Gal Josefsberg's slides at General Assembly on 08/22/2013 These are not my slides. I did not create, nor do I own any content herein.

1. How To Start And
Maintain A Successful
PM Career
GAL JOSEFSBERG

2. A Bit About Me
•Undergrad in MIS and Finance from Bryant
University (RI)
•MBA from UC Berkeley
•MBA from Columbia U.
•Part time blogger
•Joined Blue Pumpkin as SE (employee 6)
• Annoyed my way into a PM job
• Stayed for 7 years
•Model N for 5 years
• First director level position
•Baynote for 3 years
• First leadership position
•Tealeaf (IBM) for 1 year
• First big company
•Currently at SocialChorus as VP Products

3. The Product CEO
WHAT IS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT?

4. What Value Do You Add?
Your job is to provide a winning product which has:
•No Deal Killers
•Competitive Advantage
•No Systemic Issues
•A Detailed and Accurate Roadmap That Provides Information For Decision Making
•Sales Material
•Marketing Material
•Training and Enablement

5. Product Management – A Definition
The CEO of the product

6. Research
•Customers – What will increase the price of your product?
•Marketing – What will sell more product in the future?
•Sales – What will sell more product now?
•Engineering – What will save money in the future?
•Tech Support / Services – What will save money right now?
•Management – What will support the goals of the company?
•Market – What will keep you from becoming obsolete?

7. Ideate
•What’s the problem?
•What’s the solution?
•What’s the value of the solution?
•Who would pay for the solution?

8. Recruit
•How many resources will you need?
•What will be the return on investment?
•What are other opportunities to invest in?
•How long will this take?
•Any specific resources?
•What are the risks?
•How will you address the risks?

9. Define
•What is the deliverable?
•What will it deliver?
•How will it function?
•What won’t it do? (This is important!)
•When will it be delivered?
•What’s the tradeoff?
•Any risks to the plan?

10. Manage
•Unblock any issues
•Refine requirements
•Adjust to problems
•Communicate changing delivery dates

11. Launch
•Pricing
•Services
•Sales enablement
•Marketing enablement
•Services enablement

12. Sell
•Get out there!
•Talk to customers
•Talk to the market
•Talk to the people who didn’t buy your product
•EVANGELIZE!
•Which leads right back to….
Research….

13. Product Management – A Definition
The CEO of the product

14. The Good Old Days
Back In My Day…
•This whole cycle used to take years
•Clearly defined stages
You Kids Have It Hard…
•1 month or less, sometimes continuous
•All stages mixed together

15. The Modern
Renaissance Man or
Woman
WHO IS A PRODUCT MANAGER?

16. Who Is A Product Manager?
Engineer
Business
Person
Communicator

17. Engineer
•You need to understand the product
•You do NOT need a CS degree
•You need to understand code
•You do NOT need to write code
•Exception – Really technical products like big data or infrastructure

18. Business Person
•You need to understand how the product sells
•You do NOT need to sell the product
•You need to understand how to support sales
•You need to understand the competition
•You need to understand pricing
•You do NOT need an MBA
•Exception – Big enterprise software where you are part of the sales team
•Exception – Big companies with official management tracks

19. Communicator
•Inbound
• ENG
• Services
•Outbound
• Sales
• Marketing
• Customers
• Analysts
•Exception – Big consumer companies where you are a glorified project manager

20. Start Here
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?

21. Get Domain Expertise
•Start within your own company
•Start with your vendors
•Get domain knowledge on your own

22. Prove Your Skills
•Technical skills
• CS degree
• Github account
• Link to your latest app
•Business skills
• Side projects
• MBA
• Old start ups
•Communication
• Toastmasters
• Clubs
• Hobbies

23. Network
•Start on LinkedIn, everyone likes to feel wise
•Keep asking questions
• Rule of 27
•Shadow people
•Get an internship
•Start on the services side with a commitment to transfer to product

24. Keep Going
WHAT NOW?

25. Keep Current
•Your expertise is your career, so keep it up to date
•Read up
•Go to conferences
•Speak at conferences
•Take classes
•Expand your skill set

26. Choose Your Path Wisely
•Again, it’s all about domain expertise
•Once you start down a path as a PM, it’s hard to change
• B2C or B2B?
• Large or small?
• Technical or non technical?
• Social?
• Mobile?
• eCommerce?

27. Want to take the next step to becoming a Product Manager?
Check out GA’s 10 week Product Management course
that begins 9/3
email patrick@ga.co with questions
and check out our info session next week, Tuesday
8/27 @ 6:30pm