In our work with startups and new ventures, we've come to realize a common thread (in most cases) of the companies we work with - the lack of, need for, and misunderstanding of product management. I don't know why startups don't think the role is important, nor do I understand why the default position for a lot of companies is that the technology leader is the head of product. That thinking leads to wasted resources, and more importantly a product that is unlikely to fill the market need effectively.

There's an article in today's Pluggd.in that analyzes this very idea in Indian startups, and makes the point, correctly, that a lot of the startups they see fail are often because of the lack of product management. Here's an excerpt:

"Here’s how it typically works – someone with an idea gets some seed funding, and the first thing he does is hire some engineers to start building something. The founder will have some definite ideas on what he wants, and he’ll typically act as product manager and often product designer, and the engineering team will then go from there...

...After 6 months or so, the engineers have things in sort of an alpha or beta state, and that’s when they first show the product around. Things rarely go well in this first viewing, and the team starts scrambling. The run-rate is high because there’s now an engineering team building this thing as fast as they can, so the money is running out, and the product isn’t there. Maybe the company gets more funding and a chance to get the product right, but often they don't...

...I continue to be amazed at how many startups just jump right into implementation, but I think we’re such an engineering-driven culture that we just naturally start there.

But any startup has to realize that everything starts with the right product – so the first order of business is to figure out what that is before burning through $500K or more in seed funding.

I believe this model applies beyond startups to much larger companies as well. The difference is that bigger companies are generally able to underwrite the several iterations it takes to get to a useful product, but startups often can’t."

Bottom line, it all comes down to providing value to a customer: understanding what value means to them, communicating that value proposition, and then delivering the value in the actual product or service. Product management's role is to translate customer needs, wants and desires into products and services that are positioned, priced and promoted appropriately. The technology lead by definition can't be in this role - its a conflict of interest and it isn't their strength. And the Sales team shouldn't do it either, or you'll have tremendous thrash in the development and a misaligned product.

Thank you Ashish at Pluggd.in for the great article