joining a small startup you need to work on these skills a bit. Whether you’re a community manage, a developer, or an operation guys you need to be aware of what the “product guy” is doing. You need to have some of the skills necessary to be a good product guy because in a startup your product is so infant that everyone has a drastic effect on its’ survival. Become a product focused <insert your role here> and your startup as a whole will be much better off.