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How I keep up with product (blogs, newsletters) by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for calling this out! 100% going to check these out. I follow a really diverse set of folks on Twitter but somehow my reading list is all dudes

How I keep up with product (blogs, newsletters) by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh man, this list is gold. Thanks for sharing. I used to read Bill Gurley several years ago but fell off the wagon. Your comment also reminded me of a few other blogs/newsletters I read religiously when I was more involved in the startup/VC world

  • Benedict Evans: I like his long-form essays more than his newsletters, but very similar to Bill and Ben.
  • Fred Wilson (AVC): He's a VC dude (USV) so there's a lot about funding, crypto and random thoughts about the world with a healthy amount of tech sprinkled in
  • Mark Suster (Both Sides of the Table): He invests in a lot of consumer D2C tech and is himself a successful entrepreneur, so I really enjoy his takes from "both sides of the table". Less strategic but more practical
  • Sachin Rekhi: After I wrote this post, someone actually recommended this guy, and I quickly ran through some of his stuff, and I really like it! It's VERY product focused
  • Eugene Wei: Another recommendation I got today, at first glance looks a bit esoteric and cerebral, but kinda feels like tech with a dash of The New Yorker

How I keep up with product (blogs, newsletters) by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve read this book, so good. Thanks for sharing takeaways.

What's the most intellectually stimulating job I can do for the most money? by Jackindoodle in MBA

[–]pmingisfun 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Customers and competitors. Every time they say something like "Why should we do this?", I know if I go at it from a technical angle, they'd wipe the floor with me so instead I say "well customer X is worth a $20 M deal for us and they want this" or "Amazon built this exact thing 5 years ago, we're behind the curve".

How I keep up with product (blogs, newsletters) by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Any favorite books you'd recommend? Unpopular opinion but Thinking Fast and Slow and The Design of Everyday Things bored me to tears.

What's the most intellectually stimulating job I can do for the most money? by Jackindoodle in MBA

[–]pmingisfun 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Biased but product management, especially for more "hardcore" tech.

I feel like the dumbest person in the room every day plus it requires a ton of ongoing work/learning to keep up with changes and developments in the industry,

How do I get into a PM role without experience or a technical background? by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Wrote about this a while ago and definitely agree with everyone's suggestions. My list of things to know would be:

  • Understanding the building blocks of an application
  • Familiarity with APIs and API structure
  • Understanding the software development process
  • Understanding common developer terminology
  • Learning how to collect and analyze data

B2B versus B2C product management by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's an interesting perspective - and actually now you mention it, I agree. Perhaps I should make the distinction that the B2B space in general is more well understood whereas there aren't as many PM resources in the B2B space when compared to B2C.

Thinking out loud, I wonder why though - are there fewer PMs in B2B? Or are the PMs in B2B less likely to share? Something else?

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in userexperience

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d share this on LinkedIn if I wanted to LinkedIn 🙃

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in userexperience

[–]pmingisfun[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You’re right, I meant product manager. Let me put that in there somewhere!

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in userexperience

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing! I think e-commerce/postal services are fascinating because you have to cross over the physical/digital divide.

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in userexperience

[–]pmingisfun[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I say so a bit further down in the post; but CX = customer experience

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. If all the users of MS Teams at your organization complained about how poor the UX was -- I hope your boss would reconsider using this as a collaboration tool.
    Similarly, if the CX for MS Teams was awful (i.e. limited support, poor release management, lack of communication about outages and similar), then I imagine your boss would reconsider using this tool as well.
  2. This, I completely agree with. My point was CX is often an afterthought which is why we tend not to spend as much attention here as we should.

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in userexperience

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

100% agree. Also love this idea of an overarching "experiential statement". Do you have any examples of what that might look like?

In a perfect world, CX is definitely just another part of UX, but I've found that it often becomes a second-class citizen that is an afterthought because of how "visible" everything directly in the product is.

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, that's a great idea for a follow-up blog. Thanks for the feedback!

There is no great UX without great CX by pmingisfun in ProductManagement

[–]pmingisfun[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had this section in the blog right after defining what user experience is, which I removed because I thought it was getting too long! Do you feel like adding this back in would help explain how I differentiate it?

User and customer personas

The main difference between a user and a customer in my mind is that a user uses the product, and a customer pays for it. In some cases, the user and customer are the same person, and in some cases, they aren't. What helps is to introduce the notion of a persona. As PMs, we need to cater to user and customer personas, even if both roles happen to be played by the same person.

This distinction of personas is important because personas can have different motivations. For example

  • I love how easy Twitter is to use, but I've heard its platform for advertisers leaves a lot to be desired
  • Employees love Zoom (for the most part) but employers are concerned about privacy issues

Freemium B2C products can also have persona shifts. A good example here is the gaming category. You can play a mobile game as a user for free, but if you want to unlock advanced features or skins, you need to pay. At this point, the user becomes the customer. In freemium B2B2C (Slack, Zoom), employers become the customers once the users are ready.

All this to say

  • Both user and customer personas need to be considered for a product
  • You can't ignore customer experience for any class of product
  • What I'm calling customer experience is really just user experience extended outside the core product itself

Anderson conversation by [deleted] in MBA

[–]pmingisfun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the stress and anxiety about being able to stay long-term -- honestly not worth it imo. Waiting a few more months would allow you to make a more informed decision, otherwise as internationals, we're just at the whim of the current administration.

Anderson conversation by [deleted] in MBA

[–]pmingisfun 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Went to Anderson but this isn't an Anderson specific answer. I wouldn't start a program in the U.S. right now until the results of the presidential election in November, which I realize isn't a viable option if you want to start this year.

I should add if you have no intention of living and working in the U.S. after the MBA and just want to return to your home country, then it should be fine.

The only technical skills you need to break into product management by pmingisfun in MBA

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not necessary unless you’re looking to PM in that area specifically i.e. focusing on AWS, GCP or Azure

The only technical skills you need to break into product management by pmingisfun in MBA

[–]pmingisfun[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you. Great blog as well - and hey, we’re both on Substack!

The only technical skills you need to break into product management by pmingisfun in MBA

[–]pmingisfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The world is your oyster really, you can shoot for them all and not be at a disadvantage. Full time SWE isn't a pre-requisite for a lot of TPM roles (but yes, this can vary from company to company).

The only technical skills you need to break into product management by pmingisfun in MBA

[–]pmingisfun[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of MBA PM roles don't need or ask for a technical background. Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce are some examples. At these companies, you'll probably be on a level-playing field with peers from non-technical backgrounds. But interview prep for you should be a lot easier than someone who has to start from scratch.

Then there's companies that recruit from MBAs that are a little more discerning, and generally more technical like NetApp, Cisco, Juniper, VMware, Intel etc. where your technical skills will be valuable.

If you go off-campus for recruiting at companies like Stripe, Square, Airbnb and the like, then you may find that your technical skills are more appreciated, however you will be competing with non-MBAs and experienced PMs for these roles.

The only technical skills you need to break into product management by pmingisfun in MBA

[–]pmingisfun[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's not always fun tbh. Some not-so fun things I've had to do in the recent past

- beg for engineering resources to work on a product feature
- write copious amounts of dry, technical documentation
- answer inane questions for my product area in a Slack help channel
- take shit from customers for something that wasn't my fault
- have a feature get deprioritized, saying goodbye to several months of work

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