TEI 302: From product manager to founder – with Ryan Frederick

What product managers need to know to build a product into a successful company When I’m working with a group of product managers to help them move towards product mastery, I always ask them to introduce themselves by sharing what they love about product management. Among the numerous answers, in the last year the most frequent response is to create value for customers. Many product managers also aspire to create their own group to accomplish this, whether it is as an intrapreneur inside an organization or as an entrepreneur founding their own company. Product managers make the best founders. To explore what being a founder involves, I had a discussion with Ryan Frederick. He is a product manager and founder and now helps software companies build great products. He has put his lifetime of experience into a book titled The Founder’s Manual, and we discuss the key strategies. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:46] Tell us about your book, The Founder’s Manual. I wrote the book to increase awareness about what it’s like to become a founder of your own company. There are a lot of similarities between building a product inside a company and starting your own company. I structured the book in three sections, Founder Flow, Startup Flow, and Product Flow. I address the human aspect of being a founder; I discuss building a successful product; and I talk about how to commercialize that product into a successful company. Flow is a state of higher productivity achieved by understanding the principles that allow you to perform at your best. [6:17] Let’s walk through a scenario. Suppose Lisa is a product manager who has an idea that her company isn’t interested in, so she decides to strike out on her own. Where should she start? The first thing I would say to Lisa is that she needs to look at herself as a problem solver. Entrepreneurs are problems solvers. They start with the hypothesis that they can solve the problem they’ve identified. The entrepreneurial life is a series of unending problems and obstacles. We aren’t wired to run to problems, but we need to learn to run to the fire. Lisa needs to get in the mental and emotional state not only to create her product as a solution to her customer’s problem, but also to solve the problems of getting her enterprise up and running. [9:39] Let’s talk about Founder Flow. What are some of the ways Lisa can embrace the entrepreneurial mindset to face problems? When deciding to become an entrepreneur, Lisa needs to understand her risk tolerance financially, emotionally, physically, and mentally. She’s coming out of a successful career, so she needs to ask herself, If my enterprise doesn’t work, am I okay with that? You can figure out your risk tolerance by taking incrementally riskier chances and tracking how you react. An easy way to start is by doing something physically challenging and uncomfortable, like taking rock climbing lessons, and tracking your progress over time. A lot of people take the entrepreneurial step without having ever assessed their relationship to risk, and then they’re in uncharted territory when they face risk as an entrepreneur. Instead, understand your risk tolerance first. It’s also important that Lisa’s personal life is ordered. If she starts a company while she’s experiencing personal stress, it’s super challenging to make it work. No one is an entrepreneur on their own, but it’s often a lonely journey. You have team members, partners, friends, and family who are going through it with you, but being an entrepreneur is consuming, and others may not understand what you’re doing and why. At the beginning you’ll feel like it’s you against the world, so it’s important to find a community of other founders you can relate to so you can support and guide ea...