“Product Owner?” That’s Cute.

Somewhere along the winding road of Agile transformation and Silicon Valley job title inflation, we decided to start calling people Product Owners. Which, if you think about it for more than four seconds, is objectively hilarious.

Because let’s be real: nobody owns the product.

Not the Product Manager. Not the design lead, the scrum master, or even the CPO. The engineers might build the product. The customers might use it. The marketers might name it. But owning it?

It’s like calling the person in the middle seat “owner of the airplane.” Sure, they’ve got a boarding pass—but they’re just along for the ride, wedged between forces beyond their control, hoping for a smooth landing.

The Many Non-Owners of the Product

Let’s examine the extended family of your average tech product:

• Engineering thinks they own it because they’re the ones who actually make it function.

  
  

• Design thinks they own it because they created the part people can see and touch.

  
  

• Marketing thinks they own it because without them, nobody would know it exists.

  
  

• Sales thinks they own it because they’re the ones convincing people to pay for it.

  
  

• Support thinks they own it because they deal with the fallout when it breaks.

  
  

• Legal thinks they own it because you can’t call it that in Germany.

  
  

And then there’s the Product Owner, quietly updating JIRA tickets, juggling roadmaps, and doing their very best to keep the whole circus on schedule without actually being the ringleader, the animal trainer, or the one who sells the peanuts.

Ownership Without Authority

The true irony of being a “Product Owner” is that it combines maximum accountability with minimal control. You own the roadmap, but not the resources. You’re responsible for success, but not really empowered to say no to the 14th executive “must-have.” You’re expected to “represent the voice of the customer,” but good luck getting a customer in a room with you before Q4.

It’s the corporate equivalent of being told, “You’re in charge of this wedding. But you can’t pick the venue, set the date, choose the guest list, or touch the budget. Also, the couple might change halfway through.”

So Why Do We Keep Calling It That?

Because in the chaos of modern product development, titles like “Product Owner” offer a kind of psychic comfort. Like a toddler in a superhero costume, we feel slightly more powerful, slightly more in control—like maybe, just maybe, we really are the hero of this backlog.

But at CoinJar Insights, we think the more honest (and frankly, more useful) stance is to admit that none of us “owns” the product. What we can own—if we’re lucky—is perspective. Pattern recognition. Conviction about what matters to real people out in the world.

That’s why we keep beating the drum for Catalytic Customers™. Because when you don’t really own the product, you damn well better have something reliable to guide it. And “what the boss said after lunch” doesn’t count.

TL;DR

The next time someone asks if you’re the Product Owner, smile politely. Then ask if they’ve ever tried herding cats… while blindfolded… during a windstorm… with 12 stakeholders texting you conflicting priorities.

You may not own the product. But if you can keep it moving, you’re doing more than enough.

Want to talk with people who actually act like owners—of their needs, their use cases, and their feedback? We call them Catalytic Customers. Let’s talk. (No JIRA tickets required.)