Product Leadership Coaching for Startups

This is the first in a multi-part series intended to help identify when to engage a product leadership coach. I’ve worked for over twenty years in enterprise software and growth stage startups. I have advised clients and customers from many sectors including commercial, government, and education. I can confidently state that the challenges facing organizations that want to innovate may have changed shape over the years, but their component parts are consistent. This series highlights the more prevalent symptoms, and points out where an experienced product practitioner can help teams identify and remove roadblocks to an empowered innovation practice.

Every organization with a desire to innovate* has the need to:

1.     Improve their ability to identify valuable new opportunities

2.     Deftly pursue new opportunities

3.     Respond to threats

The best product leaders create a culture and practice of innovation that continually delivers on all three.

Startups are by definition in need of effective innovation. Everything that happens in a new venture is to some extent an invention. Startups may not have an immediate need for a Head of Product or CPO, but they need strong product leadership.

For example, one of the most critical milestones for an early-stage startup to achieve is Product Market Fit (PMF). A strong product leader will help an organization determine if there really is a market for their offering, by ensuring that the product or service has real value to at least a small number of paying customers. Experience crafting and performing MVP** tests is essential to laying the successful PMF foundation for a new venture before time, money or patience runs out.

As new customers come on board and income steadies, successful startups enter the growth stage. Around this time, founders begin to feel stretched beyond their abilities, regardless of how many hours they’re willing to put into the business. If VCs are involved, they may even be advising that it is time for a product leader hire. Founders can’t be the only product experts in the organization anymore. New talent needs to be given the opportunity to build expertise and contribute to the scaling enterprise to support rapid growth.

Why not just hire a Head of Product at one of these turning points? Why involve a product leadership coach at all? If a great product leader can be found, is a fit with the team, can be paid enough to bring them on board, and has the necessary expertise and aptitude for the role then hire them. A great product leader hire will pay dividends over time. More often, however, there are concerns and blockers to recruiting and hiring a product leader.

Here are some of the more common reasons that product leaders aren’t hired into startups when needed:

• Founders are worried about adding a new senior leader to the team. Sharing or delegating ownership of the product decisions is still too difficult for the people who had the idea and courage to start the business.

• Product Leadership is complex and nebulous. There is resistance to add someone senior (and likely expensive) to the team when the current leadership doesn’t entirely understand the value in the function.

• Maybe only a few specific outcomes typically expected of a product leader are needed right now – but not the full spectrum. Hiring is challenging because great product leaders don’t want to work within constraints.

• Mistrust of ‘product people’ based on experience. Some software engineers in particular have had negative experiences with product team members who were not collaborative and did not operate in an empowered team context, and therefore resist the organization’s addition of the product function as a whole.

A product leadership coach can step in and help with all the above. When effective, the coach can work with existing leaders to clarify what strengths the organization needs, educate the team about how great product teams function, and coach the people currently filling the product gaps to do so effectively and collaboratively. If you work with a product coach who has years of experience defining and delivering successful solutions, that person will rapidly identify areas where improvements can be made. The coach can alleviate immediate pains while assisting with readying for and even hiring the right product leader. Strong product people want to join an organization that demonstrates compelling product operating principles and a readiness to work together to create something great.

If you want to know more or are ready to bring a product leadership coach into your organization, PM me or visit my website at www.presenceleadership.ca to set up an introductory conversation.

The next segment in this series will focus on the importance of Product Discovery.

*Innovate: bring a new method, product, or idea into being

**MVP: Minimum Viable Product