How to Get Into Product Management (And Thrive) ✨

In order to succeed you need to be able to build trust with your teammates, make decisions but also give everyone a voice, and keep morale up no matter what’s going on. The best PMs quickly become the de-facto leaders of the team, not because of any actual authority, but because they help everyone on the team do the best work of their lives.

The four most common paths into PM: Internal transition at a large company , finding a junior PM role at a large company, joining a startup with a burning need , and starting your own company.

The job of a product manager is to marshal the resources of their team to drive business value. Your team will be given problems (e.g. grow adoption of a product, reduce churn of a service, increase conversion of a flow), and your responsibility will be to guide your team to make it less of a problem. A strategy, paired with a clear vision, is esse... See more

Teams generally look to the PM to help them reach decisions. Expect to be making dozens of decisions on behalf of the team daily. Your best friend in making decisions is a clear set of principles you aligned on previously, and hard data (both quantitative and qualitative). The less opinions you have to rely on, and the more facts you have at your d... See more

In my opinion, one of the most underrated yet most valuable traits for a PM to have is what I call the “I got this” aura. Everyone should feel that if you take something on it will get done, and done exceptionally well. The key to building this aura is to become increasingly detail oriented, to be more prepared than anyone else, and to have a highe... See more

Foster culture within whatever team you are on. Establishing fun rituals and customs, plan outings, and create a lasting identity for your team.

A PM that is good at nothing else but execution is valuable to a team, while a team with a PM that can’t execute is better off without that PM. Tactically this includes things like building a roadmap that everyone on your team is aligned behind, setting and hitting deadlines, and ruthlessly unblocking blockers. For new PMs, my advice is to begin pr... See more

Everything you do as a product manager is done through writing, speaking, and meetings. As Boz puts it, “communication is the job.” You can never be too good at this, and it’s very difficult to over-communicate.