🚀 The REAL First 90 Days in Product Leadership

Why Most Product Leaders Fail in Their First 90 Days

Let's be brutally honest: The conventional "meet everyone and learn everything" approach to starting a product leadership role is setting you up for failure. Here's why traditional advice falls short, and what you should actually do instead.

The Truth About "Quick Wins"

Everyone talks about quick wins in your first 90 days. Here's the uncomfortable truth: Most quick wins are vanity metrics that don't move the needle. They make YOU look good while adding minimal value to the business.

Instead of chasing quick wins, focus on identifying structural problems that everyone's afraid to tackle. Yes, this is riskier. Yes, this might not pay off in 90 days. But this is how you build lasting impact.

The New Playbook for Product Leadership

Week 1-2: Ignore the conventional route

STOP DOING THIS:

• Scheduling endless "get to know you" meetings
• Creating detailed documentation of everything you learn
• Trying to understand every aspect of the business

START DOING THIS:

• Find the three most frustrated stakeholders in the company
• Identify the problem that has been ignored for a long time
• Identify why it has been ignored, then take charge to solve it if you have established it to be important enough
• Look for the metrics nobody wants to talk about

Week 3-4: Build Your War Room

Traditional advice tells you to "align with stakeholders." Instead:

1. Create a physical or virtual space where real problems get solved
2. Invite the most candid people from each department
3. Ban PowerPoint presentations and status updates
4. Focus only on critical business blockers

Week 5-8: The Bold Move

This is where you'll differentiate yourself from every other product leader:

1. Pick ONE major structural problem you've identified
2. Gain alignment with 1-2 key stakeholders
3. Build a cross-functional team of volunteers (not assignees)

Week 9-12: Double Down or Pivot

By now, you'll either have:

• Early signs of success: Double down and expand the scope
• Signs of failure: Pivot quickly and share learnings from the outcome

Either outcome establishes you as a leader who takes calculated risks and learns fast.

The New Success Metrics

Forget traditional 90-day metrics. Here's what I believe actually matters at the end of the day

1. Number of sacred cows challenged
2. Speed of critical decision-making
3. Quality of problems surfaced
4. Level of healthy conflict in meetings

I believe the first 90 days aren't about proving you can manage a product organization. They're about proving you can transform one. Every product organization needs transformation - they just don't know it yet.

Remember: If you're not making some people uncomfortable with your pace of change, you're moving too slowly.

That's all

Nazuk

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