Product vision

I find that some people envy product jobs in startups for the seemingly powerful position that comes with it. While it’s partially true that you get to choose what the R&D team works on, people often think you just get to “choose” - which isn’t the case.

Product job is about permanent negotiation: your job is essentially to convince everyone that your priorities are the correct ones. When I say everyone, I mean it - everyone from the CEO to the newest intern will ask you, directly or indirectly, to explain what the company needs to work on next.

The disillusion generally comes soon when you find that being able to explain what needs to be done isn’t enough; the hard part is convincing everyone that it’s the right thing to do. Each person has their own system of values, their own problems, and even their own quotas to meet. The best part? They rarely see their own biases, sometimes even asking for conflicting solutions.

On each feature request, each bug, each solution you offer: you need to convince everyone of their importance (or non-importance). This, over months and months, can make you feel like everyone is doubting your judgment, or worse, makes you start to doubt yourself, which is really soul-crushing.

While I don’t think there is a bulletproof solution (i.e., you can’t just say “trust me bro” to everyone), the most effective approach is to communicate a Product vision instead of a set of solutions.

You must have within yourself a core belief of what needs to happen, in your gut. The thing you want to build needs to exist, and nobody else will build it except you. Once you have that and explain your vision that spans over many months or even years, people will stop fighting over the details at hand and shift focus to the direction of that vision.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you are right - you will still need to convince others that your vision is the right one. However, I can assure you that convincing people about long-term objectives rather than short-term ones is beneficial for both your mental health (as it happens less often) and for them too (as they can suddenly accept short-term negative impact for long-term goals).