

Why is it so hard to define what it means to be a 'product guy'? - ziadbc
http://hangger.com/posts/218

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zach
The four attributes I've identified in the best "product guys" are these:

* They "get it" - they are master analyzers in their field. This lets them critique quickly and effectively. People who don't "get it" are hard to take seriously and those who do are sought after for their thoughts.

* They're passionate - they are clearly energized about their field and its possibilities. When they criticize work, it motivates even better work, rather than throwing a wet blanket on it.

* They have a definite critical opinion - they know what they're looking for and criticize freely. They don't temper their critique to be accepted, to seem friendly, to look sophisticated or to make more money.

* They focus on the right things - they offer specific criticism, picking apart something for its strengths and weaknesses. They aren't satisfied with just telling you their general opinion -- they start in with "Here's what I didn't like..."

It took me a while to realize that PG is not just an insightful thinker but an
all-star product guy. Then again, I think that's also because he has focused
so intently on developing as one. Maybe he was merely good when he started YC
but by now he's a master.

I also think it's amusing how wildly deprecating the title "product guy" is
for the tremendously valuable ability displayed by people like Steve Jobs,
Walt Disney, John Lasseter or even Paul Erdős.

~~~
mruniverse
Paul Erdos product guy?

I think of Steve Jobs and PG as brilliant creatives who are great
entrepreneurs.

When I think "product guy" I think "used to be mediocre programmer guy".

~~~
zach
Okay, I think "product guy" may have become a purely disparaging term.

I have seen "product guy" as just a role that denoted a leadership of creators
involved in new product development, whatever the field.

I guess there needs to be some other term for it then.

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sardonicbryan
As a "product guy" myself, here are some ways that I feel I contribute to my
team. To give some background, I started at my current company (a growing
consumer internet company) in an interaction design role, but transitioned
into product as I and the company grew.

\- I keep track of metrics. This includes KPI that I am monitoring on an
hourly basis, as well as metrics on new features that we launch. The specific
skills that are at play here range from being an Excel jockey, to being able
to write sql queries and understanding our DB schema, to being able to analyze
data.

\- I help figure out what to do. This involves understanding how the product
is performing -- at any given time, do we try to improve our user acquisition
funnel, our retention or our monetization? Where are our biggest
opportunities? Are we more likely to improve our acquisition funnel by 5
percentage points or our 7 day retention by 15 percentage points, and which
one would have a bigger impact on long term average revenue per user?

This involves both understanding our product, and spending a lot of time doing
competitive analysis on similar products.

\- I help develop features by thinking about how they should work. For
example, if I figure out that compared to industry benchmarks, our 2 day
retention is is about normal, but we see large attrition between day 2 and day
7, how do we address this problem? What makes people come back to our product,
how can we measure it, and what levers can we pull to improve that number?

\- I also have an interaction design background, so I often wireframe features
that address the above point.

\- I also translate feature ideas into functional specs, including thinking
about and documenting error cases, process flows, various entry points into
the feature, any new analytics that need to be built to track the performance
of the feature and any new admin tools that need to be built to support the
ongoing feature functionality.

\- I also then work with engineers and QA to balance the potential feature
improvements against the time/effort/risk it would take to build those
features, and the help organize the features into actual sprints. When the
unexpected happens, I help decide whether to cut scope, delay the sprint or
push the entire feature into the next sprint.

\- This one is a bit fuzzier, but I also think strategically. Based on where
my product fits in with my company's portfolio of products, what kind of risk
profile do we need to take on in terms of developing features? Is the team
currently in a position to succeed in terms of staffing, support services,
etc?

I like to think that I am contributing to my current team by doing these
things (and more!), and while product roles differ somewhat from company to
company, to me the essence of a product person is someone who uses analytical
skills to make sure that the team is working on the things with the greatest
chance for success.

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gyardley
Defining 'product guy' is hard because doing the role well requires multiple
disciplines, and no one product guy is good at every discipline that's useful
for the role.

Many entrepreneurial developers have a lot of contempt for product guys - in
part because there's a lot of incompetent people out there in product
management roles, in part because many of them have enough product skills to
make a decent go of it on their own.

Personally, I'm a big believer in specialization and minimizing context-
switching - with effective communication, a team where one individual largely
focuses on product and the others largely focus on development seems more
effective than a team where product responsibilities are divided evenly
between the developers. (I suspect that's a minority opinion around here,
though.)

~~~
highfreq
I think this is only true with larger teams. On tasks that are't too large, 2
or 3 great "product smart" developers will beat a team of 6 or 7 with divided
responsibilities.

It is also a function of how novel the product is. The ability of a team to
think and work at multiple levels is invaluable when evolving along a new idea
into a usable product. A product leader, would drive his developer team crazy
if he changed his mind as often as is typically needed for a novel product.

Since start-ups begin with small teams and typically work on novel products,
it makes sense that the HN crowd would be partial to the product smart
generalist team approach.

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drp4929
If you need an app example then think about building an app to get stock
quotes in real time.

The software guy writes the code to interpret user input, get the data from
its source, do calculations and present it to user.

The UI guy decides the layout of how to present the info.

The product guy decides whether you're going to build "Stocks" app or
"Bloomberg Terminal".

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stevenj
I think a good product person is a good artist. They think of product as art.
And they're able to create good art (in some cases Picasso level art), without
necessarily knowing how to paint (e.g. Steve Jobs).

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espeed
A creative visionary who has technical breadth. Being a generalist enables
them to know what pieces are needed and how to fit them together.

------
ztay
Vision and stamina to keep pushing till it done.

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rhygar
The 'product guy' is the former engineer who thinks he knows what the customer
wants. Usually they also think they know how to do proper UX design but
usually fall back to copying whatever is hot at the moment.

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donniefitz2
Is he the guy who knows what needs to be done. Knows how to do it, but doesn't
do it? Then I think he's the lazy guy. Or maybe he's just above the pain of
doing it; ie, the lazy guy.

