Startups should only hire a PM once they have product-market fit

Why I believe founders should own product fully until they're ready to scale

I first published this post on LinkedIn last week here (where it went viral 🚀)

I've been the first PM at 3 different startups and feel strongly that if a startup doesn't have product-market fit, hiring a full-time product manager will be a net negative for the company (regardless of PM quality). Here's why 👇

Before you have PMF, you're zigging and zagging. As the founder, you need to be driving every zig and every zag. The ability to decide when to zig/zag must be informed by what your customers (aka the market) are telling you.

Delegating that signal collection is essentially giving up the ability to "feel" the market; a PM creates a layer of separation between you (the founder) and the customer. An analogy is like transitioning from driving a manual transmission to driving automatic. You just don't feel the road in the same way.

You might be tempted to see this layer of separation as a healthy delegation that allows you to "work on the business vs in the business" but I think this mindset is very dangerous pre-PMF (post-PMF is a different story).

Every single customer conversation has the potential to make something click for you. And while the PM you hire will be very good at talking to customers and understanding their problems, the PM is the wrong person to be steering the direction of the entire company. That's the founder's job.

If you're an early stage founder who needs help on the product side and you don't yet have PMF, work with an advisor who specializes in the early stage zigging and zagging.

Whatever you do, you must own product until you reach PMF. Do not hire a full-time product person. You'd be delegating your biggest job.

Looking for a product advisor? I'm interested in meeting early stage founders who might benefit from working together - let me know if I can be helpful 🙌