Get started on your PM Journey

Succinct tips on how you can start your product management journey

If you are feeling stuck in your career and don’t know how to switch to a product management role, please do not worry! I was in the same boat sometime back.
Here are some tips (based on my experience) on how you can get started on your product management journey.

Photo by Hester Qiang on Unsplash

1. Side Projects: Everybody keeps saying this and I will say this too! Yes, working on side projects (especially building a product) will make you think from a product manager’s perspective. Here are some ideas for your side projects:
   * Build a product — Find an app developer friend or hire one and start building an app or a google chrome extension or a website. Ideate, note down the requirements, build the first version with minimal features required and release it on Google Play Store or App Store!
   * Build your portfolio website — If you are not a coder, no problem! Use any no-code tool or websites that allow you to build a website. Plan out what info you need to put on the website, how the info should be structured and displayed, how the website should be structured, etc.
2. Analyse Products: Select any product and start thinking why it was built in that way. Such exercise helps in building product sense.
   Why did Netflix add a shuffle feature? Why Twitter does not have an edit option on tweets? Why Instagram introduced reels? How can LinkedIn improve? Why medium recently added options to customise your profile/blog pages?
3. Learning Resources: Here’s a list of resources that helped me:
   * The Product Folks — Resources
   * Udemy Course
   * Google search and Medium blogs
4. Prep for PM Interviews: For prepping for the interviews, find like minded peers and start preparing for the interviews together. Doing mock interviews helped me a lot. Few resources for preparation:
   * https://www.productmanagementexercises.com/
   * https://coda.io/@clementkao/clements-pm-interview-practice-guide
   * https://www.youtube.com/c/ExponentT

If you need any help or more info on the above, feel free to reach out to me or comment on the post. I will try to get back as soon as possible! :)

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