How I went from Executive Assistant to Senior Product Manager

One year ago I was an Executive Assistant, scheduling meetings, taking notes and calling vendors. Today, I am a Senior Product Manager working with a team of eleven engineers and two designers.

It sounds crazy (it is) and unbelievable that I would go from an Executive Assistant to Senior Product Manager in such a short period of time. It wasn’t luck or chance; it was a combination of opportunity, willingness to learn, and being scrappy that got me from EA to PM. I think this is completely possible for anyone so I thought I would share some of the things that helped me get from point A to point B.

Do your job — don’t hope for your future job

It is really easy to continue to wish for tomorrow in a job, especially at a startup. The day we raise our series A, the day we actually make money, the day we all get paid market rates, the day we get X amount of users. The same thing goes for the position itself. The day you can hire someone to do the grunt work, or the tasks you don’t like, or the tasks you weren’t hired for. This kind of thinking makes surviving at a startup impossible — you have to pretend like those days are never coming. Every task will be yours forever, so you might as well do them to the best of your ability. After watching lots of people come and go at various startups, one of the biggest pitfalls I’ve seen are the employees who talk about their future job or complain about doing things outside of their job title. The job is making the company succeed — if that means you have to buy coffee for the office than pick up the damn coffee. If the company doesn’t succeed it doesn’t matter that your title wasn’t Director.

Learn everything you possibly can

I listened to audiobooks on user testing and UX design while I ran. I put on podcasts from a16z and The Growth Show on my way to work, I set up an alert for Product Manager so I could read blog posts and news articles as they came out. I did all of this while still being an Executive Assistant during my work hours. Jumping careers means that something like work-life balance can’t be something you worry about. You’ll work all the time and when you’re not working you’ll learn more about your new job. For me this process was like trying to learn to swim in the middle of the ocean, while it’s storming.

Meet with lots of different people already in the role

I cold-emailed a few Product Managers in the area and my CEO introduced me to a few that he knew. I asked for book recommendations, best practices, and would pick their brain on how to handle certain situations. I now have a few mentors that I meet with on a regular basis and it is invaluable. Books are awesome, but to have someone walk you through how to handle a specific situation — that’s priceless.

Don’t settle

There was probably a line that I could have stopped at during this whole learning process — one that would have made me a pretty Product Manager for now. But I didn’t want to be a just okay Product Manager — I wanted to grow with the company. I spent weekends learning SQL to run my own queries and I took classes on front-end development so I could talk with the engineers about race conditions and error states. I will continue to read and learn and better myself because (especially in Product) the role is constantly evolving.

Work for places that give you an opportunity

I had more opportunity at Cratejoy than I’ve ever had before. I tried a lot of different things early on because I just did whatever the company needed, and I did it like it was going to be my job forever. My CEO gave me advice on starting a company, working at a startup, what areas I could grow in. I would never have become a Product Manager if my CEO didn’t sit me down and tell me that he thought I had the skill-set for it.

I worked my ass off learning to become a Product Manager but that would not have mattered if I was never given the opportunity in the first place. I had worked for startups before but this was the first time someone had given me a chance and I am incredibly grateful. If you have any desire to grow in your position, working for someone you respect and who sees your potential is vital. The best way to thank them is to work hard to earn the position.