Reduce Startup Risks (RSR) is a video interview series aimed at helping Canadian tech startups scale quickly & with ease. This is a chance for founders and executives to learn from their peers as they discuss the common pitfalls associated with high-growth and share the tools and tactics they’ve learned on the ground. RSR is presented by Toronto-based StackAdapt and led by company co-founder, Vitaly Pecherskiy.
Product managers and their teams are often at risk of being pulled in 18 different directions at once. For our latest RSR interview, I sat down with Adam Jarczyn, SVP Operations and Product at #Paid to learn how to cut the distractions and make your product team part of your competitive advantage.
“I think startups fail with being super-focused on the wrong idea.”
– Adam Jarczyn
“There’s a handful of places that [startups] fail. I think they fail with the wrong team. They definitely fail with being super-focused on the wrong idea,” said Jarczyn. “I think it comes down to us being able to ask those questions. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if’ statements are fun, but you have to decide if that ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’ statement actually creates any value for anybody.”
Jarczyn entered the startup world in 2012 when he founded HOVR.IT, a visual search company that was quickly acquired by Slyce, and has now transitioned to influencer marketing as part of #Paid. As an SVP of Operations and Product, he’s a master of ensuring product effectiveness & efficiency.
In this video, he covers:
- Prioritizing (the seemingly endless) list of product efforts
- Analytics vs. gut feelings: when to use which
- Communicating product vision
- Focused measurement
- Pricing models
- What to look for in a product manager
- Growing your product team
- Where startups fail
