The Venn Diagram Of Product Managers And Solopreneurs
The Venn Diagram Of Product Managers And Solopreneurs
How are these roles alike and different?
As I navigate this world of self-employment, I can’t help but see my product manager lessons come to the surface time and time again.
It is often said that entrepreneurs make great product managers, in theory, because they are able to understand all parts of the business, making them more resourceful product managers. However, all my previous entrepreneurial experiences have been undertaken side by side with people I felt complemented what I was lacking, so I could never fully experience this statement in my skin.
As a product manager inside nascent and growing companies, my scope was always limited. I know I have complained before that I see many product managers with excessive work scope. However, product work sits within certain boundaries: figuring out what product to build and driving the work to deliver it. If this is done well, you can count on other people within the organization to do the marketing, sales, customer support, etc. Yes, you work with them, set goals together, negotiate product scope, keep each other informed of delivery dates, etc. But you focus on very specific things, like customer research, idea validation, metrics definition, delivering, and measuring results.
As a solopreneur, I find my workload is way lower than it was as an employed product manager because I set the pace for myself, but my scope is much wider. I have to be very mindful when I dedicate the time to think about where I am going in the next 1-3 months. Since I am at the beginning of this journey, short-term focus is critical for me to see results. I then need to move immediately to understanding my customer, then to testing out some messaging, followed by some content planning. I have to define pricing, and test it, and more…
Areas of Overlap
What I’ve come to realize is that many of the skills I developed as a product manager are directly applicable to my current role. For example:
Customer Focus:
Whether you are a product manager or a solopreneur, understanding your customer is fundamental to what you provide. In both roles, you must deeply understand customer needs, pain points, and desires. This involves conducting research, gathering feedback, and continuously iterating on your product or service based on what you learn.
Strategic Thinking
As a product manager, you develop the skill of thinking strategically about product roadmaps, market positioning, and long-term goals. As a solopreneur, this strategic thinking becomes even more critical. You are not just thinking about the product, but the entire business strategy, from marketing and sales to operations and growth.
Prioritization
Product managers are experts at prioritizing features and tasks to deliver the most value within constraints. As a solopreneur, prioritization takes on a new level of importance. With limited time and resources, you must be ruthless in deciding where to focus your efforts to achieve the best outcomes. Like seriously, there is just one of me!
Execution and Delivery:
You know how they say, good product managers get stuff done! If you don’t deliver, you can’t get results. You can’t iterate. You can’t see if your validated ideas scale. The same is true as a solopreneur, except that it all is entirely on your shoulders. This means being disciplined, setting realistic timelines, and holding yourself accountable.
The Ever Expanding Solopreneur Scope
While the core skills may overlap, the scope of responsibilities expands significantly when you transition from a product manager to a solopreneur. Here are some areas that need to be done and there is no team to help, as opposed to when you are a product person inside a company:
Marketing and Sales
As a solopreneur, you can't rely on a dedicated marketing or sales team to promote your product. There is no budget for it. Especially when you are at the beginning, bootstrapping, like I am. So you have to learn it all: social media engagement, content creation, lead generation, bringing deals to a close and whatnot. I wish I didn’t have to. But I must for the sake of the part I DO want to be doing.
Admin and Finances
From registering the company, through expense management, budgeting, and in general, honing on those business finance skills to make sure it is all, literally, paying off you have to do it all as a self-employed individual. In some companies product managers have P&L ownership, but that is not always the case. You may use financial data to make decisions about your product, and you can always get it from peers in the respective areas. As a solopreneur you generate, gather, and analyze the data to make the decisions.
Networking and Partnerships
Building relationships and networking becomes more critical as a solopreneur because, again, when you work for a company someone is doing this. You may join them in the endeavor, but as a solopreneur you must actively seek out opportunities to collaborate and expand your reach. And all in the same blocks of times as when you do all the above 😅
Out of Scope
Stakeholder Management
The stakes are all in your hands as a solopreneur, so the challenge here may be to psychologically move between what you would like to do and what you believe your business needs, especially when there is no clear match. As a product manager you have more stakeholders to manage than you would like to admit, and you can run, but you can’t hide from them. As a solopreneur, if you decide to go for investment then you are probably also going to need a team, but until you keep things to yourself, you may be able to skip this and the next activity. You may also manage expectations of suppliers, advisors, etc. but you being the solo business owner you decide where you draw the line, for better or worse.
Team Leading
As a product manager, even if people are not formally reporting to you, there are expectations from you engineering, design, marketing folks. This requires you to do some work similar to that of a team lead. As a solopreneur, while you do have to work with other people, the main person to
The Long-Term Game
One of the biggest challenges I am facing right now as a solopreneur is having to focus on short term results so I can get traction. For my own sake. However, I need to make sure I do not fall into the trap of short term gains and that I carve out time to think about why I went down this path and where I’d like it to lead me.
Sadly, I feel this short-term focus happens more than we would like to admit when being product managers inside companies as well. In a quest to get quarterly results over and over (sometimes unrealistic ones), we are pushed into making decisions that will result in short term gains but that will not contribute to a long lasting product and business and may even have the opposite effect. Understandably we all need to see results. Businesses and individuals need to be able to sustain themselves, but it is good practice to understand when a little dip in the business health is a risk worth taking in exchange for longer term health.
Rewards and Possible Futures
Despite the challenges, the journey of a solopreneur is incredibly rewarding. The autonomy to make decisions, the ability to see the direct impact of your efforts, and the satisfaction of building something from the ground up are unique. The skills and experiences from my product management career are serving me well for this journey, and the learning continues.
I am not sure how long this will last, but so far it's a fun journey, a tad bit stressful, full of adaptability, consistency and focus. Perhaps, if I go back to being a full-time product manager in a few years I will see things very differently and, hopefully, more clearly thanks to this path. For now, it is time to get to work.