Shuman Ghosemajumder

Does your company need a head of product? It's the hardest role to fill. Here's what to look for.

There are no easy jobs in startups. Resources are limited, nobody is extraneous, and every formal role (if it exists) is essential and overloaded. This also means that every hire represents a crucial decision, because each new person will shape the future of the company. I've always told my teams that whether we're 10 people or 100 people today, the next 10 or 100 people we hire will make up half of the company and become our culture.

In no job is this idea more apparent than in a head of product in your technology organization. That person can affect the direction of nearly every group in the company. This is also why the role is perhaps the most difficult for companies to get right. Here are two ways to do it-and one common trap to avoid.

The Steve Jobs approach.

The simplest model is when your CEO is also the effective head of product. Everyone in the technology industry has heard the stories of Steve Jobs as the archetypal product CEO, providing both big-picture vision and detailed product feedback. He reportedly would directly engage with all levels of the organization and explain the product to the world, and his name would show up on patent applications. He was seemingly involved in every aspect of product decisionmaking. Of course, as CEO of a company the size of Apple, it would be impossible for him to do the job of a full-time head of product-nor did he, despite appearances to the contrary.

But in smaller tech companies, many CEOs can actually make that model a reality, prioritizing spending time on getting the product right above all else. This can work well for two reasons. First, it is a good use of a CEO's time, as a tech company's product is its raison d'être. Without the right product, there isn't much that sales, marketing, or engineering can do to make the company successful.