Five unexpected (and essential) jobs of a manager of PMs:
β Stop stupid sh*t from happening
πͺ Unblock, unblock, unblock
π Preserve (and improving) the PM team quality bar
π§ Preserve (and improving) the product quality bar
π€ Build a strong leadership group
Thread π
1/ β Stop stupid stupid sh*t from happening
You are now in a higher echelon of influence and visibility. As such, your team (and the company) are relying on you to have an active hand in shaping what gets done. Use this newfound power! ...
1b/ When you see stupid sh*t happening, within your team or anywhere in the company, push back and ask direct questions.
Youβll be surprised by how much impact your opinion now has.
2/ πͺ Unblock, unblock, unblock
How do you help your teams become more effective? Not by doing IC PM work (e.g. roadmapping, creating 1-pagers, running every meeting). Instead, itβs by leveraging your newfound influence and authority to unblock your teams at every level...
2b/ Short-term (e.g. making sure decisions are made), medium-term (e.g. hiring quickly to fill gaps), and long-term (e.g. aligning everyone around a winning vision and strategy).
Anything that slows your team down or leads to wasted work is now your fault.
3/ π Preserve (and improve) the PM team quality bar
At larger companies, youβll now be included in the performance review and calibration process. This means youβll have a hand in determining what great performance looks like at every level. The default path is to...
3b/ make everyone feel good by letting OK work slide. The more courageous path is to push everyone around you to keep that bar as high as possible.
Rage against the dying of the light.
4/ π§ Preserve (and improve) the product quality bar
Your teammates will now be coming to you for design reviews, strategy feedback, goal setting, etc. The natural tendency will be to make everyone happy by going with the flow β letting good enough work through...
4b/ Donβt let this happen. You are now the torch-bearer for the quality, ambition, and innovation that happens within your team, (and adjacent teams).
Without micromanaging and telling everyone exactly what to do, push your team to think deeper and go further.
5/ π€ Build a strong and united leadership group
As an IC PM, your team was your cross-functional IC peers (e.g. engineers, designers, DS, researchers, etc). As a manager, your team is now your peer managers (e.g. EM, design manager, DS manager, etc). Itβs essential that you...
5b/ ...work as one unit because your team will be looking to you each of you for a clear direction and confidence. Put just as much, if not more, effort into building a strong relationship with this new team than you did with your IC team. Sit together, ...
5c/ have a weekly leads meeting, and constantly be checking in with each other on priorities, blockers, and personnel issues. The more cohesive your leadership team, the more cohesive your entire time will be.
Early-stage bottom-up SaaS founders β this thread is for you
Below π
π¬ Most important metrics to track
π Tools to track these metrics
π¨ How to best visualize and share these metrics
1/ π¬ What metrics should early-stage bottom-up SaaS founders focus on?
β¨ Pre-revenue β¨
1. Retention:
β User: % of new users who are still active 3-6 months later
β Logo: % of new companies who are still active 3-6 months later
β L7/L30: # of days that users are active
2/ Virality within an organization:
β Invite rate: % of new users who sent at least one invite in the first X days
β Invite conversion rate: % of users who receive an invite that sign-up in the next X days
β Virality factor: % of new users who have come from an invite
1/ Top 5 unexpected jobs of a PM manager:
β Stopping stupid sh*t from happening
πͺ Unblocking, unblocking, unblocking
π Preserving (and improving) the PM team quality bar
π§ Preserving (and improving) the product quality bar
π€ Building a strong and united leadership group
2/ Top 5 ways to get promoted to PM manager:
π Demonstrate that you can lead people
π Demonstrate that you can deliver
π§ββοΈ Demonstrate that you can handle complexity
π Demonstrate that you develop a winning vision and strategy
βοΈ Ask for it
As someone working on growth at Airbnb, I've always been fascinated by Booking.com ββ a tiny startup in the Netherlands that became one of the greatest acquisitions of all time through world-class growth.
Read on for rare insights into their early growth strategy π
1/ Their performance marketing team drove their supply strategy
"When paid marketing is just a function, optimizing campaigns in a cubicle, it doesnβt inform the rest of the business and the funnel doesnβt work. There just isnβt much you can do to optimize paid ad campaigns."
2/ The performance marketing team was only two people, even past $100m/year spend
"It was actually only two guys: one banker and one coder. Peter (the banker) was extremely competitive. He would scream and shout when he was losing his #1 position."
Looking back at the most successful consumer startups of the last 10 years β most companies achieved initial scale by excelling at just one of three growth "lanes":
1/ There are other tactics to boost growth (e.g PR, conversion, brand marketing), and other growth lanes (sales and partnerships), but these three lanes have been the only reliable paths for long-term and sustainable consumer business growth.
2/ Why are there so few ways to grow? Because there very few ways for people to find out about new products. You hear about it from a friend (i.e. virality), you come across it while doing something else (i.e. content, perf marketing), or you get contacted directly (i.e. sales).
π₯ Sudden and significant pull from the market
π’ Gradual but compounding pull from the market
π₯³ Hitting a meaningful milestone that proves the idea is working
2/ What market "pull" looks like:
βοΈ An inflection in organic growth
βοΈ Customers ask to pay before you do
βοΈ Users flip from being excited about what you have to mad about what you donβt
βοΈ People using the product even if itβs broken
βοΈ Complaints when you're down
βοΈ Low churn