How to communicate the value of product work - Rich Mironov (CPO Coach)

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Mar 11, 2026

Rich Mironov, product leader and CPO coach who wrote Money Stories, shows why product teams must speak in revenue, retention, and ROI. He explains order-of-magnitude estimates, tagging roadmaps with revenue ranges, and using money-framed narratives to handle sales pressure. He also walks through upsell and retention archetypes and how AI fits into financial storytelling.

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ADVICE

Make Sales Commit To Revenue When Asking For Roadmap Changes

Treat trade-offs as business decisions: if sales asks to delay a roadmap item, require them to commit to the revenue that justifies it.
Use the “or principle” — you can do one thing or the other, not both.

ADVICE

Teach PMs To Demand Revenue Evidence From Requests

Equip individual PMs to filter incoming requests by revenue impact by asking simple questions.
Ask how many customers asked, is it an upsell, and does sales have named prospects before adding to backlog.

INSIGHT

Survival Beats Long-Term Strategy In Runway Crisis

In startups with limited runway, prioritize short-term revenue that keeps the company alive while avoiding choices that destroy longer-term revenue engines.
Say no when a new ask threatens delivery of an executive-approved deal crucial for survival.

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Rich Mironov has spent decades watching product teams lose the room because they were speaking the wrong language. In his new book Money Stories, he makes the case that product managers need a second vocabulary: one built around revenue, retention, and return.

In this conversation, he walks through the core framework, why order-of-magnitude estimates beat false precision, how to build a roadmap that holds its ground against sales pressure, and what the AI moment has in common with the early days of mobile.

Chapters

02:03 — What are money stories, and why do executives need them?
03:59 — How accurate do you actually need to be? The case for order-of-magnitude thinking
05:52 — Using money stories as a sorting mechanism — and how to handle the "close this deal now" pressure
10:54 — Tagging roadmaps with revenue ranges and the "or principle"
15:58 — Does every PM need this, or just senior leaders?
21:46 — The two flavors of ROI: earning your keep vs. feature-level returns
26:57 — Why feature-level ROI almost never works — and why product leaders need to push back
30:33 — The story archetypes: upsell stories explained
38:02 — The retention/churn story archetype
41:32 — Why product people get this wrong: fear of commitment and the need to be understood
44:52 — How AI changes (and doesn't change) the money story framework
48:58 — How to build financial literacy as a product manager

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.