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The Three Traits of Great Product Managers

Maggie Crowley
VP of Product, Toast (ex-Charlie Health, Drift)
VP PRODUCT
Core Traits

3 Things All Great PMs Share

123SimplifyFollow UpDo Hard Work
  • Break down complexity, find the ONE thing to do
  • Remember to follow up on results over time
  • Be willing to do unglamorous work (support, sales, copy)
"If you ever find yourself saying 'that's not my job', that's probably a thing you should do. People who are willing to just get the work done will move faster."
The Three Traits Deep

Breaking Down What Separates Great PMs

Trait 1: Simplification

Finding and focusing on the ONE thing in a sea of 10 competing priorities. It's not a personality trait, it's a learnable skill. Read your writing aloud. Ask "what are you really trying to say?" Strip away everything non-essential.

Trait 2: Follow-Up

Most PMs set metrics, maybe even build a dashboard. Great PMs remember to come back 3 months later and say "here's what happened." This is rare, high-value, and makes leaders remember you.

Trait 3: Willingness

Customer support calls. Sales meetings. Writing copy. Project management. If it needs to happen for your product to win, it's your job. This is what separates good PMs from great PMs.

  • Simplification comes from: Reading work aloud, getting feedback, doing reps, listening to senior people
  • Follow-up is easy to do: It's just tracking metrics and remembering to check. But 99% of people don't do it
  • Willingness requires: Understanding you're responsible for outcomes, not just strategy. Strategy is only 5% of the work
  • The emotional center: As a PM, you're the emotional center of the team. Your job is to keep people motivated, excited, and optimistic
Strategy Framework

How to Write a Strategy Doc That Matters

  • Start with company mission: How does this fit into what we're trying to accomplish?
  • Understand the landscape: What's happening in the market? Who's our competition? What are the tech trends?
  • Find the opportunity: Where can we play? Where can we win? What's our unique advantage?
  • Name the challenges: What has to be true about the world for this to work? What's the hardest part?
  • Propose your solution: 3 bullets on what you'd build, how you'd sequence it, how you'd staff it, what it costs
The length questionIt gets real long, 20+ pages. But start with a summary above the fold so people can grasp it in 2 minutes. The deep dive is for YOUR confidence and your triad (eng + design).
Why you write itNot to convince people. To do your homework. To be confident in your own decisions. To catch bad ideas before they waste resources. Share it so disagreement lands on specific points, not gut feel.
Playbook

The PM Resilience Equation

  • Sticking with something long enough to finish it is harder than finding the right thing
  • Make a bet. You know there's a chance it won't work. Do it anyway
  • Ownership doesn't capture the risk. "Making a bet" does
  • Your energy and optimism keep people engaged over long timelines
  • The phrase that matters: "Let me take that on. I'll just do it"
On impactEveryone says "drive impact." But they never say how. Impact comes from shipping, getting reps, and finishing things, not from strategy alone.
Contrarian

What Most PMs Get Wrong

✗Great PMs are strategists firstINSTEAD →✓ Strategy is 5% of the work. Shipping, finishing, and follow-up are 95%. The PM who ships more stuff wins.
✗You need communication and collab skillsINSTEAD →✓ Those are table stakes. What matters is willingness to do hard unglamorous work. Sales calls. Support tickets. Copy writing.
✗Being "data-driven" makes you a great PMINSTEAD →✓ Data-driven is a red flag. Great PMs use intuition, data, and stubbornness to stay with something long enough to see it work.
✗Simplification is a personality traitINSTEAD →✓ It's a learned skill. Read your work aloud. Strip unnecessary words. Ask "what am I really trying to say?" Do reps.
Based on Maggie Crowley's episode on Lenny's Podcast. All ideas on this page are from the episode.Watch on YouTubeFollow @maggiecrowley on X
GO DEEPER IN THE EPISODE
04:06 Three common traits among the best PMs09:33 Strategy is an important but small part of the job11:14 How to get better at simplification15:13 Ownership17:53 Examples of simplifying your work19:39 Maggie’s Slack support group21:37 Following up on your work23:23 PM time horizon26:31 Staying in your role vs. trying a new opportunity27:37 The importance of “carrying the water”28:56 Pros and cons of the PM job31:42 Advice on landing a PM role34:36 Step-by-step process for writing your product strategy39:55 Not every feature needs a strategy46:29 The value of working through the process48:09 Maggie’s one-pager doc54:16 Contrarian corner55:44 The worst product Maggie ever shipped58:33 Why being “data-driven” is a red flag1:01:10 Content creation1:14:27 Closing thoughts1:15:17 Lightning round
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