Narrowing in on a market and finding the right customer. Building out the first version of the product. Teaching yourself how to bring it to market. T

8 Product Hurdles Every Founder Must Clear — This PM-Turned-Founder Shares His Playbooks

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2021-08-26 23:00:05

Narrowing in on a market and finding the right customer. Building out the first version of the product. Teaching yourself how to bring it to market. Trying not to get lost on the journey to product/market fit. Sticking to a consistent vision, even as you eye new markets and product ideas.

These are just a few of the challenges that pave the path of the PM-turned-founder. Ryan Glasgow knows it well. He started his career as the founding product manager at five different startups, including Vurb (later acquired by Snapchat) and Weebly (later acquired by Square). It was in these roles where he spotted a gap. Release cycles moved quickly, but getting high-quality research was a slog — from the struggle to find participants and the pain of getting ghosted in interviews, to waiting on an overtaxed in-house research team at larger companies and wishing he had one at smaller startups.

So in 2018, he left the life of a serial early-stage PM behind and set out to build the tool he’d always wanted. As the founder and CEO of Sprig (formerly UserLeap), Glasgow and his team have created an all-in-one product research platform that helps PMs, user researchers, and growth marketers launch microsurveys, test concepts, and conduct video interviews to uncover customer insights faster.