How to know when you need a Product Leader

Your startup or growth-stage company is growing but never as fast as you'd like. You know that bringing in a Product Leader will be needed at some point, but you have to weigh it against all the other priorities. What are some common flashing neon signs that you need a Product Leader, and what profile do you look for?

Growing product companies have no shortage of investment needs. Some signs that hiring a Product Leader needs to be moved up the list:

• "The dev teams aren't working on the right stuff!"... Frustrated customers and/or stakeholders (head of sales, marketing, account management, other industry SMEs/execs)

• "We aren't being given clear direction on priorities, business needs, and what we do get seems to be ever-changing even mid-project"... Engineering leads, developers, and designers

For the first bullet above, it's binary: the claim either has merit, in which case you absolutely need a product leader to manage product prioritization and decision-making better, or the claim largely doesn't have merit (the teams are working on the right stuff) but you need a product leader to better manage customer and stakeholder expectations about what is being developed.

For the second bullet above, this should absolutely keep you up at night. If this is what you're hearing from the people at the heart of the development process, you can be fairly sure you are not getting anything close to the most out of your development investment, which is a cardinal sin for a growing product company. A product leader's #1 job is to make sure inputs to development teams (i.e., priorities and business requirements) are clear and relatively stable once a project is initiated.

Once you've reached the decision to hire, what type of product leader do you hire? One key pitfall I've seen for a growth stage product company is to look for a leader with the most industry expertise, regardless of whether they have the right product leadership background. How much industry expertise do you have elsewhere in the company? If it's significant, a good product leader should be able to leverage it as well as direct work in the market to do their job effectively. If in doubt, go with teh candidate who has a proven track record in product leadership roles.

As for what "the right product background" means, you're looking for experience at companies in a similar growth stage. For example, making the transition from a mature software company career with a large product team into a late-stage startup or growth-stage company with a much smaller product function isn't impossible or unheard of, but you need to be wary of the risks involved.

If you are looking to grow a successful product company, your success will in large part depend on when to hire the right kind of product leader.