Becoming a Product Manager: the not so obvious path

I dare you to find a Product Manager that followed a linear path to become a PM.

For years I looked for a place where I could match my abilities with the activities for the role. It was just after I entered the Product world that I realized that, oh boy, it was home for me.

So here I am to tell you a little bit of my journey so far. Maybe it could inspire you to change careers or make adjustments to your current strategy.

BUSINESS SCHOOL

Working with Product Management requires skills that you won’t find in only one or two academic courses. I studied business administration in college, mainly because I was good with Maths and loved Marketing. I had no struggle with finances, economics, cost analysis. It was just easy and logic for me. With time, I found out that Business was more than numbers and satisfying needs. It was also about people. About ethics. About psychology. And much more (that I would only truly understand years later).

What did I learn?

What pieces compound the engine of a company. The foundations to run a successful business (at least in theory). And that administration was not (only) about numbers, it was about the people behind it as well.

However, it was only my non-linear path that made me able to shift to Product. Around two years after I started college, I felt that something was missing. Despite being good with calculations, I was also really good with drawing and visual esthetic. At that time, I couldn’t see how could both subjects intersect. I thought maybe it was the time to stop a little and try some new learnings in the design academy.

VISUAL DESIGN EXPERIMENTATION

I loved to draw when I was a kid, and I always thought that it was a loss not working on that skill. As an only child, being at home alone was a rather common situation. Coloured pencils and white paper were my best friends. So around my twenties, I thought that going back to that natural state was the right thing to do. But I was wrong. After intensively studying different design tools, I found out that I didn’t like to work alone for long hours. Being around lots of people was something that made me feel happy and complete. Even though I felt frustrated at the time, I packed my stuff and went back to the business school.

What did I learn?

The value of a designer. Being able to deliver a great design takes not only technical skills but also and more important the entire background of the person that is creating. Everything that he/she has lived influences the result.

LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN

Back to Business School, I decided to focus on Marketing. I started working in a small retail company with a strong market strategy, that inspired me from the first day of work. We sold funny and smart t-shirts through a young brand. The best part of working in a small company was the autonomy and the challenge to do much with little.

What did I learn?

The importance of a strong brand. How to be consistent in every point of contact with your customer. And how to deliver the maximum business value with the least amount of resources.

CUSTOMER-CENTRED

After that experience, I started to work at Renner, the biggest fashion retailer in South America. There was an open opportunity to work in the Customer Relationship Management area, focusing on the private label cardholder. I had to understand the product we were offering at the time, it’s benefits, and mainly, our customer life cycle. Who was that customer? How did he/she behave? What kind of marketing strategy would work best for him/her? When was the best time to speak with him? Which campaign had the best ROI?

What did I learn?

Know your customer. Be relevant. Be clear. Quantity is not quality.

SHIFT TO PRODUCT

After working for 4 years with CRM, I was invited to join the Product team. The combination of my customer-centred view and my strong analytical skill matched perfectly for the position. It unfolded a new world, in which I discovered that I had to look inside (margin, profit, sales, KPIs, metrics) and also outside (market share, competitors, innovation, regulation) to manage a successful product. I started diving into data to understand how my product worked behind the scenes.

What did I learn?

Your product needs a strong and consistent strategy. You will have to translate it into clear and tangible goals. People need to be aligned to it and motivated, so you know they are all going in the same direction as you.

TURNING AGILE

Agile methodologies started to be implemented little by little in our office. I have always been pro-agile since I have been studying all the benefits for some years. We entered a digital cycle, in which we started investing more on our digital channels, such as our APP and self-service totems. It was inevitable that we had to change the way we were used to work. Scrum, sprints, product owners, planning, review, retrospective: a whole new vocabulary was implemented. And we became agile.

What did I learn?

More than ever, as a Product Manager, you need to show where and why are you going in a specific direction, your product strategy and roadmap. You don´t have to say “how” people should work, but rather “what”. A multidisciplinary team is stronger as hell. And finally, prioritization has never been so important.

FIN-TECH

With the agile movement, came the fintech (financial & technology) era. Customers didn’t want to go to stores to pay their credit card bill anymore. They didn’t want to hold their physical card in every purchase. We had the opportunity to truly understand our customer needs, and how could we help with new tech solutions. Front-end, back-end, iOS, Android engineers: they all started to join our team. And I had to learn tech skills to be able to talk about the best solutions with the group.

What did I learn?

It is not only about digitalizing what used to work. Is about creating the best experience in the digital world.

I sense that the journey is just beginning and I still have a lot to learn.

There is just one last thing that I would recommend: don’t follow my steps. It is the nonlinearity that makes the path richer and more interesting.