Product Managers will be the first one-person billion dollar company

As we all know, AI is advancing and it is doing it rapidly. As of today, AI can do the job of a junior/mid developer, and can perform simple and repetitive tasks like bug fixing.

AIs of today, given a complex infrastructure or architecture problem, may be able to give an sufficiently reliable answer, but lack of the company-specific context in which that question has been posed. If they have been trained on some specific company's data and architecture, then things may change. But we are not there, yet.

AI will replace junior devs

This is why I believe AI will primarily replace junior developers, and will ultimately democratize and lower the costs of doing an MVP. AI's capability to handle repetitive and time-consuming tasks makes it an ideal tool for replacing junior developers. By automating code generation, bug fixing, and initial testing, AI can drastically reduce development time and costs.

This shift will democratize access to technology, allowing startups and small businesses to bring their ideas to market more efficiently and affordably. It's an exciting era where innovation is more accessible than ever, opening new possibilities for creativity and entrepreneurship. What a great time to be alive!

Think big

Let's think bigger. What is an AI prompt? What happens when I write to ChatGPT (or whichever other AI) "generate a webpage with this and this characteristic"?

What I am doing is giving text-based prompts (in this case in English) which the AI will translate into code. As AIs quality improves, more complex text prompts (or perhaps Product of Feature Requirements Pages) will be properly managed.

As the masters of writing specs down, it will be product managers the ones to create the new apps, the new website, and ultimately the next one-person billion-dollar company!

Importance of writing

Writing is thinking! As the greatest Paul Graham says, writing forces clarity and precision, transforming and often improving the initial thoughts. Writing is a critical tool for intellectual rigor and discovery, essential for anyone wishing to develop fully formed ideas on complex subjects.

PMs' job is to act as the mediator between business and tech and to write documentation and requirements. Who better than them to be the best equipped to write prompts that will translate into an app?

Engineering = executing?

Are we sure that engineering is just executing? This is something that should deserve a whole specific blog post. As a matter of fact, developers can also elevate themselves as product managers, and in fact they are 100% able to do this.

Does this mean that PMs should not learn or know anything on how to code? In my opinion, they should do it because it opens your mind and you can be more creative with your writing, as well as see problems from a different perspective (and write them down in a more precise and better way to become the next one-person billion dollar company)

Source

Budget for meetings

In the dynamic world of digital companies, meetings can quickly spiral into an all-day, back-to-back, endless spiral. Coming from the financial world, why don’t we think that also the meetings can have a budget? The concept is simple: setting a cap on the number, or hours, of meetings an individual can have in a week.

This isn't a one-size-fits-all approach; different roles will have different caps based on their unique responsibilities. The primary goal here is to reduce friction and reclaim valuable time.

Start with Data

How many meetings are we really having?

Before we can make any changes, we need to understand our current state. Gathering and analyzing this data is indeed crucial: it will help us see the extent of the issue, if there is any, and to identify patterns. For some roles, frequent meetings might be necessary, but data will help us anyways to make informed decisions.

Data will also allow us to spot the systemic presence of back-to-back meetings. These are the worst, as they leave no time to breathe, to debrief (individually or as a group), and to prepare for the next meeting.

An idea here may be implementing buffers between meetings can give people the necessary time to debrief, organize action items, and prepare for the next task. This small change can lead to significant improvements in the quality of outcomes and overall productivity.

All or nothing

When we talk about reducing meetings, the immediate reaction is to suggest eliminating them altogether. This isn't the aim nor the scope of this blog post.

We need to distinguish between reducing unnecessary meetings and canceling all meetings. The focus is on streamlining our processes and cutting down on non-essential gatherings to improve efficiency, not to zero in and adopt a one site fits all approach to the issue.

If they want to, people are smart enough to work around the process or the system and will find ways to have more meetings. Once again, this is not the point of this initiative.

Elon’s Algorithm

Elon Musk’s strategy of removing elements to see their impact, as outlined in Isaacson's biography, can be applied here. By cutting some meetings, we can better assess their importance and reinstate them if necessary!

I spoke about Mushk’s algorithm here.

Measuring Success

The success of this initiative should be measured in hours saved rather than FTEs. The goal is to allow everyone to perform their roles more effectively. Saving time on unnecessary meetings frees up valuable hours for high-impact tasks, driving overall organizational efficiency.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42l0l5xkjzo

Question every requirement

Elon Musk, in his biography of Walter Isaacson, explains to have 5 commandments.

1. Question Every Requirement

Every requirement must have the name of the person who made it. Don’t accept vague sources like “the legal department” or “the safety department.” Find out exactly who is responsible. Once you know who it is, question the necessity and details of the requirement, no matter how smart or experienced the person is.

Important: Requirements from smart people can be the most risky because others might not question them enough. Always question these, even if they come from me. This will help make sure the requirements are better and less likely to cause problems.

2. Delete Any Unnecessary Parts or Processes

Get rid of any part or process that isn’t absolutely necessary. You might need to add some back later. If you don’t end up adding back at least 10% of what you removed, you probably didn’t delete enough. The aim is to simplify and make things more efficient.

3. Simplify and Optimize

After deleting the unnecessary parts, focus on making what’s left simpler and better. Make sure everything works as efficiently as possible. A common mistake is trying to simplify and optimize parts that shouldn’t even be there. Make sure you’ve removed all unnecessary parts before moving on to this step.

4. Speed Up Processes

Once everything is simplified and optimized, work on making the remaining processes faster. Every process can be quicker. However, only do this after you’ve completed the first three steps. At the Tesla factory, I made the mistake of speeding up processes that should have been eliminated instead.

5. Automate

Automation should be the last step. The big mistake Musk made in Nevada and Fremont was starting with automation. They should have waited until all requirements were questioned, unnecessary parts and processes were removed, and everything was simplified and optimized. Only then they should have automated.

Source:

Isaacson, Walter. Elon Musk

Six-week cycles

Basecamp works in six-week cycle sprints. Six weeks is long enough to build something meaningful start-to-finish and short enough that everyone can feel the deadline looming from the start, so they use the time wisely.

The majority of their features are built and released in one six-week cycle.

The decisions are based on moving the product forward in the next six weeks, not micromanaging time. They don’t count hours or question how individual days are spent. They don’t have daily meetings. Focus is at a higher level.

The cycle

Calendars Dilemma

Committing time and people is difficult if we can’t easily determine who’s available and for how long.

When people are available at different times due to overlapping activities, planning turns into a frustrating game of Calendar Tetris. Working in cycles drastically simplifies this problem. A cycle gives us a standard planning size both for shaping and scheduling.

Basecamp learned that two weeks is too short to get anything meaningful done. Worse than that, two-week cycles are extremely costly due to the planning overhead. The amount of work you get out of two weeks isn’t worth the collective hours around the table to “sprint plan” or the opportunity cost of breaking everyone’s momentum to re-group.

Longer cycles

This led them to try longer cycles. We wanted a cycle that would be long enough to finish a whole epic, start to end. At the same time, cycles need to be short enough to see the end from the beginning. People need to feel the deadline looming in order to make trade-offs. If the deadline is too distant and abstract at the start, teams will naturally wander and use time inefficiently until the deadline starts to get closer and feel real.

After years of experimentation, they arrived at six weeks. Six weeks is long enough to finish something meaningful and still short enough to see the end from the beginning.

Breathing

If they were to run six-week cycles back to back, there wouldn’t be any time to breathe and think about what’s next. The end of a cycle is the worst time to meet and plan because everybody is too busy finishing activities and making last-minute decisions in order to ship on time.

Therefore, after each six-week cycle, they schedule two weeks for cool down This is a period with no scheduled work where they can breathe, meet as needed, and consider what to do next.

During cool-down, programmers and designers on teams are free to work on whatever they want. After working hard to ship their six-week stories, they enjoy having time that’s under their control. They use it to fix bugs, explore new ideas, or try out new technical possibilities.

During the cool-down, there is also the strategic planning activity for the upcoming six-weeks cycle.

Bugs

They fix them, if they are not critical:

• during cool-downs

• in a bug smash, which they do once a year and they clear the backlog of bugs

Team

Their teams consist of either one designer and two programmers or one designer and one programmer. They’re joined by a QA person who does integration testing later in the cycle.

These teams will either spend the entire cycle working on one story, or they’ll work on multiple smaller stories during the cycle.

Sources:

• Introduction | Shape Up

• The Betting Table | Shape Up

Effective Communication

Effective communication strategies are now more than ever important for us to excel as a remote, product-led organization.

Pillars

Communication is Continuous: Every action or inaction communicates something. Especially inaction: people is not stupid, and when they see inaction the first thing that they do is thinking the worst (also because they do not have enough information).

MOST IMPORTANT Asynchronous Over Real-Time: We should prioritize writing and documenting over real-time verbal communication to reduce interruptions and increase clarity. A meeting composed of 10 people means that:

• those 10 people are not doing something else

• everyone else in the organization is left out

Important: this does not mean that we should abolish meetings. Rather, we need to invest in documenting important things that happen throughout the company in order for everyone to be on the same page and to promote transparency.

Minimize Meetings: Use meetings as a last resort and emphasize written communication. See point above for this.

Clarity is Key: Aim for clear communication to avoid repetition and misunderstandings. Once again, meeting can be a good way to clear misunderstandings but people should get used to read and when they have questions leave a comment.

If I have a question, that can be solved in a meeting. But what if that same question had risen to another person not in that meeting? By leaving a comment (and by the person answering the comment) we build transparency for everyone to clear out any possible problem.

Effective Use of Time: Respect others' time and avoid unnecessary synchronization. The keyword for 2024 should be focus, or better, uninterrupted focus. This does not mean that we need to abolish meetings, gatherings or emotional connections, rather we should invest in chunks of times for people to do deep, focused work. This will be a consequence of the behaviour we will have

On this, see the masterpiece by Paul Graham Maker vs Manager schedule - Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

Promote Reflection: Encourage employees to reflect on their work and communicate their thoughts. It is very important to execute, but it is also important to, recurringly, take some time to reflect on what has been done to improve and iterate. We shall issue quarterly reflection moments where all together we understand how to improve.

Daily Practices

One Central Tool: Utilize one single tool for all internal communication. This gives clarity and stability in the group.

Routine Check-Ins: Daily and weekly check-ins are important to assess the work of people. In Basecamp, they found a way to automate it by which a bot asks daily and weekly, from a template, check-in questions. Answers are then saved and reviewed by the manager

Social Interaction: It is important to schedule periodic social interactions to foster team bonding. I would see them at least once a quarter, for new teams once a month for the first 6 months.

Heartbeats and Kickoffs: We should invest more time in providing regular summaries of past achievements and of future plans for each team, to be shared company-wide. This is done for us to promote flawless information sharing and transparency. The concept of knowledge base goes in this direction.

Source: The 37signals Guide to Internal Communication

Embrace videos

I was in a video call with 57 people ranging from the sales and business development team.

The video call lasted 1h30, it was a presentation of the results of the quarter. Country managers intervened after the initial speech of the main manager illustrating their achievements and what could have been improved. People were reading the slides.

So I asked myself: what if these 57 salespeople would actually use this time to sell?

In order for us to achieve this, we need to embrace a more asynchronous organisation. This does not mean no more meetings, but we shall reduce the ones we can avoid.

Limitations of a video call

Even if video calls and plenary meetings have the value of erasing geographic barriers, and reuniting a whole company in a single screen, video calls present shortcomings for specific situations.

Such as:

• A video call represents a limited amount of time (i.e. 1h30) and hence forces everyone to be present on that day at that time, when maybe they could have had better things to do (i.e. selling)

• Even if the number is virtually unlimited, there is a maximum amount of people that can sit on a video call

Hybrid calls are annoying

If in a plenary video call multiple people are in the same room, then they need to share the same equipment.

The following problems arise for remote participants:

• Can’t hear the people in the room well

• Background noise since the microphone of the sharing people is on all the time

• Can’t clearly see facial expressions since each face takes up only a small part of the screen

• Can’t easily see who is talking since the screen shows multiple people

• Hard getting a word in since the people in the room are advantaged to speak
  

The people sharing equipment also have problems because they don’t have their own equipment:

• Can’t screen share something themselves

• Trouble seeing details in screen sharing since the screen is further away from them

• Can’t scroll through a slide deck at their own pace

The disadvantages for remote people are much greater than for the sharing people and hard to notice for the sharing people.

Solution

When giving updates, we need to embrace a video-recording based culture to allow everyone to benefit from the content in the time and place of their choice.

Benefits of video recording

Host(s) can speak uninterrupted

By adopting video recordings for company-wide updates, the person presenting can share their insights, news, and announcements in a streamlined manner.

This approach cuts down on the distractions and breaks in the flow that often come with live sessions, ensuring the core message is communicated effectively and clearly.

The advantage of being asynchronous

The shift towards video-recorded updates embraces the diverse schedules and time zones of a modern workforce, offering a significant advantage: flexibility.

Employees can watch these updates when they fit their schedule, making sure nobody misses out on vital information due to conflicting agendas.

Go 2x Speed

An added benefit of video-recorded updates is the control it gives viewers over how quickly they consume the content. For those who prefer a quick catch-up, speeding up the video to 2x allows them to get the gist in half the time.

Recording

Videos can be stored and accessed later, making it easy for anyone to catch up or refresh their memory on company updates.

Recording allows for meticulous preparation and editing, ensuring the message is polished, precise, and tailored to meet the audience's needs, further enhancing the quality of communication within the company.

Q&A

What about “live” questions? With a video recording I cannot do a live Q&A session.

We shall not advocate of eliminating video calls. Rather, we shall use the time when we are together in the most productive way possible. This is the reason why, a call of 57 people of 1h30 can be substituted by:

• the sharing of a video-recording of the presentation (the “reading the slides”)

• a 30 min (2/3 of time saved) Q&A session where just the ones with questions or the ones who would like to listen to questions of others can participate

Source:

https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#hybrid-calls-are-annoying

Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager

In the rapidly evolving landscape of the tech industry, product management is a pivotal role in shaping successful products.

The Role of a Product Manager

The role of a product manager (PM) can be linked to that of a CEO of their product.

Good PMs are not just coordinators but visionaries who drive the product from conception to market success. They ensure that the product aligns with the company's goals and customer needs while staying ahead of the competition.

Bad PMs, on the other hand, limit themselves to mere marketing roles and often provide excuses for their failures. This fundamental difference sets the stage for the impact a PM can have on a product's success.

Balancing Critical Factors

A good PM must balance a multitude of factors, including company goals, customer demand, competition, and their own knowledge gaps.

They understand the company’s capabilities and limitations, set realistic product strategies, and conduct thorough market research. This comprehensive approach ensures that the product not only meets current customer needs but also anticipates future demands.

---

Clear, Written Communication

Effective communication is the cornerstone of successful product management.

Good PMs:

• clearly define product requirements in writing, ensuring that every team member understands the product's vision and objectives

• maintain up-to-date Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) and actively communicate any changes.

This clarity prevents misunderstandings and keeps the team aligned.

Bad PMs fail in this regard, providing vague instructions and allowing critical details to fall through the cracks, leading to misaligned visions and product failures.

Clear communication is simply MANDATORY

Defining Goals and Advantages

Good PMs set explicit, written goals for their products and personal objectives. They have a deep understanding of their product’s competitive advantages and can articulate them consistently. This clarity and consistency in goals and advantages drive the product’s market positioning and strategic direction.

Bad PMs, however, often have unclear goals and inconsistent product positioning, which confuses both the team and the market.

Focus on the Sales Force and Customers

A strong relationship with the salesforce and customers is essential for a PM. Good PMs understand the actual conditions in the field and build products that meet the salesforce's needs, thereby fostering a supportive and motivated sales team. They know key customers personally and leverage this knowledge to inform product decisions.

Bad PMs neglect these relationships, resulting in poor field performance and low salesforce morale.

People are KEY!

---

Essential Skills for Product Managers

Marketing and communication are critical skills for PMs.

Good PMs are proficient in various marketing functions, from executing product launches to developing collateral and training the salesforce. They prioritize tasks that are critical to their product’s success and create materials that reduce redundant efforts. Discipline is also crucial; good PMs maintain project updates, submit status reports on time, and avoid over-promising.

Achieving Group Product Manager Capabilities

Good PMs demonstrate skills beyond their immediate role, showcasing capabilities that are expected of group product managers. They work well with executives, leverage the entire organization, and resolve critical issues with intensity and focus.

---

Transitioning to a Product-Led Company

To become a product-led company, the following steps are essential:

1. Empower Product Managers
   Treat PMs as CEOs of their products. Give them the authority and responsibility to drive the product vision and execution.

2. Foster a Product-Centric Culture
   Encourage all departments to align with the product vision. Make product success a company-wide priority.

3. Implement Clear Communication
   Ensure product requirements and goals are clearly documented and communicated across teams. Regularly update PRDs and ensure everyone is aligned.

4. Focus on Customer and Sales Feedback
   Establish strong connections between PMs, the salesforce, and customers. Use their feedback to inform product decisions and improvements.

5. Invest in Training and Development
   Provide comprehensive training for PMs on best practices and key skills. Encourage continuous learning and improvement.

---

Source

Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager - Ben Horowitz

How to conduct a discovery interview

I am writing this blog post is to try define a framework to conduct a discovery / product requirements interview.

Objective

The goal of the interview is to obtain information about how the product is used, with specific reference to the pain points and the needs.

Any software you will ever build will be used by people. For this reason, you need to understand your user persona first.

It is very important to understand who is the user you have in front of you, and what are his needs and pain points. Speaking with an aerospatial engineer with 15 years of tenure in SpaceX with respect to a junior accountant in an SMB in, say, Greece is completely different. They will have way different needs as well as ways to approach a solution.

Take into account the element of the country’s culture as well.

---

Best Practices

• Recording: if possible, record the meeting to being able to rewatch it after and being sure not to lose anything. Also, save this recording in a place where it won’t get lost.

• Active Listening: Pay close attention to the user's responses and ask follow-up questions for clarification.

• Note-taking: Document key points and insights from the conversation.

• Empathy: Show understanding and appreciation for the user's perspective. Make them feel important, because they are: without proper information in this phase all the rest will fail (concept of shit in shit out).

• Summarization: At the end of the call, summarize the main points to ensure mutual understanding. Here, AI could help.

• Call-to-action: End the meeting with a clear next step and call to action, the goal should always be directed to understanding how to best help (and simplify the life) of the user you interviewed

• Perform User Stories: Add user stories to allow the “client” to impersonate in the daily work

• Prioritization: Classify the requirements into categories such as 'Must Have', 'Should Have', 'Could Have', and 'Won't Have'. This helps in managing expectations and focusing on the most critical aspects first.

Key Questions

Understanding the User

• Who is using or who will be using the feature?

• Can you tell me more about your (or their) background?

Understanding Current Workflow

• Can you describe your current workflow or process related to this feature?

• What specific tools or methods are you currently using in relation to this task or process?

• How does this process fit into your broader work responsibilities or objectives?

• What is working best?

• IMPORTANT What keeps you awake at night instead?

Identifying Challenges and Pain Points

• What are the main challenges or pain points you face in this process?

• How do you currently address these challenges, if at all?

• Have there been any recent instances where the current system has hindered your productivity or efficiency?

• Are there any repetitive or redundant tasks in your current workflow that you believe could be automated or streamlined?

• IMPORTANT Can you walk me through some of the use cases you mentioned?

• Can you describe a situation where the absence of this feature significantly impacted your work?

• What workarounds or alternative methods have you employed to cope with the limitations of the current system?

Feature Expectations and Priorities

• What are the most important features or functionalities you would like to see in this new feature?

• Can you provide specific examples or scenarios where this feature would be particularly useful?

• Are there any industry-specific requirements or standards that the new feature should adhere to?

• IMPORTANT What level of technical expertise do you and your team possess regarding similar features or tools?

Integration with Existing Systems

• How do you envision this feature integrating with your current tools or systems?

Defining Success

• What would success look like for you with this new feature?

• How would you measure the effectiveness or impact of this new feature in your workflow?

Additional Thoughts and Needs

• Is there anything else you would like to add or any other needs that we should consider?

• IMPORTANT If you had a magic wand, what are the three things you would like to see in the solution to simplify your life?

---

The Interview

Before the interview

1. Research the User → Understand the user's background and their interaction with similar products.

2. Prepare Questions → Prepare open-ended questions that encourage detailed responses.

3. Agenda → Send an agenda before-hand together with any material (i.e. a presentation)

At the beginning of the interview

1. Introduction → Start with a warm welcome and a brief personal introduction.

2. Purpose Explanation → Clearly state the goal of the interview. Be clear and avoid any misunderstanding. Ideally this step should have been clarified in the agenda already

During the interview

1. Qualification questions → Ask questions to understand the background of the person

2. Guided questions → Ask questions related to the problems of the person and to how do they currently use the solution

3. User stories → Ask, also via screen sharing, to be walked through some of the typical cases both where they struggle and where they do not

Conclusion of the interview

1. Recap the Discussion → Summarize key takeaways to ensure mutual understanding

2. Next Steps → Explain how their input will contribute to the project and what to expect next.

Act as a Journalist

In principles

Acting as a journalist does not mean mere record-keeping; it is about nurturing an ecosystem where information is not just stored but is actively shared, understood, and built upon.

Achieving such an ideal state demands more than just a commitment: it demands a company’s culture that values and excels in clear writing.

The quality of documentation in terms of clarity, accessibility, and engagement plays a significant role in determining its utility and longevity.

---

Leadership needs to lead by example

The influence of leaders, ranging from founders to frontline managers, in prioritizing and practicing high-quality writing, is an essential element to drive the change.

Such a stance inspires all members of the organization to refine their writing skills and enhance their communicative clarity.

Leaders are tasked with not only guiding the organization's strategic direction but also shaping the quality of its collective knowledge repository.

“This leadership commitment to documentation sends a clear message about the organization’s values”

---

Documentation shall happen at any level

At each level of the organization ladder, specific expectations related to documentation should be set.

For entry-levels, the focus might be on contributing to project documentation under supervision. As they move through the ladder, their involvement and responsibility in documentation deepen, eventually leading to defining documentation standards at senior levels.

This structured approach ensures that documentation becomes an integral part of an individual's career development, embedding it deeply within the organization's culture.

Star of the week

To maintain and stimulate interest in documentation, an idea is to name "Document Star of the Week" (or of the Month).

This tradition serves to spotlight documentation’s importance, relevance, and criticality throughout the organization, recognizing the efforts of individuals and setting benchmarks for quality.

Do not forget to… DELETE

An essential piece of advice for managing a growing repository of knowledge is empowering members to delete outdated or irrelevant documents.

This proactive approach to information management ensures the documentation remains relevant, streamlined, and accessible.

Think of it as gardening, where regular pruning is necessary to prevent the garden from becoming overgrown and chaotic.

---

In conclusion

Adopting a journalistic approach within organizations transforms documentation from a mere task into a cultural cornerstone.

By prioritizing high-quality writing and encouraging clear communication, leaders can foster an environment where information is not only preserved but actively utilized and refined.