Ignacio Montero

Background

About Ignacio Montero

It’s easy to build the wrong software or fall into the “Build Trap” (Perri, 2020). Actually, 70% of either corporate or startup software products will fall short of meeting targets according to BCG. I have been guilty of this in my career as an entrepreneur. I have founded 2 startups and the story goes: I had an exciting vision, got seed funding for both, hired devs, built, released and…failed to gain traction before running out of cash. I have gotten scars & experience under my belt. Now as a product manager, with a professional degree in psychology and an M.A. in Learning Design & Tech at Columbia, I consider myself a pragmatist who focuses on discovering & delineating the product building process while keeping the heart of the WHY beating: making something that touches the soul of the user. My principles are: 1. Make something worth building. Rather than deciding to build a product for its mere business opportunity, focus on something less grandeur: building something that you or your company needs deeply. Listen attentively. A discovery phase is valuable not only as a due diligence for validating the needs with data but - more excitingly - to identify the intertwined drivers that underscore them. Sharpen the roadmap. Put reins to the Roadmap so that it doesn’t grow out of control along with the backlog nurtured by stakeholders' plethora of ideas. Those reins are KPI’s for aiming on what matters: Product-Market Fit (PMF) on increasingly segmented users. The threat of not segmenting users in a timely manner is ending up with a spread too thin roadmap pulled in different directions. Understand the “Machine Room”. Aka software architecture & entities relationships for disentangling complexity & driving resolution. With this in mind consider in the roadmap the thoughtful conjunction of key functional & technical requirements, anticipating impediments down the road. Don’t let the Planning meeting catch you off-guard. Refine exhaustively every User Story. Keep the refinement meetings short and to the point whereas every developer should know their assigned user story beforehand. Acknowledge the developers that are able to “poke holes” in your stories. Position your product. Wayne Gretsky, the ice hockey legend, once said “I skate where the puck is going to be, not where it has been”. The takeaway is to aim for innovators & early adopters in the market so that your product is in a strong position to catch early the adoption wave thus extending your customer lifetime value and organically promotes adoption of the majority.