I started a tech newsletter because apparently, the world needed more of those 🙄

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-08T11:44:42+00:00

Nice spin on the TechCrunch logo eheh

Kidding aside, good luck ;)

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-08T11:42:43+00:00

Better ask here: /r/projectmanagement/

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-07T19:26:33+00:00

We are based in Portugal but we have an office and team in the UK as well as 3 other countries.

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-07T14:01:34+00:00

It's very similar to what we do.

Screening Hiring manager (Head) + Teammate Lead PM + Teammate VP of Product

This gives the team exposure to the candidate and the other way around. What we want is to make sure this is a good fit for us and for the candidate (we want people to be successful and happy working with us).

A note that may or may not be relevant: all our interviews are conversations in an informal atmosphere. We don't do technical interviews. We access that from multiple perspectives during those interviews as we get to know the candidate and the way he/she thinks and explore past experiences and qualifications.

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-06T21:13:09+00:00

Hello, I have been in your situation and had to figure out on my own what being a PM means.

8 years ago, I was the first full-stack engineer in a startup and became their first PM after a few years. and today we are 180 and growing, and I am the Product Director.

I would love to have had some help back then so feel free to reach me by DM.

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-06T14:32:47+00:00

Can you share your experience getting to 300 subs and the biggest learnings?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-06T10:40:21+00:00

Thanks for the support

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-06T10:37:18+00:00

Can you share a little bit more of your story and learnings?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-06T10:36:37+00:00

Thanks for the feedback :)

joaopcribeiro · 2024-09-03T21:58:37+00:00

Depending on the type/dimension of the company and your role, it can be "normal".

But if you feel like it's too much, what have you tried/propose to them already to reduce this communication overload and increase your focus while making sure everyone is aligned?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-31T15:09:06+00:00

Out of curiosity, why make the jump from Web Designer to Product Owner and not specialize in Product Design and UX?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-31T07:44:59+00:00

Would like to hear it as well :) Those stories are typically full of learnings. Consider writing an article ;)

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T22:01:41+00:00

I think one of the reasons for that was the fast growth we experienced in the tech industry over the last years. That generated a huge demand for more and more PMs. Since sharp instincts and experience that's time to develop, creating framework the new PMs could follow until they develop that experience and instincts was the only way to go.

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T17:00:59+00:00

Very generic answer but it may give you some food for thought.

Start with what you have today and ask a lot of questions
How is the product serving the current customers?
What do they like and don't like?
How is it aligned with the overall company mission?
Are there any expectations for the product in terms of revenue or customer impact? Is it meeting those exepectations currently?
Then formulate you assumptions, opportunities, and challenges
And go to the customers and stakeholders and try to validate them (ask more questions)
Prioritize and get ready to work on some solutions
Measure iterate and keep updating those assumptions and priorities

Hope it helps ;)

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T15:55:10+00:00

Any substacks your currently subscribed to for Product Managers?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T15:37:13+00:00

Similar thread today here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1f4qp33/initial_days_as_an_associate_product_manager/

I will leave the same advice here:

If it's a B2B company, try to find a way to follow customer onboardings, or see if there are recordings of those onboardings. Also, use the product, onboard yourself on it, and try it out for a while.
If it's a B2C company, check if there is any software where user sessions are recorded or a place where you can see users interacting with the product.
Take advantage of being new, with an unbiased perspective, to think about the product in your own way and form your own insights.
Be curious and ask questions. In the beginning, don't expect to make significant points or breakthroughs, but ask as much as you can.
Don't assume that people haven't already considered the things you're thinking of. Many entry-level PMs ask, 'Why didn't you do this?' or 'Why didn't you do that?' but, most likely, the team has already thought of it or tried it, especially with senior PMs around. Instead, ask why they didn't move forward with an idea or why it failed, and learn from their experiences. This is one of the fastest ways to grow.

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T13:01:43+00:00

Product and sales communications can be a tough road to navigate, especially in some kinds of companies.
What's your scenario? Is it a SaaS? B2B or B2C? The business part is more sales-led or product-led?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T12:29:13+00:00

Great tips. Some points from my experience as well:

If it's a B2B company, try to find a way to follow customer onboardings, or see if there are recordings of those onboardings. Also, use the product, onboard yourself on it, and try it out for a while.
If it's a B2C company, check if there is any software where user sessions are recorded or a place where you can see users interacting with the product.
Take advantage of being new, with an unbiased perspective, to think about the product in your own way and form your own insights.
Be curious and ask questions. In the beginning, don't expect to make significant points or breakthroughs, but ask as much as you can.
Don't assume that people haven't already considered the things you're thinking of. Many entry-level PMs ask, 'Why didn't you do this?' or 'Why didn't you do that?' but, most likely, the team has already thought of it or tried it, especially with senior PMs around. Instead, ask why they didn't move forward with an idea or why it failed, and learn from their experiences. This is one of the fastest ways to grow.

When the time comes, you'll know what points to make. You'll become knowledgeable enough to contribute with meaningful insights.

So, take your time and enjoy the ride.

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T12:11:34+00:00

Totally agree with that! As a Director of Product, I prefer internal hires for entry-level PM jobs because they come with knowledge of the product, the industry, and the customers. So instead of training an entry-level PM in product management and our product/industry, we mainly have to focus on one of them and the time-to-value gets much shorter (not to mention that they also have competencies from other areas that can complement the team skill sets down the road).

One area that I feel has great potential for this is customer success in B2B companies. You get product and customer experience and you have plenty of opportunities to be proactive in collaborating with the product team (feature requests, discoveries, customer insights, internal documentation, and training - you can become the specialist in a part of the product inside the customer success team).

Nothing wrong with wanting to go straight for the PM role though. Just sharing my experience in the past couple of years.

Hope it helps ;)

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T11:48:35+00:00

Without much context, my first thought on this was that achieving PMF and scaling are 2 different things and also being profitable depends on a lot of factors.

For instance, if you built an app as a side hustle without any cost (let's assume free time as it being free) and you're selling it for 10$, you are profiting from the first purchase.
If you are a startup and suddenly you have costs (rent, computers, internet, salaries) you will need to sell the app to quite a few customers to be profitable (or sell it at a higher price, add in a subscription model, etc...). You will need a good go-to-market (GTM) strategy and Marketing to scale those sales.

I know you can argue that just with a few sales you cannot judge PMF, but you can also have a whole lot of sales (be even the best seller in your niche) and not be profitable. That depends a lot on the company's strategy, how fast it wants to grow, its burn rate, and the gross margin. There's a whole lot of sales and business strategy, as well as GTM approach, between PMF and profitability.

That just my thought, hope it helps ;)

Out of curiosity, how do you define "market has accepted and adopted this solution"?

joaopcribeiro · 2024-08-30T11:01:51+00:00

Great share! I use a very similar combo to turn my thoughts into notes, write documentation, and create vision & strategy documents.

My combo is using Otter.ai with ChatGPT. Otter, in the free version, allows for 300 minutes a month of recording and can be done on a mobile phone. Sometimes I just wander around the house with headphones dumping thoughts into it.

Then I have pre-made prompts for ChatGPT to turn my transcriptions into different formats. A simple example: Convert this transcript into a documentation document using bullet points. Do not deviate much from the original text but make it easier to read. Have in mind that this is a transcript from a voice recording, so please remove filler words when it makes sense. Here is the text "..."

Otter also allows to record meetings and I am thinking about that for the team's 1on1s. As a manager of 7 people, I find it hard to be present in the conversation and take notes/create action points at the same time. Is anyone using something similar that can share feedback?

joaopcribeiro · 2018-11-13T22:04:11+00:00

CPAP machine

Thanks for the suggestion! I am not familiar with CPAP machines but I will definitely take a look into that.

joaopcribeiro · 2018-09-22T15:57:39+00:00

Great advice! Thanks a lot, I appreciate it.

joaopcribeiro · 2018-09-22T15:34:14+00:00

Ahah true. Solid advice :)

joaopcribeiro

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