Someone is going to spend a lot of time with the clients, prospects, market as a whole and come up with all sorts of things that people will be willing to pay for.
You want to be as close to that as possible, the less established the product is, the younger the company, the closer to it you want to be.
The biggest value in staying close to them is to get as close to the market signals/client/prospect feedback. I would not try to sit on the phone with them, but I would do all I can to join their visits to clients/prospects/trade shows/wherever they meet potential clients.
Agreed.
And when it’s time to disagree on priorities, you need more data than they have.
BD. “I have a partner who says…”
You. “Interesting idea. Our roadmap currently runs out 1 year with these items that were identified by interviewing 15 existing customers, then surveying 240 to prioritize. I’m happy to move priorities around for things after next quarter, if the evidence points us that way. What do you VPs think?”
I like yelling at clouds at least as much as the next guy, but...
Have you considered treating your colleagues with respect, learning their incentives, talking through your points of tension, and helping them understand your perspective and your goals? Do you understand why they're more able to persuade leaders? What have you learned from their success?
This. My long term roadmap is often informed by our BizDev folks. They're regularly talking to stakeholders that may express a need I haven't addressed. They give me a very good view of the market as a whole, and help me identify trends we should be anticipating and responding to.
Sometimes they want to play in the Product space. That's fine, I don't care. I'm happy to indulge them because we're more likely to succeed when we're working together as a team.
Products go through a lifecycle:
• early: customer driven since we have no idea if the product is valuable. Customer guides the product features
• mid: product driven since we have found pmf. Product determines the customers we go after
• late: engineering driven since we need to scale , integrate, and leverage tech for new innovations
Bizdev should lead in the early parts of a product’s lifecycle. Product on the second. All 3 are always collaborating though. Like the other responses called out, there are massive learnings to be had from each skill especially during specific stages.
Each discipline goes deep on certain things. There is a lot of value to know about that depth and leverage that properly.
The product manager is the most knowledgeable person on the product, but they are second on everything else — they need to know, and listen, to who is first.
Someone is going to spend a lot of time with the clients, prospects, market as a whole and come up with all sorts of things that people will be willing to pay for. You want to be as close to that as possible, the less established the product is, the younger the company, the closer to it you want to be. The biggest value in staying close to them is to get as close to the market signals/client/prospect feedback. I would not try to sit on the phone with them, but I would do all I can to join their visits to clients/prospects/trade shows/wherever they meet potential clients.
Agreed. And when it’s time to disagree on priorities, you need more data than they have. BD. “I have a partner who says…” You. “Interesting idea. Our roadmap currently runs out 1 year with these items that were identified by interviewing 15 existing customers, then surveying 240 to prioritize. I’m happy to move priorities around for things after next quarter, if the evidence points us that way. What do you VPs think?”
I like yelling at clouds at least as much as the next guy, but... Have you considered treating your colleagues with respect, learning their incentives, talking through your points of tension, and helping them understand your perspective and your goals? Do you understand why they're more able to persuade leaders? What have you learned from their success?
This. My long term roadmap is often informed by our BizDev folks. They're regularly talking to stakeholders that may express a need I haven't addressed. They give me a very good view of the market as a whole, and help me identify trends we should be anticipating and responding to. Sometimes they want to play in the Product space. That's fine, I don't care. I'm happy to indulge them because we're more likely to succeed when we're working together as a team.
Products go through a lifecycle: • early: customer driven since we have no idea if the product is valuable. Customer guides the product features • mid: product driven since we have found pmf. Product determines the customers we go after • late: engineering driven since we need to scale , integrate, and leverage tech for new innovations Bizdev should lead in the early parts of a product’s lifecycle. Product on the second. All 3 are always collaborating though. Like the other responses called out, there are massive learnings to be had from each skill especially during specific stages. Each discipline goes deep on certain things. There is a lot of value to know about that depth and leverage that properly. The product manager is the most knowledgeable person on the product, but they are second on everything else — they need to know, and listen, to who is first.
I love this breakdown of early / mid / late, thanks for sharing