“Founders must be jack of all trades”
“In a startup everyone must do everything”
Usually true – if you are just getting started.
But follow this for too long and it can be really dangerous.
Many #startups and early stage products fall in the trap of having one person decide everything.
It may work for some things, but the one area it doesn’t work is when defining what your product should do aka #productmanagement.
Lot of product building in the early stages is about exploring and validating.
Looking at different aspects of tech, business, marketing, sales, competition.
Discussing and debating within the team.
Building a continuous dialog with potential customers and early adopters.
This can rarely be the #founder or CEO’s job.
There are usually lot more things on his or her plate.
Managing resources, selling, raising capital, hiring…
Add product management to that
And you have very little time and attention paid to the iterations.
It usually means the product direction changes based on the next big thing.
It could be the last sales cycle.
It could be the last customer feedback.
It could be the last pivot by competition.
These are all important but only few of multiple inputs that go into defining what problem to solve.
For whom?
What market to target?
What role to target?
Which feature to build?
What get delivered this month vs. next quarter?
The sooner you hire a professional or have a person dedicated to driving product direction the better.