Re: Product Mentorship
Letters to a young PM (first letter)
I’ve felt a need to share my thoughts about product management in a way that feels artistic and authentic to myself. Letters to a young PM is a series of writings directed at someone early in their product career right now. It’s meant to provide some authentic and thoughtful reflections on the craft
Subject: Product Mentorship
Hi Luke -
I’m an early career product manager at Strava looking to improve my skills. My cousin, Ray, recommended that I reach out to you as someone who could be a mentor for me as I go on my path. He thinks that I have promise to make it as an elite product leader in tech — maybe one day I’ll even become a VP for a big name company!
I’ve attached the latest PRD I wrote — it’s about an AI feature I’m working on to provide more personalized training plans for Strava athletes. It got some positive feedback internally, but I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I hope to hear back and am happy to have connected with you.
Best,
Chris
Subject: Re: Product Mentorship
Chris
It’s a pleasure to hear from you and connect with an aspiring product leader. Ray is someone who I hold in the highest regard, so having a recommendation from him goes quite a long way. Having been in “the game” for a while, it’s fantastic to connect with earnest people early in their careers and pay it forward. I certainly wouldn’t have gotten where I am without help.
Here’s my take: you’re entering the product management profession here in 2024 at a point where the craft is dying.
As you know, product managers used to be technical translators when the software industry first boomed in the 90s and 2000s. As the profession gained popularity in the 2010s, product management shifted and became more strategic and less technical. In this era, we saw an influx of PMs from management consulting and business schools.
Now, in the 2020s, we’re witnessing the death of product management. Companies are waking up and asking why they’re paying a premium for a product manager when in reality, they’re getting a project manager. PMs today scurry from meeting to meeting and quickly assemble hand wavy PRDs that are honestly just a regurgitation of what their manager and top 3 stakeholders have said.
This is an exciting time! With death comes rebirth and new opportunities for product
Over the next several years, I suspect that the PM role will evolve into something new; it will become a role that leverages generative AI in every part of the jobs while fusing the recent strategic boom with its technical roots. Project managers will fill the gap for pure execution while product managers focus more on creating magic at the intersection of customers, business, and technology. There will be less PMs than before, but each PM will have more autonomy and impact.
What’s more exciting, this will come with the rise of new technologies that will dare us to reimagine how humans and society will operate. In the upcoming years, product mangers will be challenged to CREATE once more. New capabilities unlocked by AI and mixed reality will create new design patterns and imaginative products.
Product leaders will not only need to be strategists, but will need to deeply understand technology and human psychology. PMs will be the artisans that weave technology into new products that will create value, but protect us from dangerous secondary effects (echo chambers, social isolation, and over-reliance on technology, etc).
We have incredible, yet existential problems to solve in these upcoming years. How do we build products and systems that help us better coexist with the Earth in a sustainable way? How do we evolve our relationship with technology so that we don’t lose our humanity and our ability to connect with others?
These are questions I leave you to answer. These are the questions that our next generation of entrepreneurs and product leaders get to answer. This is where the craft of product management will find its rebirth.
Now, onto your PRD. As the great Ranier Maria Rilke once said, I tell you that your verses have no style of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings of something personal.
Your PRD is fine, but it lacks conviction. Your PRD is your opportunity to paint a picture. It’s your way to share your vision in a clear way so as to evoke conviction and support from your teammates. Hook your readers by telling a compelling story. Back up your vision with specificity, providing examples of exactly how your product will delight your users. Show that you’ve spent time deeply understanding your users, their segments, and what they truly care about — not just what your VP thinks should be done.
Finally, connect the puzzle pieces that can fit together to make this vision a reality. Paint a picture of a product so ambitious that your team will be nervous, but show how the puzzle fits together so the team believes it can be done. And do this all with your own voice.
As such, I encourage you to spend less time in meetings, for meetings are not where you’ll find your inspiration. Don’t just go talk to your users either, but spend time being your user. Understand their fears and their motivations. Ask yourself why they even bother using your product. Try other products similar to yours and ask how and where they are better.
Spend time exploring your own thoughts and self. As you marinate in the perspectives from your users and stakeholders, your own views and beliefs will evolve. Meaningful PM work cannot be done while multi-tasking in 6 hours of meetings every day. This work is found only with depth, away from the noise of the daily. Search deep into your own crevices for the faintest hint of insight and breakthrough. Challenge every assumption — each time you hear “that can’t be done” or “that doesn’t make sense” … these are hints towards a new breakthrough.
I wish you the best of luck with your product management career. Don’t underestimate the power of earnest hard work and the willingness to roll up your sleeves to do the work that nobody else will as this is often the silver bullet needed to make your product succeed. I am confident you will flourish at your startup and through the next roles as well.
Don’t be a stranger.
Warmly,
Luke