What do most people think when they hear “product manager”? They think of a slick, MBA-type who can fast talk his or her way around a product. Or maybe they think of a technical guru who understands “geek speak” and can relate it to end users.

It’s interesting to note that other capacities in a business have a variety of well-defined words to tack on to their title to help others understand their function. For example, marketers have specialities they can claim like content, affiliate, search engine, social media, and more. Developers are either front end, back end, java, etc. But when you talk about a product manager, you only have “product.”

Product management is too vast an ocean to fit in small words like those of marketers and developers. Instead, you can think of product managers coming in 7 different “types”—similar to personality types, but a little more detailed and defined. One thing that is consistent across the 7 product manager types is: executives, team members, and others expect a product manager to function at the intersection of technology, UX, and business.

The real job of a product manager is:

Identifying and building a product that end users find valuable and usable while making sure it’s feasible for the company to produce.

It’s not only an enterprise issue to find the right product manager type to fit your company culture and the product team. It affects startups even more, however, because your personnel need to be the right ones from the start.

The following 7 product manager types can help you discover the “right” one to fit your company’s needs. And if you are a new product manager wondering where you fit in? One of these types will speak to you directly.

Product management as a profession has grown exponentially over the last decade. With the above 7 different types, you can determine which type your company needs or what skills you need to become a successful product manager. These types exist at enterprise level technology companies while startups need a specific type of manager depending on the stage they’re in. And for new product managers, one “type” is not better than another. You simply need to align your skills and passion with the right role.

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