Thread by @shreyas

Reason #17 why PM is different at Megacorps vs. Startups:

At a Megacorp, you want to avoid False Negative Products i.e. products you *should* have built, but did not.

At a Startup, you want to avoid False Positive Products i.e. products you should *not* have built, but you did.

Am I implying that PM at Megacorps is "worse" than PM at Startups?

Or that the Megacorps that try to avoid False Negative Products (FNPs) are wrong?

Or that Startups must move slower to avoid False Positive Products (FPPs)?

Not at all

There is no One Right Answer for everyone

When you are a Megacorp, it is smart & rational to avoid False Negative Products (FNP), particularly in an area which could be a meaningful threat to your core business further down the road.

Why?

The Upside-Downside framework answers that for us:

https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1325621393531138048

When you are a Startup, sure, you can choose to fail-fast, do customer validation, run experiments & learn from all of this.

But your main advantage is rarely the ability to build N different *products* in parallel to see what sticks.

(don't confuse *features* & *products*)

As a Startup, your chief advantages tend to be
-first-principles insight
-segment specificity
-customer focus
-lack of legacy
-general nimbleness

To compete, you need to ensure you're set up to avail these advantages. If you do that, you'll have a higher chance of avoiding FPPs.

In both cases, you will need to do your best to avoid building the wrong product.

(this is obvious, but just making it clear)

But a Megacorp PM will implicitly set a different bar for the degree of conviction required to proceed with a new product.

And when this Megacorp PM joins a Startup, it is vital to set a higher bar.

IME, people rarely talk about this & it often ends in pain. Hence this thread.