I have been a product manager for 5 years. That is not too long ago, which means that the early-day experience is still fresh in my mind. Yet, it is long enough for me to form a perspective on what I would do differently if I were to start it all over again.
A little bit about myself
I spent my foundational years diving headfirst into product incubation. My focus was to identify use cases and run proof-of-concept projects for in-house technology, mostly in the field of video and conversational Artificial Intelligence.
After having a taste of product incubation in the B2B space, I decided to work on a consumer product I could identify with. That is how I ended up working on the user experience of a mobile payment app.
After mobile payment, I was the first data product manager in the financial services arm of my company. I was tasked with establishing the data ingestion service and building data marts in order to answer the organization’s need for standardized reporting metrics and targeted marketing.
At the time of writing, I am with Viki, an Asian drama and movie streaming platform, with a focus on users’ watching experience.
On the side, I worked on a start-up whose business was an event venue marketplace on a part-time basis. (If you are curious about whether working part-time on a start-up can work, let me know in the comment section).
What would I do differently if I were to start over?
I spent the first few years trying a wide range of product management: from B2B to B2C, from product incubation to building fast-growing products, from external facing to internal products, in a start-up of 5 people as well as big established companies.
My experience helped me appreciate how drastically different product management in different fields and at different product stages could be. This helped me discover what I truly want.
But is it the most efficient way to progress in the product management career? Probably not. If I could meet my younger self, here are 2 things I would tell her.
Start with the kind of products you are familiar with
Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of all time, coined the famous idea of investing within your circle of competence, i.e. invest in businesses you understand and are familiar with.
This piece of wisdom is very apt for product management as well. For someone who is new to the field, working on an existing product they are familiar with makes it easier to empathize with the users.
Many abstract concepts like the product’s value proposition, business models, and users’ pain points will become intuitive.
As a result, consumer products would be a good starting point for new product managers. Shop online all the time? Working on an e-commerce platform will be a good option. Are you an Asian drama fan? Why don’t you consider a video streaming platform (like Viki for example)?
Despite that, take note that a familiar product is not necessarily a consumer product. If you are a seasoned part-timer in restaurants or retail shops, you might find Point-of-sale or order management products within your circle of familiarity. In other words, what is familiar and relatable to you depends on your life and professional experience.
Why is it important?
A high degree of complexity and ambiguity are the two main stumbling blocks new product managers will encounter. Working on products you can understand the value of and problems you can resonate with will give you the anchor point required to navigate this journey.
That being said, whether an early-stage product team/start-up or an established product team is more suitable for new product managers depends on your learning objective.
It can be extremely frustrating and stressful to work on a new product that the founders are still experimenting with if you prefer clarity in direction or an established product framework to follow.
But if the thought of conquering the unknown gives you immense joy, then an early-stage team is suitable for you. For more insights into this topic, check out my post to find out more.
Find a team that can help you learn a proper product framework
I struggled for several years wondering how and where I can learn a proper framework for developing products. I have read The Lean Startup, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, and INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, and was in awe by how people elsewhere do products. But I found it hard to apply any of that to my work. As a junior product manager, I realized I was constrained by how my product organizations operated.
For example, I worked in product teams that were only expected to execute. It was often decided by the management what products, even features, to build, for which markets, revenue models, as well as go-to-market plans.
In that context, it was not common for product managers to pursue the question of “what problem are we solving?”. What was important is to expand that management’s direction into detailed product requirements and design, and have engineering teams deliver them, often with gigantic scope. As a result, the measure of impact was also unclear.
When I wanted to try something like The Lean Startup’s fail-fast principle, it was not in the organization’s DNA to support such a concept.
It took me a few years to be able to tell whether a product team will help me learn the right things.
For instance, I was delighted to learn the North Star framework at Viki, where product teams were driven by a North Star metric that captures the value proposition of the business. While it is still trial and error for the team at Viki to learn how to apply this framework effectively, I can participate in that learning process with the rest of my team. And it is finally something much closer to what I read in those books years ago.
How do you then find a team that can teach you a good product development framework?
This is a really hard question. After thinking about it long and hard, I decided to borrow Warren Buffett’s tenets of value investing as my guiding principles because why not. After all, choosing the right business to invest your money in for the long term is akin to choosing the right company to invest your time and energy in.
Is the product simple and understandable to you?
This question echoes the first section of this post. Choose a product whose value you can understand, and pain points you can relate to. If after extensive research and discussions with hiring managers, you cannot seem to understand what problems a product is trying to solve, it is probably better to avoid it.
Does this product team have a track record of creating products that are being used by users?
If this team has products under their belts that have a growing user base, or even better, an increasing pool of buyers, they have figured something out. The larger the base, the clearer the value proposition, and the more they have something valuable to teach you.
If the answer is no, and if you are a new product manager, my recommendation is to avoid it with one exception: you are absolutely passionate about the product vision that the founders have and would like to go through thick and thin with them to see it being realized.
Do note that in many tech companies, the product team focuses on a specific component of the product. In that case, you should adapt the above question to the product sub-system the team you are considering is working on.
For products that are internal tools used within the company, a growing user base might not be a relevant criterion. Instead, it is crucial to understand the track record in terms of operational efficiency improvement or cost-saving that this product team has delivered.
Does the company/product team have a good reputation?
Glassdoor is your best friend. Look the company up to get a sense of its reputation. Reach out to the people who work in the company or at least in the same field to find out more about the way they work.
Can they explain how they make product decisions to you in a logical manner?
What you are looking for is to understand how the team stays in touch with users and customers in order to constantly discover their pain points, business targets they carry, as well as how they iterate their products or features.
What if you don’t have the luxury to choose?
I get it. The economy is not always in the best shape. The product manager market is competitive. And sometimes we have to say yes to a job opportunity even though it does not tick all the boxes.
I would like to assure you that it is alright to take that opportunity and become a product manager anyway. If you are about to start a new product manager job, check out my guide to the first 90 days in a new product manager role.
Our career is not going to be a straight upward path. But keep these considerations at the back of your mind so that even if you have to take a detour, they will be the North Star steering you back on the right track eventually.
Closing words
There you have it. What would I do differently if I could do product management all over again?
In the next post, I will continue with this topic and zoom into specific skillsets new product managers should focus on.
Em cảm ơn chị nhiều vì những bài đăng hết sức bổ ích ạ. Mấy bài phía trên không hiểu sao không comment được nên phải tìm đến bài này để comment cảm ơn chị ạ hehe. Keep it up <3
“If you are curious about whether working part-time on a start-up can work, let me know in the comment section”
Chị chia sẽ thêm về ý này có được không ạ 😀
Hello Thế Nghĩa! Cảm ơn em đã để lại comment nhé!
Chị sẽ chia sẻ qua về ý này. Theo quan sát của chị thì work part-time cho 1 ý tưởng start-up rất ok ở thời gian đầu, nhất là khi founder vẫn cần 1 công việc chính để trang trải cuộc sống. Không phải ai cũng có thể bỏ việc chạy theo lý tưởng ngay được. Trong thời gian này, mục đính chính của founder là validate ý tưởng bằng những phương thức đơn giản và rẻ tiền nhất có thể để tìm được market fit. Ý tưởng chắc chắn sẽ thay đổi và phải sửa đi sửa lại nhiều lần. Rất hiếm khi được 1 phát ăn ngay nên có 1 công việc full-time khác làm phao an toàn vẫn rất quan trọng. Nhưng rồi dần dần nếu startup ngày 1 phát triển thì sẽ đến lúc founder phải đầu tư nhiều thời gian hơn, không thể làm part-time mãi được.