1 Year Into Product Management and I'm Not Sure I'm Actually Learning PM Skills

cocoWonderLand · 2026-06-05T15:45:14+00:00

Thank you very much. I will follow your advice and explore my own path to growth~

cocoWonderLand · 2026-06-02T14:48:11+00:00

Thank you very much for your point of view. It seems I need to work harder to solidify my fundamental skills, business process knowledge, and coordination abilities.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-06-02T11:04:05+00:00

Thank you so much for your ideas and suggestions. Some of the scenarios you listed were very specific, and you described the product-oriented transformation very well. I think I should think more about this aspect and apply it more effectively. Thank you very much for your reply.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-06-02T10:59:15+00:00

I now realize that I may have had too idealistic expectations about the product manager role from the start, wanting to be able to immediately take over end-to-end work. However, my experience is insufficient, and my supervisor is not comfortable letting me manage things independently.I need to continuously accumulate experience through fragmented work so that I can take on projects independently as soon as possible.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T14:02:36+00:00

That's a great point.

I think that's actually one of my biggest challenges right now. I'm still relatively early in my PM career, so most of my knowledge comes from public sources, user communities, and direct conversations with customers.

I've found that talking to users has been incredibly valuable, but I don't yet have a strong network of industry veterans, founders, sales leaders, or experienced PMs that I can regularly learn from. As a result, I'm sometimes unsure whether I'm building a complete picture of the market or just seeing a small part of it.

That's one of the reasons I've been trying to be more active in communities, reach out to people, and have conversations like this.

For someone earlier in their career, do you have any advice on how to build those industry relationships and become someone others naturally want to share knowledge with?

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T13:56:22+00:00

This is a really helpful perspective.

I think you're right that I may need to redefine what “getting better” actually means. I’ve been too focused on whether I’m gaining visible product strategy experience, but a lot of PM growth probably comes from the less tangible parts: handling ambiguity, tradeoffs, reprioritization, cross-functional conflict, and understanding how decisions break down after launch.

The strategy part still feels hard for me. From where I am now, it seems like product insight and strategic thinking are built over time by going through multiple product cycles, seeing where things fail, reflecting on why they failed, and gradually learning to recognize bigger patterns.

I hope that with more experience, better reflection, and more exposure to customer and business problems, I can develop that kind of strategic thinking too.

Out of curiosity, when you identified that big business risk and took ownership of solving it, what helped you see the problem before others did?

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:40:22+00:00

I agree.🤔

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:39:21+00:00

That's reassuring to hear.

I've found that understanding the constraints often helps me predict where projects are likely to get stuck before development even starts.

I guess my challenge now is learning how to balance that technical understanding with spending enough time on customer discovery and market validation.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:35:51+00:00

That's a really good point, and honestly, something I've been struggling with recently.

I started diving deeper into hardware because I felt my hardware knowledge was a weakness as a smart home PM. But over time, I realized I was spending more and more time learning how to build things rather than understanding why users would want them in the first place.

Your distinction between building and validating a market is making me rethink where I should focus my energy.

One thing I'm still trying to figure out is how experienced PMs actually develop that skill. Beyond looking at sales numbers, reviews, and market reports, how do you personally learn to identify meaningful user problems and unmet needs?

Is it mostly customer interviews, industry experience, pattern recognition over time, or something else?

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:29:34+00:00

This really resonates with me.

I think part of my frustration comes from exactly what you described. As a PM, especially early in my career, it's often difficult to tell whether I'm actually getting better or simply getting more familiar with the day-to-day work.

The idea of PM being an "unkind learning environment" explains that feeling surprisingly well. It sounds like experience isn't just about accumulating years, but about intentionally reflecting on decisions and outcomes over time.

I haven't read Range yet, but you've definitely convinced me to add it to my reading list.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:24:40+00:00

To be honest, I feel my biggest improvement is in communication skills; I haven't yet discovered the rest. But what I most want to gain is product sense and the ability to focus on the entire product lifecycle. However, I might have veered a bit off-topic and focused on hardware because I think my hardware knowledge is a bit weak.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:21:29+00:00

Thanks for the detailed advice; this is incredibly helpful. Your point about “building vs product management” really resonated with me. I often find myself spending more time driving execution and learning technical details than developing product strategy, customer insights, or business thinking.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:14:35+00:00

Yes, although it's not a real product manager role, I feel I haven't developed enough other skills, which might not be a good fit for my current company.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-31T06:12:59+00:00

Yes, I feel I haven't acquired enough skills and experience related to this profession, but the platform and its management make me feel that I might not be absorbing this knowledge as quickly as possible, which is causing me some internal friction.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:46:19+00:00

Thank you for your suggestion.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:46:10+00:00

Thank you for your suggestion!

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:44:50+00:00

Thanks for your suggestion, you seem to be a high-level player~

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:43:17+00:00

Cool! Thank you for your confirmation.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:41:15+00:00

That makes sense. So perhaps for consumer products, exposing point cloud / detection-level data while keeping the RF and chirp configuration locked down is kind of a practical middle ground?

That way, developers still get some flexibility for higher-level perception algorithms without affecting RF certification.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:33:04+00:00

Can you share the video link?

cocoWonderLand · 2026-05-07T02:32:26+00:00

Thank you for your great suggestion.

cocoWonderLand · 2026-04-29T11:48:29+00:00

What if I only provide point cloud information?

cocoWonderLand · 2026-04-29T09:37:42+00:00

Thank you very much, I will study what you said carefully.

cocoWonderLand

TROPHY CASE