⭐ Getting started into product

Note: This is a longer-term path that requires sustained discipline and not everyone will want to or should pursue what’s listed here. This is meant to be an exhuastive set of resources and not targetted to your personal situation which you’ll need to evaluate. These resources are not meant for securing a PM role but will improve certain skills which may indirectly help with the mindset.

If you are just getting acquainted with the product domain and have no idea where to begin with, start by getting answers to the following questions

  1. What exactly does a Product Manager do?

    A PM job might sound cool on the surface and can be pretty different from what you thought it to be. Start off with the basics of a Product Manager Role from Product school to get a gist. If you are already aware about the basics, skip to this presentation by Sachin Rekhi on the art of Product management which beautifully encapsulates how a PM is responsible for driving the vision, strategy and execution of a product. Also, checkout this link. Some points which are note-worthy here are:

  2. What does it take to be a GREAT PM?

    If you are to take this plunge, you should know what it takes to be in the top 5% of the community. Let’s begin with the skills that a PM should pickup:

Hard Skills

  • Technology: knowledge about aspects of system design, APIs; basics of mobile, web and backend workings
  • Analytics: ability to crunch numbers by writing basic SQL/R/python code
  • Design: Fundamentals of UX and UI
  • Business: basics related to the industry domain

Soft Skills:

  • Influential Communication
  • Story telling
  • Negotiation
  • Demonstrated Leadership
  • Customer Science
  • Design thinking
  • High Agency

Shreyas Doshi in one of his talks had put across this comprehensive list of skills sets for a PM.

Check out this thread on the difference between a good and a great PM beautifully put by him too.

References

📕 Books

Sharing some of my books here. My favourites from this list are:

  • Inspired - Marty Cagan

This will talk about how some companies like Google, FB etc. leverage technology to build startups that set them truly apart from others. Also, a recently published book ‘Empowered’ is getting a lot of good reviews. I haven’t personally read it yet but will post once I do.

  • How to Crack the PM Interview - Jackie Bavaro

This will cover pretty much everything around the PM job, how different companies differ in the PM job, what are their interview processes along with some product, behavioural and case questions.

  • Decode And Conquer - Lewis C. Lin

This is a fun read with some real world scenarios that will help you build a product mindset. Examples: how would you improve the LinkedIn mobile app?; how would you reduce Gmail’s storage size?; what are the pros and cons of Amazon entering the grocery business?

  • Managing Humans - Michael Lopp

The author is an engineering manager so it’s not from a PM perspective. I am still to read this but have heard good reviews about this.

  • The Lean Product Playbook - Product School

Go for this if you want to get acquainted with the concepts of a product development lifecycle - from hypothesis to execution to validation.

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📒 Blogs

🔖 More resources (but don’t kill yourself - pick and chose)

For specific areas of product management

📈 Growth

  1. Alex Schultz (growth, FB): Growth
  2. Josh Elman – “The only metric that matters”
  3. Chamath Palihapitiya – “How we put Facebook on the path to 1 billion users”
  4. Joel Spolsky – “Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death?
  5. Jeff Jordan – “A Recipe for Growth: Adding Layers to the Cake”
  6. Mike Isaacs – “Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s Early Days: Go Hard or Go Home”
  7. Liz Gannes – “The Secret Behind Pinterest’s Growth Was Marketing, Not Engineering, Says CEO Ben Silbermann”
  8. Paul Graham – “Startup = Growth”
  9. Douglas MacMillan – “Chasing Facebook’s Next Billion Users”
  10. Danny Ferante – Growth Accounting & Triangle Heatmap Explanation

🎨 Design

  1. Check UX case studies from:
  2. If you enjoyed UX teardowns, checkout these:
  3. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman - this is a basic book for UX
  4. Conversational Design by Erika Hall - it’s about conversational design but it is also a pretty good starter for anybody learning to think about what a user’s experience is actually like.
  5. Another handy web reference for any UX related fundamentals is here. This was founded by Don Norman too.
  6. Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kaehman has a lot of UX design best practices rest on insights from this book. This is a lot to get through, so treat it as a reference book. Some really eye-opening research in there.
  7. Other notable books are Don’t Make Me Think, Hooked, Emotional Design, Just Enough Research etc.

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