Product Pro: Mastering Strategy, Interviews, and Avoiding Pitfalls
Product management isn't just about shipping features. It's about strategic thinking, effective communication, and navigating the complexities of different organizational structures. Today's insights delve into the art of leading with vision, as exemplified by Samuel Odio's turnaround of FiveStars, and offer practical strategies for excelling in behavioral interviews using the STAR framework. The difference between building for enterprises versus consumers is key, and recognizing when to avoid being 'the glue' is paramount to your own professional growth.
Further insights explore the nuances of product intuition. Having the ability to sense how your product is going to function and serve your audience is more important than you think. Developing sharp data-driven narratives is critical for defending your product decisions, especially when facing tough questions from senior stakeholders. Recognizing the myopia that can limit a company's vision, drawing parallels to Netflix's competition with Fortnite, underscores the importance of understanding the broader landscape and micro opportunities in macro events.
Finally, a critical aspect to consider is how to develop yourself by forming healthy relationships with your co-workers. Knowing how to become a great partner for your tech lead can create a positive environment that benefits everyone. This combined with being able to ramp up on a new industry quickly allows you to be an all-star PM.
Articles
Articles included in this digest.
Myopia that Kills Your Company
When people think of Netflix’s biggest competitors, they typically think of other video streaming platforms – Hulu, YouTube, and Prime Video. But the truth is, these platforms aren’t Netflix’s most threatening competitors R...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 12:52 AM
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How to be More Strategic: How Samuel Odio led FiveStars out of a slowdown and into a $317m acquisition
As product managers, the advice to be “more strategic” often eludes us, clouded in business school jargon like SWOT analysis and vague directives.
Source: Product Managers at Work | 03:01 PM
Decoding Behavioral Interviewing: Strategies for Success
I’ve been trying to figure out what makes a great behavioral interview response – and more deeply, to talk and tell a story about the things I’ve built and accomplished. When I was earlier in my career, this felt easier – I us...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 08:30 PM
How to Gain an Edge as a B2B PM
Building for enterprises is a unique rollercoaster compared to building for typical consumers.
Source: Product Managers at Work | 07:33 PM
Recognizing a bad manager, how to design your way out
As I’ve grown in my career journey, I’ve grown better at learning when to not misplace the cause to myself, and realize when my options are limited, so I can design past them. I’ve realized a manager can make a big difference in you...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 02:40 AM
Chasing highs that hurt your product
I've always been fascinated by the indicators of a healthy product organization and how they evolve as a company scales. Here I connect themes from working at product orgs of different sizes – from a Series B company backed by Founders Fund, to...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 08:51 PM
How to transform data points into airtight narratives
We’ve all been in a meeting where there’s a senior engineer or executive poking holes in the data and decision-making you’re presenting. If you’re not prepared, it can be uncomfortable. It’s easy to have responses ...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 07:29 PM
The risk of not being a technical PM
The common rhetoric is being technical makes you a better product manager – but this isn’t always true.
Source: Product Managers at Work | 07:01 PM
How to ramp up on a new industry 10x faster
I’ve always been curious about how people ramp up quickly on an industry and form a perspective in the midst ambiguity, especially with new technologies such as crypto or self-driving cars. They connect all these seemingly disparate datapoints,...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 11:26 PM
Useless vs. Useful Competitive Analysis
When I first joined Tesla as a product manager, I remember making a competitive analysis chart to understand the competitive landscape.
Source: Product Managers at Work | 12:52 AM
Don't Be The Glue
The common rhetoric is that product managers should act as the glue between engineering, design, and sales.
Source: Product Managers at Work | 12:37 AM
How to 10x your product intuition
I was at Facebook for five years, and managed products ranging from Instagram Video Chat to algorithms for Facebook News Feed.
Source: Product Managers at Work | 12:26 AM
How to think like a CEO to crush your startup PM interviews
As we grow our careers as PMs, sometimes we apply for roles with a clear scope and standardized interview processes (like Facebook RPM or a generalist PM in Uber), but at times we also apply for PM roles with ambiguous scope (first PM role at a start...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 07:34 PM
How to be a great product partner to your Tech Lead
I’m always thinking about how to be a better partner to my tech lead (TL) and how to distill my learning into a repeatable formula I can adapt to any situation. I remember once kicking off a meeting for a PRD I had just written with a new tech ...
Source: Product Managers at Work | 09:22 PM
How to see micro opportunities in macro events
As a PM, you'll get assignments such as: "Machine learning is getting exponentially better at predicting outcomes. How do you shape this into an opportunity for your team?"
Source: Product Managers at Work | 12:51 AM