Rich Mironov's Product Bytes

Product Coaching and “Show, Don’t Tell”

Rich — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 05:44:15 +0000

I sometimes find product management teams composed entirely of first-timers, where not a single person has any previous experience as a product manager. This presents a fundamental challenge: how do we train or skill up a whole product team from scratch?

We’re In A Product Candidate’s Job Market

Rich — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 08:29:34 +0000

Every CPO/VP Product I talk with is in a battle for product talent... so we're in a “candidate" job market rather than a “hiring company” job market. What are some do's and don'ts for product managers and first line product directors looking for their next adventure in this market?

Product Sprawl

Rich — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 23:57:40 +0000

There’s a pattern I see, especially at enterprise software companies, where the go-to-market materials present a glowing product picture - but underneath there’s a jumble of mismatched pieces, arcane product history, incomplete testing, and randomness. I call it product sprawl.

Podcast: “Champagne Strategy,” Innovation, and Product Growth

Rich — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:34:27 +0000

John James produces the “Champagne Strategy” podcast, which which deconstructs world-class business strategy with a focus on growth and tech. We virtually shared a class of 19 Crimes Chardonnay during a rollicking chat about products, strategy, and tech history. We touched on: Elon Musk oversimplifying MBAs (Rich has one, but tries not to act like …

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Panel: What Does It Mean To Be An Excellent Product Leader?

Rich — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 00:46:09 +0000

You can’t build great products without great teams, and great teams need great leaders. This panel dives into what modern product leadership looks like, and what it takes to build empowered product teams. John Cutler will moderate a lively panel discussion.

Watering Down SaaS ARR

Rich — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 21:38:08 +0000

I see some software companies classifying multi-year development contracts as SaaS ARR. Here's why I don't think investors should be excited about that...

Getting Developers’ Buy-In on Build versus Buy

Rich — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 19:25:05 +0000

When we’re building software products, we’re faced with daily/weekly “build versus buy” decisions. Should we license in a commercial product or platform to handle part of our own application, or build a capability ourselves? Product managers and developers can have dramatically different points of view...

Podcast: Fighting Fires in B2B Product Management

Rich — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 22:25:31 +0000

Jason Knight invited me onto his One Knight in Product podcast for a wide-ranging chat about product issues and organizations titled "Fighting Fires in B2B Product Management"

Exiting Gracefully

Rich — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 14:28:26 +0000

Most of us don’t get much practice resigning from corporate leadership positions, but it’s important to do this gracefully. Plan it the way you’d plan your next product: clear communication, succession plan, helpful transition. And be a mensch: you'll be working with many of these people again.

The Risks of Replatforming

Rich — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 14:13:14 +0000

Many companies have replatforming efforts underway. This is an essential part of the software product business, but fraught with poor assumptions and lack of experience/understanding. I've seen the majority of these replatforming and reimplementation efforts fail...