Enzo Avigo’s Post

I got the chance to interview the goat. Here are 𝟓 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐞-𝐏𝐌𝐅 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 ⤵ 1. Your best chance to reach PMF is doing discovery 2. You shouldn’t hire a PM pre-PMF 3. If you don’t have PM skills, hire a Product Leader 4. Go-To-Market is part of the Product Strategy 5. The first PM should come between 20-30 employees Two months ago I got the chance to interview Marty. I asked him some existential questions about pre-PMF startup 👶 I didn’t see much of his content around this space... To my surprise, Marty had a few contrarian views on them! Here are the top 5 that stuck with me ever since. Together with some actual quotes from the discussion. 1. Your best chance to reach PMF is doing 'discovery' “If you're not doing real discovery during product market fit, good luck. “The single biggest reason for most failed startups is because they are not using the skills of product discovery to come up with something good”. 2. You shouldn’t hire a PM pre-PMF “I don't recommend that product managers even be hired during the seed stage. That's the co-founders’ job”. “If one of the co-founders is not an experienced product person, all I could tell you is I'm not investing” 3. If you don’t have PM skills, hire a Product Leader Sometimes the founders don’t have PM skills, so what should they do? In that case, Marty recommends hiring a leader, not a manager: “Hiring an individual contributor product manager is probably not going to help because you need somebody with the political clout and experience to essentially act like a co-founder” “An individual contributor product manager is not going to be treated like a co-founder." 4. Go-to-market is part of the product strategy Early stage, Marty says that the product strategy includes go to market: “For early stage, go to market is very much part of the equation. It’s a sort of dance between getting the product and the go to market to actually align. So yes, go to market is a huge part of that product strategy. It doesn't mean that multiple people don’t collaborate. Maybe a founder has more sales experience and the other one has product experience." 5. The first PM should come between 20-30 employees "Even when the founder has great skills, eventually they need to delegate. "I usually encourage those founders to wait as long as they can, because things it's, that's a very difficult hire." "As a general heuristic, usually, it's somewhere between 20 and 30 engineers." ----- Thanks again to Marty for coming on the podcast 🙏 And sharing his gospel. I'm curious to hear what you think about these statements. Do you agree? Have you seen counter-examples working? Take care 💜 Enzo #martycagan #thegoat #startup

As they grow, startups tend to slow down. Not the ones that keep 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭 ↓ Storytime!!! A bustling office in Palo Alto in the late 2000s 🇺🇸 The walls are plastered with posters that say "Move Fast and Break Things"⚡️ (today it would say "We're so back") Julie Zhuo began her journey at a rapidly growing startup called Facebook. Young, and ambitious, Julie is one of the company’s first product designers. One day, Julie and her team were presented with a challenge: To create a feature that allows users to express their feelings About a Facebook post without using words 🤐 The concept was simple yet unprecedented. It was a task that required an understanding of how people connect. This feature was to become... the Facebook’s "Like" button 👍 A small button with a big impact! The journey to the Like button was filled with challenges 🥲 Julie and her team had to navigate through endless rounds of iterations. They faced skepticism: - Would users understand the feature? - Would it be used appropriately? - Was it too simplistic? Despite these challenges, Julie was guided by her belief in simplicity. Along with her deep understanding of user experience 💪 She believed that the Like button could offer a universal way for users to show appreciation. Bridging language barriers & fostering a positive community atmosphere ❤️ Launch day arrived... People immediately took to this new feature! The 'Like' button quickly became an integral part of Facebook. Revolutionizing social interaction online 🌍 During her time at FB, Julie played a crucial role in launching instrumental products, like: - News Feed - Meta Ad Platform - Meta Groups and Events >> Julie is what I call "a first PM" 🤯 She started as a designer. And would eventually become a manager. But along the way, she retained the mindset that had taken her so far. I've been writing a lot about the first Product Manager. Today I wanted to expand on why it's not a role. But rather a mindset. And what it takes to keep it as your startup grows. 👇 Below is the first PM cheat sheet 👇 Hope this helps! take care 💜 Enzo #thefirstpmmindset #startups

This startup made $250k in 3 mo, then grew to millions in revenue. This is the HOT story of Incident ↓ Introducing Stephen 👋 The co-founder of a startup that made $250,000 in 3 months. Starting with a Slackbot 🤖 He invited me into his office to show us exactly how it worked. How they found instant traction. And how they grew to millions in revenue 💰 Stephen & his cofounders started working on this idea... while having a 9 to 5 job 👨💼 But the craziest part is this company may never have existed ☠️ The secret behind their business is a radical customer success approach. That most founders are overlooking. With him, we break down exactly how it worked. And how it made them one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the world. In this video, Stephen shares everything: → From how they built & launched a product with instant traction → To the methods to close 6-digit deals → And what this has to do with Gloria Gaynor Get ready as we turn up the temperature This is the hot story of incident.io 🔥 To watch the full video: 👉 www. bit . ly / enzoavigo A special thank you to those who watch it till the end. ------- Thanks to Stephen Whitworth for sharing his story. And having me in his London office 🇬🇧 I hope his approach sparkles some good ideas for your business. Take care 💜 Enzo #saasstories #startup

The founder shouldn't do marketing right???!!!

This is a post.

! BIG NEWS ! I’m back to Intercom. … but to share my secrets this time My co-founder and I left our cosy jobs 3 years ago. At that time we had nothing. ❌ No users. ❌ No customers. ❌ No product. ❌ No team. ✅ Just a vision and some hope. Since then I've learned a lot. Not from books this time, but from trying. And making mistakes. Fast forward Intercom is having a reborn. They're back to hardcore innovations. And breaking walls. And so naturally, our paths are crossing, again 💜 Join me in an hour for a conversation with Mark Iafrate. In this chat, we’ll be discussing things I learned along the way. And hear Intercom's ongoing input too 🙏 I'm going to share my weird learnings on: 📈 Finding Product-Market fit 👩🦰 Founder-Led marketing 🏡 Getting into YC & other stuff The chat is open. Ask your wildest questions and we'll answer them. Hope to see you there 💜 Enzo https://lnkd.in/eQKA3Vpu

She revolutionized how we approach health and wellness through technology. Her work touched millions of lives globally 👇 Introducing Yasi Baiani ✌️ In her time at Fitbit, Yasi transformed how we think about personal health devices: "To make health tracking accessible and insightful" With that mission, she led the development of groundbreaking products. Like Fitbit Sleep 🌙 A feature that became the most engaging part of Fitbit for many years. But Fitbit wasn't just another fitness tracker... It became a gateway to better health. In a world increasingly focused on wellness 🌍 Adoption was massive 📈 Consumers and health professionals started using Fitbit... for everything! From sleep tracking to monitoring reproductive health. But then, the landscape of wearable tech grew fiercely competitive. Things changed. “Suddenly, Fitbit was not just a product. It became a platform for health innovation” - to quote Yasi. With the wearable tech market evolving, People demanded more sophisticated health tools. Yasi and her team knew that. So they decided to make a strategic pivot... 🔄 → They expanded the product range → Leveraged data to enhance user engagement → Addressed broader health issues like women's health & well-being Yasi and her team's strategic foresight paid off! As the industry matured, Not only did Fitbit stay relevant. But it also led the charge in health innovation. Over time Fitbit sold over 136 million devices worldwide. And counted 120m registered users in 2022. Google decided to acquire them for...$2.1 billion 🤯 Following her successful tenure at Fitbit, Yasi moved on to influence product strategy and innovation across multiple tech giants and startups. Yasi's journey is a masterclass in: - Leading product innovation in health tech - Building user-centric health ecosystems - Strategic market positioning - Driving growth through user engagement I had to invite her to the podcast! And guess what? She agreed, and the episode is live. In our conversation, we dive into: 1. The evolution of wearable health technologies 2. The impact of data-driven product development 3. Balancing innovation with user privacy 4. The future of integrated health ecosystems Eager to get these insights? 1) Leave a like to support Yasi Baiani 👍 2) Links in the first comment

The toughest part of product management? User discovery. ❌ Not collecting feedback ❌ Not prioritizing ❌ Not aligning stakeholders ❌ Not enabling the delivery team ✅ Figuring out what people truly want User discovery is one of the hardest skills to gain. It requires listening skills, and empathy. But also to be extremely well structured. And synthetic. But when PMs have it, it’s like a superpower. #userdiscovery

Time management best practices don’t work for founders. The best schedules follow 3 simple rules ↓ Founders have weird priorities. They have a thousand things to do. And they all seem important 🥲 So how do great founders organize their time? And how is it possible that some founders build unicorns working 10 h / day? I investigated this topic .. 🤓 And learned their agendas follow 3 simple rules: 1. Balance 2 agendas 2. Lead with Energy 3. Mitigate the Parkison Law The full video: https://lnkd.in/embPbJEv What else did I miss? A special thank you for those watching the full video. Take care 💜 Enzo #foundersscheules #twoagendas

Most books never get finished. Mine is 90% done! What it's about + the VIP list ↓ When I started this book I met a few writers... They all told me the same thing: "Make sure you finish it". Most books get started but never get finished. And this is no surprise. What a struggle! 😰 As a teenager, my meaningful writing was my master's thesis. Not great...but decent. As a young professional, it was a couple of long-form articles. But I don't produce many of them. Spending hours writing drives me crazy... 🤪 Great writing requires to be obsessive with details. Sure it is an iterative process. Like building a product. But spending weeks polishing the same line of code. That doesn't exist... 😜 So last year I decided to write a book. For the past 12 months, I woke up early 🌅 Sometimes very early... And put in 2 to 3 hours of work, each day. Today I'm so happy to share that my book is 90% done: 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟨 ⬜️ The missing parts are some illustrations. It is now BY FAR my biggest investment in writing. And I believe it was worth it. It's about Product Management. At early stage startup. It's filled with learnings that I haven't seen elsewhere. On how to make the right product decisions. When verything is so uncertain.. The book has 5 chapters: 1. The Rules of PM pre-PMF The toolkit startups need before embarking on a journey to ship a world-class product to find their PMF 🗺️ 2. How to craft your first product This chapter helps readers set an initial direction for their product. Or a first route for their sailboat if you want. There a many routes a startup can take and it’s important to take the right one to get a chance to make it. The sea (the market) is full of storms and other dangerous places 🦑 3. Ship faster than anyone This chapter is about moving fast. Once a startup has picked a direction, it is key that it moves fast. Move fast to put a product on the market ⛵️ And start iterating on it as quickly as possible. 4. Know if you’re on the right track As you ship, surprises will appear along the way. Who knows how the wind will play? Or what is hidden in the deep sea? Once a startup started to move it needs to check if it's in the right direction 🧭 5. How to keep the first PM mindset to win again and again The last chapter helps the readers grow beyond. It’s a practical guide on how to keep the first PM mindset. The mindset that brought them that far. That over time organizations lose when they scale 🔱 + Bonus: It also comes with an appendix of amazing tools & resources 🎁 ---- If you're interested in this topic + Want to get the 1st chapter 1 for free + Be the first one informed when it's out + Support a founder who spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time on writing Then here is the link to the VIP list 👉 http://eepurl.com/gRFbhT I hope this book helps you the way these learnings helped me. Take care 💜 Enzo #thefirstpm