Post-acquisition by a private equity firm, financial visibility for product and line managers is often deliberately reduced. Pricing decisions are centralized at the corporate level, removing autonomy and making it impossible for product managers to strategically influence this critical function.
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As a company grows, the founder's time is consumed by other duties, making them unable to conduct necessary research for informed pricing. This single point of failure stifles agility, as the organization defaults to the founder's outdated gut feelings instead of delegating.
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 marketers often struggle to prove direct ROI. By influencing pricing strategy, they can make a tangible and measurable impact on revenue and ARR. Pricing is a form of value communication—a core PMM competency—making it a natural area for them to lead and demonstrate their contribution to the bottom line.
A major organizational red flag is when the people who decide on pricing are different from those who decide feature priorities. This disconnect indicates a broken strategy loop where value creation and value capture are managed in separate, unaligned silos.
If a product manager cannot conduct pricing research or understand financial models, their role is reduced to managing a Jira backlog, not driving product strategy. This is a symptom of poor hiring, indicating the company has hired a "backlog administrator," not a strategic leader.
In an organization still running in project mode, the 'Product Manager' title is misleading. The role is often relegated to organizing work and scheduling tasks for engineering. A true product model requires empowering these roles with the mandate, skills, and market access to make strategic decisions.
A cited 2016 study from "Monetizing Innovation" reveals a critical flaw in corporate strategy: 80% of companies determine pricing based on internal costs or competitor analysis, rather than investing in research to understand the actual value delivered to customers.
Citing Marty Kagan, the podcast argues that when pricing decisions are reserved for executives or finance, it indicates the organization views product management as a delivery function, not a strategic one. This structure inevitably leads to a feature factory model.
The most critical skill gaps for product managers are not technical but relational and financial. The inability to make a compelling business case to diverse audiences and to move from a cost-only to a full profit-and-loss mindset are primary reasons for failure in the role.
Before attempting to influence pricing, product managers must first document the existing process: who conducts research, who creates the model, and who holds final authority. This map reveals the true power structure and identifies concrete opportunities for engagement.