Founder To PM: Does it translate?

As a longtime journeyman as both a founder and participant in other’s founded ventures, a thought recently struck me.

Does being a Founder translate into Product Management?

I figure as someone who has had formal PM experience (loosely defined as someone willing to hire you as a PM) and as a Founder, I’d take a stab at the quandary. As Product Managers, we’re often dubbed “the CEO of the Product”. Which to me, seems like something that’s been regurgitated because it sounds like a catchy phrase rather than having any relative truth. Product Managers are saddled with responsibilities, timelines and delivery expectations all of which largely is outside of their direct control. In fact, one will find that 90% of the time (no I don’t have a source on this), a Product Manager performs their duties while having one hand tied behind their chair. Just to keep things interesting. Ha.

PM’s largely operate without the power of fiat, no reporting lines, no power of command, no threat of dismissal or repercussions if a deliverable is not met. So, what else do we have left? The only recourse we have left is being right. There is where product people will talk data, supporting documentation, market research, segmentation reports, target market interviews which suffice to say is all fancy ways of helping us feel that we’re making the right decision. And once that path forward is found, we build the framework to support that spark. Things like the roadmap, product vision, sprint breakdowns are all just to keep us focused on that one focal insight and how to achieve it.

So what happens when we’re right? Everyone else, for the good of the product and the company we’ve formed to deliver this product, must bow to the vision. That is how a Product Manager leads. What I didn’t mention though is the deluge of Teams Meetings, calendar invites, Confluence repositories and the many, many talks that have to happen until everyone agrees or has felt like they have had their say on what being right is.

Now we’ve talked enough about the PM side, what about Founders? Being a Founder is freeing yet utterly terrifying. You might have started off as a subject matter expert in one area, giving you the confidence to believe you can build a company around your knowledge base. But you quickly realize you know so little about everything else and in a larger company, you used to have people for that. Like Sam in Marketing who would know how to generate demo materials for your latest release, or Jane in HR that handles all the employee onboarding and gives them the handbook. You start to take the most efficient course to do anything with scrappy processes that are just cobbled together with metaphorical duct tape and dreams because that’s the only way you can get it all done.

Amongst all of that, you are still thinking and thinking about how to make your company successful and get your product off the ground. Except when you reach that focal decision that you know is absolutely right, there’s a lot less red tape to go through.

A Founder is unconstrained but also only has themselves to rely upon. A Product Manager works with others so they can scale the vision. So can a Founder transition into being a Product Manager?

Only if they learn to play nice with others.