AMA 🎙️: Hey all, I am pmsprint, Director of Product Management at a Unicorn in India!
Hey everyone, excited to be doing this AMA! A brief about me, I work currently as a Director of Product at an Indian unicorn startup About my career: - Did my undergrad from IIT and then masters from an Ivy league school - Have been in product for almost 10 years now - across 2 Indian unicorn startups and a publicly listed company Would love to take questions on what it means to be a PM, growing within the role, building your career, and other things :) Will be back here at 4 pm and start replying Shoot away!
own4g3
Stealth
a year ago
@pmsprint bata de bhai, hum hadap nahi lenge screen se.
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How do the goal setting differ from small startups to unicorns to public companies?
Goal setting is about objectively putting the vision into actionable items. At a startup, while the broad vision is clear, your quarter or annual goals change as you experiment and get feedback from customers. So you adapt quickly. At a public company, you need to plan for annual targets and expenses, so your goal setting is at least a year out. There, the job of CXOs and like is to manage the risk of some bets not working out. (Cue - Margin Call scene of "Why I make the big bucks..."). Unicorns are somewhere in the middle. Similar principles, different variances. All said and done, goal setting is important to clearly communicate to the org where we are headed.
I'd also recommend personal goal setting for the same reasons. You should have a vision of where you want to be in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. Better to base it on problems you want to solve rather than the $/title you want. Easier said than done.
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Did your ESOPs eventually amount to anything? 😂😂😂
Tell us about this from your startup experience. If they did, then what %age gains did you end up making from them.
Also, how did the liquidation event turn out for you?
Grapeviners deserve to knoww. 🍇🥵
How do you work on the perception that is building this year that all PMs do is talk? PMs everywhere lately get trolled behind their backs. I honestly find worth in thr role. Just curious
Seen both sides of it. Seen PMs who just talk and others who solve. Just focus on the quality of the work, and make sure you have a good boss who can bat for you at the right places. Rest will take care of itself.
No one asked but I just want to say as an SDE that I really appreciate the work done by my past PM and APMs. They were excellent and involved the tech team closely in many product decisions. The PM was very transparent on what they didn't knew.
Additionally in any interaction with him, I could always learn something new about the product or industry. Thank you all legit PMs for making our lives easier.
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How did you crack cross team collaboration (especially w/ engineering teams) over time?
I’m not a PM, but as part of my role I find it to be the hardest thing
Cross team collaboration is important. As many questions have indicated already, it is amply clear that PMs generally have to prove the worth and demonstrate that the direction they want to take the team in, and the team has to truly believe that the direction is worth going in and investing their time in. So, to foster cross team collaboration, you give visibility into the problems, solve them together, debate on them and have the team's be on the same page. It works better when you are focusing on solving the problem rather than who solves the problem.
Thanks for answering, very helpful
My main challenge today is being unable to figure out if the timelines that engineers/designers are coming back with are fair
At what point did you become good at figuring this out?
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GreatYard42
Stealth
a year ago
I am trying to move from growth marketing to product growth 🤷
Depends on context. There are some products/companies where PM is responsible for driving growth, and growth marketing does play a big part there. The add on is finding the hooks and hacks and getting them embedded into the product. Overall, I wont agree that PM is Growth Marketing. A top PM might not be a top growth marketers. A top growth marketer might not care about the tech behind it. Make of it what you will.
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Thanks for the AMA, really appreciate it. I have these questions for you -
1. How important is the role of my manager in shaping my PM career?
2. Should I switch the co., if the manager is not mentoring?
3. Are there other avenues for me to get feedback & improve?
About me:
> working at a mid-sized startup in blr
> moved from engineering to PM
> good with product execution
> still have to work on other pillars of PM
About manager:
> gives random gyaan without providing actionable feedback
> expects to close items, but does not even review the work for weeks
shark
Stealth
a year ago
Following
1. Role of the manager is super important. Especially for an early career PM or a transitioning PM, it is almost like defining the direction of the growth vector, and the magnitude could depend on your work, projects, luck, etc. Your manager should be able to identify your gaps and help you plug those. And should be someone you can look up to for at least some skills.
2. Hard to say. Would definitely recommend a group outside of work where you can bounce ideas and share experiments.
On manager not reviewing work - be a pain and follow up. Be a Gandhi. And know when you cut losses.
Looking back at your own career trajectory, what is single handedly the most important thing that impacted your career?
The dots always connect looking backwards. I think I was fortunate to have two managers at different times in my career who were very patient, sharp and genuinely cared about my growth. They taught me a lot.
There were other things too - luck, privilege, hard work, foundational years. But those are not repeatable.
How frequently PM should switch job to increase CTC+ Get domain knowledge of different products and industries
1. Understand the market rate and be in the 80%-120% range. Switch only if you fall out of it.
2. Focus on learnings and problem solving.
3. You can be an industry expect or a generalist. If you choose a generalist path, then you should specialize in problems that span across industries (like retention/engagement, optimization, etc.)
What resources you refer to understand the market rate. I mainly look into levels. fyi
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PrettyGrape7
Stealth
a year ago
What does a director of PM actually do ?
Ah, a lot of jargon incoming. Vision setting, team development, stakeholder management, upwards management and of course making sure that execution is tight. As you go through every level, you have to maintain the bar on the skills you have already mastered and develop new ones. At a Director, the above are what you need to get right.
A lot of people think that the biggest skill one needs to succeed as a PM is good communication and relationship skills. What is your POV on this criticism of the role?
I wont call it a criticism of the role. These are indeed true. I'd add problem solving to these two. With these three skills mastered, you wont have any challenge till an SPM level at least.
1) B2B vs B2C - Which is better in terms of career growth for a PM
2) What resources would you suggest one should use to prepare for senior product manager roles
3) What resources early PMs should use to upskill themselves
Both are fine. Different mindsets needed, but not that one is better than the other.
At SPM, you should be able to formulate the problem statement, assess the multiple touchpoints, propose solutions and debate for and against each of those solutions, and then execute on the chosen path. If these 4 are checked, you are golden.
Problem solving is critical. Additionally, pick any of the adjacent areas - engg, design, marketing, ops. Sharpen yourself on any one. You'd see better gains.
Hi, thanks for doing this.
How would you say, as a product person, is the best way of resolving disputes between engineering and design?
Two things - formulate these as tradeoffs and have one person own up a decision. Generally these conflicts arise because the teams are not speaking the same language, and the constraints that each of the team is facing does not come out. As a PM, it is your responsibility to understand these and make sure everyone can at least appreciate the tradeoff.
Hey, thanks for the AMA. In your 10 years of product experience, which is that one product prioritisation framework which has personally worked for you and you would recommend to others? It could be your own framework too. Also, did the prioritisation technique differ in startups as compared to the large public co you worked for?
Reason for asking this: I believe prioritisation is one area where most early to mid PMs suffer, especially due to inability to gauge impact. Effort is still fine as that can be quantified.
This is a good one. This is part science, part art. You need to account for immediate revenue, building foundations for 3-6 months in the future, noise from the top, hygiene issues, etc. Mostly you want to assess the visible opportunity vs the hidden cost of not doing something. And of course, balance it with the effort.
To expand more on hidden cost of not doing something now - if you build something hacky now rather than investing time in building it right, maybe in parts - you would need to assess how easy or difficult it will be to move away from the hack.
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NastyCave83
Stealth
a year ago
Do you think a non-coder can ever be a great core PM( no growth and stuff just pure feature work)?
Thanks for the AMA!
What do interviewers look for when they are hiring Senior/Director-level PMs?
As an entry-level PM, on what types of projects/skills within the product team should I focus to climb the product ladder faster? It would be great if you could share any specific examples of projects you have worked on and what made them major highlights in your career progression.
The ability to manage ambiguity and grow a team that can scale with you.
Focus on learning. Pick a project, kill it. Move on. Less important that these are specific type of projects.
I am from IIT and have one year experience in dev. I am not great fan of MBA but really want to switch into PM. How can it be possible?
Start with APM and PM roles. Get referred into companies. Once on that path, you can grow through your work. None of my hires had an MBA. To me, it doesn't matter. It does seem to matter to some though.
Thanks for suggestions. I am on my way now. Any particular things I should show on my resume and any specific things to learn. I have also founded one startup in my college time.
How much technical knowledge is required or good to have at an early PM stage?
Enough to understand whether whatever you are proposing makes sense or not. You're not expected to have the answers, but if you can understand the tech side and start taking that into account, you'll be fine. As said on some other answer, solve it together.
I am a IIT graduate with 9 years of experience working in oil and gas industry. Currently pursuing masters in CS from Georgia tech (along with job) and will be graduating next year. Any suggestions/ help on transitioning into PM role would be much appreciated
avgspacelover
Stealth
a year ago
Your uni already has rhe product bud community, look them up. How did u get into masters in ca with a oil & gas bg?
Thanks, let me check. Did bachelor’s level CS courses prior to enrollment. If you are aware of how to connect with that community ( any slack channel or something), please do share
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