all right hi everyone it's uh thanks for
joining us today i'm captain yala i'm
excited to have you join us for our work
at a startup panel on getting into
product we have three pms with us today
and will be joined also by yc alumni
helena merk and we'll have some time at
the end of the panel for questions um
but if you have questions throughout
i'll be monitoring the chat so feel free
to leave them in the chat as well
after the panel around 5 pm each
panelist will be in separate session
rooms where you can meet them you know
and ask them more questions um but let's
just jump straight into it i'd love to
have the
speakers join me and we can have them
all introduce themselves
that sounds good thanks kat
so hey everyone i'm sylvia i'm currently
a pm at rex leading our identity team
which owns everything onboarding both
from a user experience standpoint as
well as all of the decision making that
happens behind the scenes so as you can
imagine it's
probably a pretty complex space
um i've been at brex about eight months
now so relatively recent um
prior to this i was at facebook for
quite a stand so most recently spent a
year and a half out in facebook london
where i was leading growth on the
audience network team and then before
that was more on the consumer side of
things
working on growth across instagram
across messenger engagement growth
and to some extent across news feed as
well so more on the consumer side of
things
before facebook i actually spent a few
years at workday as a product manager
more on the technical side so working on
platforms and frameworks
in the enterprise space and then before
that i was at school
so i started out
more from an engineering background
studied engineering
in university and then actually moved
straight to project management right out
of college
all right
colleen you want to go next
happy to you um let me know
if you can't hear me i'm not getting a
ton of feedback from uh hop in
but i will assume it's working uh i'm
colley barkoski i am a pm at burbix
which is a y combinator company um we
are also
doing identity verification so sylvia
you and i should talk sometime
um and i've also been there for about
eight months so
that's my current home i'm the first pm
there so that's its own whole
bag of tricks uh prior to burbex i was
at another y combinator company called
ironclad which does contract lifecycle
management um
and i was there for about two years in a
role called legal engineering where i
also got to do a lot of product work and
uh
was very early there as well so
can talk about that ride
and before that i did a i didn't study
cs actually in undergrad i stayed
philosophy but i did a
um ruby on rails boot camp and that was
kind of my
my technical training uh prior to that i
was a journalist in
dc where i covered the supreme court
wow
very timely
um helena you want to go next yeah i'd
love to i love both your background just
kind of a cool
story how you got to pm i'm excited to
hear more about it through this panel
um so i
got into more of the technical things
actually from
loving products a lot so i taught myself
to code back in middle school mostly
because i loved app design building
things
um and then got more and more involved
in in tech and like moving down the
stack um and
eventually dropped out of college to
work at an api company um and that
lasted only a few months until i left to
start my own company largely driven by
you know y combinator accepting glimpse
into the match uh and that we
uh we just completed actually in march
we were in the winter 20 batch um and
our platform glimpse matches people for
one-on-one speed conversations with with
an advanced having system that'll pair
you with people that are relevant so
that's kind of how i got to here um and
i think unlike both of you
i am yes product um but also product and
engineering and a ceo and all the things
so very very excited to learn from both
of you in in how to get more into
product because i'm new to this um and
i'm excited to be here thank you
all right and i think we're having some
technical difficulties with wild but
we'll have her introduce herself as soon
as her video pops on
um but yeah let's i'd love to talk a
little bit more about your experience
um you know what is the product
manager's role in an organization and
what are your key responsibilities and
at your current company and um and then
we can talk a little bit about how that
has changed
depending on you know where you're
working or um or what type of company
you're focused on but but right now um
sylvia can you talk a little bit about
you know what is the pm's role in your
organization
yeah so
to your point this has varied a little
bit depending on the companies and teams
that i've worked at but right now the
way that rex defines product and what
the product manager's role is is
essentially there's kind of three parts
to this triangle of building product so
we have pms who own the why of why are
we building a product why are we doing
something what is the strategy in the
vision and then we work very closely
with design who owns the what what is
the right product experience to actually
then solve for the solution or solve for
the problem that we're going after and
engineering owns the how of how do we
actually build out the solution and so
that's typically how we work together as
this triangle to be able to
launch product and build the right
solutions for any problems that we're
going after
um high level what this translates to is
that
on the pm side we essentially own
defining the vision the strategy
we need to be able to work with anyone
within the team so design edge but also
any xfn partners to figure out how we
can collaborate across all of these
roles and be able to define and build
out the right product experiences
and at the end of the day we also just
own generally the success of whether or
not we can actually solve these problems
properly and so anything else that comes
up we kind of take on and figure out if
we can we can solve for this problem or
blocker or if we need to work with
someone else to be able to do that
and uh you went from you know facebook
as a pm to brex right yep
and so so how has that changed between
working at like a very large company
like facebook to
an earlier stage company like rex
yeah so i would say the biggest thing is
around scope and what i mean by that is
typically at a larger company and i will
caveat this with also i was in more
junior positions earlier on in my career
so
typically they are a little bit more
execution focused
um but what i have seen is the main
difference between larger companies like
facebook and workday versus what i'm
experiencing here at brooks is around
the scope and so a lot of times
um at facebook on the teams that i've
worked on
the strategy at a high level has already
been pretty well defined there are
already existing products
there's kind of a playbook
for lack of a better word around how
we're going to execute on these
strategies or what even is the best
strategy so as an example
facebook
part of the competitive advantage there
is scale and so you can kind of just use
that to hammer things through even if at
a smaller company you can't quite do the
same thing
and so a lot of this has already been
predefined there's a lot of structure
and so it's more about how do you
execute well within that structure
whereas now that we're at brecks where
we are trying to solve some very complex
problems
we don't have a single defined way of
doing things you have to figure it out
uh and so you're not just thinking about
okay here's an existing product and how
do i optimize it or how do i kind of
execute along a predetermined strategy
you are part of the process to figure
out what is the right strategy
and it's not just necessarily the
product strategy it's the company
strategy the business strategy and so
you have to think about not just what
are the right product solutions but
really what is the right solution period
and then whether that involves your go
to market team whether that involves uh
other product teams whoever it is you
figure out what that solution is even if
it's not specifically a product solution
cool i think this is a good time to ask
khali about so you're the
first pm at uh burbex right
can you talk about what the role of a pm
you know at verbix is um and you know
how that you know how that perhaps is
different from you know working with
other pms in a team
sure um well the biggest difference is
probably just that you're
in in that size of a company we were a
seed stage company when i joined for now
series a um everybody is wearing a lot
of hats so i think the biggest
difference is that you're not just kind
of the opposite of what sylvia was just
saying about having a really limited
scope as a junior pm at a big company um
like one person
contains multitudes as
what whitman would say you contain
multitudes of functions within yourself
um so as a
you know i'm helping with support i'm
helping with integrations um there's
just a much broader swath i would say um
and then
those things have like great synergies
in a lot of ways because you're getting
a lot of direct feedback about what you
as the company should be focusing on um
in terms of
your you don't even have to go to
somebody else's desk to get input from
the market you know like you have that
because you're that you're there um so
that i'd say that's like one big
difference is just that you have um
for everything's just in a in one big
soup um and then in terms of like the
role of product
and how that might be different um i
think that this is probably consistent
but it's at the early stages too like
you as sylvia was saying as well like
the things that the way that you do
things the playbook even kind of your
thesis as a business isn't well defined
so i think a lot of the work and this is
a metaphor that i find helpful just
because of my background in journalism
but i think if product really is like
the editor in a lot of ways of like how
do we create focus um what should we cut
what should we double down on and uh
that's at least my working model for how
i aspire to to do product i should say
i think that's a that's a great analogy
um helena as a founder how do you think
about it oh good um so i'll let you i'll
let you finish with that and then we'll
uh i'll
introduce yourself
how do you think about practice uh um as
an early stage founder
yeah so what you uh cauli and sylvia
were both saying towards like
comparing large companies to small ones
we're at the very extreme of small right
now it's myself and my co-founder full
time uh so product and defining you know
what our company is doing and strategy
is is all um on both of our minds all
the time there is definitely no playbook
um and it's definitely not ironed out uh
so very much in that you know iterative
mvp stage which
is so much fun um and
part of you know why i love the early
stages of a startup um so much of it is
just speaking with with our glimpses
with our users um and getting feedback
from them implementing that and figuring
out how do you take quality feedback and
turn that into you know a consumer
social platform where
feedback you get isn't as direct as say
in a b2b uh company where you know these
are the criteria you need no it's like
you know i want the button to jiggle
this way it's like is that really what
you want i don't know um so it's it's
definitely interesting definitely
learning curve um
but i guess the way we think about
products
because of us being so early stage is
definitely very different um
and
it's less about like editing and fine
tuning it's more just like going full
forge on one thing and then trying the
next thing until something sticks and
then tweaking at that um and doing
everything from
that initial design to you know scoping
it out uh and then actually implementing
it as as engineers
viola i'd love for you to introduce
yourself um tell us a little bit about
your story how you became a pm
um and you know your uh role as a pm
you know currently at uh at airbn airbnb
correct yeah
cool sorry about all the technical
difficulties
i started tech
um so my name is vile chain i'm
currently a product manager at airbnb uh
focused on data products um so i started
my career as a software engineer and
then went to managing engineering teams
but i moved into the data space um
pretty early on after that um before
i'll call like data was sexy um
my first role in the data space was as a
data engineer so i was building
pipelines
i then moved into being a data scientist
so analyzing all the data that i was
creating and then finally ended up as a
product manager um which you know kind
of straddles the role across all of
those um areas so
so yeah that's um that's what i do right
now um yeah i will let you know you
continue moderating sorry this is like
very interrupted
no no worries and and um can you talk a
little bit about your role at airbnb
now and how that sort of your role as a
pm has sort of changed
based on you know the company various
companies we work at
yeah definitely so i was also on
facebook um you know a while ago so i
was there for about six years back when
um facebook was not public yet
um and then i was at lyft uh probably
around like three years ago um and then
now i'm at airbnb so
um you know it's it's really interesting
working at a larger company um you take
a lot for granted um you know there's a
lot of process
a lot of tools already set so you know
as a product manager when you have an
idea you have a vision
um it's very easy to actually get
something out to market because
everything is already there the you know
there's grease on the wheels to like you
know pave the path there
um and what i found when i moved over to
lyft was that there was none of that and
you know we were reinventing everything
like how to test you know like and we
had no like qa testers um and so you
know definitely flying by the city of
your pants which makes it very fun um
but also you know
a lot goes wrong um and so just you know
learning to manage you know all the
emergencies and the fires has been uh
very interesting
to say belief
so for all of you um you know what are
some of the most common misperceptions
of what a pm does like what is basically
what does a pm not do um i'll keep that
over to you first sylvia
okay so
i think the number one thing that i've
heard is around how like a pm is
it's kind of like the ceo of their
product and owns all of the decisions
and
yes that's kind of true but also it's
not as easy as everyone makes it out to
be like yes you are there to drive the
vision and the strategy and the product
direction
but you also don't really have direct
influence over anyone and so your job is
more to make sure that everyone else is
bought into that
before you can actually get anything
done
kali
go ahead
yeah i mean i thought that was the one
that came to my mind too it's just like
you're you're
i can't think of a i can't think of an i
don't know a cat are there like common
perceptions that come to your mind and
maybe we can debunk them
oh that's a good question uh that's
that's actually a really good question
and if folks in the audience if you have
like
general ideas of what you think a pm
does
we can we can try to correct them but
maybe going on that question
what is uh
so how what is your process in terms of
getting that buy-in from all the
different stakeholders and the various
like groups that you work across like
how does that does that end up being the
vast
majority of your work or or talks
through a little bit about that
yes so i i'm happy to start and then i'm
curious to hear what everyone else like
what your guys's process is and i think
this actually leads to another um
misperception that we can call out
which is that there is no single
framework to building successful product
or being a successful pm it's just it's
a toolbox and you you learn
um but specifically around driving
alignment a lot of this is
one starting with doing the groundwork
around understanding a problem space
being able to understand yourself like
why this is important how it aligns with
potentially the business vision and
mission
um and why we would invest in something
to begin with and then once you have a
good sense of that as a pm
then it comes down to
making sure that that context is clear
to everyone else and
this has worked differently across
different teams that i've worked with so
at brex for example um a lot of the
times i'll start with a close
collaboration with a smaller group of
people but then when it comes to broader
communication
we have a very written culture
especially in the time of coped and so
it's a lot of memo writing and then kind
of sharing it out um getting feedback
uh setting up individual meetings and
chats and conversations to make sure
that any concerns are kind of closed out
or if open questions come up figuring
out how you can reconcile any potential
problems
and then just making sure that there's
visibility into these decisions that
you're making
whether it's managing upwards or
managing downwards and outwards
yeah i'll actually uh jump in um i think
um you know
from
a pmi actually does everything and it
really depends on the situation and then
a lot of it depends on the maturity of
the product that you're working on
um in different stages of where the
product is right um you know i think a
common misperception is you know a pm is
like a project manager you know
and you're there to like drive execution
and gantt charts which is totally not
what we do i'd be fired if i were to do
that
um
but
yeah in terms of like the influence um
you're right you know nobody actually
reports to you and nobody actually needs
to listen to you right but um you know
one of the things that we're talking
about is you know if you do have an
engineering background it is very very
useful
because a lot of times engineers do
respect that you know their trade if you
will and when you prove to them that you
know you can talk their language they
are definitely more um open to some of
your ideas um and that helps you know
just you know influence you know just
the rest of the team and
driving alignment um to one one vision
yeah i like that
god
um i was just gonna say i think one
perception that is probably true is that
it's kind of the pm's job to say no to
stuff too
um
like
just
people are coming to you with
at least in
my uh sort of more enterprise-y world
customers want stuff and it doesn't
always make sense for the company and i
think that the pm is kind of the
linchpin there of um
making sure that things that do end up
on the roadmap like are things that are
going to make sense
for the broader strategy so that's one
that i would just
say is a is an accurate perception i
think
um helena when you are you know as a
founder your own pm how do you
prioritize you know feature requests
requests from your users and you know
and to develop your roadmap it's a great
question and kind of relates to what
collie was saying with like
you know you being the no sayer so i'm
the yester and the no sir so it was this
internal conflict of like i want this
feature built but i know it's not
focused enough uh we're in this
interesting position where you know we
could be building our platform for
schools we could also building it for
companies and employee kind of happy
hours and those are very different
products and they have very different
end users um but we want to do both i'm
going to do everything
so i catch myself telling myself no all
the time
and
for us it's easy to get excited about
new features and easy to kind of jump
into building things especially with
backgrounds in engineering so our
default is like oh this is cool let me
build um but in reality it's like no let
me kind of like validate and think about
how this fits into a greater puzzle
um
so in an ideal world you know i i would
be scoping things out and figuring out
like a longer product of a map and
working backwards um which we try to
hold ourselves to uh with covet however
everything changes so rapidly especially
being a video platform um that while
making like i don't know three month
six-month roadmaps all of that
kind of changes on moment's notice as
well um
so i i don't know if that really
answered your question uh but but this
idea of like being the pm and then the
people who
like playing all parts of the puzzle
you're like internally
trying to
take different roles and challenge your
own ideas um and really be thoughtful
about you know why are these ideas that
we should pursue
i'm going to go to um one of the
questions um from the audience that was
also on my list but um
the question here from athena is uh what
would you say are the crucial skills to
becoming a successful pm like if you
could name one or two um skills that you
you absolutely need to develop um what
would you say
i think one of the most important things
is just being able to tell a story i
mean at the end of the day we're all
humans and we all love to hear stories
and if you can tell a very compelling
story and communicate your ideas in that
way such that it resonates with people
whether it be you know engineers you
know designers data scientists or your
customers
that goes a very very long way um in in
terms of getting buy-in and alignment um
and you know the other thing is um you
know what i look for a lot in interviews
is i look for people who are curious
which is not exactly a skill but it's
more of a trait that you you definitely
need to have to practice
and you know natural curiosity just you
know helps with the whole vision and
strategy aspect of product because if
you don't question things then you'll
never you know get other ideas about you
know what you can do so
so yeah
i was going to say plus 100 to
medication and being able to tell the
narrative
there was a question also um from the
audience that's related but do you also
have to be a good writer
yes
you know it's actually kind of funny
because um this is also cultural i felt
like at facebook i did very little
writing um it was mostly bullet points
and that was fine for most of the teams
at lyft i had to do
a little more writing so i felt like i
was back in high school like always
cramming for like essays
writing product specs
and then at airbnb i feel like i'm
an author because you know the
expectation the culture here is that
when you write volumes and volumes of
documents
um which i'm actually trying to change
that a little bit
because being a good writer absolutely
helps yes
i would say that it also does depend on
the communication style that your team
or company has so i've worked on teams
where people are a lot more visual
and so decks tend to have a lot more
impact than writing an entire memo
is this something that you guys knew
going into where you you know where
you're working now or is this sort of
something you figured out on the job
like did you know what the communication
style was did you figure that out prior
to it
i in my personal experience it was
something that you had to figure out
like maybe you could guess a little bit
so as an example instagram was a very
deck heavy uh organization and more
specifically they loved keynote not
powerpoint but i think you could kind of
guess that given some of the culture
around instagram being a bit more design
um focused
uh but
sometimes you just have to go into it
and
figure it out
sorry vile yeah
um i was going to say something that one
of my mentors has said to me too is like
there's no such thing as the perfect pm
there's only the right pm for the right
stage of the company like for the right
product so
what ends up making you successful
will totally depend on so many other
factors like even if you're not a great
writer today that doesn't mean that you
can't be successful as a pm if you ha if
you happen to have like subject matter
expertise on something or
um
i think that there's like don't
don't
put any limitations on yourself i guess
is kind of what i would say there like
find opportunities that will fit with
your strengths
the only other thing i would add is like
you know another good skill is being
able to learn very quickly on the job
and knowing um
when you've done something that most
people are not receptive to and being
able to change that like very quickly so
very adaptive
that actually leads me to um another
question that just got asked in the chat
but what are the um let me look at it
right now
um
what are uh
parts of the job that you know you learn
through training and what are aspects
that you had to learn by experience or
intuition
and let's say
so
maybe framing it in the way that i've
seen
facebook interviews be structured which
is typically there's a product sense
interview around just like
how do you think about product there's
an execution interview that's very much
much about how do you
define success and drive towards a
specific metric and then there's
leadership and drive which is just like
who you are as a person and your
character um
the execution piece i think is the one
that can be trained the most because
it's a lot of understanding data
understanding how to apply it or
how to get inside out of it and using it
almost as a framework for how you
prioritize
and so that's
in my opinion the easiest one to train
for
um
where
it's more about experience is around the
product sense
um
so there are there is some training that
can be done there and then around the
collaboration piece
and this is where a lot of this is
around like trying
trying to build up experience around
understanding the situations
understanding the people that you're
working with
um this goes back to the
the common misperception where there's a
single framework for building
autocorrectly or being a great pm there
really isn't it's
you have an entire set of tools you're
constantly adding to that toolbox
and trying to figure out what the right
tools are to apply at the right time
yes totally agree there um at airbnb
um we also you know the interview
process is also very similar um and
execution and goal setting is definitely
one of the places where um i would say
it's the easiest to get training on um
definitely you can learn that by by
reading um and uh to a certain degree
with experience just from you know
launching products and stuff like that
um but the product sense the vision and
strategy that is definitely very um
experience driven and that's where i
actually think you know curiosity helps
a lot you know you know just
just wondering what you could do um with
and what you find
are deficient in products and you know
that's how you generate ideas so
so how do you uh define or measure
success um of a product manager and how
has that changed from being an engineer
in your past roles
helena do you want to talk about it
first from the founder perspective
interesting uh i like the question it's
i think
a lot of how we measure success the
question was like how do you measure
success from like the pm perspective of
a product
how do you um like
how do you define or measure the success
of the pm
for us it
comes down to like how quickly can we
get new products out essentially or or
advance i guess our company's goals
um and
sometimes you know what we build or we
suggest isn't gonna
isn't gonna be a hit and that's okay uh
but how many experiments can we run
essentially um how many things can be
disproved is just as valuable as how
many things can we prove um and then
kind of iterating from there
um
and for being an early stage startup and
in most companies i guess it's like
the pace at which we do things ends up
factoring into things very heavily more
so necessarily than quality so we do try
to
ship things every week uh every kind of
spec we have we try to scope it down to
what is like a one one week mvp of this
grand vision that we have um just so
that we can kind of validate things or
at least cross them out um
and scoping something down to one week
isn't easy
especially when we have
two full-time engineers um but it means
that we do have to be very diligent
around you know what is the crux of what
we're trying to provide here as a
value-add um and then being able to
execute on that
um so i think
measuring success um
really comes down to uh how how well can
you like define the core purpose and
then hone in on that
so um i will add to that i think that's
great that's very a very quantitative
way to measure success
um you know this has actually a change
so i've thought about this a lot um and
one of the um
things that i've kind of uh concluded on
is if engineers want to work for you or
they perceive that you are providing
some sort of value that is a good sign
um i would say that you know most
companies most founders are usually
engineers with like really good product
sense and the fact that if an engineer
needs that additional product sense you
know person um i think that's a that's a
good sign
sylvia yeah i would say adding on to
that so
not just at a high level around like did
you solve for the problem that you were
aiming to but i've actually noticed that
over time the additional measure of
success that i've tagged onto that is
also are you able to do so while
essentially maintaining a healthy team
dynamic so kind of to
val's point around like
would your team be excited to continue
working with you
um and a lot of this is just it's so
integral to your ability to get stuff
done
that you you can't just launch a product
uh
with no regard to how you're getting
there
tell anything dad
um
i think that yeah i think that that's
all basically what i would say too i
think the only other
nugget that i've maybe noticed is just
like making sure that your team knows
what to work on is like
like if they always know what to work on
and they know why they're working on it
then i feel like you're you're doing
pretty good
um to the point of like storytelling and
really making sure that people
um
like engineers as you all know are
really putting so so much blood and
sweat into something so i feel like
there's kind of a more qualitative way
of just like making sure that people
feel like they're working they're
putting all that work in for a reason
that they understand
what would you say is the biggest
challenge of being the pm uh day to day
okay i think one of the hardest things
to do is to prove that you're actually
writing value
a lot of what we do is more strategy
based and so it's not something that you
know an engineer you know you can
measure like lines of code or how many
pr's you put out there or like you know
when did you ship did you ship on time
it's very quantitative um as a product
manager um
you know
it's it's super like fuzzy you know if
the product is successful that's great
but you know what the engineers wrote
the code and the designers need to
design you know so um
it's hard um yeah
yeah i think one of the hardest things
is actually just managing my own
psychology um
around like what what i think i have to
be doing to feel like i'm being
successful
um and i think that also kind of
influences
what work i
look because
yeah i mean to to vile's point there's
just like an inherent difficulty in
showing your work when your work is
really to like leave a bunch of stuff on
the cutting room floor
um so i think it's it's
it's a lot of just like
first
satisfying my own sense of like
that i am valuable
so be anything yeah i would also say
another thing that comes to mind for me
is probably prioritization of my own
time and the reason why i say that is
just because there's so much that's
going on
uh across all of the different sfn
members that you might be working with
there's always someone coming to you
with questions
and so
it's it's very much around like
understanding what is urgent and
impactful to figure out now versus what
can wait
or
maybe be delegated and it's okay if it's
not the perfect answer because it's not
the most urgent impactful thing to
figure out now so like where you focus
your attention
i wanna i was gonna say that makes a lot
of sense especially considering a lot of
the work doesn't feel like it has
concrete um
rectangles i find myself when i feel
like it's not
measurable enough to go back to
engineering so when i feel like i'm not
being productive i would go code and
then i'll be productive again and i'll
go back to my pm role
and then i can think strategy and i help
between the two um and i guess how to
measure productivity as a pm is
something i'm still kind of figuring out
myself
jumping into a question from chat um
what is your now what is your most
favorite part or the most rewarding part
in uh a pm
i think for me it's uh
you know i i get to
participate in all parts of the product
development life cycle i mean i have a
opinion
and people actually are forced to listen
to my opinion when it comes to like
design usability um even like technical
architecture so
i get my my fill of like you know
understanding everything
um without having to go like too deep
and actually go do it all myself so i
mean it keeps things interesting um and
i'm never bored
for better or worse
i would definitely agree with that
that's
part of the reason why i was drawn to
product management in the first place
which is
you kind of just have these big problem
spaces that you get to dive into and you
get to think about all of the different
components within that product space
and problem space
and you don't necessarily have to dive
super deep into everything but you get a
taste of everything and
it's fun like it keeps things
interesting for sure it keeps you on
your toes
for me i think it's a little bit like um
if anybody's ever gardened there's just
an inherent satisfaction in like
bringing order to chaos
uh and
kind of
to what to sylvia's point there's just
there's just something really fun about
starting out with like a really
nebulous problem and then slowly
bringing more and more clarity until you
have something that is working
hopefully or not working and that's
great too
i'd say for me it's definitely the
ability to wear all the hats kind of
like you were all saying that there's
chaos everywhere and hopping between all
of them and
for me i unfortunately well fortunately
as well have to dive into all of them
deeply and do them all um
one day i will hire to replace myself in
those roles uh but wearing all the hats
is definitely what drew me to be a
founder and if i wasn't a founder than
being a pm
um 100.
so um i'm gonna kind of combine a couple
questions that came in through chat but
um how would you suggest thinking about
a company to work for and you know and
maybe a different way to ask that
question too is like how do you figure
out if a specific startup or product is
going to be right for you as a pm
so maybe you can even just talk about
your own experiences like how did you
decide to work at the companies that
you're working at now
yeah i i can start um i guess maybe
because my my search was relatively
recent maybe about a year ago
um so at the time when i was looking to
leave facebook um i was actually looking
to move to a much smaller company ended
up at rex but when i was interviewing i
actually took the time to just talk to a
bunch of different companies
across different sizes
and some of the things that stood out to
me so high level
what i cared about was
is the product that i'm working on does
it have some positive social impact um
is the leadership good is there a growth
opportunity um in terms of like learning
new things and diving into new problem
spaces
um obviously all of this it's really
dependent on who you are as a person and
what you care about
uh but some of the things that stood out
to me were as you go
as you talk to different size companies
you'll find different things right so at
a much smaller company maybe c stage or
uh series eight
uh you might be coming in as like the
first or second pm
and
you get a lot more opportunity around
just kind of like diving in and wearing
a bunch of different hats and defining
the culture etc but what you potentially
lose out on is
having more um
product peers around you to
learn from and obviously there are there
are ways that you can get that from your
community externally
but it's a little bit different right
and so there
there's those trade-offs around like are
you looking for
a slightly more established culture a
little bit more structure
uh
how how do you want to balance that
against
learning and growth and the types of
problems that you take on
vile yeah um i agree with everything
that sylvia said um i think you know if
you're early in your pm career it's
really good to be at a you know large
company like a facebook or a google or
you know microsoft because there's
established frameworks there's processes
that um you can just add to your toolbox
and they're they're really good
foundations to have
um one of the reasons i left facebook
was i had gotten to the point where you
know the products or the space that i
was supporting um you know
they're fairly mature and you know
there's it was just like you know
diminishing returns in terms of being a
pm
and so when i uh interviewed around um i
think i went to the most chaotic company
um
and that was a lot of fun um and it was
very tiring too but um you learn a lot
just different business models and then
you gain more uh things to add to your
toolbox
um so i think you know just depending on
where you are in your career um if
you're more in the learning from like
very established like you know
educational how to be a pm
versus like if you want to brave the
wild west and learn on the fly on the
job um you know you kind of need both
and
you know for me i've kind of hopped you
know in and out um i would say that
airbnb is slightly more under control
than lyft um
but you know probably not as like you
know structured as you know facebook was
so
yeah
yeah i would i would second that to you
and just say i think so much of it
depends on your your own learning style
um and also just kind of like
how urgently
you want to make this transition too um
if like if you're already an engineer
someplace then there's potentially a way
to like lateral into product there
um if that's not a game that you're
wanting to play then i think you just go
wherever he is going to like let you do
the thing that you want to do and you
hope for the best
um and you know it it either works out
there or you've learned some things and
you can apply them in a place that's
going to fit better so i think it
from from my own process around this it
just comes down to like
something along the lines of like risk
tolerance learning style and then
there's things to wear on top of that as
you feel more confident like
for me i have seen the kind of super
wild west and the next thing that i will
want to add to that is like what does
this look like uh in a more polished
environment um
i don't know if that's helpful but
i actually had you know one more thought
you know just talking to the people and
understanding who you'll be working with
is very important
um as a pm you know i i have my
engineering counterparts as like you
know we're attached at the hip
essentially um and so you know if you're
interviewing and you know who your
engineering counterparts gonna be and
you just you know
it's just not vibing um it's gonna be
very difficult to you know get anything
done so i would say there's a people
aspect to that as well
going off of that i'd say i've only
picked roles or not only but i picked
roles with that being like the highest
qualifying factor you know if the team
is amazing if the founders are amazing
um you want to be there kind of
regardless of the role um you can figure
out i'm talking mostly from like early
stage startup experience but regardless
of the role you can have take on you can
kind of expand that role and take
initiatives in various places um
you know or you can just become your own
vm apply to accommodate or be a founder
um that's always an option uh but i i
would say kind of like carl was saying
of like you know figure out what things
you care about and those are the things
you should optimize for whether it's
team whether it's the mission of the
company uh whether it's you know the
actual project you're working on the
product right so you that's sometimes a
very personal question of like what are
you optimizing for and maybe it's
how fast you get a job maybe it's the
salary the compensation that they can
offer you so
um that is going to vary for everybody
it's a great opportunity to come up with
a framework yes
so if um i'm earlier in my career um
what suggestions you know do you have
for how i can make this transition
um you know to becoming a pm especially
if i don't have any prior experience
i would say that you know with you know
regardless of what role you have you
know there's
always going to be value in
understanding you know whatever you're
building who your customers are and
what's really uh important to them and
truly being like empathetic i know
that's probably like an overused term of
like having empathy but um you know that
is like the first step for any sort of
like product idea is you know is there
truly a problem and who
who are you trying to serve right
um and so regardless if you're an
engineer if you're a designer a data
scientist like that is that should be
like the foundation um and once you have
mastered that i think it's a lot easier
to just show that you are ready to move
into product
yeah i think that there's a ton of
things that you can do just in terms of
training your mind too um and like
kind of start with
the internet there's tons of videos on
how to how to just even begin thinking
about these things um and reading books
like the design of everyday things and
just some of the classics that are
really foundational for how to think
about the ways that we do design the
objects and experiences in our lives and
just getting those muscles i think um
to whatever degree of rigor you want to
apply to yourself so doing something
like starting a blog and just
challenging yourself to like write your
own product specs for things that
already exist um it's pretty easy to
find information on like what the sort
of
as vile and sylvia were saying like but
the pm interview is pretty standard so
just like rehearsing
different iterations of answers to those
questions um
eventually like you will get a job if
you just keep
you know it's like going to the gym
just to add on to that i think a lot of
this goes back to what i was saying
earlier about curiosity being such a big
part of being a good pm
uh i remember early on when a lot of my
friends were
asking about getting into pm
a lot of the training is asking those
questions like why is airbnb's strategy
the way that it is why is uber doing
things that they're doing why are
i don't know even like door knobs
designed the way that they are since
you've got a design of everything
um
so it's
it's all about asking those questions
and then thinking through it thinking
about how you would do it thinking about
why it's being done the way that it is
and
and just building that muscle
this kind of leads to um you you all
talked briefly about pm interviews um a
question that lean asks about what's the
best way to prepare for a pm in a row
and assume you're talking to someone
who's never been on one before
so i
yeah i think um you know building that
muscle um there's there's so many
resources i think on the web right now
in terms of like you know the various
skills that um they look for as a pm
it's very nerve-wracking i would say
because a lot of it is just thinking on
the fly because you never know what
you're gonna be asked for but there's
always you know there's questions that
uh come up over and over again you know
if you were a product manager in this
space what would be the next feature
that you would um build and why
um and so just really being able to
assess a bunch of different products
even ones that you use you know every
day doesn't have to be tech
but
like you know kelly and sylvia said
you're building that muscle and training
yourself to be able to think on the fly
um
um and yeah
and i think also like practicing out
loud or with somebody else who can
because one of the things that folks are
testing for as everyone here i think has
mentioned like communication is such a
big part of the job so
just bearing in mind that you're not
really being tested on like whether you
get the right answer it's so much more
about the delivery and whether you can
structure
and
um
articulate your your plan regardless of
whether it's a good planner it makes
sense how do you show your work how do
you structure your thoughts
adding on to that um
at least for facebook interviews a lot
of what we were
trying to look for was around how you
got to the answer that you did what was
that thought process what principles
were you working off of to make
decisions and so being able to
communicate that being able to think
deeply
and talk out loud those thoughts
that's all more important than what the
end answer actually is
i'm going to combine a couple questions
from the audience um but they're
essentially around
your background so um in what ways did
your technical background you know
prepare your camera rolls and also if
you're not from a technical background
can you still break into people like
product management and like
um
and you know what what advice would you
have for non-technical
folks get trying to get into yeah
you know i feel like in silicon valley
um it's it's almost like a requirement
for a pm to
to be an engineer in the past
but i don't think that's true for you
know any any other area possibly
um
but you know
i would say that you know the pm
interview process there's actually
really nothing like technical about it
um aside from maybe some
some questions about how you would
analyze data um
but you know there's really nothing
about coding or like you know how you
would build something uh per se so
um i i think you know some of the best
pms that i've known have had like really
interesting backgrounds like musicians
or you know just you know really random
um but you know it's that drive of like
curiosity and being able to think
through
um what you would improve about things
and how you would go about it and having
like you know good reasons of why you
choose to go that way
um
so i know that's like very generic
but i don't actually think you need to
have um a technical background i think
when you're on the job it does help you
know grease the wheels a little bit with
engineers but um you know
i don't think it's a prerequisite at all
definitely a common misperception that
you need an engineering background
and let's see i think we have time for
one more question and then i want to
remind everyone that after this uh each
of these speakers um each of the
panelists will be in their own rooms and
you can go and continue to ask them
questions and talk to them
um but for our last question
um let's see
let's see
um
have there been any big setbacks that
you've experienced your you know careers
user either as like a pm or founder
and you know how did you overcome it or
what would it make you do differently
uh i would say that setbacks are like
very much in the eye of the beholder um
there's kind of something that i've
tried to live my life by is this idea
that the obstacle is the way so if there
is something that is getting in
in your way or that you're seeing as a
setback it might be more useful to see
it as something that's like teaching you
how to get to the next place that you
need to go um
so i would say no i've never had any
setbacks
but i have had lots of obstacles
[Laughter]
i um if no one wanted to jump in there
and answer that i actually have one more
question that came in um and you know as
you know women in tech as you know women
founders as women p.m like
are there important challenges that you
think need to be addressed or are there
things that you see male colleagues get
away with that you know that you have
you can't um anything to say to you know
on that
end
there's so much to say there
you know
yeah i i you know so one of the things
as a pm
uh i think
somebody said this to me like a while
ago but it's like you basically have to
like repeat your story in 10 different
ways before people truly get it and i
feel like as a woman you actually have
to repeat it like 50 times before you
will actually get it
where i see it's a lot easier usually
with men especially you know in tech
where you are trying to explain some you
know
technical details or like engineering
concepts or architecture
um
i don't know it you know i think there's
just unconscious bias there where you're
not as credible and so you have to keep
on repeating
um
and you know finding a good i would say
not necessarily a mentor but you know
somebody in the company who's like a
sponsor someone who's like very
supportive of you
um helps if he is male because you know
again lens credibility in some like
weird way
um
you know who who has your back i think
that's very helpful but um but yeah it's
you know broken record over and over
again
i would add on to that um i think the
broader theme is just knowing your worth
right and having confidence that
the opinions that you're surfacing or
the direction that you want to push in
has credence and that you know what
you're talking about and so don't let
um
don't let kind of these like different
biases
bring you down
plus one yes
i would also say too like don't get in
your head about it being a gendered
thing and don't assume that if you're if
you're having trouble that it's because
you're a woman or you're whatever a
zebra you know like just don't add that
where on it for yourself even because um
it's i've been actually having
conversations about this with my
boyfriend because somebody was like have
you ever experienced posture imposter
syndrome is a white man and he was like
yeah
you know so
i think too sometimes it's easy and i've
definitely been guilty of this to think
oh like that's happening to me because
i'm a woman and it doesn't it doesn't
even have to be true so
and and for me too that's like an it's
an additional emotional burden that i'm
putting on myself um
helena anything else
the only other thing to add
plus
um
one other thing to add just like the
assumption that
i'm not technical and the assumption
that i don't know what i'm talking about
and that like is like blatant
face pretty frequently i'm just like oh
let me talk to like your technical
co-founder or let me talk to like
someone on engineering from your company
and it's just
um i mean they're making assumptions and
my role isn't cto uh but
just those assumptions just
mean that you have to lean into just
feeling self-confident and assuming that
it's not because of your gender like you
were saying would help and i would also
say i'm definitely guilty of that you
can hear
i ran to my co-founder about it a lot
but
just just be self-confident know your
worth um and
um i guess don't don't think too much
about it
and
last question i swear just because i got
a one uh plus one in the chat um but
let's see uh
what single thing have you done that has
helped you prevent burnout
in your career or in your work
[Music]
that's assuming we're not burnt out
oh sorry go ahead go ahead go ahead
i was just saying i i frequently like
take out an entire weekend and go
backpacking this was before the
california wildfires uh but like every
few weekends just completely disappear
uh and go backpacking and that was a
good reset even though my days are
usually crazy to get up at like 7am and
work to like 10 p.m um but then making
sure that there are you know hard resets
every now and then um
has been working for me
yeah i would definitely say sticking
with your routine yeah
sorry go ahead tell
no no you first
yeah i i was just gonna say sticking
with your routine and making sure that
you have those things uh to help you
reset or refresh and re-energize
are extremely important
i actually had a couple of years at
facebook where i started feeling quite
burnt out and i realized part of it was
because i was prioritizing work over
going to work out or doing other things
that
were really just for me and investing in
myself um because i felt like that was
the only way to get the work done
and i realized that i was just doing
myself a disservice because
keeping my energy up was just as
important um in terms of like
being successful it's more of a marathon
than it is sprint and so you need to
make sure that you're taking care of
yourself
yeah that's basically what i was gonna
say to is just like knowing your own
limits um another thing that i found
really useful is this idea of kind of
like a pyramid
when you're trying to think about how to
prioritize your time like
is is the thing that you're gonna do
that you might be doing going to make it
easier to do each subsequent thing so if
you get a full night of sleep it's going
to be easier for you to do everything
else on your list um if you like i don't
know obsess over this paragraph is that
necessarily going to make it easier for
you to do everything else maybe not so
um i think for me it's just
identifying what those foundational
things are for me and then just trusting
that if i'm taking care of myself then
i'll be able to do good work
um
so
plus went to everything self-care is
very important i would say the one last
thing that i kind of learned over the
years
um you know just being a pm i think
we're all very um
very much overachieving you know very
goal-oriented and we tend to want to do
everything ourselves but it's absolutely
okay you know especially when your
execution phase to push things off to
the your engineering counterparts or you
know you don't have to be involved in
every single decision um from a design
or usability perspective but you know
stay true to like you know the things
that you provide value and only you can
do which is strategy and vision
um and some of the other things that
other people can do you know definitely
pass those off when you can
i would also say
just one last night to add on to that i
think part of this is understanding what
is in your control and what isn't in
your control because a lot of that um
what i've noticed is that a lot of times
because we are over achievers you want
to try to fix every problem that's out
there and sometimes things just aren't
in your control and can't really be
fixed by you but you can spend a lot of
energy trying to fix it but ends up
being wasted energy
thank you
all right thank you to the four of you
who spent your time talking and sharing
their stories with us today um so each
of the speakers will be in breakout
rooms where you can meet them and ask
them more questions um and if you're
interested in open pm positions at yc
startups you can always check out
workoutstartup.com and thank you guys
for everyone's great questions in the
chat and for joining us today it was
super enjoyable and i learned so much
from you guys
thank you thank you so much thank you