Getting Buy-In from Leadership Without Losing Your Voice
How Early-Career PMs Can Align with Leadership and Stay True to Their Product Intuition
Why This Matters
As a new product manager at a startup, chances are you're working shoulder-to-shoulder with the founder, CEO, or some combination of the executive team. It’s an exciting, high-impact opportunity—but also, let’s be honest, a little terrifying. And occasionally... infuriating.
Founders tend to come equipped with oversized visions, strong opinions, and a deeply held belief that they are the most qualified person in the room (and sometimes, they are). Add in a dash of urgency and a health-dose of tunnel vision, and it's easy to feel like your carefully crafted product thinking is getting bulldozed.
So the question then presents itself — how do you earn trust, influence decisions, and manage to leverage your own product intuition without becoming a glorified task-taker? It’s tricky — but doable. After years of experience, here’s what I’ve learned about walking that tightrope:
Understand the Founder Mindset
Before you try to influence, try empathy. After all, this is how you would hope your founder, CEO (or any coworker for that matter), would approach a product conversation with you. Founders are usually:
Deeply invested — emotionally, financially, and existentially—in the product.
Moving fast — and expecting you to keep up without breaking a sweat.
Wearing twelve hats — meaning they’re juggling half-formed insights and conflicting priorities.
Biased toward action — which may feel allergic to thoughtful PM process.
They’re not trying to bulldoze you for fun (hopefully); they’re under pressure and trying to make things work, fast. Understanding the why behind their behavior helps you stay calm and strategic — rather than reactive — when things get spicy.
Build Credibility First
Early in your PM career, your influence doesn’t come from your title — it comes from outcomes. If you want a seat at the table, earn it by showing effectively and consistently:
Follow through. If you say you’ll own something, own it. Hit deadlines, communicate clearly, and deliver what you promised.
Win small, win fast. Ship quick wins that demonstrate impact. And back it all up with metrics — data is objective and talks louder than opinions.
Be transparent. If something’s off-track or there’s reason to pivot, flag it early and show up with a new plan.
You need to prove that you’re dependable, thoughtful, and outcome-driven. Founders want to know that you care at least half as much as they do. The product is their “baby” so to speak, and you have to show that you understand and internalize that.
Pick Your Battles (and Be Prepared)
Spoiler alert: you won’t win every disagreement—and you’re not supposed to. That’s not the game. Your job is to present a clear, compelling case for your ideas, and to do it in a way that builds alignment rather than defensiveness. You can do this by:
Knowing your “why.” Back up your POV with user insights, data, feedback, and clear tradeoffs. Opinions are subjective — evidence isn’t.
Bringing options. No one likes a problem-dumper, especially a founder juggling a myriad of issues at any given moment. Frame solutions and show different paths forward to show that you’re solutions-oriented, resourceful, resilient, and creative.
Speaking the language of the business. Talk growth, revenue, retention, speed. Tie your argument to the holy trinity of value:
Strategic value: Does this move us closer to the ultimate product vision?
Business value: Does this impact the bottom line?
User value: Does this actually help people?
Communicate Like a Strategic Partner
Don’t just pitch ideas. Frame them in terms of risk, impact, and tradeoffs. Founders aren’t always opposed to thoughtful input — they just don’t want to be bogged down by theory when they’re sprinting toward a goal.
Try this:
Instead of: “We should do usability testing.” Say: “A quick test here could save us from building something users won’t get.”
Instead of: “This isn’t how it works in big tech.” Say: “This approach might not scale down the line. Here’s a lightweight alternative we can try.”
You’re not just a PM—you’re a partner helping solve the same problems, just through a different lens.
Know When to Push—and When to Let Go
You won’t love every decision. You will ship things you don’t fully agree with. Welcome to startup life.
But here’s the deal: if you consistently bring thoughtful, user-first thinking to the table—and stay flexible without losing your core instincts—you’ll earn influence.
Over time, leadership will look to you not just for execution, but for judgment.
TL;DR
Empathize with the founder’s mindset before trying to change it.
Frame your input with clarity, context, and business alignment.
Earn trust through consistent, excellent execution—and let the data do (some of) the talking.
Be bold, but strategic. Speak up when it matters, and be chill when it doesn’t.
Your Turn
Have you ever had to push back—or back down—with a founder? What worked? What fell flat? Drop your thoughts in the comments or shoot me a message. I’d love to hear how other PMs are dancing this delicate dance.