I’m sometimes pulled into difficult discussions with CEOs, where I’m trying to describe systematic product-side failures that directly conflict with how the CEO sees the world. Even after dozens of similar discussions, I have only moderate success. But it seems worth framing this leadership-level challenge from both sides.| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
At a recent Product Weekend gathering of CPOs, we talked about product leadership values and what lifts our hearts. That turned into a conversation about what we fight for: broad principles and concrete actions that earn us our place as product leaders. Here was my take: * We fight for the| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
At a recent Product Weekend gathering of CPOs, we talked about product leadership values and what lifts our hearts. That turned into a conversation about what we fight for: broad principles and concrete actions that earn us our place as product leaders. Here was my take:| richmironov.substack.com
(this builds on my June difficult discussions [https://www.mironov.com/difficult/] post) As good product folks, we know that customers must recognize a problem before they consider buying our solution. Companies that don’t have supply chain issues (or think they don’t) are not in the market for| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
Most product companies have a few things in their roadmaps that are specifically for single customers – I call these sales one-offs. But it’s easy for B2B/enterprise companies to fall into a sales-led development model where the majority of work is for individual customers – starving the core product of| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
There’s a pattern I sometimes see at software companies, particularly those targeting enterprises or on the long march moving their installed base from on-premise to SaaS. The go-to-market materials present a glowing picture of well-planned products, but underneath there’s a jumble of mismatched pieces and arcane product history| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
Newton taught us that gravity’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. I’ve spent a lot of the last decade with one foot in the engineering organization and the other with marketing/sales. While the two sides of the business communicate poorly, I think there’s| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
Building on a post from last July about Incompatible Worldviews… Almost every Go-to-Market-side enterprise stakeholder I interview tells me that their product team is unresponsive: that folks rarely get anything back after submitting an (urgent, strategic, well-considered) ticket through the company’s agreed-upon enhancement request process. That the occasional response| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
Almost every week, I have a conversation with executives at B2B software companies who don’t see a bright-line distinction between software license revenue and customization/implementation revenue. Or why this distinction is essential to their investors. But when I do product due diligence for SaaS-focused PE/VC firms, it's| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
In the heat of an enterprise deal moment, it’s easy to think very short-term about the long-term costs of one-off specials and “small requirements.” There’s tremendous pressure to maximize the importance of a feature tweak to close this quarter’s big deal, and similar pressure to minimize both| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
I’ve written a lot about the huge organizational and technical gulf between services companies and product companies. (See this and this and this and this.) At a recent workshop in Christchurch NZ, I spent several hours talking with CEOs about the challenges of changing a company from mostly services| Rich Mironov's Product Bytes
