"Being an early PM means sitting in on every customer call -- the first PM should be deeply embedded in discovery"
Evidence from the Archive
Wiz
10-15 customer meetings per day as the first PM's core activity -- pure discovery at scale
Wiz (originally 'Beyond Networks') pivoted from network security to cloud security after Herzberg questioned what they were building
Raaz Herzberg joined Wiz as one of the first seven employees and first product manager, before the company had a product or even a working idea -- her willingness to voice confusion triggered the pivot to cloud security that propelled Wiz to $100M ARR faster than any SaaS company in history. Their core argument: The first PM should be a discovery machine embedded with customers. At Wiz, the first PM's job was not to write PRDs or manage sprints but to sit in 10-15 customer meetings per day, synthesize patterns, and have the courage to say 'I don't understand' -- which triggered the pivot that made Wiz the fastest-growing startup in history.
The evidence is specific: Wiz (originally 'Beyond Networks') pivoted from network security to cloud security after Herzberg questioned what they were building. Furthermore, 10-15 customer meetings per day as the first PM's core activity -- pure discovery at scale. Herzberg's 'I don't understand' moment: she thought she was the only one confused, but the founders later cited it as the catalyst for the pivot.
In Raaz Herzberg's own words: "At the time, we didn't really have a solid product yet. We would have 10 to 15 meetings every day with potential customers. I was hired as the first product manager. I sat in on those calls." (Describing the first PM role at a pre-product startup -- pure discovery.)