Yesterday, I did an ignite presentation entitled “Three Ways to be a Startup Product Management Rockstar” at ProductCamp Toronto.

Fundamentally, I believe that startups and entrepreneurial companies fail because they don’t build market-driven products. Unlike in a large company, if your product fails in a startup your business is dead. There is no second chance and that’s why you cannot just be a good product manager. You need to be a rockstar!

Traditional product management best practices do not always work in entrepreneurial environments. Rockstars create and adapt agile product management processes. Not only do they have to push for market-driven priorities, but also persuade business and technical leads to focus action on that orientation. Equipped with market facts, you are the only person in the organization that can get Startup CEOs to ignore their subjective product strategy opinions and get Startup CTOs to forget about cool features that don’t focus on the core customer problem. Your influence and passion are you key instruments in wielding a market-driven orientation.

The following are three ways to be a product management rockstar:

1) Set the Tone & Ensure Alignment

Firstly, you need to set the tone with your team and ensure market alignment. This starts with getting in harmony with your team by setting product management expectations. Educate them on the process and instill a mantra that all product strategy decisions must be based on market facts. Be confident in your abilities and remember the strength of your tone will drive product focus on customer problems. Get everyone in tune with your target market by capturing and maintaining a market analysis company wiki page. Show them the importance of business and market rhythm – the constant back and forth flow between business hypotheses and market feedback.

2) Go on Tour

The only way to set a credible tone and ensure alignment is to get out of the building and immerse yourself with your audience. Remember, you are not doing sales. You are trying to learn from your audience and determine which segment to go after. There is only one opportunity to make a strong first impression and that is why I prefer to play in small arenas first. Listen to smaller prospects that will give you feedback quicker and will be more forgiving with you initial mistakes. Then test skeleton solutions on your core fans – prospects who are willing to pay something for your product. Let them help define your product by making it easy for them to give you feedback via user discussion forums.

3) Practical Product Roadmaps

As previously discussed, I’m a big believer in “practical product roadmaps“. Product Management Rockstars don’t have time for creating and managing complex product roadmaps. Start with your market feedback loop from your latest customer tour. Capture user stories effectively in your prospects language. Use a 1 slide product roadmap format that you review with your team on a monthly basis. This meeting doesn’t need to be more than 1 hour, but should ensure your team is focusing its limited resources on the top market priorities. Set an agenda that the meeting will focus on product decisions, not general analysis and debate.

All rockstars need a manifesto. Mine includes more than the items above, but I believe those are amongst the most essential. Write yours out to reinforce your beliefs.

I would love to hear what other ones you would include based on your experiences.