Short excerpt from a YouTube video by Jason M. Lemkin advising that top VPs of Product and Chief Product Officers prioritize direct customer meetings immediately upon starting. The speaker says great product leaders typically spend their first two weeks meeting customers (aiming to talk to ~20 customers), intentionally avoiding internal meetings and PRD review to learn from customers first.
The majority of VPs of products that I interview, they don't answer. They don't say, meet customers. Every single great VP of Product, Chief Product Officer I've ever worked with in my entire career, you know what the first thing they do in the first two weeks? They like, leave me alone. I'm going to go talk to 20 customers. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. I'm going to go talk. They don't want to sit on meetings and look at PRDs and talk out of their navel on endless internal meetings. All the best ones, they say, they just leave. They literally say, leave me alone. I will see you in two weeks. I'm going to go meet with 20 customers. And that's what products should do.
