Three differences between being a product manager at a startup versus an established company

The day-to-day of a product manager varies from role to role. One of the contributing factors that often shapes the responsibilities of a product manager is the maturity and size of the company. While there are plenty of examples of early stage companies or established enterprises that don’t follow the trend, from my experiences the following is a good rule of thumb of some differences in the field of product management across the two types of companies.

1. Organizational alignment. In smaller companies, where the product is the first and only product, the product vision is often the same as the company vision. There are also a lot less people who need to be involved in getting consensus on a decision. In larger organizations, especially those that have existing product lines within the same portfolio, a product manager is a lot more likely to have to spend more time getting buy-in across more stakeholders. Those stakeholders, depending on where they are in the organization, can have their sights set on other priorities, or even competing/conflicting ones at that.
2. Division of responsibility. In larger organizations, product organizations tend to have more layers and often have supporting roles like product owners (POs) and business analysts (BAs). Generally both roles tend to focus on more tactical aspects of the role that are more closely aligned with execution, whereas product managers focus more on long-term initiatives such as roadmaps and product definition. In larger organizations, product management organizations also sometimes follow a matrix style structure where areas of responsibility are shared among multiple team members. In startups or small companies, the product manager is generally responsible for more breadth and depth than at a bigger firm, although often for a product that is more greenfield and less organizationally complex. Product managers also tend to have a cleaner delineation of ownership, but they often have to be responsible for PO/BA work in getting more into detailed requirements and driving sprint-level deliverables.
3. Product development process. In a small company, the approach to product development is often quickly evolving, and tends to be fairly flexible until the product reaches maturity and the company expands to developing multiple in parallel. This can make development feel less hamstrung by the process, but it can also make things feel more chaotic. On the other hand, larger organizations that have existing products in their portfolio tend to have an established set of processes that are used as templates for new product development. This means that there is a formulaic approach to driving the product through different stages of development. While this means there is a set of proven processes to follow, it can also slow things down until all the checkboxes are checked or even create wasteful detours. This is can happen if a new product is fundamentally different from existing products that originally shaped the process.

While product manager roles differ between larger established companies and smaller nimble companies, both roles can be equally rewarding and it’s valuable to have an opportunity to experience both to find which aspects you find truly rewarding and which aspects of the day-to-day could be improved.