Transcript: Shuki Aharonovich | Takhles: How Is Product Management Different at an Early-Stage Company?

The background and bullet one: build a company, not just a product

Eyal David: [00:00] So you actually joined there about a year ago, right? You already have enough insights to share from the vantage point of that year. Yes, I think also, say, there's, there's a really good post on Twitter, which we'll link to afterwards, a tweet we can point people to, but come on, give us the TL;DR, before we break them all down.

Shuki Aharonovich: [00:00] Yes, so maybe I'll tell the background to our conversation in general. Go for it. I was at a meetup organized by Symbol, Symbol is the VC that also invested in Cinch. The meetup was led by Matan Gottlieb, who we also have an episode with, right, right, totally, we've got podcast alumni here, and the meetup was sort of aimed at early-stage product managers. And during the conversation I listened to all the conversations between the members, the meetup participants, and I wondered to myself, wait, in the end, these conversations are very, very similar to the conversations of every product manager at every company, just maybe with the characters swapped. Some product manager is talking about how hard it is for him with the CEO. Okay, so swap that conversation for "it's hard for me with my product leader," or with someone from my VP Sales who's hard for me to work with, kind of. You have friction with R&D, everyone has friction with R&D, like, at a small startup and at a mid-size company and at a corporate you have friction with the team lead. Fine, so maybe different titles. The conversations or the frustrations are the same conversations and frustrations. And that led me to really think about what the defining things are, what the different things are, or what the right mindset is in Early Stage Product Management compared to product management at other company stages. And I think, I don't know, in my opinion I managed to distill it into three bullets. The first bullet is about: you're here to build a company and not to build a product. I think this is also, first of all, on the defensive side, if you as a product manager, in my opinion, don't think about it, because I'm coming to build a company and not to build a product, you're missing out, or you're creating difficulties for yourself later on. Because if, for example, you build a Sales organization that doesn't think product-wise, for example a Sales organization that really says, believes in promising the customer every single thing, in the end it creates some debt for you as a product manager later on. So I have to deal with that, so I have to build a confused product with 700 modules, Ultra Customizable for 700 different customers, and every Flow is one user who uses it. It really, right, really, it becomes a services company, and it's also stressful, and it's not worth it at all that way.

Eyal David: [02:23] But there's also the matter, I think, of AI in the end, right? Like, if you build something that isn't, that has no real promise in it, you'll get eaten alive.

The offensive side: a product lens on sales

Shuki Aharonovich: [02:32] Right, totally, but I'm talking from the angle of the product manager, kind of. In the end I'm saying, okay, so on the defensive side of it you're saying, wait, I want to make things easier for myself. On the offensive side of it, you're missing the opportunity here to have influence, to have influence, yes, to increase your value and your autonomy. And it's so needed, it's so needed, at these stages too, that someone comes and looks at the sales process in a product-minded way.

Eyal David: [02:53] That was a Takhles episode from Product Builder. Want to hear the full conversation? Look for it in the feed, and don't forget to follow us.