2. Josh - Senior Product Manager @ Consensys

Welcome to product3 - where web3 product builders share their stories and insights!

Meet Josh - ss a former engineer turned product leader, Josh has been crafting customer success experiences at Consensys across multiple products. Having worked alongside him, I've witnessed his unique ability to bridge technical complexity with user needs, consistently delivering solutions that make Web3 more accessible. 

In less than 500 words, he shares:

• Some of his challenges and how he tackled them

• How is product management different in web3

• How do web3 specifics factor into product strategy and decision-making

What are some unique challenges you have faced, and how did you tackle them?

Honestly, a majority of the challenges I've encountered working in web3 has been from the sort of aftermath we see from poorly designed and/or confusing product experiences for users across the ecosystem. Given my background in the Customer Success domain I’ve spent most of my time working on products aimed around elevating or enhancing an existing user experience, so I often found myself needing to unpack an extra layer to a sort of "typical" product design approach. For example, how do we make a better, more specific block explorer that strips away all the erroneous information that, let's be honest, most users don't need? Which sounds like a simple premise at first, but once you start peeling away the layers needed to execute that well, it gets pretty gnarly. However, the best way we found around these unique challenges was, as it almost always is, the most straightforward approach - just talk to the intended users of your product as soon as possible and build your solution around what they need, not what you think they need. What that meant in practice, going back to the block explorer example, was adopting a lean approach to design and implementation and constantly putting designs or frameworks in front of a wide audience to hammer your product with feedback and criticism, sort of like chiseling out a statue from a big hunk of marble. Eventually, ideally, you end up with something simple and streamlined that excels at solving the specific problem you set out to resolve.

How is product management different in web3 compared to web2 based on your experience?

I feel like I’m cheating a bit answering this question, as I came from more of a research background than web2 product management when I entered the web3 ecosystem. However, I think I can talk to certain aspects of product management in web3 that feel fairly intrinsic to the ecosystem that you wouldn’t have in web2. I think one of the biggest things that immediately popped out to me when I first entered web3 was just how involved the community was from the ground up. There is an unfathomable number of products that have started from nothing but a published paper thrown into the void of the internet to fully realized applications almost willed into existence by their community bases. This is not to detract from the hard work of the actual product teams, but it’s not something you find often in web2. I mean outside of Excel, and gaming, you don’t see that kind of day one fervor like you do in web3. The ugly side to this of course is the number of people in the ecosystem roaming from product to product in the hopes of hitting gold with a token drop.

How do considerations around governance, tokenomics, and community involvement factor into your product strategy and decision-making process?

For me personally, it can vary greatly depending on the actual vision of the product. I personally feel it’s better to understand your product strategy, as in what you’re making and why, and incorporate any necessary components around it rather than the other way around. Does your product really need a token or any sort of governance? All too often I think products fall into a trap in this ecosystem of tacking on unnecessary aspects to meet a perceived demand or some unspoken ecosystem expectations. That being said, when your product does require any of those things, you better approach them with care as they are difficult and delicate things to balance on top of just building the actual product.

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Have someone in mind who you’d like to see share their insights? Drop an email to gm@product3.io 

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