You’re somebody’s customer, too—so talk to whoever is doing work for you. Show up with something of value or a pertinent question. Try to understand what their roadblocks are and what they’re excited about.

And talk to the people who are closest to the customer, like marketing and support—find teams who communicate with customers day in and day out and hear their feedback directly.

Come curious. And come genuinely interested. When you’re looking up and around, you’re not on a self-serving mission to understand if your company will fail and how quickly you should cut and run. You’re trying to understand how to do your job better. You’re getting ideas of how to help your project and your company’s mission succeed. You’re starting to think like your manager or leader, which is the first step to becoming a manager or leader.

5.5. The Point of PMs

“Product manager or product marketing manager—Product marketing and product management are essentially the same thing—or at least they should be. A product manager’s responsibility is to figure out what the product should do and then create the spec (the description of how it will work) as well as the messaging (the facts you want customers to understand). Then they work with almost every part of the business (engineering, design, customer support, finance, sales, marketing, etc.) to get the product spec’d, built, and brought to market. They ensure that it stays true to its original intent and doesn’t get watered down along the way. But, most importantly, product managers are the voice of the customer. They keep every team in check to make sure they don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal—happy, satisfied customers.

It’s an issue I see at a lot of startups and project teams at larger companies—the founder or team lead often plays the role of the product manager in the beginning. They define the vision and work with all parts of the business to make it a reality. The trouble comes when the team grows—to 40, 50, 100 people. [See also: Chapter 5.2: Breakpoints.] That’s when the leader has to step away from the day-to-day business of building the product and hand over the reins to someone else.

But they can’t imagine handing over their baby. How could anyone understand it or love it or help it grow as well as they could? And how would that function even work? Where would it live? How could the founder retain influence over the product if they’re no longer the manager of that product? And then what would the founder’s job even be? [See also: Chapter 6.1: Becoming CEO.]

A good product manager will do a little of everything and a great deal of all this:

• Spec out what the product should do and the road map for where it will go over time.

• Determine and maintain the messaging matrix.

• Work with engineering to get the product built according to spec.

• Work with design to make it intuitive and attractive to the target customer.

• Work with marketing to help them understand the technical nuances in order to develop effective creative to communicate the messaging.

• Present the product to management and get feedback from the execs.

• Work with sales and finance to make sure this product has a market and can eventually make money.

• Work with customer support to write necessary instructions, help manage problems, and take in customer requests and complaints.

• Work with PR to address public perceptions, write the mock press release, and often act as a spokesperson.

Building a product is like making a song.

The band is composed of marketing, sales, engineering, support, manufacturing, PR, legal. And the product manager is the producer—making sure everyone knows the melody, that nobody is out of tune and everyone is doing their part. They’re the only person who can see and hear how all the pieces are coming together, so they can tell when there’s too much bassoon or when a drum solo’s going on too long, when features get out of whack or people get so caught up in their own project that they forget the big picture.

But they’re also not directing everything. Their job isn’t to be CEO of the product—or, God forbid, what some companies call the “product owner.” They can’t single-handedly dictate what will and will not make it in. Sometimes they’ll have the final opinion, sometimes they’ll have to say “no,” sometimes they’ll have to direct from the front. But that should be rare. Mostly they empower the team. They help everyone understand the context of what the customer needs, then work together to make the right choices. If a product manager is making all the decisions, then they are not a good product manager.