Sunday Rewind: Bootstrapping a product team by Ibrahim Bashir

This week’s Sunday Rewind is a 2020 #mtpcon Digital talk from Ibrahim Bashir, then VP of Product Management at Box, on different product management archetypes and when to bring each one into a product team.

Ibrahim says there are three types of product managers – people who start the team, scaling people and sustaining people who keep everything running once the business is established.

When you’ve established what kind of people you need, who do you find them? Ibrahim suggests trying to find people who show signs of being ready to peak. Hopefully they’ll achieve that peak while building your product. Ideally, look for “exponential” hires, who have a fantastic network to enable your second wave of hires, he says, and look for hires who instinctively build bridges between functions and teams. He concludes: ““The best way to set up a new product manager for success is to make sure they complement the team that is already in place. When I am hiring, I will prioritise competencies based on the existing skills in the team.”

Watch the original talk: Bootstrapping a product team by Ibrahim Bashir