A day in the life of a Product Manager

In our latest edition of ‘A day in the life..’ we spoke with one of our Product Managers. Here’s goes…

1. What does your typical morning look like?

Well, it depends. I would be lying if I said I’m a morning person. Lately, I hit the snooze button more often than I should!

But sometimes, I like to wake up early to draw before making my way to the office. It’s my way to wake up and relax. It’s also my chance to listen to some music and catch up on the news. It really helps me to map out my day (to-do list, priorities, ideas…)

In any case, it’s a double esspresso before I start anything!

2. What does a Product Manager actually do?

To understand what a Product Manager does I guess it’s important to begin with the job description:

“A Product Manager (PM) role can include the responsibility of the strategy, roadmap, and feature definition of a product or product line. It involves working with cross-functional teams and can sometimes include marketing, forecasting, and profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities. A PM analyzes the market and competitive environment to define a differentiated product vision that delivers unique value. This role spans many types of activities, from strategic to tactical. A Product Manager provides cross-functional leadership and bridges organizational gaps between different functional groups — most often between engineering, marketing, sales, and support.” (source)

In other words, if I had to explain my job to someone new in this business, I’d say that a PM is a proxy between the different product stakeholders (customers, software engineers, marketing and sales). You have to collect product needs coming from different sources and set priorities to these needs according to the global strategy of the company and its own convictions. The PM transposes that into a roadmap that will be rolled out by delivering new products, new features or improvements in the existing products. One of the biggest challenges is to keep the consistency of the product(s) he/she is in charge of while responding to the users’ needs and expectations.

I think the main skills associated with this position include:

• A strong team spirit
• Being comfortable in different environments with different kinds of people
• Having a taste for technical topics
• Curiosity and ingenuity
• Good communication
• Knowing how to play the role of mediator/arbitrator if necessary
• Unifying people to make everyone move in the same direction

3. What attracted you to Linkfluence?

I heard about Linkfluence in my previous company. Back then, several colleagues had left to join Linkfluence (including my former boss). She told me about a job opening for a Product Manager role to improve processes, delivery, and documentation and spoke about a new software release. The company was growing fast and they needed more talent on board.

She mentioned how I would get to work in teams and in an international environment, be part of ambitious projects, and deal with great customers!

I was familiar with social media platforms then but less with the social media intelligence industry. But I made some inquiries, applied and got the job regardless.

I joined Linkfluence during the summer of 2016 and haven’t looked back. I’ve had the chance to meet great people, participate in great projects and launch exciting products.

4. What are some of the challenges you face on the job and how do you deal with them?

I guess that one of the biggest challenges is related to the industry. You have to stay connected and informed about all things social media and on the data ecosystem. The industry is changing rapidly with the constant emergence of new social media platforms, new data sources, new norms & regulations, new metrics, and new post types, so you have to stay on track and aligned with the market and your user expectations. When it comes to the product, you have quite a high cadence of product updates and short deadlines.

Another major issue is to keep up with the consistency of products. As I mentioned earlier, you may deal with various types of people (internal and external). They each have product expectations, for instance, two customers having the same need will express it differently. So it’s your job to analyze all that and understand what the use case is, in order to make the right product decision to respond with an appropriate solution. It’s not always easy to find the right balance because you have other elements to consider (technical limitations, deadlines, not being part of the strategy, etc).

The latest big challenge is keeping it simple. Sometimes you work on complicated features (e.g. a feature recommending similar profiles according to specific criteria, a search engine, advanced filtering options…).

In short, your role is to turn something complicated, into something very easy to use and understand by users.

5. What keeps you motivated?

I think my main challenges are what keep me motivated. Thinking about interesting product topics, in a dynamic environment, with motivated people is a huge facilitator.

What I also like and what makes Linkfluence stand out is the ambiance in the office. Even though Linkfluence was formed 11 years ago you still have the feeling of a thriving startup environment. The company has picked elements from both worlds, startup and mature working space. In my opinion, it’s working pretty well.

From a Product point of view, in my day to day life, one of the upsides to working at Linkfluence is that the software is pretty “complex”. You have several products and features to deal with so you can “play and improve” a lot of stuff. You never feel bored working because most of the time it’s on something new. This to me, is a great way to learn new things.

The delivery process also is quite short at Linkfluence. A project, an idea, or a POC can quickly turn into a new product or feature available for all users on production. You really have a quick pace on your projects. It’s also always motivating when you have the feeling of doing something useful because you can see users using the new product features you just delivered. It’s satisfying.

And of course, motivation also comes from the people I’m working with. You always have someone to help you. All this creates good vibes at work, plus if you have fun with motivated people you can create great things.

6. Is there anything you look forward to every day?

Lunchtime (OR maybe a very famous döner kebab on a late night in Pigalle. I won’t say any more on that ;).

7. Any hobbies outside work?

Yes of course! Generally speaking, I love all things related to the world of art, design & creation.

I first started doing graffiti when I was a teenager. Today, I’m still practicing but differently and smoothly. I’m doing more and more stuff on paper with acrylic paint & Indian ink. I also draw. It’s a pleasure that’s quite a bit different from graffiti or street art because it’s not the same medium (a wall or concrete etc) so you’re much more limited by the size but it’s also good vibes.

I think that in a certain way this hobby influenced the kind of work I decided to do. What I am sure of is that it helps me in my job. In Product Management when you imagine new features, in a certain way, you need to use your creativity (thinking, implementation, working with the Design team etc) and I like that.

8. Can you tell us about the culture or values at Linkfluence?

To me, the biggest “trait” that defines the culture and values of Linkfluence is “a dynamic environment with motivated and smart people you can rely on”. So, in terms of values, I would say ambitious, motivated, smart.

9. What would you say to someone considering a role in the Product team?

Do it! Working in the Product team at Linkfluence is a great challenge. It’s a very stimulating experience that offers a lot of possibilities in terms of product management.

Something people reading this article may not know, is that the Linkfluence brand encompasses different products organized as a software suite. The oldest and most famous one is Linkfluence Radarly but the Product team is in charge of several products (internal & external), each being highly integrated with specificities. This is a pretty cool playground for a Product guy.

As a Product team member, the first thing it offers you is the opportunity to work on various kinds of projects and features (search engine, filtering options, data visualization, data collect, API connectors, UX/UI, AI and much more). All of these offer you the chance to diversify your day to day tasks and your skills in different domains.

In the same way, it also allows you the possibility to work with various kinds of speakers (internal or external), and of course the Technical team. I think it’s important to specify here because at Linkfluence the Product & Tech teams (AI/Frontend/Backend/Integration/Design/Product), are truly batting for the same team. It may sound obvious but after talking with other PM’s it’s not always the case in all companies. This creates a very good dynamic that allows you to learn a lot.

Another thing you may consider before working at Linkfluence is that you're not just limited to a section or a page of a software or website. You don’t work in a silo managing a very limited batch of features. Of course, you have your domains of expertise but in the Linkfluence mindset, and in the product team, you always have the possibility to keep an eye on the global vision of the product and on what your colleagues are working on. To me, this is something admirable you don’t attain in all SAAS companies.

Lastly, on the product side, something that people probably ignore is that one of the specificities of Linkfluence’s product is the design, the UX & the UI. To me it’s a real plus when you work in the Product team, it’s truly part of the company DNA. I was quite surprised to notice this when I started working here. It’s not always the standard in SAAS for B2B.

To conclude, you have a lot of challenges to face, which in turn keep you learning, especially as you’re evolving with people invested in what they’re doing. It offers you the opportunity to participate in very constructive product iterations where people challenge your use cases, your ideas, and your stories to make the products grow.