The Art of Product Management: Lessons From A Silicon Valley Innovator
The Art of Product Management: Lessons From A Silicon Valley Innovator
The Art of Product Management: Lessons From A Silicon Valley Innovator
of
Product
Management
Lessons from a
Silicon Valley Innovator
Rich Mironov
Enthiosys Press
Mountain View, California
II | THE ART OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
ISBN 1-4392-1606-1
THE ART OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT | III
roadblocks and snafus along the way. With this book, Rich shares
with you some of the lessons he has learned. Anyone wrestling
with developing new products, or launching a new startup com-
pany, will find this an invaluable resource to return to again and
again. I predict you’ll laugh, perhaps cry, and emerge a little
wiser each time you read from this book.
INTRODUCTION | IX
Foreword by David Strom
DAVID STROM
T there are very few of them that actually teach you how to
market software and hardware products and not repeat the
mistakes of the past.
I’ve known Rich through several jobs over the past ten years,
and now can be outted as his unofficial writing coach. I told him
before he started his monthly newsletter, Product Bytes, that he
needed to make sure that this was something he wanted to do. I
suggested he write the first three issues, and if he still had some-
thing to say, then he was probably going to succeed at the effort.
Ten years later, he is still going strong.
Good writing is often overlooked by product people, even
though it can help you define your ultimate customer base, under-
stand your product’s feature set, and explain why you need certain
resources to tell your story and differentiate your products. Maybe I
am more sensitive to bad writing than others – after all, I didn’t start
out my career as a writer. Au contraire, I was a math and engineer-
ing major in college and it wasn’t until my mid-20s that I learned
how to write. It was a hard-acquired skill, and one that requires
daily practice if you are going to be good, let alone great, at it. I am
lucky that I am able to make a living at my writing, and that there
are still plenty of interesting products to test and write about after
being in the IT industry for more than 25 years.
FOREWORD | XI
Anyway, enough about me. This book is well worth your time.
It is chock full of practical advice, and should be a bible for com-
puter product managers, even those that are already parents of
small children and think they are good at that unpaid job.
Part of Rich’s message is that the product is really secondary to
the people who work at the company. One of the reasons why Dil-
bert still continues to resonate with high-tech workers is that there
are so many bad managers, or managers who don’t understand
how to mentor and develop their staff.
The whirl of Web 2.0 and social networks have made this prob-
lem worse, rather than better. LinkedIn and Facebook have made
it easier to move to another job and stay in touch with your former
colleagues – I just heard from someone that I worked with 25 years
and countless number of job changes ago. Email has become sec-
ond nature. It is easier to surround ourselves with screens rather
than get out of our cubicles and have some face time with a co-
worker.
If we have learned anything from the dot-bomb bust years at
the beginning of this decade, it is that companies need to pay
more attention to the marketing of their products. We are no lon-
ger in an era of “build-it-and-they-will-download”. Take some time
to review Rich’s precepts, and see if you can do a better job of par-
enting your products.
A MOMENT IN TIME
In September 2001, I left a VP Marketing/Product Manage-
ment job at my third start-up. This was a very difficult time:
throughout Silicon Valley, you could hear the whoosh of the first
Internet Bubble deflating. All that year, high-concept start-ups
were being padlocked faster than movers could haul away Aeron
chairs. The Twin Towers had just come down, and irrational exu-
berance was in very short supply. I was an unattached product
guy, and didn’t see any intriguing start-ups worthy of an emo-
tional commitment. Suddenly, I was a product management con-
sultant.
PREFACE | XIII
Rich Mironov
Falling in Love
Start-Ups and Product Management
SECTION ONE
Joining a start-up is like falling in love. Product managers at start-
ups need to be passionate about their products/services, spending
every minute of their days cajoling their teams to create wonderful
products [inward-looking] or telling the world how wonderful those
products will be [outward-looking]. This is hard, repetitive, and
often thankless. For me, it's never been as simple as work-for-pay.
Product managers who don't love their products should change
product lines or companies - or careers.
ware out with the bug report. If you’re not proud of your wunder-
kind, then no one will be.
THOROUGHBREDS
Top sales people at established companies already think of
themselves as thoroughbreds. I agree. So what can we learn
about salespeople from racehorses?
EXPLORERS
So, some companies are not ready for herds of thoroughbreds.
They don’t know the right customer segments or killer application.
Perhaps some vertical markets will turn out to be quicksand, and
others rich with hidden minerals. These companies need a few
sales explorers to map the customer terrain and find a path to suc-
cess.
When Lewis & Clark set out in 1804 to explore the Western US,
they had no map. Thomas Jefferson provided start-up capital and
staffing, but no guidance en route. What can we learn about sell-
ing from this?
• Lewis & Clark had a mission, but changed tactics and paths
frequently.
• Getting lost was expected. Discovery was hard to schedule.
• They carried everything with them. Solutions were custom-
crafted with no help from Washington.
• The long, unpredictable journey favored a mix of skills, back-
grounds and outlook.
• This was a long-term commitment. Replacing team members
was not easy.
14 | THE ART OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT