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Product Management Insights

Welcome to our Product Newsletter, a biweekly email highlighting top discussions, and learning resources for product managers.

What We Will Cover In This Edition:-

Top Discussions: 

1)  Do companies hire PMs with 2-3 years of experience?

2) Tips on number of people that should be interviewed for customer research

3) How to find verticals (industry) for your product?

Top Learning Resources:

1. A three-step framework for solving problems

2. A leader’s guide to implementing OKRs

3. How to become a peak Product Manager

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Top Discussions

Question 1Do companies hire PMs with 2-3 years of experience?

I’m coming up on 2 YoE at my current company as a PM and I’m thinking about applying to other places over the next few months.

The problem is most “entry-level” PM jobs I see on LinkedIn are 5+ years of experience or 0 years of experience (APM/MBA). I don’t think I have a chance at the 5 YoE jobs and I have no desire to run the APM gauntlet again.

Are there PM jobs at big companies looking for people with 2-3 years of PM experience? What would you expect from a PM with this level of experience if you were hiring one?

– Amy Walker

Discussion

A] I would apply for the companies asking for 5 years, especially if you have other experience prior to PM (i.e. not fresh out of school). Tiny startups are less likely to hire IMO because they’ll be looking for leaders who can function with a lot of autonomy and set product direction. I would target unicorns and midsize companies (MAANG is probably worth a shot but it’s like winning the lottery).

– Marco Silva

B] Unfortunately, I got the job fresh out of my Master’s program. Is FAANG really like winning the lottery? I was hoping it would get better once you have experience. I was able to get interviews at the top FAANGs/Unicorns and several F500s for APM positions when I was in school and I thought it would get easier from there given how ridiculously competitive the interviews were for APM.

– Jesus Rojas

C] I’ve interviewed at a couple of FAANG companies and have 4 years of experience and an MS. I didn’t even get a call from recruiters until I passed the 3-year mark on my resume (plus the MS). But everyone’s experience is different.

– Naomin Wosu

D] At lower YOE, it’s more likely you will have to apply, rather than they find you. As a result, you should just apply everywhere and find out. The bar may vary more in startups, but you can only find out after applying.

When I last recruited, 3 years from a bachelor’s and ~1 year as a PM, I was landing interviews at companies of all sizes mostly requiring more than 3 YOE. The openings are definitely skewed to more YOE, but things like applying through a referral help a lot.

– Karan Trivedi

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Question 2)  Tips on number of people that should be interviewed for customer research

Do you know of any frameworks, standards, statistical models or rules of thumb that help prescribe the number of people that should be interviewed for customer research?

– Heather Kurtz

Discussion

A] Do you know of any frameworks, standards, statistical models or rules of thumb that help prescribe the number of people that should be interviewed for customer research?

My advice to you is to get on LinkedIn look through your network and one degree of separation and see if you can get 30 minutes with somebody who actually does customer research or leads a customer research group and learn about how to participate with them and what’s important from the seat of product management.

The details you are asking for here are usually structured by the researcher you partnered with. If your company doesn’t value customer research enough to provide access to customer research in-house or through contractors and you have to do this yourself best of luck to you.

There are some tricks for qualitative research that are non-generalizable if you want those to reach out with a direct message.

– Michael Yoffe

B] @MichaelYoffe, I’m doing this as part of a three-person startup designing a physical product with a simple user interface. So looking for a starting point as to keywords to google and beginner resources and books to read.

It reminds me of looking for a function in Excel you know it can do, but having no clue what it’s called so I can’t google it!

– Heather Kurtz

C] For physical products, it’s more important to get the right set of participants for your intended purposes.

5/95 percentile for ergonomics: can it be used by the majority of the population? For instance, if it is a wearable, are you testing with the 5-95% of the wrist circumstances of the target population? Look up human factors/scale design references. Some of the data is government-issued and available in public.

Literacy: can it be used by users with different technical literacy? What about different languages?

Accessibility/inclusion: can it be used by low vision users? Can it be used by different body types? (ex. many car seats were only designed for men in the past).

Privacy: how does it inform when a camera is on and how does the user control it? (ex. a hidden status LED won’t help)

(Not exactly human subject test but including) drop testing: trying on different heights/surfaces to ensure robustness.

– Nathan Endicott

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Question 3) How to find verticals (industry) for your product?

Hello All. I’m quite new in the Product Manager role, and struggling with some aspects of the job:

How to perform a market analysis?

I’m trying to find the verticals, meaning the market where I would focus on my product. However, it’s really hard as I have the feeling that every industry could be impacted by my product.

As an example, if your product was “Internet” and I asked you: “Which market will you focus on?”. How would you answer this question? When the internet came out, it impacted all industries.

I’ve tried to look at what has been done by my colleagues. But it doesn’t make sense to me. For instance, I’ve seen market analysis between “Retail, Wholesale, transport”.

But : Retail is opposed to Wholesale. It’s not industries. It’s a distribution strategy.

Transport is an industry.

I’ve also seen market analysis done by use cases. For instance (still with the Internet) :

  • Vertical 1: VOD platform
  • Vertical 2: Social network
  • Vertical 3: e-commerce website

But once again, it’s usage and not market. So I’m not convinced it’s the right angle.

I’ll be glad to have your mind on this, and if you encountered such a situation !

– Yuri Roman

Discussion

A] Even though the product might seem like could be utilized by every and any industry, the truth is it’s more efficient to focus on one specific industry – preferably where your product brings the most added value to the table.

So you can perform an initial market analysis on a broader spectrum of industries, but this step should enable you to narrow the group to a few, best case one.

It’s quite enigmatic to me what’s the app and therefore hard to think of something more concrete.

– Nathan Endicott

B] @Nathan, For some products, I would have 100% agreed. On my specific product, I find it hard to see (maybe because I’ve lost perspective).

It’s a product around Asset Tokenization. Basically, you can create a reward program in the form of digital currency, you can create a closed ecosystem (think of lunch vouchers for instance), or even stablecoin.

If I take the reward program, I could imagine working with the transport industry (train station for instance), with malls, with restaurants, with football clubs, and even with a government that want to create local currency

The technology behind is just the same.

– Yuri Roman

C] Maybe you should rethink this as focusing on the partner who’s most interested to work with you. If the product could be equally good for both restaurants and governments, poke around a few of each, make your best pitch to each, and tailor the solution to the one that says “yes”.

But more of a pragmatic approach than theoretical and TAM-based.

If you can’t find a single customer who, after an in-person hand-tailored pitch to their business, will sign up for your product it’s a good clue you’re building the wrong product. So either way — whether you land a customer or don’t — you’ve learned something.

– Karan Trivedi

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Top Learning Resources

A three-step framework for solving problems

It’s 2012 and our team has just joined Airbnb. We’re tasked with building out a “social travel” experience for Airbnb travellers. The thinking is that travellers on Airbnb are siloed across the city, and if we make it easier for guests to meet up and do things together, Airbnb trips would be significantly more meaningful. We work long and hard to design an amazing experience for travellers to discover fun local things to do with other travellers.

A leader’s guide to implementing OKRs

The most valuable key results measure meaningful user or business outcomes as opposed to simply the output of one’s work. For example, “publish 15 blog posts” is a useful key result, but you’d also want to pair it with a key result that speaks to the outcome you hope to drive from publishing these blog posts. For example, “add 1K new subscribers”, “reach 10K monthly pageviews”, or “drive 500 referral signups”.

How to become a peak Product Manager

This analogy resonates even more today. Product Management is a fluid, connective role. It is highly demanding and varies considerably by the situation and from company to company. The best PMs — the peak product managers — don’t just ship features. They do whatever it takes to deliver valuable outcomes for their users, their team, and their company. They do whatever it takes to deliver business impact.

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