A meditation on the pursuit of corporate enlightenment

Greg Coticchia's twenty year journey of self-discovery and commercial market mastery has yielded powerful insights into the philosophy as well as the evolving practice of product management. Today, as LogicLibrary's CEO, he has put that understanding to work and created a business environment where product management has been an integral part of its culture from Day One.

What is the sound of one hand clapping? How does one manage people without having people to manage? How can one bridge the yin of sales with the yang of engineering? How does one learn to apply the tools one inherits instead of the tools one wants? And how does one promote a business philosophy so widely claimed, yet even more widely misunderstood?

To veteran startup specialist Greg Coticchia, whose most recent assignment has been as President and CEO of enterprise software maker LogicLibrary, threading his way through the seeming contradictions of technology commercialization and on to the path of product management carried him on a journey of more than 20 years. Along the way, he learned and grew from encounters with great mentors.

Embarking on the great journey

Coticchia's voyage began as newly-minted engineer, selling automation products for Cutler-Hammer/Eaton Corporation. But his career there ended in a contradiction. “I spent several years selling for them and I realized that I spent a whole lot more time talking to the engineers about what the product should have than I did selling what was in my bag. I was a decent sales person, but that was a fatal flaw – you've got to sell what you have,” he recalled.

“I decided that if that's what I wanted to do, I should figure out what it's called. And I found out that's called a ‘product manager.' If you wanted to define requirements and figure out how to position it and get it on brochures and into advertising, that's what the product management function is all about.”

So while still working as a salesman, Coticchia returned to school at night, earning his MBA from Pitt's School of Business. “My understanding, even back in the ‘80s, was that if you didn't have at least an MBA you couldn't get into product management,” he said. But the route was not an easy one. “There weren't a lot of people who would give me a chance to be a product manager because of my background in sales. It was a liability; it was a difficult transition.”

A new start

Coticchia's first product management position was with a once-promising, but now largely forgotten Pittsburgh startup, American Robot, which at the time produced industrial robots. “Then I went to work for the first software company in Pennsylvania to ever reach public status, Duquesne Systems. I was their first product manager,” he said.

“They produced software products for mainframes. And one of the reasons I went to work there is that American Robot had decided to change itself into a services company and sold off all its robotics products. I wanted to be a product manager,” he said. And being a product manager without a product to manage was just not fulfilling. Eventually, though, following a period of spectacular growth, Duquesne Systems morphed into Legent Corporation and later became part of the giant Computer Associates.

Coticchia's tour with Legent was followed by a stint at Axent, an Internet security company, now part of Symantec. But his appetite for startups had been whetted. And others soon followed. Five-year old LogicLibrary, with its 40 employees, is his seventh.

Meeting the Buddha

While at Axent, Coticchia encountered one of his first great mentors, an older and highly accomplished man, widely revered in the business world. “John Thompson is one of the world's greatest CEOs, a man larger than life,” he said. “He was CEO of Symantec. When he bought Axent, and wanted to get involved in selling to enterprises, he sat down with me and he said ‘Greg, I don't know what you do' – meaning product management – ‘but I know that I need it.'”

“Unfortunately for guys his age, or those who have been around in other systems, they haven't seen successful models of product management. So while I think product management has come a long way, particularly in the last ten years, it still has a looong way to go,” he observed. “There are people now attempting to create product management software, but that's only been happening during the last two or three years. So it's still very young.”

Learning to bend

It's also very flexible, and works different ways in different places. At LogicLibrary, unlike many other companies, product management took on a formal role right from the outset; typically in most companies, if it enters at all, it comes at a later stage. “There are a lot of one-product wonder software companies out there, so the company and its management team are also the product management team,” he said.

“It's only when a company matures – whether it's through acquisition of a second product or building of a second product – what I call the ‘second product dilemma' – do they understand that there are things that company management needs to take on which are not product oriented. The product stuff needs to be delegated. You need someone who has good business skills as well as the technology know-how to take on that ownership or product management,” he continued.

LogicLibrary practices what Coticchia preaches. “We're drinking our own Kool Aid; we believe in the process of product management and that has served us extremely well here, even though it's unusual to have a strong product management ethic at this early stage,” he said. “It speaks to the immaturity of the practice. It also speaks to cost and all kinds of other issues.” The company's sole full-time product manager – who carries the title V.P. Marketing – sits on its executive committee, in what is yet another departure from the traditional product management organization.

“Most product managers today are self-taught, home-grown, and still mentored. And a lot of people don't understand what product management is. It's broadly defined, or ill-defined in so many organizations,” Coticchia noted. “I have very strong opinions about what product management should be, and they are steeped in the traditional product manager at a consumer products business like a Procter and Gamble. Not every software high technology person believes that. I also believe that product management should be under the marketing function – not everybody believes that either. But that's my bent and that's what I do,” he said.

The inner search

“It's difficult to find somebody who has enough technical knowledge to gain the respect of developers or engineers and at the same time is business savvy enough to gain the respect and trust and understanding of how to work with sales people,” he said. “I once had a boss who used to say that product management is where we put our failed engineers and our failed sales people that we still like but don't know what to do with. And inside startups, that's really where these people come from.”

Notwithstanding Coticchia's current position as LogicLibrary's top executive, in his heart, he remains a product manager. “I look at LogicLibrary as a product and I'm the product manager – it's a company versus a product. But it's the same issues. The product manager is the CEO of the product – he owns the health of the product. I'm the CEO of this company, I make sales calls, but I don't have any accounts, or regions, and somebody else builds the product. But I'm responsible for the numbers. It's the same thing with product managers.

“I'm very passionate about this area and I feel strongly about it. If I had nothing else to do and somebody hired me as a product manager, I'd still do that job. It's a fun job. Every day is exciting. You learn a lot about who you are from doing this job. It puts up the mirror because it tests you. It tests you in the same ways as if you were actually an entrepreneur running your own business. So it's extremely challenging. For those who enjoy that, and really want to learn more about themselves and also want to contribute, it's a fantastic opportunity.”

Peter Longini is a Managing Editor for the Pittsburgh Product Strategy Network. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it