The Gift of Product Mentorship

One of the biggest gifts I’ve received in my life is product mentorship.

Honestly, without mentorship, I would not be who I am today.

Regardless of your seniority, product mentorship will always prove useful.

Whether you’re an associate product manager or the Head of Product, there’s always so much more to learn – new perspectives and frameworks to consider, new technologies and methodologies to stay on top of, new industry trends and competitors and partners to evaluate.

Given the transformative power of mentorship, I’d like to break down best practices on both sides of product mentorship: how to get mentorship, and how to give mentorship.

Getting Product Mentorship

Let’s be real – product management is still an emerging field. Continue Reading

Product Manager Interview: Pre-Interview Research

As a product manager, you will be expected to know quite a few different areas of knowledge. Not only are you required to become a domain expert in the product that you’ll own, but you’ll also need to understand the industry within which you work.

While most companies have some sort of on-boarding process for new hires, in my experience, I’ve found that interviewers appreciate when candidates are already knowledgeable about the role, the company, and the industry.

Candidates who conduct research before the interview are likely to be more successful, because they remove the burden from the interviewer in needing to explain their company and industry. The interviewer can then spend more time in better understanding the candidate’s fit for the role. Continue Reading

Critical Skills to Develop as a New Product Manager in Your First 6 Months

Members of the PMHQ Slack community regularly host awesome events for product managers to swap tips and learn from one another.

In San Francisco, Vinay Melwani (Product Manager at HouseCanary) has organized a monthly morning meetup called AM | PM. Attendees answer a thought-provoking question-of-the-month in a round-robin fashion and reflect on each other’s responses.

Below is our summary of November’s AM | PM meetup!

Our question of the month for November 2017 was provided by Rob McGrorty, Head of Product at Webgility:

“If you could learn anything from anyone in your first 6 months as a PM, what single thing would you want them to teach you?” 

Interestingly, few people shared the same perspective on what one thing they wish they knew as a new PM. Continue Reading

Product Q&A with Romy Macasieb

Romy Macasieb

About:

Romy Macasieb is the VP of Product Management at Walker & Company Brands reporting directly to Tristan Walker, Founder & CEO. He manages the FORM & Bevel brands while also leading the digital product & creative teams for the organization.

Prior to Walker & Company, Romy was the Head of Product and sole PM for a startup called ThisLife which was eventually acquired by Shutterfly with the plans of building Shutterfly 3.0 (a feat, in that Shutterfly was a billion dollar company). As part of the acquisition, Romy joined Shutterfly where he completely revamped the ThisLife application lineup, while also launching Shutterfly’s first Android and Amazon apps. Continue Reading

How I Became a Product Manager

In the PMHQ Slack community, we regularly get thought-provoking questions that we feel should be explored in-depth and documented for future reference. We’re starting a new set of Q&A posts called Highlights to dive into these kinds of questions, and enable everyone in the community to revisit the answers and contribute further!

“Hi Clement –

I saw on your LinkedIn that you went into a Product Analyst role before being a PM. I’m curious why you started as an Analyst, if being an Analyst offered a great platform to being a PM and figure out if that’s what you wanted to do for a career.

I’m trying to figure out what the best way is for me to enter a PM role, if I’m qualified for one today (if so, how do I find one?), and if not, then whether a Product Analyst role offers the best way to become a PM.”  Continue Reading

Product Q&A with Zack Onisko

Zack Onisko

About:

Zack Onisko is the CEO of Dribbble which is one of the leading communities for designers with millions of visitors per month with zero marketing.

Zack has over 15 years of experience as a data-driven, analytical thinking product growth and marketing strategist with a strong product management and interface design background.

He was previously the VP of Growth at Hired.com. He was the former Chief Growth Officer at Creative Market where he helped grow revenue from $25k / month to over $1.3mm / month before it was acquired by Autodesk where he became the Head of Growth and Marketing for Autodesk Marketplaces.

Before that he was a founding team member and Head of Growth at BranchOut, which acquired 25mm+ users in 90 days. Continue Reading