What does a product director mean in a small company?

Don't think this is an article about professional ability and methods. Actually, I'm spitting.

CEO of 1. products

Regardless of design, development, testing, operation and market, what do product teams fear most? No goal!

In a sense, living in a big company is very happy, because you can work passively and someone will always point out the direction for yourself. As long as you complete KPI and please your superiors, you can get a full sense of accomplishment.

In a small company, especially one whose boss is a capitalist. As the person in charge of a product, no one gives you specific goals. The boss will only tell you what kind of people we want to be, what kind of people we will be in three years, what kind of people we will be in five years and what is the company's strategy. The point is, he changes every day, he changes! In other words, no matter how you plan the product, it may be overturned in an instant, because there are always countless interpretations of abstract things.

2. Part-time operation

There is a classic saying: "The product manager gave the product skeleton and brain, research and development gave the product flesh and blood, and operation gave the product soul."

This sentence emphasizes the importance of operation in the Internet age. On the other hand, the lack of powerful operational resources will lead to embarrassment and difficulties. Sadly, a good manager, for a small company, is as difficult to marry as the daughter of a big family. Moreover, for a large part of start-up products, the boss will first choose a trusted product manager to complete the process from 0 to 1, and the operation intervention is usually half a beat. All the pre-operation planning, promotion strategy and even user operation are completed by the product manager. For example, when an e-commerce platform is launched, most of the back-office functions are imagined by the product manager, and then taken over by the operation. Even the initial activity planning needs to be considered, because it needs to consider the impact on the product structure and the functions that need to be set in the initial activity.

3. Human resources

In large companies, product managers are called managers, but they are not pure management positions. Accurately speaking, the product manager is in charge of products, not employees. Product managers need to be good at communication, deal with people and promote cross-functional roles to achieve goals. However, it is rarely heard that product managers in large companies need to recruit R&D personnel themselves, design their own assessment and incentive methods, and consider how to ensure the "retention rate" of team members and control the "turnover rate". Some people will ask, what about HR? Don't be naive. It is difficult for HR in small companies to achieve the desired results in terms of quantity, quality and post setting. From the beginning of recruitment, your team is short of people. Go to the boss first, and the boss will give you the budget, then go to HR, and HR will help you send out the recruitment demand and receive your resume, and then you can wait. Wait a month, you can't do anything without the right person, and then use your contacts to ask for recommendations. After the recommendation, submit your resume to HR for help. I mainly invite you to talk about all kinds of cakes. After painting, you have to worry about whether HR will be too cold to scare away the little sheep that will come to your mouth soon. Finally, someone hired you. You think it's over. KPI will not be used to drive team work in small companies, especially the post-90 s management. They are very concerned about whether they are happy and have a sense of accomplishment in your team. At this time, some of the company's systems will even have a negative impact on your management. The boss treats you as one of his own in employee management and as an employee in welfare treatment. Therefore, the mentality must be adjusted, and you must know that you are nobody and you can't offend anyone.

4. Anyone

There is a saying that "the ability that a product manager needs is a supplement to the ability of a product team". What do you mean? In other words, there is nothing you don't need to do. If you can't develop, then learn more technology. If you can't design, learn more about design. If you are short of hands, take the exam yourself. How else to say, the product manager is a compound talent with comprehensive quality? Because you don't have a node that can be used as a delivery result, your result is that the product can be done well and operated well. Therefore, a good product manager should be good at fighting for resources, making good use of resources and cultivating resources. But this is often difficult to idealize in small companies, resources are always scarce, the quality of talents is never high enough, and there are always problems that need to be solved by themselves.

Having said that, isn't it beneficial to be a product manager or product director in a small company? Definitely not. We also have some reasons to hypnotize ourselves.

For example, small companies have more room to display and can fully exercise the skills they want to strengthen without too many constraints. No one is stopping you. Small companies have lower trial and error costs, and bosses are more willing to let you try. When the boat is small, turn around. Wrong is wrong. At most, you will be scolded and despised. That's worth a few dollars. If it is a big deal, continue to be a platform.

When a small company makes a product, it is easy to establish the overall situation and it is easier to have ownership. Sometimes it even feels like a simulation experiment before you start a business. As long as you are willing, you can get in touch with all the problems you need to think about as a founder and the traps you may fall into. This kind of valuable experience, as well as the way of thinking and the level of thinking that have been exercised, are hard to obtain by making screws.

I advise all colleagues who work hard in small companies to be good at learning and self-criticism, and never be complacent and arrogant because they are Nanbo Bay in small groups. There are no mountains that hinder your growth, only your own vision and mind.

Those product managers who come from big companies and have a halo on their heads must be psychologically prepared if they go to small companies. You may encounter many unimaginable difficulties, find that the reality is so cruel, find that the resources that the company can provide are so limited, and find that there are so many trivial things that you didn't have to worry about before.

The product director of every small company was a broken-winged angel in his last life. ...