As many of the product management skillsets are honed on the job, one of the most common questions I came across is: Where is the best place to learn how to build a product?
Some of my friends are strong believers of the “just do it” attitude: starting a company or joining an early-stage start-up is the best way to learn. Some, on the other hand, favour joining established product companies to learn the best practices.
Having dabbled in tech start-ups that were in the midst of serious soul-searching and companies that have proven product track records, I had a taste of both worlds.
Each type has its fair share of learning opportunities and traps. What makes either one a good learning environment depends on the following factors.
1. Which growth stage of a product do you want to experience?
At different growth stages, the product manager’s responsibilities and skillsets required are different.
A company/team in the early stage focuses on defining a sound business model, i.e. defining what value they offer the market and what they get in return.
As a result, they might still be running experiments to validate and fine-tune it. It is worth taking note that if no customer has paid for the product, its value has not been proven.
For established products, there is a clear business model of value exchange between the company and the market, which is often indicated by a regular revenue stream (not necessarily profit).
What this means for product managers:
If you want to learn how to make money out of a product from square one, join an early-stage team that is still figuring out their business model in order to experience first-hand the struggle in all its glory.
If you want to see how a company ramps up market acquisition and how a product evolves to respond to growing demands, joining an establish team, especially a fast-growing one, will be beneficial.
2. How much uncertainties can you stomach?
The risk of joining an early-stage team is that they might fail to find a suitable business model. The funding might run out. The team members might get into conflicts that cannot be resolved.
This means possible team disbandment and/or lack of income security, not to mention the emotional losses for everyone involved.
In case anyone wonders if there is anything other than the learning experience that they can get out of this, the answer is stock option.
Most early-stage companies give you a small percentage of the company ownership to as a reward for taking risk.
If they can go on to raise more funds and/or have an initial public offering, the monetary gain for the original employees is significant.
On the contrary, an established team has better clarity on its direction. The funding is more secure. And there is more or less a process in place to operate smoothly.
What this means for product managers:
If the thought of launching your own start-up crosses your mind, experiencing all the uncertainties associated with an early-stage business is a sine qua non of the learning process.
Of course, if you think this level of risk is not your cup of tea, do not join one and give yourself an insurmountable amount of stress, which is counter-productive to your learning.
3. Do you want to go broad or go deep?
In an early-stage team, you will probably know all the people working on the product (designers, engineers, sales people, etc) by name, and have a hand in almost every aspect of the product.
In an established team, there are multiple supporting teams: sales, marketing, operations, customer service, engineering, design, compliance, etc. You might even have many different product teams focusing on individual functions of a product.
Think Grab, an online ride hailing platform that matches drivers with riders. From outside looking in, Grab is a product.
But internally, there can be many product teams focusing on individual functions that make up Grab such as search, routing, chat team, etc. In this case, your scope of work is very specific to that function.
What this means for product managers:
If you want to see the big picture and be involved in every aspect of the product decision making process, early-stage teams have a clear advantage. This is because a smaller team allows you to work cross functionally relatively easily.
On the flip side, an established company with strong brand names can attract many talents with extensive experience. Though your scope of work may be specific to a product function, you get to learn from and network with the best in the field.
4. So what’s the verdict?
If you live for excitement, I will recommend early-stage start-ups. The experience is like no other.
But if like me, you are a salaryman who wants the best of both worlds, I believe it is possible to experience both, at the same time.
The salaryman’s dilemma
One option is to join a corporate venture where you can work in an early-stage team funded by a big company, provided that this team is not bogged down by the bigger organisation’s machine bureaucracy. Such teams are few and far between.
The other option is to create “early-stage” learning opportunities for yourself.
Many of the activities in the infancy stage of a product can be done by one person.
- Keep a list of interesting problem statements gathered from your daily life
- Practice creating a business model canvas for a problem statement
- Decide what kind of micro-experiments you can run to validate assumptions and imagine what you will do with the data
- The extra mile: run those micro-experiments and see where they get you
Regularly doing the first three steps (which cost nothing) probably will set you apart from most product managers out there.
If you guys are interested in understanding more about how to create and make use of “early-stage product” learning opportunities, leave your questions in the comment section below.
