What I learnt in the field as a PM this month (March 2024)
I’m Darren, I care deeply about building great products.
I started as an ML intern at Protex AI, but I really prefer product. Maybe it suits me because I enjoy talking to people, and working on hard problems.
I’ve been a PM for 8 months, and have been keeping notes/learnings on a monthly basis.
Here’s what I learned in March 2024
Please be advised the following bullet points may contain PM jargon.
There is no substitute for digesting feedback directly. Product feedback is 20% what someone says about your product, and 80% why they are saying it. You can’t get to the why if you just have the highlights, you’re missing the whole story. Read emails, re-watch interviews, meet users in-person, go to the source.
I've experimented with various to-do list software and frameworks, but I consistently return to using a single document organised by day, filled with long lists of tasks and subtasks. Anything I don't complete either gets carried over to the next day or marked as unimportant.
Launching 0 to 1 products is unbelievably fun:
We launched Protex Copilot this month, you can check it out here.
I got to evenly split my time writing code, and talking to users.
Building took up evenings, early mornings, and some weekends, I enjoyed every second of it.
Everybody tells you to use RACI, in practice it’s challenging to implement. When it's your responsibility to keep someone informed, the options boil down to manually texting them or setting up some form of automated messaging to notify them upon task completion. Simply placing information in a document or dashboard doesn't cut it; direct engagement is key.
Aiming for solutions that are "complete for most, configurable for all" is essential. Intercom talk about building products simple by default, but flexible under the hood. I’m learning how important this is first hand, especially with enterprise customers. The more you can avoid “this is great, but I’d love to be able to do x”, the better.
Product Insight = Data + Context; both components are crucial for meaningful understanding. Monterey appears to be doing this pretty well (not a customer).
Having technical expertise gives you an edge as a PM. While you may not be directly building the product, the ability to empathise with engineering challenges, understand delays, and actively contribute to discussions is immensely useful. Learn how APIs work at the very least!
Thanks for sharing Darren!