Ask HN: Product management tips and book recommendations for startups | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Product management tips and book recommendations for startups

15 pointsjekude3 comments

I'm an engineer that wants to get better at product management. I work at a small startup (6 employees), and most of the resources I've found (absent the Mom Test and a couple others) are geared towards larger companies. Our team is iterating to find traction with our product. Any recommendations that particularly applicable to our size?

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I'm an engineer, but my previous boss was a project manager and I learned a lot about business communication and project ownership from him. I was at a small, non-tech company and I was frequently the point of contact with clients (aka colleagues on other teams), and my boss and I chatted about project management situations and he helped me navigate a few tricky scenarios (i.e. with difficult colleagues) a few times.

I have a Google Doc of a list of talks that I've had with him (and some other people at my company) in which I learned something.

Here's a few examples:

---

Me: Suppose the client did have a request that was impossible to do. How do you approach situations like that and give them an answer that doesn't make it seem like you're BS-ing them?

S: Something along the lines of: 'Due to the way the system is currently built, it may not be possible to fulfill your request exactly as your proposed. Just to be sure, I’ll take this back to our tech team (Adam/Bob/Chris) to see if there is a possibility to implement the changes or explore other alternatives and options. I'll follow up with our findings once we have our discussions.'

  - Never tell the client "no." If you do, they can easily go to another person/team.

  - Clients like hearing "I'll take this back to our tech team", because you're saying that you have 'better/more knowledgable' resources you can turn to.

---

  Scenario A:

Client: There's no rush.

(later on)

Client: Where's X? Why isn't it done?

(Instead, do this)

  Scenario B:

Client: There’s no rush.

Me: Did you have a due date in mind?

Client: I’m not sure.

Me: Okay, how does this date sound:

  - Setting a concrete date/range makes it so the client can't pull a "Why isn't X done" on you

Great something I can comment on;

Here's the links I think you might found useful - They're not books, but videos, newsletters and articles. -

- https://producthabits.com/

- https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/

- https://www.ycombinator.com/library/?categories=Product

- https://twitter.com/shreyas (Read this guys tweets)

- https://www.sachinrekhi.com/

- https://coda.io/@yuhki/figmas-approach-to-product-requiremen... (And lastly CODA library, there are a lot of PM docs over here which explains how companies like Figma manage their PRD, just copy the process and simplfy it. Don't use them how they use like. Why? Because you don't need that complicated process w/ 6 people)

In terms of books, there are only few great ones like;

- Hooked by Nir Eyal

- Inspired by Marty Cagan

- Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (Not a PM book but you should read as a PM)

In a similar situation — I've found the following helpful:

https://staysaasy.com/ (not everything is product related but lots of good insights)

https://twitter.com/shreyas follow him, and I recommend his super-follower subscription (more content for $10/mo)

https://kevinyien.com/blog.html

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