Hiring your first product manager can be a challenging decision because of the difficulty of neatly articulating their value. The impact of a PM is more nuanced than something like customer success. They operate across multiple functions, often without obvious or immediate metrics to show their contribution.
A PM reduces the time it takes to deliver value to customers. They act as a vital link between customers, engineering, and the business to align product strategy with user and company goals.
In recent research, Lenny's Newsletter analyzed 30 successful companies to understand the stage that each brought a product manager in. On average, product companies brought on a PM with 10 to 15 engineers and 15 to 25 total employees.
For the companies who hired later, the reasons for delaying varied. Stripe waited five years to hire their first PM, prioritizing different resources in the interim.
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