{"id":15455,"date":"2016-01-27T14:53:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T14:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/?p=15455"},"modified":"2016-02-18T11:40:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T11:40:03","slug":"what-product-vps-at-high-growth-startups-have-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/productcollective.com\/what-product-vps-at-high-growth-startups-have-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"What Product VP’s at High Growth Startups Have in Common"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This post originally appeared on the Mattermark Blog<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the number one hiring criterion for a vice president of product management should be someone who\u2019s done it before\u2014who has executive-level product leadership experience\u2014but I\u2019m often outvoted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0Rich Mironov<\/a>, author of The Art of Product Management and co-founder\u00a0of Product Camp.<\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Reading those words from a post he had written about the role of a VP of product management made me think. Do most hiring managers of high-growth startup technology companies feel that\u00a0way? How do these fast-rising organizations value \u2018product\u2019 within their companies, and what do they look for in hiring a senior-level product person? What does a VP of Product for a high-growth startup actually look like?<\/p>\n

With that, I went on a mission: To dissect the senior product roles in the highest growth startup technology companies in order to understand who these companies bring on board to entrust product vision and execution.<\/p>\n

I learned that Rich Mironov is right \u2013 in a way<\/strong>. But before we get to the actual findings, I want to describe the process that I used.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> I started with the Forbes 50 Hottest Startups of 2015<\/a>, released just last month.<\/em><\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> Given that the companies vary in size and scope \u2014 is Uber really a startup now that it\u2019s over 6 years old and has raised billions? -\u2013 I whittled this list down to those that employed between 100 \u2013 300 people to attempt to enforce more parity.<\/em><\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> I used LinkedIn, Twitter, and other platforms to seek out which of these companies employ a non-founder that is solely in charge of Product Management. It was important to me that this was an actual hire and not a founder, as I was interested in seeing companies that value product enough where they\u2019re willing to hire an outside resource to manage it (and are willing to spend the money to fund a salary, benefits, and everything that comes with making a full-time hire).<\/em><\/p>\n

It should be noted that the actual titles were most commonly VP of Product, Head of Product, or Chief Product Officer. However, I did also accept Director of Product when it was evident that this person had overall product responsibility.<\/em><\/p>\n

4.<\/strong> From the original list of 50, I ended up with information from 18 companies. 21 actually qualified (by having 100-300 employees), but I was unable to track down clear product leaders at 3 organizations in particular: Expensify, Theranos, and Greenhouse. It\u2019s absolutely possible that the information is available, however it seemed to elude me.<\/em><\/p>\n

There are a few themes that emerged, which I found particularly interesting:<\/p>\n

1. Senior product leaders at high-growth companies have paid their dues.<\/h3>\n

All but two of the product leaders I was able to identify had more than 10\u00a0years of real-world work experience. Not all experience revolved around product. In fact, it was common to see people who spent some time as an engineer, marketer, or even as a management consultant.<\/p>\n

The two product leaders that didn\u2019t have 10+ years of professional experience aren\u2019t exactly newbies. They each had six to seven years of professional experience.<\/p>\n

2. Engineering backgrounds are optional.<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve been a part of more than one debate on whether or not a real \u2018product person\u2019 can thrive without an engineering background. And there are certainly different schools of thought here. One of the leading voices in product management today, Ken Norton, notes in his classic essay on hiring product managers<\/a> that he often favors product managers that have had technical roles in the past. Yet, even Ken admits that a Computer Science degree isn\u2019t absolutely necessary for a product person to thrive. But what about people leading product for the entire organization at a high-growth startup company?<\/p>\n

Apparently, it\u2019s not a \u2018must.\u2019 In fact, fewer than half of the product leaders identified from these high-growth companies had technical backgrounds or degrees. Although, 8 of the 18 product leaders did possess this skill, so while it\u2019s not necessary \u2013 it\u2019s obvious that it\u2019s still something these companies care about.<\/p>\n

3. Product leaders at high-growth startups are pretty darn smart.<\/h3>\n

While formal education isn\u2019t always a fair indicator of actual intelligence (at least not for everybody), let\u2019s just say that this is a very well educated group. Just over half of these product leaders have advanced degrees like MBA\u2019s or law degrees \u2013 and nearly one third of them have at least one degree from bay area institutions like Cal and Stanford. In fact, those two schools tied for the number one most attended academic institutions by these 18 product leaders.<\/p>\n

Other academic institutions frequented included Harvard, MIT, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Humboldt State, Georgia State, and elsewhere. In other words, while academics seem to be a strong suit for these product people, the types of institutions attended did vary.<\/p>\n

4. These product leaders may be \u2018CEO of Product,\u2019 but most have never been a CEO.<\/h3>\n

It would make sense that one track of getting into Product Management is to have had experience running a startup in the past. In full disclosure, the previous two product roles that I had were preceded by my experience running a startup company of my own. However, I learned that I\u2019m the exception and not the rule.<\/p>\n

Of those product leaders identified, only three had started or run businesses in the past. This is\u00a0not to say that having run a startup company couldn\u2019t be beneficial or even be seen as a benefit by hiring committees at these high-growth companies, but it\u2019s obviously not a requirement.<\/p>\n

5. Rich Mironov was right \u2013 not everybody cares about hiring someone with executive-level product management experience.<\/h3>\n

While everybody on the list had real product experience in their past, only 4 of the 18 product leaders had actually led product management for an organization before. So rather than find people who have proven track records as overall product leaders, it seems that these organizations favored rising stars in their field.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say that 14 people had no management experience at all. In fact, several of these folks had managed product lines or had run a portion of their company\u2019s product offerings. However, I was specifically looking for people who had sole responsibility overseeing the company\u2019s entire product line.<\/p>\n

6. And *sigh*, yes \u2013 most of these product leaders are men.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s true that of the 18 companies that met my requirements, only 3 of them had women at the helm of product leadership. However, a couple of considerations should be made here. First, only 1 of those 18 companies has a woman as CEO (and even when expanding the field to the original 22, the number only increases to 2). So female representation in \u2018product leadership\u2019 isn\u2019t much different than overall leadership within these companies.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that the female product leaders who were leading their product organizations are very well respected in their fields. A great example of that would be April Underwood at Slack \u2013 who is perhaps one of the fastest\u00a0rising stars in the field of Product Management.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t change the fact that this number is way lower than it should be. I happen to know so many amazing female product leaders that I\u2019d be very quick to try to recruit to lead product if I was personally building a high-growth technology company.<\/p>\n

To summarize, product leaders at high-growth startups are smart, have deep experience, yet while many are technical, there are fewer true technical product people leading product organizations than you might have expected.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you thought that you had to be an engineer to lead a high-growth startup\u2019s product organization, you\u2019re wrong. It\u2019s also apparent that you don\u2019t have to have a Silicon Valley pedigree or fancy MBA. But don\u2019t expect to just play around for a couple of years after college and find your way into a product leadership role at a high growth company. It\u2019s probably much more likely that you\u2019ll have to build your portfolio as a product manager \u2013 or as a professional, in general \u2013 for at least 10 solid years.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

For more research, thoughts, and commentary on all things related to product people, visit productcollective.com or join me in person at Industry<\/a> \u2013 the conference for people who build, launch, and scale world-class products. The first ten people to use the code Mattermark when registering will save $100.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This post originally appeared on the Mattermark Blog)   \u201cI think that the number one hiring criterion for a vice president of product management should be someone who\u2019s done it before\u2014who has executive-level product leadership experience\u2014but I\u2019m often outvoted.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Rich Mironov, author of The Art of Product Management and co-founder\u00a0of Product Camp. Reading those words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Product VP's at High Growth Startups Have in Common<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Product Management expert Rich Mironov believes that a Product VP should have executive-level product leadership experience. 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