How to Transition to Product Management by TpT Product Managers
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Main takeaways: -How we discovered Product Management -The thought process behind deciding to switch -How we pursued the opportunity and any challenges we faced -How we like Product Management now after making the transition
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How to Transition to Product Management by TpT Product Managers
- 1. www.productschool.com How to Transition to Product Management by TpT Product Managers
- 2. FREE INVITE Join 23,000+ Product Managers on
- 3. COURSES Product Management Learn the skills you need to land a product manager job
- 4. COURSES Coding for Managers Build a website and gain the technical knowledge to lead software engineers
- 5. COURSES Data Analytics for Managers Learn the skills to understand web analytics, SQL and machine learning concepts
- 6. COURSES Digital Marketing for Managers Learn how to acquire more users and convert them into clients
- 7. COURSES Blockchain for Managers Learn how to trade cryptocurrencies and build products using the blockchain
- 8. Shaun Seo Rishin Banker Abhishek Pillai Charlotte Weiskittel TONIGHT’S SPEAKER
- 9. Our Stories: How to Transition to Product Management November 8, 2018 Teachers Pay Teachers Product Team
- 10. Shaun Seo Former Head of Product at Dresr. Co-founded Canary Calendar(TechStars alumnus; Acquired by GoDaddy). Ex-Google product manager.
- 11. Teachers Pay Teachers Marketplace for teachers to share and find teaching resources (e.g. lesson plans, worksheets, activities, quizzes etc) 5M Teachers used TpT in the last year 3M Resources are available on TpT 1B Resources have been downloaded
- 12. Why?
- 13. Rishin Banker Transitioned into product management 2 years ago at TpT. Previously worked at Providence Equity Partners (private equity associate) and Goldman Sachs (investment banking analyst). Penn State alum.
- 14. Background
- 15. ??? ● Steeper learning curve ● More direct impact ● Chiller dress code StartupsFinance
- 16. Getting Into Product Management From Finance to Startups From BD to PM Q4’14 Q1’15 Q2’15 Q3’15 Q3’16 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Identify Interests Collect Data Selectively Interview Crush It! Transition Roles Harder! Easier
- 17. Step 1: Identify Interests What type of place? Big Startup Medium Startup Small Startup Business School Venture Capital What industry? K-12 Ed Tech Lifelong Learning Wearable Tech Crowdfunding Productivity What type of role? Business Operations Business Development Financial Analyst Data Scientist Product Manager
- 18. Step 2: Collect Data Getting Organized..
- 19. Step 2: Collect Data Shamelessly Asking for Intros..
- 20. What type of place? Big Startup Medium Startup Small Startup Business School Venture Capital What industry? K-12 Ed Tech Lifelong Learning Wearable Tech Crowdfunding Productivity What type of role? Business Operations Business Development Financial Analyst Data Scientist Product Manager Step 3: Selectively Interview
- 21. Step 4: Crush It!
- 22. Step 5: Transition Roles Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Identify Interests Collect Data Selectively Interview Crush It! Transition Roles Following a familiar process...
- 23. Step 5: Transition Roles Way easier this time! Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Identify Interests Collect Data Selectively Interview Crush It! Transition Roles Observe everyone around you! Get advice from your peers! Ask for a “starter” project!
- 24. Abhishek Pillai Ex-Groupon and The Flatiron School software engineer. Joined TpT as a Tech Lead and currently transitioning into product management. UIUC alum.
- 30. Grabbing opportunities to learn ● Sitting in on user interviews ● Participating in design sprints ● Providing input on product requirements ● Going to TpT-specific conferences ● Working with functions outside of your department ● Interviewing PMs ● Asking questions from everyone involved in the product process
- 32. The Transition ● Stepping away from code ● Context switching ● Maker and Manager’s Schedules ● Writing a lot more ● Knowing my strengths and growth areas ● PM Pairing
- 35. Charlotte Weiskittel Former Sr. Director of Product Management at DonorsChoose.org. Transitioned to product management from marketing. Princeton alum.
- 39. Assistant to the CEO
- 43. Director of Online Marketing, Program Expansion
- 44. Product
- 45. Assistant to the CEO Project Manager, Marketing Director of Online Marketing, Program Expansion Senior Director, Product Management !!
- 46. Challenges
- 48. 1:1:20
- 49. Strong opinions, loosely held
- 51. go to market attention to detail project management prioritization data analytics problems & solutions user research product thinking You can’t get the job without the experience, but you can get the experience without the job. -- Patty Azzarello
- 52. www.productschool.com Part-time Product Management, Coding, Data, Digital Marketing and Blockchain courses in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Austin, Boston, Boulder, Chicago, Denver, Orange County, Seattle, Bellevue, Toronto, London and Online
Editor's Notes
- Intro about TpT We’re a marketplace for teachers Founded by NYC public school teacher Paul Edelman who saw an opportunity when he realized many teachers were creating these incredible teaching resources for their classrooms. Look at the numbers.
- So why are we here today? Shaun gave a talk about a year ago in this same room (Product management in big company vs small). Many questions in the Q&A session were about how to make the transition. What to do, where to turn for help etc. Since we have many PMs who come from other backgrounds here at TpT we thought it’d be great to share our stories with you. That’s what today is really about. Sharing our stories and answering your questions. Rishin, Abhi and Charlotte will share their stories very briefly for about 10 minutes each. And then we can jump straight into Q&A.
- 10 min
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Getting closer to the problem space and the user that I cared about Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Getting closer to the problem space and the user that I cared about Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Getting closer to the problem space and the user that I cared about Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- Getting closer to the problem space and the user that I cared about Story: The Starter League & CourseResource Groupon Flatiron School Looking for PM roles TpT Wanted to join as PM but loved the opportunity Partnering with a PM who listens Deciding between TL and PM What I’m doing differently now than if I was going to stay as a TL Key Takeaways: Learn from others. Learn by reading and writing. Learn by doing. Marty Cagan - Inspired V2 Influencing (thru writing, data, design, etc) Having a team to support you
- I didn't have a major epiphany about product. In fact, I didn't really know what product management was until I started doing it ....accidentally. My journey to product was incremental, but incremental is kinda how I roll. In product and in life, I believe that incremental changes can lead to large impact
- I majored in psychology at Princeton. For my senior year thesis, I ran an fMRI study on memory and language and by the end of the year, I was totally burned out. I learned about a fellowship program which helped match up graduating students to public interest organizations for a year. That sounded great. I would do that for a year and then go to grad school.
- I applied to the program and interviewed with DonorsChoose.org, a non-profit in New York City DonorsChoose is a site where teachers post projects for the resources they need, and donors can give any amount to help fund those projects. After a project is funded, DonorsChoose orders the materials, every donor gets a thank-you letter from the teacher, photos from the classroom of the resources in action, and handwritten thank you notes from the students. I saw an an awesome mission, data visualizations that I hadn't seen on any other non-profit websites, and reach & scale
- A few months later, I started as Assistant to the CEO
- As Assistant to the CEO, I never once had to get coffee, but I did get to work on some super cool projects, like our expansion from 12 states into a national organization serving every public school in America. I learned about go to market, scaling, and after a couple notable mistakes, attention to detail. When my fellowship year was up, I didn't want to go anywhere, especially not back to school and labs and solitary work.
- I was asked to become a project manager on the marketing team. Over 9 months I learned how to project manage and execute
- In some of the projects I was doing, I needed to pull data, so rather than putting in a request and waiting for the results, I would often sit with our patient business analyst who was pulling these numbers and see how he did it. It was through watching him that I learned joys of joins and how to write my own SQLs to pull the data I needed to make decisions. In 2009, a new team was being formed around the teacher experience and I was excited to join. A colleague would be responsible for bringing teachers to our website, and I would be responsible for their experience once they were on our site.
- I had the catchy, very non-product title of Director of Online Marketing, Program Expansion.
- But the role was essentially a PM. And I loved it. I collaborated with the designer and engineers to build awesome products that helped teachers get resources for their classrooms.
- Two years later, in 2011, the Program Expansion team was split up and folded into other teams and I joined the Technology & User Experience team with my first shiny product title.
- It wasn't without its challenges.
- I was the sole PM, while I was doing similar work previously, I didn't have colleagues to learn from. I learned by reading blogs, attending meetups of varying success, and messing up.
- I was not only the sole PM, but I was spread too thin. The ideal ratio is 1 PM to 1 designer to 5 or so engineers. I was 1:1:20, and so I spent a lot of time in the delivery cycle and less time in the discovery cycle.
- Some of our exec team loved product and wanted to be heavily involved. Product is fun! I was still finding my footing as a PM and didn't yet have the confidence in my convictions. I was all "loosely held" and no "strong opinions." As a PM, this is a disservice to your users, even when you're starting out.
- I joined TpT in 2015 and have loved learning from other PMs, improving my product skills, and yes, still messing up.
- Transitioning to product was an incremental journey for me, and quite honestly, not intentional, as you heard from Abhi and Rishin. But it happened because I was able to acquire so many product skills in non-product roles. I identified gaps and filled them. There's ways to get on the job experience, even if you're not in that job yet.