Scott Williamson
20 statements across 1 episodes · 2 bullish · 2 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Feb 21, 2024 by Scott Williamson · across every show →
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Everything said about Scott Williamson, oldest first
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Top PM candidates connect their daily work directly to outcomes
“Yeah, I think someone who can clearly connect the work they were doing to the outcome they were trying to drive And can describe, like, okay, what did I learn from customers that led me to believe that they would take this action if X were there? How did I ins…”
Feb 21, 2024 negative
Williamson: Founders rely on pedigree bias when hiring product managers
“Most of them haven't been a product manager. They have no idea what this role is about. So they don't know what to look for. They don't know how to grade it. And so they go off of pedigree. Oh, they were at Google or B they know the lingo, you know, they talke…”
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Scaling to 10+ PMs requires formal systems to maintain quality
“And when you get to maybe, maybe when it's still three PMs, there's still not a big need for big structure process, but when you get up to 10 plus, You're only as good as sort of the average PM's performance. And if you don't think about the broader system tha…”
Feb 21, 2024 positive
Williamson: SendGrid and GitLab required opportunity canvases and Amazon-style strategy docs
“There are two that we used at SendGrid and GitLab that I think were essential. One was a one pager called an opportunity canvas, which asked PMs to outline sort of the concept they wanted to build. And the other one, it's like a two to six pager. I think Kevin…”
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Validate product concepts holistically to kill flawed ideas before coding
“The problem with ideas is they can sound very good from one perspective, like customer X asked for it, or wow, that sounds cool. Or, oh, if we did that, we could up tier them into the next tier. There's always some reason why an idea sounds good on the surface…”
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024 negative
Williamson: Founders should not hire product leaders before achieving product-market fit
“And I think if you hand it off before then, it can be very problematic because it's these decisions, which ICP, what are we going to prioritize to build for them? What's the core user experience? These things are so central to a company, especially if it's a P…”
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson outlines a five-step interview process for hiring product managers
“Five interviews total. First one's a 30 minute recruiter screen or hiring manager screen if you don't have a recruiter. Just checking for the basics. Then the hiring manager should spend an hour with them checking on sort of the clear the bar for the core comp…”
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Introduce scientific product structure only after repeatable product-market fit
“Basically, it's when you've found repeatable product market fit. You know who your ideal customer profile is. You generally know the problems they need you to solve. You generally have confidence that your product experience can both attract and retain them at…”
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Scaled growth PM is 80% science; startup product is 80% art
“If you're a growth PM at Facebook, you got shit tons of data, the path Math for the product is pretty clear. You're mostly just running a B test. Maybe it's more like 80, 20, 90, 10 data to art. If you're a startup, you have very little data at your disposal. …”
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Deep target user perspective builds cross-functional trust for PMs
“If you really understand them, then you're going to tee up the right work, which is going to drive results. Ultimately you want to drive results, but how do you get there? I think the building block is having a ton of. Perspective on the target user and what t…”
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson: Product interviews should use non-technical, unrelated case studies
“I'd like to pose a non-technical scenario that they haven't worked in before and actually isn't what we do either. Because I don't want them to, A, rely on the jargon that they learned in their last job, and I don't want to also sort of penalize them for askin…”
Feb 21, 2024 positive
Williamson: Startups with 10+ people should adopt written strategy documents
“Even if you're more than 10 people, this can be helpful. I would say maybe when you're not all on the same run. When you start adding new people at some clip, Because new people just don't have that context. They don't have the tribal knowledge. And when you a…”
Feb 21, 2024
Williamson defines four core PM competencies: validation, build, business, and communication
“There's four buckets for an individual PM. One is around valid. I call it validation. Customer interviewing, product usage data, kind of like gathering insights. Two is build, which is how well do you work with engineering? How can you make trade-offs? Can you…”