Seattle Startup: Things that make you say hmmm…
Happy Early April Fools Day! Let me introduce my latest blog with an annoucment:
Savan Kong will not be drinking for the entire month of April.
And, no, that wasn’t a joke. I know, I know. My last post was about happy hours and how it’s good for startups. Whatever. You can call me out on it in person if we ever meet.
But for now, onward to more important things. Here are three items that I’ve always wondered about in my startup life:
- What’s the perfect ratio of PM to engineers? Educated guesses anyone? For example, Linkedin is looking for a Sr. Product Manager for New User Experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, they may actually have a position to fill, but do you really need a Sr. PM for just that facet of the site? Maybe. Maybe not. But wanting to hire a Sr. PM for just that role doesn’t seem like a smart move for a startup.Any advice on the perfect mix of PM to developers?
Matt Goyer or Bryan Selner from Redfin? Andy Sack from Founders Co-op and Judy’s Book? Kevin Merritt from Blist? Mike Arcuri from Ontela? - Will all websites end up being a social network? Fast Company recently re-hauled their site to mimic traditional social networking functionality. With the emergence of behemoth online communities like Linkedin, Facebook, and Myspace, will it only be a matter of time before users demand the ability to communicate and collaborate with each other? A good friend of mine from Lakeside, Matt Johnson, works at Blist. Blist is trying to break into the consumer database market. I know, I know. Savan, databases aren’t super sexy. But you know what? It will be if you can manage sexy data like all of your pictures and information of Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Biel and distribute that information to your fanclub. Hats off to Kevin and his product team for making that move forward. I can’t think of a single web site out there right now that wouldn’t stand to become better by adding one or two social networking features (connections, groups, etc)
- Why are there so many men compared to women in the VC/investment world? Alyssa Royse, blogger for the PI, recently asked the question: “Where are the women VCs in Seattle?” My first run with the VC/investment world was with Laura Jennings, former Microsoft VP, former Atlas Ventures Partner, and former boss of my mother (we helped raise their children - all very, very cute!). She exposed me to angels, the high-stakes (and losses) of the VC world, and general day to day trade-offs between startups and VC’s. Little did I know while talking to her in my teenage years that she would be the last VC I would meet that’s a woman. I’d personally love to meet more women in this capacity.
Ratios are a good way to do headcount allocation across development, testing and PM once you really understand your business needs and the product development process you need to meet them. But every business has different needs, and I’ve seen several models for team structure produce successful products and businesses.
What some successful companies around town do: in the Office division of Microsoft where large and complex product cycles are the norm, 1 PM : 3 devs : 3 testers is the rule of thumb. At Amazon, each “2 pizza” team (about 8 people total across all disciplines) has 1-2 TPMs and a team manager. Then there’s Google, which has something like a 1:20 PM:developer ratio and at times touts a “we don’t write specs, we just sit the PM in the middle of the developers and have them talk a lot” philosophy (I have heard that this is now starting to change).
For early-stage startups, I think it’s appropriate to “feel your way” to the right ratio as you really learn all about your business needs. Generally, I think startups should feel understaffed, because when things feel that way, it means you’re stretching your resources and you’re forced to focus the team on the highest-value work. At Ontela, we’re at about 1:5 PM:dev ratio, but that’s as much a function of how many great PMs and Devs we’ve found as it is any sort of ideal. In fact (shameless plug), we’re hiring rock-star devs and PMs right now, as fast as we can find them.
-Mike Arcuri
Comment by Mike Arcuri — April 5, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
I think PM and UE tend to be pretty closely linked. Here’s a look at the Google model: 1PM:14Eng & 1Design:7Eng
Part of what makes this possible is that their PMs and their Designers are heavily technical. Virually all the PMs need to have a CS degree or equivalent experience and all of their designers are writing javascript (no photoshop only rolls).
My two recent startups:
Quova: 1PM:10Eng & 0 Design (primarily a backend technology)
JB: 1PM:7Eng & 3Design:7Eng (consumer website)
Generally, it seems that startups can do without a PM until 4-5 engineers. One of the founders (usually CEO/VPE) tends to be the product visionary in the early stages.
Either way, I agree that the linkedin job seems a little superfluous.
Comment by Dave Naffziger — April 10, 2008 @ 8:18 am
[…] Savan asks about dev to PM to test ratios. […]
Pingback by Matt Goyer’s Real Estate Blog » Blog Archive » Dev to PM to Test Ratios at Redfin and Microsoft — April 14, 2008 @ 9:39 pm