It All Begins With Step One

After months of working as a software developer at an early stage startup, atop of freelance and personal projects, simultaneous with various work experiences, I finally came to this realization:
I am not meant to be a software engineer.
Perhaps the countless hours of debugging finally got to me; serving as a reminder of the countless missed opportunities that my entrepreneurial self should’ve pursued? Or maybe it’s the repetitive logical processes flowing simultaneously in my brain; draining the remaining creativity that I strived to retain? I may not have an explanation for this revelation…at least for now.
But that’s alright, because I decided what path aligns with my mindset: product management.
Having attempted to start a company within the music space (currently on hiatus), the thrill of transforming an idea into a full blown product with the potential to impact many lives transcends even the most adventurous of wild ones. Had I only came across this epiphany sooner, I would’ve focused my full attention on this and who knows, maybe my idea would’ve successfully gotten off the ground; amongst other creative pursuits. But it’s all in the past now, because there’s no time for regrets. All that matters is moving forward with the first step:
Techstars Startup Weekend.
Held just this past weekend, Techstars Startup Weekend did a great job in fostering an environment for people to pursue their dreams and do whatever it takes necessary to obtain them. Although I didn’t follow through with my own ideas, I was fortunate enough to team up with three talented individuals. Together, we ended up validating a pop-up shop in metropolitan areas for people (primarily women, based on our customer research) to relax and freshen up in between events (i.e. work and a date).
It took a lot of work from all of us this past weekend to get to that stage. For me specifically, one of the things I did was create a product roadmap based on the information we have gathered up to that point.

It may not be the most detail oriented, and of course more improvements are to be made, but the thrill of creativity has returned to this once lost soul. Placing third place helps, too.
So here’s to many more learning experiences, collaborations, product roadmaps, and medium articles. Welcome to my journey into product management.
After all, it does begin with step one.
