Define the Mandate Before You Search
Get granular on the outcome, spike, and 90-day plan before opening a product-leader search.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 92%
Before recruiting a product leader, founders must work backwards from the actual outcome the hire is meant to solve, decide where the person should 'major and minor' (spike), and define what crushing it looks like. Product leaders come in many flavors, so a vague 'we need a head of product' search is doomed from inception.
Origin
Lauren Ipsen; Lenny notes it mirrors the advice he gives founders hiring PMs — list concretely what they'll do day to day.
Core principles
- 01Work backwards from the outcome, not forwards from a title
- 02Determine where the person should spike: design, senior-PM execution, or long-haul product vision
- 03A clear org chart on the front end prevents hunting for a 'unicorn' who does everything
- 04Trying to hire one person to do everything forces them to bring in lieutenants anyway
How to run it
- 1
Name the actual outcome
Ask 'what is the actual outcome we're trying to solve for with this hire?' rather than hiring a head of product because the board says so or because it feels needed.
Watch out If you're 'not exactly sure what we need in this role,' the search is doomed from inception — stop and get specific first.
- 2
Pick the archetype and the spike
Decide which of the three buckets you need — platform/infrastructure, core/consumer product (including UX/design), or a specialist (growth, monetization, ads) — and where within it the person must major vs. minor.
Pro tip Get an explicit org chart down: are you hiring to build a walled-garden ads approach, run product marketing, or improve the core user experience? Those are very different roles.
Watch out Bringing in one leader 'to do everything' tends to produce a unicorn search that's impossible to hone in on.
- 3
Write the 90-day plan and the future ladder
Define what the person does in the first 90 days, then a year, then two years — and whether they're meant to grow into CPO through IPO or not.
Pro tip The 90-day plan is 'overused but so necessary' and it's only the tip of the iceberg — also map 12- and 18-month product direction.
- 4
Define what 'crushing it' looks like
Describe concretely what someone knocking it out of the park in this role would be doing, so you and the recruiter share a success picture before sourcing.
Pro tip This success definition doubles as the calibration test you later run on any recruiter you engage.
In the wild
Ipsen describes the common pattern where 'the board's telling me we need to hire out of product and I don't necessarily think that we do or I'm not exactly sure what we need in this role,' which starts a search on doomed footing.
→ Without a granular front-end mandate the search flounders; getting granular first is what makes it succeed.
Common mistakes
Hiring for the sake of hiring
Bringing in a head of product 'because we feel like we need to' rather than for a defined, imminent job wastes the search and often produces a mis-hire.
Chasing a do-everything unicorn
Defining the role as one person who covers ads, product marketing, and core UX at once makes 'what good looks like' impossible to pin down, since that person will have to hire lieutenants regardless.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and boards kicking off a senior product-leader search, alone or with a recruiter
Not ideal for
Seed-stage teams who genuinely just need a hands-on PM and aren't ready for a defined leadership mandate
From the transcript
“you need to get incredibly granular on the front end around what is this person going to be coming in to do what's their mandate”
“trying to determine where this person should major and minor where they should spike”
“the 90-day plan is something that's overused but so necessary and that's just the tip of the iceberg”
“whenever you're starting a search in that regard it's kind of doomed from inception”
From the episode
Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters
Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst)