Sean Horgan

Attributes of a Product Manager

Entrepreneurship

Sean Horgan

There is an important tradeoff between being completely lost in the unknown and completely found in the familiar --John Maeda, The Laws Of Simplicity

Summary

Defines landscape. Understand the market landscape, identify the initial business problems to solve and innovations required to solve them, identify early adopters and pathways to broader market adoption

Go-to-market. Develop and continuously refine the value proposition, set prices, execute an adaptive go-to-market plan, build a customer pipeline from zero, qualify customers, negotiate terms and close deals

Focus. Identify the most critical work, ensure team is solely focused on it and protects them from distractions, qualify and fiercely prioritize new opportunities

Resourceful. Identify gaps in our solution and team and fills them, recruit world-class talent, mentor, coach, and level up the team

Grit. Resilient to adversity, stamina to power through market & customer uncertainty and failure, overcome setbacks

Attributes

1. Defines landscape

Understand the market landscape, identify the initial business problems to solve and innovations required to solve them, identify early adopters and pathways to broader market adoption.

References

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Making Sense of Technological Ecosystems⁠

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Market_Segmentation_and_Product_Positioning.pdf⁠

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2. Executes Go-To-Market

Develop and continuously refine the value proposition, set prices, execute an adaptive go-to-market plan, build a customer pipeline from zero, qualify customers, negotiate terms and close deals.

References

Runs the business - knows what the product needs to prove

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What Is The Rule Of 40 For SaaS? (Rule Of 40 Formula)⁠

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Set the pricing strategy

Principles of Pricing:

HBR on Pricing.PDF⁠

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Product-Market Fit is Overrated… It’s All About Product-Market-Price Fit | by Parsa Saljoughian⁠

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How to Enhance Product-Market-Fit: Add a ‘P’ | by Sam Bauman | Medium⁠

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No Moat? Big Problem: The Impact of Industry Forces on Value Capture | by Parsa Saljoughian⁠

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Sales / Customer Development / Campaigns

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Product-Led Acquisition - Acquire Customers⁠

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The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Strategies & How to Improve Your Digital Presence⁠

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Amazon.com: Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization: How to Design, Build and Scale a Customer-Centric Sales Organization (Sales Blueprints Book 2) eBook⁠

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Names things — works with marketing to set the product position & brand in context of the overall company mission

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How to Name a Product: 5 Golden Rules we Follow⁠

3. Focus

Identify the most critical work, ensure team is solely focused on it and protects them from distractions, qualify and fiercely prioritize new opportunities

References

Decision making

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The Effective Decision⁠

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Harvard Business Review on Making Smart Decisions⁠

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Harvard Business Review on Managing Uncertainty⁠

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Gokul's S.P.A.D.E. Toolkit⁠

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Hypothesis-driven development

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Hypothesis-Driven Validation. How to reduce risk and build better… | by Hilary Hayes | Connected | Medium⁠

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Difference Between a Hypothesis and an Assumption⁠

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Assumption vs. Hypothesis - to the Death! – Kromatic Blog⁠

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The Real Startup Book.pdf⁠

- great review of different hypothesis validation processes, e.g. generative versus evaluative.

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Generative Vs. Evaluation Research: What's the Difference and Why Do We Need Each?⁠

Risk management

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https://www.svpg.com/four-big-risks/⁠

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value risk (whether customers will buy it or users will choose to use it)

usability risk (whether users can figure out how to use it)

feasibility risk (whether our engineers can build what we need with the time, skills and technology we have)

business viability risk (whether this solution also works for the various aspects of our business)

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Assumptions and Risks – Two Sides of a Coin – TenStep⁠

4. Resourceful

Identify gaps in our products and teams, successfully advocates to decision makers how to fill them, recruit world-class talent, mentor, coach, and level up the team.

References

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https://hbr.org/2010/01/leaders-can-learn-to-make-do-a⁠

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https://hbr.org/2023/08/making-the-case-for-the-resources-your-team-needs⁠

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