“The first PM is an extremely challenging role. You’re gonna have a lot of tough battles, and the second PM is gonna owe you a ton for how easy they’ll have it”

ー Anonymous

“The amount of ambiguity facing a 1st time PM is tremendous. Often the founders/execs are still extremely hands on and aren’t comfortable sharing ownership. So there’s a lot of tension. Your job is to bring clarity and focus (i.e. decrease ambiguity) yet stay extremely flexible to changing things all over again every six months. PMs help get ambiguity under control in critical areas + let it exist in others.”

ー Ben Erez (first PM at Abstract)

“Roll up your sleeves, be a team player. I had to wear many hats – QA, user research, API documentation, marketing, BD – to move the team fwd. While in other companies, you have someone in each role, you have to do it all at early stage. I loved it, but it's not for everyone.”

— Karan Ahuja (first PM at Tally)