Falling into Product Management — Jim Semick, Co-Founder ProductPlan
Path to PM is a series of interviews with product leaders about breaking into product management. In this session, we interview Jim Semick, co-founder of ProductPlan. ProductPlan develops product roadmap software for product managers.
- How did you break into product management?
I’ve been in product management and new product development for about 15 years. Before that, I had a background in corporate training and technical software documentation. That experience gave me really great skills for becoming a product manager.
Like most product managers, and I actually do think it’s most product managers, they “fall” into product management. Rather than actually seeking a product management role, they’re working with a product in some other capacity and then they stumble into a product management role. And that’s exactly what happened to me. I fell into product management, discovered I loved it, and been doing it ever since.
2. What did falling into product management look like for you?
I started working for a startup in Santa Barbara. Their current product was failing, and they…
