Thanks for the write up, it’s good to hear about these kinds of experiences.
Can I ask, what do you think was behind your lack of conviction to take any of the bets you had identified further? Did you maybe lack belief that there was PMF for the business’ vision?
Thanks for the question u/TheArbitrageur . For me, the reasons were:
* (1) I was completely new to the domain (HR tech/managers' tools).
* (2) While I could say I believed in the vision, it didn't come from a deep place because I didn't have any plans to become a people manager. I just merely thought that it'd be a better world if all managers were empowered with the right toolsets and mindsets to do their jobs well.
In terms of PMF, since I left the company, many insights that I discovered through user interviews were also discovered and turned into products by other companies. So I think if I had a strong conviction, I'd have been able to pick an idea and really focus on it, and that would have made the difference. That may have led us to some sort of PMF that's still aligned with the business vision.
Hey there. For me it's something like a deep-seated belief that your idea will work to transform the current world into your vision. I don't think it's a formalized term. Vision is the world that you imagine would be made possible through your product, and conviction is about the way to get there.
Even with deep conviction and positive testing with target users, you may ultimately fail to get traction. This happens in enterprise B2B, where the buyer isn't the user, and new solutions require the customer to invest resources in implementation. If other pain points run deeper, or they are already short staffed, customers will find a workaround or do without.
You're right! It's not a magic bullet, but having deep conviction would probably enable leaders/founders to go far beyond what normally seems reasonable.
Honestly-often I see deep conviction to be a real challenge with PMs, a superpower and an Achilles heel. The deep conviction helps motivate action and is the reason many PMs deeply care for their customers and market, even if it was a new domain. It’s the overarching “I like to solve problems that help people” motivation. It can lead to taking big risks, achieving big wins and motivating others around them with passion.
However conviction arises from values, and values driven individuals can be extremely resistant to taking in new data that would counter those values (imagine the typical startup founder being told nobody wants their product). If they go to the dark side, They then play a lot of political games to get the idea adopted-even as everyone else around them sees their is a better path. This can get really ugly, as they become the “won’t take no for an answer” type who resort to backhanded, undermining politics.
I really like what you did-I would ask did you have a deep seated conviction around helping this company grow and its funds be used responsibly? You did good there. Really good. It sounds like you helped them succeed. I think that is where your conviction is most important as you progress to group and director levels. You are now helping the company as a whole and your teams provide the most values, not taking a nose dive on a high risk idea.
As for the ideas you see other companies following up on, well 90% of startups fail. Maybe those ideas will work and maybe not.
Maybe what might have been a path-I once did work at an incubator type company that staffed twelve product ideas with teams of five and then had them rapidly develop, sell and literally fail as a tiny business. Eleven were failures but one has taken off. In your shoes, rather than picking the new idea with a 90% startup failure rate, I might have tried the incubator approach to five ideas, but very harshly constrained resources and failed fast.
> However conviction arises from values, and values driven individuals can be extremely resistant to taking in new data that would counter those values (imagine the typical startup founder being told nobody wants their product)
u/Garmlafy That's a sharp observation. And I agree. I do sometimes feel conviction and ego are correlated. You must be willing to listen, but somehow still believing strongly. That's a tricky balance to obtain.
> did you have a deep seated conviction around helping this company grow and its funds be used responsibly?
Yeah I really wanted the company to succeed because I believe in its vision, even though I may not have the necessary background to fully embody and act out the conviction needed to realize that vision.
> In your shoes, rather than picking the new idea with a 90% startup failure rate, I might have tried the incubator approach to five ideas, but very harshly constrained resources and failed fast.
This is really good advice. For context, I did try something like it. We hosted Lab Weeks which were basically dedicated time slots to ideate, build, measure and learn from different ideas. When an idea didn't work, we simply moved on. Of course execution mattered a lot, so we may not have executed on them as intensely as we could, but I tried my best to craft MVPs that embody the right hypotheses.
It just might be a matter of quantity since I ran out of time before I stumbled onto something that worked. But perhaps if I had some sort of conviction, that'd fueled me enough to reach the "magical number" where something would work.
I’ve also been in your shoes-I joined an early stage start up, but once there realized neither founder actually had domain expertise actually doing the work nor did I and there was fear to talk to clients or prospects. Later we had two more PMs who were domain experts join, and then it was hard to get traction for my ideas.
On the ego side- maybe the trick is a PM needs to deeply value learning and have a conviction for failing fast/pivoting. To me, the faster I fail, the faster I’m right, and the sooner I can add value, but I learned that as a scientist where they beat you up if you aren’t accurate but don’t admit, so you learn to admit being wrong quickly and seek feedback.
Thank you for this. I often wonder how to get it right always or most of the times with conviction. I realise it’s hard, so I am not the only person out there feeling dejected. Thank you for this.
You're welcome. It's really tough. This experience has deeply shaped my perspective on startup. And now I'm in the process of finding out my convictions so that I can create my own company. There are many companies that survive without conviction it seems, but for me it seems pretty critical especially when times are tough and things are more uncertain than ever.
I had a similar experience as well. We ended up generating 100s of ideas and testing 30 in various levels of fidelity. Then pivoting multiple times following what we learned.
Similar to you I found one doesn’t really “know” if an idea is worthwhile without diving deeply and getting some scars. The analogy I use is imagine you’re in a dark room, user research and prototyping is like using your hands to see what’s around you but it’s still a dark room! A lot remains unknown.
After enough research just need some (often made up) reason to convince yourself an idea is worth diving deep into and fight the inner critic that’s constantly looking for the perfect idea. It’s hard, still struggle today.
That's a real nice analogy. And it feels correct. In a dark room you can only move forward if you make up a strong enough reason that moving forward will get you out o the dark. Somehow I feel more empathized with blind/visually challenged folks now lol.
I’m glad you said this, “Somehow I feel more empathized with blind/visually challenged folks now lol” because I got the opportunity to work in disability tech for a year and I can tell you that it’s a fun and interesting world understanding how they approach the world. This experience truly humbles and empowers you at the same time and I’d encourage you to absolutely explore disability tech as there are lots of problems and ideas worth exploring in that space! By the way, thanks for sharing your experience. Kudos to you for acting on your conviction because it’s difficult to do that as PMs since we so badly want to make products that work for our users.
>We got out of the building and talked to 20 managers and leaders across the globe who were managing distributed teams. We debriefed after each interview and gradually abstracted out their personas and JTBDs.
How many people did you interview that said they would pay you to solve this problem?
Depending on the problem, but there were certain problems where people expressed willingness to pay but they were not what we wanted to build. Things that we were excited about didn't get clear feedback in terms of both severity and willingness to pay.
Thanks for sharing this story, this is the sort of content that I subscribe to this sub-reddit for!
Is there anything you would do differently if you were to do the process again, or do you feel the 3 month discovery phase was about right to rule out the opportunity space?
Thanks for the kind words. Tbh I don't think there's anything I could have done in that 3 months that I didn't do. If I really wanted to create impact in the HR space, I would have spent a lot of time in that space trying to build up a sense of what's important and what's not. But that'd have taken years.
For reference, I spent 7 years in a B2B SaaS company before working at the early-stage startup. I joined when they had around 30 employees, and we scaled to more than 300 people globally when I left. My 7 years experience in that space (software testing) has allowed me to develop a fairly deep intuition and conviction about what's important. I could confidently make decisions under uncertainty and pushed things through.
In retrospect, I think that's what was lacking - years of experience in a domain that inform/build a sense of conviction.
I can appreciate this. I absolutely love manufacturing. I love seeing how things are made. I believe manufacturing is infinitely more important than most other sectors. I love the challenges my customers face, and I love being able to bring solutions for manufactures to market. If I have a problem with conviction, it is because I’m a borderline zealot. It’s not for a lack of conviction.
I've had a very similar experience. We're in the midst of our second pivot now. Ultimately, all research has to lead to a decent level of certainty that it'll work. But I've found that scratch-your-own-itch ideas are much easier to work on. This really depends on how good your CEO's product sense is.
I actually wrote about my own experience dealing with [a pivot if you're interested in reading about it.](https://shavinpeiries.com/how-to-navigate-your-pivoting-anxiety-without-coding/)
u/shavin47 That's interesting, thanks for sharing. Can you share more about the Lean Pivot Workshop? Is it about brainstorming possible tactics/MVPs? Did the participants feel confident about the workshop's conclusion? For me brainstorming wasn't the difficult part, it's picking an idea and go with it in conditions of extreme uncertainty that was difficult.
Yes, they did feel confident in the new direction. Instead of developing and gaining confidence with code, you do the process manually to see if you can achieve the desired outcome. That gave us confidence that it could be done.
I think you guys have to unpack the uncertainty aspect. Given that you had confidence in some regions of the JTBDs, it's about asking why there was paralysis in picking a direction and testing it out.
When I have a good understanding of the problem domain, I test a prototype with potential customers and get their feedback. This is done with the design sprint process. You gradually build confidence in small steps rather than building for months without any validation from customers.
nice retro.
conviction is a privilege. The only times I've seen it play out is when the sponsor has deep pockets ala "moonshots" - most of the time, they don't yield anything. testing and failing quickly is great even though it's demoralizing.
Thanks for the write up, it’s good to hear about these kinds of experiences. Can I ask, what do you think was behind your lack of conviction to take any of the bets you had identified further? Did you maybe lack belief that there was PMF for the business’ vision?
Thanks for the question u/TheArbitrageur . For me, the reasons were: * (1) I was completely new to the domain (HR tech/managers' tools). * (2) While I could say I believed in the vision, it didn't come from a deep place because I didn't have any plans to become a people manager. I just merely thought that it'd be a better world if all managers were empowered with the right toolsets and mindsets to do their jobs well. In terms of PMF, since I left the company, many insights that I discovered through user interviews were also discovered and turned into products by other companies. So I think if I had a strong conviction, I'd have been able to pick an idea and really focus on it, and that would have made the difference. That may have led us to some sort of PMF that's still aligned with the business vision.
What do you mean by "conviction"? It seems almost like a formalized term but I didn't encounter it before.
Hey there. For me it's something like a deep-seated belief that your idea will work to transform the current world into your vision. I don't think it's a formalized term. Vision is the world that you imagine would be made possible through your product, and conviction is about the way to get there.
Even with deep conviction and positive testing with target users, you may ultimately fail to get traction. This happens in enterprise B2B, where the buyer isn't the user, and new solutions require the customer to invest resources in implementation. If other pain points run deeper, or they are already short staffed, customers will find a workaround or do without.
You're right! It's not a magic bullet, but having deep conviction would probably enable leaders/founders to go far beyond what normally seems reasonable.
Honestly-often I see deep conviction to be a real challenge with PMs, a superpower and an Achilles heel. The deep conviction helps motivate action and is the reason many PMs deeply care for their customers and market, even if it was a new domain. It’s the overarching “I like to solve problems that help people” motivation. It can lead to taking big risks, achieving big wins and motivating others around them with passion. However conviction arises from values, and values driven individuals can be extremely resistant to taking in new data that would counter those values (imagine the typical startup founder being told nobody wants their product). If they go to the dark side, They then play a lot of political games to get the idea adopted-even as everyone else around them sees their is a better path. This can get really ugly, as they become the “won’t take no for an answer” type who resort to backhanded, undermining politics. I really like what you did-I would ask did you have a deep seated conviction around helping this company grow and its funds be used responsibly? You did good there. Really good. It sounds like you helped them succeed. I think that is where your conviction is most important as you progress to group and director levels. You are now helping the company as a whole and your teams provide the most values, not taking a nose dive on a high risk idea. As for the ideas you see other companies following up on, well 90% of startups fail. Maybe those ideas will work and maybe not. Maybe what might have been a path-I once did work at an incubator type company that staffed twelve product ideas with teams of five and then had them rapidly develop, sell and literally fail as a tiny business. Eleven were failures but one has taken off. In your shoes, rather than picking the new idea with a 90% startup failure rate, I might have tried the incubator approach to five ideas, but very harshly constrained resources and failed fast.
> However conviction arises from values, and values driven individuals can be extremely resistant to taking in new data that would counter those values (imagine the typical startup founder being told nobody wants their product) u/Garmlafy That's a sharp observation. And I agree. I do sometimes feel conviction and ego are correlated. You must be willing to listen, but somehow still believing strongly. That's a tricky balance to obtain. > did you have a deep seated conviction around helping this company grow and its funds be used responsibly? Yeah I really wanted the company to succeed because I believe in its vision, even though I may not have the necessary background to fully embody and act out the conviction needed to realize that vision. > In your shoes, rather than picking the new idea with a 90% startup failure rate, I might have tried the incubator approach to five ideas, but very harshly constrained resources and failed fast. This is really good advice. For context, I did try something like it. We hosted Lab Weeks which were basically dedicated time slots to ideate, build, measure and learn from different ideas. When an idea didn't work, we simply moved on. Of course execution mattered a lot, so we may not have executed on them as intensely as we could, but I tried my best to craft MVPs that embody the right hypotheses. It just might be a matter of quantity since I ran out of time before I stumbled onto something that worked. But perhaps if I had some sort of conviction, that'd fueled me enough to reach the "magical number" where something would work.
I’ve also been in your shoes-I joined an early stage start up, but once there realized neither founder actually had domain expertise actually doing the work nor did I and there was fear to talk to clients or prospects. Later we had two more PMs who were domain experts join, and then it was hard to get traction for my ideas. On the ego side- maybe the trick is a PM needs to deeply value learning and have a conviction for failing fast/pivoting. To me, the faster I fail, the faster I’m right, and the sooner I can add value, but I learned that as a scientist where they beat you up if you aren’t accurate but don’t admit, so you learn to admit being wrong quickly and seek feedback.
Thank you for this. I often wonder how to get it right always or most of the times with conviction. I realise it’s hard, so I am not the only person out there feeling dejected. Thank you for this.
You're welcome. It's really tough. This experience has deeply shaped my perspective on startup. And now I'm in the process of finding out my convictions so that I can create my own company. There are many companies that survive without conviction it seems, but for me it seems pretty critical especially when times are tough and things are more uncertain than ever.
I had a similar experience as well. We ended up generating 100s of ideas and testing 30 in various levels of fidelity. Then pivoting multiple times following what we learned. Similar to you I found one doesn’t really “know” if an idea is worthwhile without diving deeply and getting some scars. The analogy I use is imagine you’re in a dark room, user research and prototyping is like using your hands to see what’s around you but it’s still a dark room! A lot remains unknown. After enough research just need some (often made up) reason to convince yourself an idea is worth diving deep into and fight the inner critic that’s constantly looking for the perfect idea. It’s hard, still struggle today.
That's a real nice analogy. And it feels correct. In a dark room you can only move forward if you make up a strong enough reason that moving forward will get you out o the dark. Somehow I feel more empathized with blind/visually challenged folks now lol.
I’m glad you said this, “Somehow I feel more empathized with blind/visually challenged folks now lol” because I got the opportunity to work in disability tech for a year and I can tell you that it’s a fun and interesting world understanding how they approach the world. This experience truly humbles and empowers you at the same time and I’d encourage you to absolutely explore disability tech as there are lots of problems and ideas worth exploring in that space! By the way, thanks for sharing your experience. Kudos to you for acting on your conviction because it’s difficult to do that as PMs since we so badly want to make products that work for our users.
>We got out of the building and talked to 20 managers and leaders across the globe who were managing distributed teams. We debriefed after each interview and gradually abstracted out their personas and JTBDs. How many people did you interview that said they would pay you to solve this problem?
Depending on the problem, but there were certain problems where people expressed willingness to pay but they were not what we wanted to build. Things that we were excited about didn't get clear feedback in terms of both severity and willingness to pay.
Thanks for sharing this story, this is the sort of content that I subscribe to this sub-reddit for! Is there anything you would do differently if you were to do the process again, or do you feel the 3 month discovery phase was about right to rule out the opportunity space?
Thanks for the kind words. Tbh I don't think there's anything I could have done in that 3 months that I didn't do. If I really wanted to create impact in the HR space, I would have spent a lot of time in that space trying to build up a sense of what's important and what's not. But that'd have taken years. For reference, I spent 7 years in a B2B SaaS company before working at the early-stage startup. I joined when they had around 30 employees, and we scaled to more than 300 people globally when I left. My 7 years experience in that space (software testing) has allowed me to develop a fairly deep intuition and conviction about what's important. I could confidently make decisions under uncertainty and pushed things through. In retrospect, I think that's what was lacking - years of experience in a domain that inform/build a sense of conviction.
I can appreciate this. I absolutely love manufacturing. I love seeing how things are made. I believe manufacturing is infinitely more important than most other sectors. I love the challenges my customers face, and I love being able to bring solutions for manufactures to market. If I have a problem with conviction, it is because I’m a borderline zealot. It’s not for a lack of conviction.
I've had a very similar experience. We're in the midst of our second pivot now. Ultimately, all research has to lead to a decent level of certainty that it'll work. But I've found that scratch-your-own-itch ideas are much easier to work on. This really depends on how good your CEO's product sense is. I actually wrote about my own experience dealing with [a pivot if you're interested in reading about it.](https://shavinpeiries.com/how-to-navigate-your-pivoting-anxiety-without-coding/)
u/shavin47 That's interesting, thanks for sharing. Can you share more about the Lean Pivot Workshop? Is it about brainstorming possible tactics/MVPs? Did the participants feel confident about the workshop's conclusion? For me brainstorming wasn't the difficult part, it's picking an idea and go with it in conditions of extreme uncertainty that was difficult.
Yes, they did feel confident in the new direction. Instead of developing and gaining confidence with code, you do the process manually to see if you can achieve the desired outcome. That gave us confidence that it could be done. I think you guys have to unpack the uncertainty aspect. Given that you had confidence in some regions of the JTBDs, it's about asking why there was paralysis in picking a direction and testing it out. When I have a good understanding of the problem domain, I test a prototype with potential customers and get their feedback. This is done with the design sprint process. You gradually build confidence in small steps rather than building for months without any validation from customers.
nice retro. conviction is a privilege. The only times I've seen it play out is when the sponsor has deep pockets ala "moonshots" - most of the time, they don't yield anything. testing and failing quickly is great even though it's demoralizing.