What Product-Led Companies Look Like
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I was on a panel the other week where we talked about ‘Cultivating a Product-Centric Culture’.
One of the questions was about what a Product-centric or product-led culture is and looks like?
This got me thinking a bit about trying to codify it — beyond the “it’s about being customer-centric…” and other generic statements.
And perhaps the best place to start is to talk about what it is not.
What Product-centric companies are not…
My friends and fellow panellists were quick to talk about what it is not, and I think it’s probably easiest to start here too.
It’s not:
- Product Management-led
- Product Managers are the boss
- Where product makes all the calls
- Something that only engineering and product do
- Doing 12-week long discovery
- Do only what our customers want us to do
What Product-centric companies share
Thinking about codifying this further, I thought about some of the common attributes — common norms — that I’ve observed in product-led companies.
They all:
- Think in terms of products, not projects
- Invest into their products and services as a strategic enabler (not a cost centre)
- Experiment and don’t assume they have all the answers or are always right
- Regularly talk to and about their customers
- Use data to inform decisions, strategies, priorities, etc
- Allow the best ideas to win based on evidence and supporting data/research
- Focus on impact. They don’t fuss about output, velocity, etc… rather they obsess about the outcomes (customer and business impacts)
- See product success as a company effort— not something product-tech does. Everyone has their part and role to play towards product success.