I thought being a Product Manager was cool

It was really cool! but even it’s cool, I start to realize it’s not the job for everyone :)

I started my career as sales and marketing guys in FMCG [Fast Moving Consumer Goods] industry, I experience door to door sales in traditional trade, to sales strategic management. stay quite some time — 4 years — to the level I start to think it’s not for me anymore.

Source: blog.ekrut.com

Now I’ve been in Fintech industry for more than 2 years as Product Manager, I think I can tell you what makes tech industry different, and why product manager is maybe not for everyone

Agile, Agile, Agile… till you die

Agile is not just a jargon in tech industry, it’s the industry itself, we live in it. When I was being a project manager in one of the chocolate factories, it takes almost 3 years for us to launch new flavor! I kid you not, because for launching new chocolate flavor, we need to count on how much investment we should put on the machinery, the labor, the distribution channel, the warehouse and etc. It takes million dollars to launch just new flavor. What is it mean? it means the room to fail is so fucking small. The investment is too big to lose!

Tech was different, first, we have ability to ship product so fast, and cheap. In our company right now, we launch every 2 weeks, and in every launch cycle, we might launch > 15 features! most of the resources is human resources, and the investment to scale from 1 user into 100 million user is not big — yes you might buy new server, optimize your code, creating better network infrastructure and etc. But compare to other industry, the marginal cost for adding 1 user is very very very cheap

Second, we have ability to scope down feature/product. Lets say you have feature “Payment” and it takes you 2 months to build complete feature. But rather than to wait for 2 months, you adjust your product scope into several release:

1. Release A: 1 month
2. Release B: 2 weeks
3. Release C: 2 weeks

It’s what we called building MVP [Most Viable Product], so we can get the initial feedback from user, this build safety net mechanism for Product Manager to understand market acceptance. The result of this kind of release can be vary:

1. The feedback is good, you continue as plan, to release B
2. The feedback is undefined or unclear, so you continue MVP phase and waiting another month before deciding [in this phase, you might push more promotion/communication to user so you get more sample, or even invite some of the to get feedback from user interview]
3. The feedback is not so good, you found out user want feature in Release C more than B, so you change plan, and move to Release C and forget/postponed B
4. The feedback is really bad, you find out is not worth it so you just closed down the whole project and move on to other project

Even in the worst case [case 4], you might only lose half of the investment, but you still get the luxury of other possible option [case 2&3] and lose only half on investment in the worst case [case 4], which this kind of luxury is not owned by other industry except tech industry. In tech, we elaborate this into “sprint methodology”. The aim is to release fast, iterate fast and fail fast!

The third, since the product cycle is very fast, you might get your hand full with different project in one time. Its very normal for 1 senior product manager to have more than 5 feature running in the same product development cycle with totally different nature, lets say in this cycle he/she might need to lead project for registration, payment, disbursement, cash-out and promotion in the same time. Changes your focus for 1 to another in a very short span of time is… very challenging. In the end of release period, which the busiest time in product development, you might need to move focus in every hour. Its tiring and challenging in the same time.

You are leader by role, not by authorities

As a Product Manager, you might need to lead a bunch of engineering team, and maybe other team as well from growth, UI/UX and etc. Everyone voluntary working together to MAKE YOUR VISION COMING TO LIFE! the problem lies here, they’re not working/reporting directly to you. Even some of them might be way senior then you! [and even have salary way bigger than you as Product Manager LOL]

Imagine you’re working as senior back-end developer, you report directly to back-end tech lead and you join project which lead by new and junior product manager which 10 years younger than you. It’s surely might not easy for both engineer and Product Manager to build communication

As a Product Manager, you might need everyone in your good side, so you can comfortably make your vision come true. In reality, is not that easy. You simply cannot directly told everyone in the project that they should build things the way you want it. At first, everyone will think, whats in it for me? why I should build the way you want? I have better design system so I can finish faster, why I bother to listen to you?

So in a way for you to build your vision come true, you need to INVEST YOUR TIME to win everyone hearts. You not starting with what you want to build, but you start with business update, in what position we are right now, and what we want to achieve. What is user pain points, and how we want to solve it. What is our success metrics, what is the next phase after this project, and how in your mind you should build this so you ensure this product have scale-ability in the future. In reality, this kind of communication is not one-off talk, you might need several time, several different approach [everyone is different!] to ensure everyone on the same page. Not easy, but yes, for super introvert like me, it can be tiring as hell

You are always in the middle of the storm

Based on my working experience in more than 5 companies in the past 8 years, I could say that Product Manager is the most GENERALIST position in the company, second to the CEO

Source: medium.com

This is the most well known Product Manager Venn diagram, the scope of the product manager is stretching from User [UX], Business and Tech. But let me tell you this, this diagram is one of the biggest lying human invent in modern world, in reality, the scope of work might be so much bigger than this

Let me give you example, as a Product Manager in Fintech industry, for 1 feature to be developed, I need to manage communication into several different business part:

1. User: UI/UX team [to make dreams become reality], Customer Service [to understand how we handle things when things go south and user complain], Technical Service [if your business is SaaS], Data team [to track performance and gain insight], market research team [gain insight and validate idea]
2. Business: Growth team [to ensure business give your feature enough campaign support to growth], Marketing team [to ensure product launch and communication happen amazingly], Sales/BD team [if your business SaaS]
3. Tech: Backend engineer, Frontend engineer, Infrastructure manager, Network manager, Tech Architect etc

That’s why this role is never same in different industry, in Fintech, you might need to push strong in tech part other than others. in E-commerce, you might need to push in User part. But bottom line, you might need to be the most generalist person in the office. YOU SHOULD NEVER STOP LEARNING NEW THINGS! Learn how UI and UX works, learn how a company build financial report, learn new technology that can be implemented to make user experience better and etc etc.

You also must challenge yourself to learn something that might be your weakness. As a person who have study business in college, I challenge myself to learn my tech part. It doesn’t mean I need to be able to code, but I should understand how it works. And the same things happen also with Product Manager who coming from tech background, they might need to learn business and user part as well.

As a Product Manager, you’re always the first stop to ask to, from tech part asking business plan, from business asking the tech capability. When you talk to business team, you need to talk in business language. and when you talk to tech team, you need to talk in tech language as well. And trust me, all of these things, its always easier said than done :)

Verdict, for me, Product Manager is the coolest things to do. I really enjoy my time as Product Manager and it give me happiness that I’m not get in other roles.

But I see people come and go, I see more people come back from Product Manager to their original role before they join as Product Manager, and it’s okay. It just like other works and role, Product Manager is not for everyone