Table of Contents
- Why Product Management is a Visibility Game
- How Visibility & Impact Change Based on the Organization
- 🔹 Company Size: Startups vs. Mid-Sized vs. Large Corporations
- 1️⃣ Early-Stage Startups (Founder-Led, <50 Employees)
- Example:
- 2️⃣ Mid-Sized Companies (Scaling, 50-1000 Employees)
- Example:
- 3️⃣ Large Corporations (1000+ Employees)
- Example:
- 🔹 Industry & Domain: B2C vs. B2B vs. Platform Products
- 1️⃣ B2C (Consumer-Facing Products)
- Example:
- 2️⃣ B2B (Enterprise & SaaS)
- Example:
- 3️⃣ Platform & Infrastructure PMs
- Example:
- Practical Strategies: How to Be Seen & Deliver Impact
- Final Thought: “Be Seen” ≠ “Fake It”
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One of the hardest lessons in Product Management is that success comes in two forms, and they rarely align:
- Being a Good PM – Driving meaningful impact on the business and solving critical user problems.
- Being a Valuable PM – Ensuring that leadership and stakeholders perceive you as valuable.
In an ideal world, focusing on #1 should be enough. But in reality, #2 often determines your career trajectory more than actual impact. If no one sees the impact you’re making, does it even matter?
I’ve seen countless talented PMs struggle—not because they weren’t smart, but because they weren’t visible in the right ways. The ones who get ahead? They crack the code of being seen while still delivering real value.
Let’s explore how to do that—without losing your sanity or faking your way to the top.
Why Product Management is a Visibility Game
Unlike coding, where a machine or a skilled human can objectively assess the quality of your work, Product Management is contextual and nuanced.
- Impact isn’t immediate.
- Wins are shared across teams.
- You have to convince people that your work matters.
For PMs, being seen is part of the job—whether you like it or not. But how you gain visibility depends on the type of company you work for.
How Visibility & Impact Change Based on the Organization
Not all companies reward visibility the same way. Your strategy will depend on company size, domain, and growth stage.
🔹 Company Size: Startups vs. Mid-Sized vs. Large Corporations
1️⃣ Early-Stage Startups (Founder-Led, <50 Employees)
✅ What Works:
- Be an extension of the founder’s vision—make their life easier.
- Over-communicate progress to founders, engineers, and early customers.
- Own execution + strategic thinking—everyone wears multiple hats.
❌ What Doesn’t Work:
- Waiting for recognition. If you’re quiet, you’re invisible.
- Thinking long-term roadmaps matter—speed matters more than perfection.
Example:
You join a 20-person startup and identify a major gap in the onboarding process. Instead of waiting for permission, you design and launch a quick improvement within a week. The founder notices and praises your bias for action in the next all-hands meeting. Suddenly, you’re the go-to person for user experience improvements.
2️⃣ Mid-Sized Companies (Scaling, 50-1000 Employees)
✅ What Works:
- Stakeholder alignment is everything—build relationships across teams.
- Showcase your work via demo days, Slack updates, and internal blogs.
- Position yourself as the go-to problem solver, not just a feature launcher.
❌ What Doesn’t Work:
- Staying stuck in execution mode. You need to own the business impact.
- Assuming leadership will notice your contributions automatically.
Example:
Your team launches a new payment feature, but finance isn’t aware of the revenue impact. Instead of hoping someone notices, you create a one-page impact summary and present it at the company-wide meeting. Now leadership sees your team’s value, and you gain visibility beyond your immediate team.
3️⃣ Large Corporations (1000+ Employees)
✅ What Works:
- Narrative-building—connect your work to leadership’s priorities.
- Be seen as a cross-functional leader, not just a PM on one team.
- Own metrics that leadership cares about (revenue, efficiency, retention).
❌ What Doesn’t Work:
- Staying too focused on execution—PMs who don’t influence beyond their team get stuck.
- Assuming “doing great work” is enough. Perception matters just as much as reality.
Example:
You’ve improved internal search relevance by 30%, but leadership only sees the overall site engagement metrics. Instead of letting it go unnoticed, you create a success story highlighting the data and share it with VP-level leaders. As a result, your team is given more resources to scale the impact.
🔹 Industry & Domain: B2C vs. B2B vs. Platform Products
1️⃣ B2C (Consumer-Facing Products)
✅ What Works:
- Prioritize experiments and growth-driven features.
- Be the PM who deeply understands user behavior & data.
❌ What Doesn’t Work:
- Waiting for quarterly results—your impact should be measurable in weeks, not months.
Example:
Your team launches a new referral feature, but adoption is low. Instead of waiting for the next roadmap cycle, you run a quick A/B test and optimize the incentives. Within two weeks, conversion rates increase by 15%, and you present this win in the next all-hands.
2️⃣ B2B (Enterprise & SaaS)
✅ What Works:
- Build relationships with sales, support, and customer success teams.
- Be the internal voice of the customer—translate pain points into business wins.
❌ What Doesn’t Work:
- Ignoring the long sales cycles—a PM’s impact is measured over years, not weeks.
Example:
Sales keeps complaining that customers don’t understand your pricing model. You partner with sales leadership to co-develop a pricing explainer tool. Adoption increases, and leadership now sees you as someone who impacts revenue directly.
3️⃣ Platform & Infrastructure PMs
✅ What Works:
- Evangelize your product internally—write tech blogs, host knowledge-sharing sessions.
- Show impact in terms of cost savings, scalability, or developer efficiency.
❌ What Doesn’t Work:
- Expecting leadership to understand your work automatically—explain why it matters.
Example:
You lead a migration to a new API gateway, but the business impact isn’t clear. Instead of just delivering it, you quantify the cost savings and performance improvements and present them in a structured way to executives.
Practical Strategies: How to Be Seen & Deliver Impact
No matter where you work, you need both visibility & substance. Here’s how to balance both:
1️⃣ Own Your Narrative
- Frame your work in a way that resonates with leadership.
- Connect what you do to business KPIs that matter.
2️⃣ Build Cross-Functional Relationships
- A PM’s influence comes from stakeholder buy-in, not just execution.
- Identify key stakeholders and proactively engage them.
3️⃣ Create High-Visibility Artifacts
- Share your work through Slack updates, demos, internal blogs, or lunch & learns.
- “If a PM launches a feature and no one hears about it, did it even happen?”
4️⃣ Think in Terms of Systems, Not Just Features
- PMs who fix broken systems (not just ship features) become invaluable.
- Be the person who makes entire teams more effective.
Final Thought: “Be Seen” ≠ “Fake It”
The best PMs are seen because they solve real problems and communicate them effectively.
Ask yourself:
- Who are the key people I need to influence?
- What do they care about?
- How do I frame my work so it matters to them?
Master that, and you won’t just be a Good PM or a Valuable PM—you’ll be both.
