One exception that i'll say is that a lot of platform-y products where the developers are relatively closer to the target audience tend to do better without pro

One exception that i'll say is that a lot of platform-y products where the developers are relatively closer to the target audience tend to do better without product management. Not that it gets you out from some of the challenges I list elsewhere, but at least from a persona/use case perspective it's comparatively easy to grok why and how someone wants to use the tool if that "someone" is close to the person who is writing the code. On the flip side, anything with sophisticated non-technical business users or niche industries absolutely depends on having product management to rep the voice of the customer to R&D.