Executives and investors care about lagging business indicators like ARR and churn, not leading product indicators like user engagement. It is the PM's job to connect the dots and clearly articulate how improvements in product metrics will directly result in moving the high-level business needles.
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Platform value isn't developer efficiency. It's enabling developers to build features that solve end-customer problems and drive business outcomes like retention. The platform PM must connect their work across this two-step chain to secure investment.
Cascading OKRs through multiple layers (company to department to team to individual) often results in "OKR theater" where the connection to business impact is lost. Instead, an individual product manager's goals should be no more than one link away from a core business objective that leadership cares about.
Business viability is often siloed to executives or sales, but the product manager and their team ultimately pay the price for failure. PMs must own this risk, tracking metrics like the LTV/CAC ratio to ensure the product is not just loved by users but is also sustainable.
Product leaders often feel pressure to keep executive discussions confidential. However, effective leaders break this norm by immediately sharing and translating high-level business goals for their teams. This transparency empowers individual PMs to connect their daily work to what truly matters for the company's success.
It's not enough to improve engagement or NPS. A product manager's job is to understand and articulate how that metric connects to a financial outcome for the business. Whether it's growth, margin, or profitability, you must explain to leadership why your product goals matter to the bottom line.
Stakeholders will ask "so what?" if you only talk about developer efficiency. This is a weak argument that can get your funding cut. Instead, connect your platform's work directly to downstream business metrics like customer retention or product uptake that your developer-users are targeting.
It is a product manager's job to understand the company's financial goals. Instead of waiting for leadership to share this information, great PMs take ownership by actively seeking it out. This means building relationships with finance and other departments to understand the metrics that truly matter to the business.
To bridge the communication gap with leadership, reframe common product metrics into financial terms. Instead of reporting daily active users (DAU), calculate and present average revenue per daily active user (ARPA-DAU). Similarly, frame quality initiatives not as ticket reduction but as operating expense (OPEX) savings.
Product managers often fail to get ideas funded because they speak about user needs and features, while executives focus on business growth and strategic bets. To succeed, PMs must translate user value into financial impact and business outcomes, effectively speaking the language of leadership.
Creating products customers love is only half the battle. Product leaders must also demonstrate and clearly communicate the product's business impact. This ability to speak to financial outcomes is crucial for getting project approval and necessary budget.
