Chris Miller: belief

Transcript context

…You mentioned this phrase, relentless curiosity, and it made me think about a story I read about you where the way you got into product management was you were at some startup and the founder was just like, "I've read that the cure to all our problems is going to be hiring product manager," and you heard that and you googled, what is product management, and then you asked them, "Can I do that?" And that's how you got into the role. So first of all, is that true? And second of all, what's your advice to people trying to get into product management and any lessons from that experience? So first, yes, that is 100% true. That is how I stumbled into product management. So, I appreciate all the folks who took a shot on me back then, but this was at a time where I would say product management even as a function was definitely not ubiquitous across tech. There was, at least in the world that I was in, a lot more of a standard waterfall approach to building product with a lot of middle layers and engineering managers and really no one who had the job of owning the problem from a customer's point of view. And so, there wasn't a ton of content out there. There weren't even a ton of people in the city at the time that I could really talk to sort of learn, and so a lot of what I did was scrape my knees through the first years and a lot of painful trial and error. And then eventually I think there's a lot more energy and an interest around the trade craft and the function, and so I think it's much easier today for someone to learn the fundamentals of product management without necessarily needing to do it via trial by fire. My advice to folks who are interested in breaking into product management specifically is focus on a few things. One, focus on structure. I think there's usually a lower barrier to entry to do product management at a smaller shop, which they might not have as much access to the best talent out there, but I think what you may often give up in those instances is structure to your own sort of professional development and formal training and education and potentially even the opportunity to work for people who are truly battle tested and have seen the movie several times and can actually wisdom share because truthfully, it looks different in every company, and so it is one of those functions. I do believe that taking a truly academic approach towards upskilling has fairly diminishing returns because it's tough to field curveballs in a classroom. And so, choosing where you want to break in is almost as important as choosing that you want to break in the first place. Thinking about who you're going to be reporting to, thinking about what's the track record of success for people at that company, breaking into product management, trying to think five years in advance and work backwards, I think are all sort of important thought exercises along the way. I would also say that if you're already at a shop where you are working at a different function and you're sort of product curious, go talk to the PMs, literally I say go reach out to a PM and ask how you can make their day easier. already at a shop where you are working at a different function and you're sort of product curious, go talk to the PMs, literally I say go reach out to a PM and ask how you can make their day easier. Figure out what you can do in your spare time that they can offload to you and do a little bit of volunteer labor, even if that's just shadowing because I think just getting that context and understanding the sort of rhythm of how a team ideates and defines problems and prioritizes and ship software is the experience that's going to be the most important because a lot of product management is also managing personalities and figuring out how people want to work with you and figuring out how you work for them. And so, just getting that hands-on experience or at least direct sight-line into the day-to-day of a team is really important because the extent to which you can understand their problem space and understand the things that keep them up at night, you can be valuable, and then at the very least, what you get out of it is hopefully an advocate or a sponsor at the end of the day who is willing to gamble some professional and political capital on you to get your foot into the door even though you might not have any formal experience on your resume.…

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