How to be More Strategic: How Samuel Odio led FiveStars out of a slowdown and into a $317m acquisition
As product managers, the advice to be “more strategic” often eludes us, clouded in business school jargon like SWOT analysis and vague directives.
Product Managers at Work
How to be at the top of your game as a product manager
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Decoding Behavioral Interviewing: Strategies for Success
I’ve been trying to figure out what makes a great behavioral interview response – and more deeply, to talk and tell a story about the things I’ve built and accomplished. When I was earlier in my career, this felt easier – I used the STAR framework (answering interview questions in a Situation, Task, Action, Result format) and my stories were straightforward.
How to Gain an Edge as a B2B PM
Building for enterprises is a unique rollercoaster compared to building for typical consumers.
Recognizing a bad manager, how to design your way out
As I’ve grown in my career journey, I’ve grown better at learning when to not misplace the cause to myself, and realize when my options are limited, so I can design past them. I’ve realized a manager can make a big difference in your career trajectory – people with great managers consistently get more opportunities while equally high-performers with bad managers do not get promoted – and these…
Chasing highs that hurt your product
I've always been fascinated by the indicators of a healthy product organization and how they evolve as a company scales. Here I connect themes from working at product orgs of different sizes – from a Series B company backed by Founders Fund, to Tesla, a rapidly growing company, then Google, a very mature company with billions of users.
How to transform data points into airtight narratives
We’ve all been in a meeting where there’s a senior engineer or executive poking holes in the data and decision-making you’re presenting. If you’re not prepared, it can be uncomfortable. It’s easy to have responses for simple things such as, “Is this bug important?” or “What’s our churn for this month?” – you can rattle off numbers. But responding is harder for more complicated questions that…
The risk of not being a technical PM
The common rhetoric is being technical makes you a better product manager – but this isn’t always true.
Myopia that Kills Your Company
When people think of Netflix’s biggest competitors, they typically think of other video streaming platforms – Hulu, YouTube, and Prime Video. But the truth is, these platforms aren’t Netflix’s most threatening competitors – Netflix’s most threatening competitor is Fortnite.
How to ramp up on a new industry 10x faster
I’ve always been curious about how people ramp up quickly on an industry and form a perspective in the midst ambiguity, especially with new technologies such as crypto or self-driving cars. They connect all these seemingly disparate datapoints, taking you on a journey where they see something others do not see. Then, translate that into some actionable insight and take people on the journey with…
Useless vs. Useful Competitive Analysis
When I first joined Tesla as a product manager, I remember making a competitive analysis chart to understand the competitive landscape.