Sailor Moon

James Hong · Menlo Park, California
Being a good product guy (or gal!), IMHO, has nothing to do with background, title, role, or coding skillset. There seems to be some weird glorification of certain roles lately, like engineers are gods and non coders are useless. I tend to have a negative impression of people who think this way, or at least I think they are young or naive. To me, being good at product is mostly about being highly empathic and having a sense of what a user will like (or won't like), a dose of being able to think about the user and the system at a meta level, and a nice healthy dose of creativity. You can be a coder and a good product guy. Or you can be the pm and a good product guy. You could be the Admin and be a good product guy. The only thing that seems to be true is that there are a lot of people who claim to be good product guys that are not good product guys. I'm hesitant to believe anyone can train or study to be good at product though, or at least it seems one has to have the right personality ahead of time... Would be interested to know how wrong I am on that one!
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· Yesterday at 2:56am

Bomin Park
Agree with James Hong's tirade, I mean, reasoning. :)
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· Yesterday at 3:22am
Marc Andreessen · General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
Facebook cut off your paragraph at "mostly about being high". Seriously.
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· Yesterday at 4:07am
Aaron Harris · Co-Founder/CEO at Tutorspree
Thanks for that, James. I agree with you - I think that being a good product guy requires a serious base of creativity and imagination. I think it's what you do with that base, though, that changes the nature of your value. I see the skillset as a broad mix of things, brought together in the right way, and to bear on the right problem. I'll be the first to admit, though, that I'm still quite new at this. I'm learning all the time, and hope I'll be good one day.
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· Yesterday at 7:10am

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William Franceschine · Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University
"You will need to understand that you are not the boss of an engineer, or superior to an engineer, simply because you think you have vision. If you are lucky, you will become a partner to a great engineer (or teams of them). You will be a member of a team where everyone has a valid say, but the decision will ultimately be yours. Your view won’t win out just because you talk louder or faster—it will win if it’s the right thing and you can back it up with logic, with experience, and with numbers."

This is gold. I never got anywhere working with engineers until I started to understand this. Wish I had read this a few years ago.
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· Saturday at 7:40pm

David Carter · Charlotte, North Carolina
The way I see myself as a "Product Guy" is that i'm like an Architect. My jobs is to come up with the vision for the design, proper budgeting of the money allotted for the project, and to be a manager of the engineers who are building that vision so they have every thing they need to stay on task.

In Startup structure an Architect like myself would look like this.

Vision for the design
...See More
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· Yesterday at 1:42am
Michael Sacca · Top Commenter · San Diego, California
I can feel the stack of documents growing with each bullet point.
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· Yesterday at 8:31am
Brett Thomas
David Carter No, you aren't. The person who is making all the technical decisions is like the architect, and that's why they often hold the title Software Architect. Architects do more than come up with pretty drawings, architects are technical experts in the tech behind buildings.
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· Yesterday at 10:18am

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Stephanie Robesky · Top Commenter · San Francisco, California
I think that there is a general misconception of what a "product" person actually does. I seem to find a lot of people claim that they are great at product and a lot of startups in the Valley are choosing to forgo the role of product management/development because there are a lot of folks that have a good understanding of design and usability. But, there seems to be this whole missing point that product is a hell of a lot more than where to place a button, how to make things pretty and what features would be cool.

There is an entire methodology and art behind what a real product person does that is a lot less glam than thinking up great ideas and where to stick them in a product. A great product person also creates and prioritizes roadmaps, pulls together vision, OWNS the vision and actually executes.

Blah blah to reading all these books and thinking you are going to be a great product person. Learn some methodologies like XP/Lean/Kanban, figure out how to prioritize a roadmap when you have 1,000 things on it and 6 platforms, write user stories, fight and love with engineering, deal with backlogs and try to make launch happen with a beautiful and usable product. When you can do those things, you might be a product person. But if you call yourself a great product person because you figured out where to put a pretty button on your app and you read a Paul Graham essay, then you haven't a clue...
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· Yesterday at 10:12am

Anna Cranky Pm Smith
The Cranky Product Manager wishes she could triple-Like your comment. Awesome!
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· 12 hours ago
Aditya Rao · Top Commenter · Product and Marketing Manager at YourNextLeap
Beautifully put! This needs to be pushed up on top of this section as the best comment.
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· 12 hours ago

Luca Candela · Top Commenter · Product manager at Sencha
There's some good stuff buried in here, but I find this article oddly offensive, and makes me feel like I should defend myself and my profession as we were all charlatans and clowns. I worked very hard to get where I am now, and I feel that the description you give of the average "product guy" doesn't fit the usual profile of people coming from the engineering or design ranks and moving up the chain like you usually do in this biz.
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· Saturday at 9:15pm

Hutch Carpenter · VP of Product at Spigit
This post reminds me of the stereotypes different groups see about one another. Classic visual of this: http://twitpic.com/5xs1vy
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· Saturday at 10:19pm
Aaron Harris · Co-Founder/CEO at Tutorspree
Hey Luca. To be very clear, this is not a description of the average product guy. This is the description of a group of people who call themselves product guys without having done the work to earn it. The post was spawned by all of the job posts I see jam packed with jargon and lacking respect for engineering and design. That's the opposite of a lot of unbelievable incredible product people whose ranks I'd love to join.
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· Yesterday at 7:07am
Brett Thomas
Generally you are clowns, sure there's a few good ones mixed in there, but stereotypes generally exist for a reason. Just take a look at all the people on craigslist wanting facebook clones offering coders equity in their amazing idea instead of actual pay.
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· Yesterday at 10:19am

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Anna Cranky Pm Smith
From the comments, seems like the engineers are confused by your article. They wanted you to slam Product Management/Marketing people. ALAS, you disappointed them and only slammed the douchebags who claim "I'm the Product Guy" yet have no product experience, no skills to speak of, and no knowledge on how to guide a product through development and successfully launch it to the market.

The Cranky Product Manager agrees with your article. Having a "WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF..." idea while sitting around a bong does NOT make your idea a "vision" and does not make you remotely qualified to be a "Product Guy" (or "Gal").

Instead, you need to learn the craft through years of experience and deliberate inquiry into what it takes to create market-winning products and get them out the door. The vision and strategy are but the tip of the iceberg, and the successful product person needs to be able to operate at the 50,000 foot level as well as deep down in the muck. The books and blogs your recommended are excellent starting points, but there is nothing like the in-the-trenches experience of pushing out release after release.

(And in the Cranky Product Manager's experience, the best product people just call themselves "Product Managers" or "Product Marketers." Not "Product Guy." That just sounds kind of douchebag-ish.
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· 13 hours ago

Gail Langendorf · Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
"50,000 foot level as well as deep down in the muck" - so true!!
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· 8 hours ago

Garth Shoemaker · Top Commenter · Sunnyvale, California
Somehow being a "product guy" has become cool. I blame it mostly on Steve Jobs, who managed to finally convince people that making high quality products that make users feel good is actually important. Of course it baffles me that there was a time when this wasn't cool, but here we are.

So, I think this is a good thing that people want to actually do this. I applaud anybody who wants to be a "product person." Of course there will be people that don't get it. They will try and probably fail. But the people who stick with it and have talent will change the world.

As a side-effect, all of us who have spent many years focusing on user experience, all while developing solid technical skills, are suddenly in big demand. I am working at an old-school tech company, and have people coming to me every day asking about this whole "user experience" thing, and trying to figure out what they can do differently. This is all good.
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· Saturday at 7:35pm

Devin Rhode · CEO at Scout for Chrome
You're wrong.

You need to become a fully capable coder.

You miss a huge aspect of the value of abstraction, and ensuring things are robust and maintainable.

If you become good, why wouldn't you become great?
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· Yesterday at 12:13am

Geoff Wright · Founder at Weartolook
+1000000
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· Yesterday at 2:56am
Aaron Harris · Co-Founder/CEO at Tutorspree
I'd disagree with you, Devin. Being a great engineer doesn't mean you're going to be able to do what's needed to drive a great product, and vice versa. I think you need a high quality understanding of how engineering works, but you don't need to be able to do all the actual pieces yourself.
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· Yesterday at 7:15am
Geoff Wright · Founder at Weartolook
Aaron Harris - Hey - I guess it depends on where you think the "high quality understanding" mark begins - when you can code and maintain a production app? Or hack (sticky tape and glue) something simple together for the fun of it.
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· Yesterday at 7:52am

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Oye Aborishade · Keele University
Steve Jobs was once just a 'product guy'. the problem with being 'that guy' is you have to start your own company (because no one will hire a product guy with no experience) and secondly you need to meet a Steve Wozniak (technical co-founder) and convince them why your idea is worth their time.

I read a lot of blogs where writers subliminally suggest product people are useless at a start-up or you need to know how to code. Product people just need to know it's much tougher to get started and will need- money or connections and leadership qualities.
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· Saturday at 11:19pm

Dave Cerra · Producer at Electronic Arts
"Spare me" from judgement. :/

Good reading list, good message, unnecessarily judgmental tone.

There are some very good insights here, clearly hard won by the author. However, they reveal an insecure participant in my opinion, one who has only recently found confidence in his role on a team. That's okay. That's fine. But that doesn't qualify one to throw a blanket of unhappy faces over so many. The author has clearly passed an important milestone in his own development, but does it qualify him to judge others with such finality? Do all those who care about product all carry the same "dirty secret" as Mr. Harris? No. We don't.
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· Saturday at 10:38pm

Aaron Harris · Co-Founder/CEO at Tutorspree
Absolutely a perspective - and I don't mean this to be a final judgement on anyone. This is a reaction to seeing one too many overly jargony, denigrating job posts from people trying to get engineers and designers to work with them. There's a lot of misunderstanding floating around about what happens when building a tech product - what you need, and what you need to do. This is the path that has helped me start getting a bit better.
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· Yesterday at 7:17am

Geoff Wright · Founder at Weartolook
Just my opinion: a lot of people seem to me to be "Project Managers", not product guys. A product guy (in my opinion) is someone who designs product features in response to a problem, or requirement, or to drive a certain behaviour. Simple.
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· Yesterday at 2:54am

Matthew Hughes · Director at Green Ivy Media
Yep this is pretty much it; this whole 'product guy' stuff is starting to sound a bit like 'social media expert'. Idea, build, ship, get customers, talk to your community, build so more & keep them happy and moving on the path you believe in.

Too many 'product guys' have nothing to show; your not a 'product guy' until you actually have a real product that is getting used in the real world.
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· Yesterday at 5:25am

matthew.alan.martin@hotmail.com (signed in using Hotmail)
Got it.
Don't be a scam-artist used-car salesman. Be a scam-artist used-car salesman that has read a couple of books. Check.
One can only hope that one day technology combined with a change in business practices will finally free those that can 'do' (e.g. engineers, coders, artists) from those that merely leverage others in modern-day economic serfdom (e.g. 'product guys', 'technology managers', 'leaders-of-men', 'history majors').
You are chaff.
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· Yesterday at 6:24am

Issac Junior Belen D · Utah State
Articles like this one help me to corroborate what the media keep saying about the discrimination and the lack of diversity of not only minorities and women, but also the lack of diversified new ideas in Silicon Valley and this might be due to the big egos and arrogance of the players! I came up with my business idea, I did the marketing research, I created the marketing and pricing strategies, I talk to investors and customers in a daily basis, I oversee every translation to Spanish and Portuguese, I brainstorm to solve the company's problems etc....and you are telling me that I am not worthy of managing my own company? at least to the same level as my ex-roommate, now co-founder and VP of engineering, because I don't code? I don't think so! "Get off of that horse, because it ain't moving"- Dominican adage!
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· 9 hours ago

Ray Nugent
I am a product guy. To me, a product guy has three primary responsibilities -

1) Ship Product.
2) Focus on Customers.
3) Drive revenue.
...See More
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· Saturday at 10:28pm

Aaron Harris · Co-Founder/CEO at Tutorspree
Ray, definitely not slamming good product guys. I'm trying to point out the error in thinking you're a product guy because you say you are, and because you know some big fancy words.
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· Yesterday at 7:11am

Tim Grace · Product Director at Signal
Gosh, if had only known all I had to do was read a couple books, make a half-ass attempt to code & generally avoid being a superior dick to people, I could have been "leading product" long ago! Thanks Aaron for helping "product guys" everywhere!
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· Yesterday at 7:26am

Julian Rockwood · Young Guru at Signal
Interesting. I thought it was going to be a snide essay on product people, then he puts the joke on himself. I'm perplexed.
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· Yesterday at 7:39am
John Manganaro
Well, looks like I have some work to do!
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· Yesterday at 7:52am

Taylor Crane · Top Commenter · New York, New York
I think the title is a bit of a misnomer, I expected you to call bullishit on the value of a product guy/team. Ended up being a good read though!
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· Saturday at 7:40pm

Danny Landau · Columbia University
Not sure if I agree with most of the points in the article...however, the Company -- Tutorspree -- is a good one!
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· Saturday at 7:11pm

Aaron Harris · Co-Founder/CEO at Tutorspree
Thanks Danny!
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· Yesterday at 7:15am
Puranjay Singh · Top Commenter
Aaron Harris Yup. I found a hot French tutor in NY right on the homepage. If I was living in NY, I would totally start learning French. You, Aaron, are doing God's work. Please consider that not sarcastic, but grandiloquent.
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· Yesterday at 11:32am

Alex Berman · Claremont McKenna College
A good article with a misleading title!
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· Saturday at 8:44pm

Mark S Simpson · Writer at Moi meme
Gee ... I wonder why you'd object to the title, my young Mr. Berman! You were an entrepreneur from the age 3, I'm sure. Actually, I'll read the article later today. I've got to sleep now!
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· Saturday at 8:48pm

Josh Viney · New York, New York
Product is important. Experienced product people are rare - just think about how few people have created and managed multiple products (failures and successes included). There's not many out there, so I'm all for encouraging people to enter the space. Here's my advice if you want to be a product person. Take it or leave it.

1. Buy, read, and keep The Product Manager's Desk Reference by Steven Haines on your desk.
2. Internalize concepts like ownership and P&L. Earn the respect of your team, so that you can have both. Without those, you're a project manager.
3. Know your medium, whether it's the Web, Mobile, hardware, doesn't matter. It's your responsibility to know the strengths and weaknesses of your team's delivery method of choice. If you don't know what can and cannot be done, you can't make good decisions and your team w...See More
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· 4 hours ago

Matt Lawson · Top Commenter
Thanks for taking the time to put down your thoughts.
Seems this view and even the terminology is a little naive or rather inexperienced. Not sure I like the "product idea" job role. I think you are talking about a person who comes from a non-tech background and has a great-next-gen-idea and runs into a project like a bull-in-a-china-shop and because of their lack of experience and training they fail hard. In short what you are saying is create multiple start-ups (failed presumably) that allows you to grow a depth of experience so that perhaps one day you are able to create a very successful product.

I think there is a difference between someone born as an entrepreneur verses someone who becomes an entrepreneur.

...See More
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· Saturday at 8:55pm

Faisal Khalid · Harvard
Agree with some of the other commentators that the article is a bit offensive, something about the tone in which it was written. Puts the reader on the defensive.

One thing I would add to this article iis that don't be afraid to copy good design. We did this @ researchnation (my startup), we used quora, tutorspree and airbnb as an inspiration for our site's design. Ultimately, unless you are building a complete clone of someone else's site, you will end up adapting, but as a starting point it helps to use sites that have already demonstrated success at solving various design problems (structuring information etc).
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· Yesterday at 7:16am

David Clark
I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for the input and book recomendations.

I'm lucky to have great engineers on my team who I respect a ton. Still, I'm going to make Codecademy a higher priority. I need to fully understand "how ideas become code and then become product."
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· Saturday at 7:46pm

Pantano Brown (signed in using Hotmail)
The new culture is to ask the Chinese to build everything. Outsourcing is the big phenomena. http://pnoy.me/iJ
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· Saturday at 9:51pm

Aravind Sethuraman · Piscataway, New Jersey
a perspective...
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· Saturday at 7:02pm

RyAn HIckmAn · Top Commenter
... yes a perspective.
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· Saturday at 7:30pm

Jazzy Jazz Keith · Huntsville, Alabama
NO... SPARE ME FROM ALL THE MEDIA PRODUCT WHORES!
Guys like Leo Laporte and Walt Goatberg that are so in CrApple's POCKET, that it's Pathetic listening to or reading anything they write! It may as well come direct from CrApple PR Department!

Every freakin story on Boobberg/BusinessWeak, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, etc. is CrApple this and CrApple that... oh how wonderful the iFAD is and miraculous the iPhony (ripped-off from the LG Prada) is and Macs are selling out everywhere (but CrApple plans on dropping the Mac Pro cause NO ONE is buying it) and the MacBook Pro is killer (but actually sales are WAY down), yada yada yada yada yada....

All these CrApple Pimps and more in the Media are on PAYOLA and EVERYONE knows it!