About
About Product Beautiful
Product Beautiful is a blog about Product Management and Marketing created by Paul Young. Product Beautiful readers are people who love products and services, can’t stand to leave a problem undiscovered, and appreciate products that are well thought out.
About the Author
I started Product Beautiful because in my career I have seen many examples of products and services that should never have gone to market. Products that were built because the CEO liked the idea, or a Development team redirected at the last minute to build a new feature because a large customer screamed loud enough. These tactical and emotional decisions can kill the potential of a company because they ignore the market.
Fortunately I have also been able to be a part of some great teams which have enabled me to hone the process of bringing products to market.
I completed my undergrad work at The University of Texas at Austin, and received a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film. I decided that I didn’t want to go to L.A. and make my career in film, so I self-taught programming and caught on with a local network service provider called NetSolve as an engineer, and later a Product Manager.
NetSolve was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2004. I worked in various Product Management and Marketing roles for Cisco’s security and network managed services for the next several years before leaving to build product management at a startup called NetStreams, working on network-based audio and video products for residential and business markets. After NetStreams, I ran product management for Dell’s Software-as-a-Service team, responsible for over half a billion dollars in yearly revenue.
In 2009, I started experimenting with a new business idea I called Leaf – a social productivity tool aimed at Product Managers to help them communicate roadmap items and requirements to stakeholders who are chronically misinformed. It was a lot of fun and I ultimately learned the hard way why people don’t start companies when they are working full time with a newborn baby in the house. I hold out hope for the idea to someday bear fruit. I was continuing to develop it when I had the opportunity to join a company I’ve known and respected for some time…
In 2010 I joined Pragmatic Marketing, the world leader in training for product management and marketing as a consultant and instructor. Today I travel the world teaching product managers how to bring more clarity and best practices to their role, and help companies transition from listening to the squeaky wheel to becoming market-facing.
When I’m not working, you can find me running, playing basketball, or going to a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse with my wonderful wife Mandy.
Contact Information
Personal: pt.young@gmail.com
Work: pyoung@pragmaticmarketing.com