The Blog of Sue Raisty

Sue Raisty

Sue Raisty

Born-again software engineer, former product management geek, adoptive mother of boys, trail runner, tinkerer, wannabe writer, soccer mom & compulsive researcher.

📍 Silicon Valley, California http://blog.sueraisty.com

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sinister Sales Engineer

Ah, the Sinister Sales Engineer. Many companies have one. Early in my career, when I was not even a "Senior" Product Manager yet, this guy scared the bejeezus out of me. Let's just say that this guy was from the Bronx and had an, ahem, "

Lessons I Learned from Co-Founding a Tech Startup

Once upon a time, when I was a wee lass (23 years old, to be precise), and not yet a product manager but a code warrior, I did that clichéd, hackneyed Silicon Valley stunt: co-founding a tech startup with three other dudes. We were all so young. The old guy

Quora: Is it fair for men & women to have different criteria for Y-Combinator, MIT & Caltech?

Summarized from a discussion I had in the comments on Quora [http://www.quora.com/How-could-Y-Combinator-be-more-female-friendly]. Original Question: How could Y Combinator be more female-friendly? This isn't so much about how YC treats women once they get in, but about ways to balance the gender ratio. The Discussion

Why Product Management is so misunderstood

I've encountered lots of software startups that want to start up a Product Management function, even though they don't really understand what the Product Management role is or its activities. (I guess that's why they ask for my help). I've learned this

Stuff Product Managers Should Do, But Don't (and vice versa)

Let's start off by adding some things to your to-do list.... Four Things you SHOULD do, but probably don't: 1. Understand the product financials. Make a little spreadsheet of how your product makes money. How many new customers do you need to get to $1M of

The Problem of Analysis Illiteracy Among Users

I’ve worked on several "Big Data" products over the years. I’ve always inspired myself and others (or at least attempted to inspire others) with goal of helping regular people gain true insight from the hoards of data that their organizations collect. Not just data, but real,

The Content Manager Product Pattern

Content Management is huge in enterprise software, and thus the Content Manager Pattern is one of the most important high-level Product Patterns. Content management is the primary function of most software described as a platform, server, or online service. It’s not just limited to the realm of official “Content

Product Patterns: What is Content?

In my posts about Product Patterns [https://blog.sueraisty.com/macro-product-patterns-enterprise-software/], I’ve mentioned the word “content” a lot. I’ve even mentioned a few high-level product patterns called the “Content Manager” and “Content Authoring Tool.” This is an important product pattern because basically every piece of software that touts

Product Patterns: The big ones you see over and over in Enterprise Software

Since I’ve become attuned toProduct Patterns [https://blog.sueraisty.com/product-patterns-everywhere/](buckets of software functionality that appear in product after product), I’ve noticed dozens of them. Some are big, top-level patterns. And some are really sub-patterns, that exist in the context of a larger pattern. I’m going

Product Patterns Everywhere

In my entire Product Management career, I’ve probably done hands-on, formal analysis of the functionality and usability of over 300 software products and online services (not including mobile apps). Why so many? Well, I am extremely good at competitive analysis. I had one client who hired me to analyze