How the first Product Management Hire can Work Effectively with Founders
By: Lee Ling Yang
Tags: Startup, Software Development, Business, Product Management, Project Management

Photo by krakenimages from Unsplash

Knowing how to manage founders’ expectations is crucial to the success of your team and your work. The founders may or may not know what a product manager is supposed to do. They may decide to hire their PM because their investor or engineers told them to. Or they want someone to “take the workload off their plate”. Read on to find out how to build trust with your founders so they give you more autonomy.

Prove that you can take care of their baby

Founders started a company because they care deeply about the problem and have a strong belief in how it should be solved. Understandably, they will have a tight rein over the product initially — like parents over protecting their child. Their biggest fear is you will go off track and execute plans that are drastically different from their vision.

How do you earn their trust so they will slowly let go of their control? Show a track record of predictable delivery that enables the company to learn and iterate quickly. You want to prove that you can make their dreams come true.

Could you put yourself in the founders’ shoes?

To make product decisions on behalf of the founders, you need to align with the founders’ thought process. Otherwise, you run into the danger of divergence and constant rework. When the founders ask you why the engineers are not working on the “important” things, you are able to reason using their logic.

There will be times when you and the founders disagree on the approach and priority. So before you join the start-up, make sure you believe in the founder’s vision. That way, you won’t feel demotivated when you have to “disagree and commit”.

Know how to get founders’ attention

Founders have many things on top of their minds. They will be distracted when you share your roadmap. You will get frustrated when they don’t remember the updates you shared in your last meeting. You will feel a lack of support when they are not around to give you input.

Connect your message to what they care about. Say you are sharing your roadmap, share the request from a customer they care about. Explain how you plan to do this better than a competition that the founders are trying to beat out. Take the time to put together trends and graphs for analytical founders.

Most founders find their quiet time at night or early in the morning. Send your updates during those times so it doesn’t get buried. Craft attention-grabbing subject lines, think of it like clickbait. For example, “Slides for next boarding meeting (review needed) or “question from {name of customer} they care about”.

Get ahead of founders feeling FOMO

Founders have the urge to “roll up their sleeves” when they feel out of the loop on the product that they used to know intimately. This is especially true for technical founders who coded the initial version of the product. They put out fires using methods that they are familiar with. But the code has evolved, so they are making the problems worse.

Involve the founders in areas they have strong opinions on — so they still feel they have a say in their baby. Let’s say the technical founders like to be hands-on with the engineers. Find a strong engineering ally that the founder can go to. Manage risks by telling your engineering counterpart to regroup with you on any side conversations.

Channel the founders’ passion in other areas that leverage their strengths. Founders have the deep industry knowledge and where the industry is going. Treat them as subject matter experts. Weave in how you use their knowledge in your decision-making. It is a neutral way to make them feel part of the product development cycle.

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