#4 Platform Products and the Role of a Platform Product Manager
How a Platform PM is different from a product manager?
As someone who has been building platforms for the last 7 years, I have seen people do well with building products, but then struggling to get to platform thinking when making a transition. In this edition, I will share my understanding of what platform products are and how is this practice different from product management.
What are Platform Products?
Platforms are also products, but they are designed to give operational leverage to the company. In simple words, platform products provide a foundation upon which developers can create and innovate, without having to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch.
Let’s understand this with an example.
Consider a company which has multiple products - say product A, B & C. All the products need authentication service to verify the users. Therefore, an authentication platform which is used as a foundation by these multiple products provides operational leverage and the developers do not have to develop this functionality again and again for every product.
Platforms are built primarily to give operational leverage to the company
Apart from cost advantage, the platforms also provide advantages such as faster time-to-market and standardized features & offerings across products.
What does a Platform PM do?
Platform product management is an incredible area under the product management practice. The core job of the Platform PM is largely the same as a general product manager. This includes,
Product strategy
Market research & analysis
Product planning
Product definition, design & engineering
Launch & go-to-market
Product metrics & analytics
Stakeholder management
However, the context changes from a product to a platform. Strategies for launch & GTM change based on the customers of the platform.
How is it different from a general product role?
Here are some key differences in the approach
Build with Frameworks : Platform PMs need to understand how multiple products & their businesses work, and then find common patterns. These common patterns give rise to frameworks - which are flexible enough to handle the varying needs of multiple products built on the platforms, without putting much net incremental effort for each new product.
Understand Technology Concepts : Platforms deal with technology such as APIs or even new technologies like Blockchain. Understanding how these technologies work, at least at an architecture-level or a conceptual-level is highly useful in taking key product decisions along with the engineering. Of course, things can also work if the Platform PM doesn’t understand these and relies on engineering, but it is going to be the difference between good & great.
Understanding Scale : Platforms are built for scale. A Platform PM needs to foresee, estimate & calculate scaling requirements and lay down requirements so that architects can design appropriately. For example, decide if you need a monolith architecture or a microservices architecture.
Zoom in & Zoom out : A Platform PM has the ability to see the platform from a bird’s eye view as well as zoom in to create specific requirements. Since the platform touches multiple products, the Platform PM should be able to predict the influence one product will have on the development of other products and the overall business strategy.
When a company decides to shift to a platform, it is essential to make an explicit role separation between platform product managers & customer facing product managers. The job of a platform product manager is to prioritize the work of a component or set of components that are used by multiple consumer-facing products and potentially end-users as well.
To summarize, Platform PMs are necessary due to the complexity of platform products, which require coordination of multiple teams, management of technical systems, and relationships with third-party developers and partners. Platform PMs ensure that platforms meet internal and external stakeholder needs, while driving innovation and growth. They must understand platform capabilities and limitations, as well as developer and user needs, to shape the platform's future and create value for stakeholders. Platform PMs are essential for successful platform product management, growth, and innovation.