Should a company's head of product/CPO role be filled by an operator-type leader, or must it be a craftsperson or visionary?

Shreyas Doshi · Aug 3, 2022

Founders should decide a product hire by asking what specifically they want to delegate and whether it's the right thing to delegate; if the answer is operational work only, hire a mid-level or junior operator and keep the visionary and craftsperson hats yourself

The hire exists to take over specific responsibilities the founder is currently doing, so the profile should match what is actually being handed over

Scope: applies at any level, IC or leader

21:45 20 Product: Shreyas Doshi on The Three Different Types of Product Leaders and How To Hire Them, The 6 Different Product Metrics You Need To Know and What Good is For Each of Them & Table Stakes Features vs Wow Features; What To Prioritise

Marty Cagan · Feb 3, 2023

If a founder only wants to delegate operational work while keeping product insight and definition, they should hire a mid-level or junior operator and retain the visionary and craftsperson hats themselves

The right hire follows from answering what the founder actually wants to hand off versus keep owning

Scope: applies when the founder still wants to own core product insight

8:58 20Product: When to Hire a CPO, The Three Different Types of CPO, How To Know What You Need, How To Structure the Hiring Process, What Are the Must-Ask Questions, What Tests and Case Studies Should Be Used, How Should Their Compensation Package Be Structur

Harry Stebbings · Sep 21, 2022

Honey Pearl, CPO at Calendly, has said the biggest mistake founders make when hiring CPOs is misaligned expectations — they bring someone in but still want to own product themselves

34:10 20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb

Lenny Rachitsky · Feb 3, 2023

The common failure is a founder CEO hiring a product leader whose skill set is at odds with what the company needs, or not being honest with themselves about the product role they want to keep playing

A visionary founder who hires another visionary will clash; a founder who has stepped back but hires a pure operator will lose product culture and craft

16:04 20Product: When to Hire a CPO, The Three Different Types of CPO, How To Know What You Need, How To Structure the Hiring Process, What Are the Must-Ask Questions, What Tests and Case Studies Should Be Used, How Should Their Compensation Package Be Structur

David Lieb · Sep 21, 2022

If you plan to stay at the company long term, you should hire a product lead with skills complementary to your own rather than someone like you; only if you plan to leave should you hire someone with the full skill set to be the singular product lead

People instinctively hire people like themselves, but the right move is to find someone world class at the things you are uniquely bad at so they plug a real gap in the team

Scope: depends on whether the founder plans to stay or leave

34:23 20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb

David Lieb · Feb 3, 2023

Founders should hire a product leader with skills complementary to their own rather than someone like themselves

If you plan to stay around, you want world-class coverage of the gaps you're uniquely bad at rather than duplicated strengths

Scope: assumes the founder plans to be around for a long time

22:56 20Product: When to Hire a CPO, The Three Different Types of CPO, How To Know What You Need, How To Structure the Hiring Process, What Are the Must-Ask Questions, What Tests and Case Studies Should Be Used, How Should Their Compensation Package Be Structur

David Lieb · Sep 21, 2022

Hiring an operator to run the product team is legitimate and valuable, but only if someone else on the team is the product visionary and craftsperson — it can be the founder/CEO, it just has to be somebody

You can't operate at scale without someone good at operating, but that role must not be confused with leading the charge on what to build next and reinforcing the company's culture day to day

Scope: the visionary/craftsperson need not be the chief product officer

37:05 20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb

David Lieb · Feb 3, 2023

Operators are genuinely valuable and you can't run product at scale without one, but a visionary and craftsperson role must also exist on the team — it just doesn't have to be the CPO

Somebody has to lead the charge on what gets built next and reinforce the culture day to day; that can be the founder CEO or a product co-founder

Scope: the visionary can be the founder CEO or co-founder rather than the CPO; applies even at less creative enterprise SaaS companies

25:21 20Product: When to Hire a CPO, The Three Different Types of CPO, How To Know What You Need, How To Structure the Hiring Process, What Are the Must-Ask Questions, What Tests and Case Studies Should Be Used, How Should Their Compensation Package Be Structur

Shreyas Doshi · Aug 3, 2022

There is no generic right answer for what product leader to hire; if product will drive your startup's success you have to create your own script based on how your business will be driven forward

Every one of the 50+ founder conversations he's had on this topic was fundamentally different, so the answer can only come from understanding the specific business

14:18 No generic right answer for product leader type decide based on your specific business

Shreyas Doshi · Aug 3, 2022

The claim that there is no such thing as being visionary and that success comes from good process, OKRs and diligent execution is wrong; creativity and instinct are what created the growth that made process-driven scaling possible

That view is the operator speaking after taking a product from 20 to 60 or 60 to 100; the earlier growth could only have come from a visionary's vision and a craftsperson's craft being right a lot

26:20 Visionary creativity and instinct not just process drove the earlier growth that enabled scaling

Hugo Barra · Nov 9, 2022

His recurring hiring mistake is being seduced by product nerdiness — an incredible product person is not necessarily the leader who can build a team and inspire others

Product excellence is only one dimension; the other leadership dimensions still have to be met, and he has fallen into that trap

41:32 Great product people are not automatically strong team building leaders

Harry Stebbings · Feb 3, 2023 · hedged

Of Shreyas Doshi's three product leader types (craftspeople, visionaries, operators), the speaker thinks operators are the most damaging — Series C professional CPOs who put lots of process in place, actually do very little, and like talking to other CPOs and the board and feeling important

23:26 Operators are the most damaging type of product leader

David Lieb · Feb 3, 2023

Founders should hire product leaders who are craftspeople or visionaries, ideally both, because those are the people others want to follow

People want to listen to and work with craftspeople and visionaries, unlike experienced operators who often don't actually know how to do the job

23:58 Craftspeople or visionaries not operators are who people want to follow