Building a Product Organization in an Open Source or Development Environment

Today’s episode is with Nate Stewart, CPO of Cockroach Labs, the creator of database product CockroachDB.

In today’s conversation, we cover his essential advice for building a highly-technical product. He sketches out how the Cockroach team decided on the specific use case for its database product. Nate explains the steps the team took to reach conviction on their go-forward plan — which meant saying no to a lot of customers who didn’t align with the product roadmap. Nate dives into the tactical ways to avoid taking on too many customer commitments, which he calls tech debt for product teams.

Next, Nate dives into his advice for approaching design partnerships, especially when handling more conservative enterprise clients. He explains the different types of design partners, and why you should have all of those represented in the early days of your startup.

Finally, we wrap up with his advice for other product leaders, including how to create a rock-solid partnership with a CEO as the first head of product, and how he solicits honest feedback across the executive team.

You can follow Nate on Twitter at @Nate_Stewart

You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/firstround and twitter.com/brettberson