Things about Remote Teams and Freelancing as a PM
As COVID continues, most people are getting adjusted to working from home. For people who lost their jobs, it is becoming harder to hunt for the next opportunity, so freelancing is being considered as a good bridging option.
Today I invited Johnny Chao to share some of his experiences on working remotely, growing a product, and freelancing as a PM.
Johnny Chao is a computer engineer from the University of Waterloo with over 17 years of product management experience. He has held multiple senior roles at several tech companies and is now the Head of Product Management Vertical at Toptal, which is a global premium freelancing platform for top talents.
Remote Teams
Diversity is key
Many of us have experienced the obvious benefits of working from home such as:
- Shortened commute time
- More time with family
- More relaxed environment
But one thing we may have overlooked is the capability to work with people outside of our country. This adds a new level of complexity and opportunity. When we have the option to work with a more diverse team, our perspective broadens. We think more inclusively and make fewer assumptions. On the flip side, cultural differences may cause more frictions, thus slowing down team progress and efficiency. However, this can be overcome by cultivating an open culture, encourage learning, and foster understanding.
Extraverts struggled the most when it comes to working remotely. People who are more data-driven tend to thrive in such environments. The company needs to implement measures to establish a culture to bring people closer. This includes promoting the company’s mission and values, and things such as:
- Minimize bureaucracy. This reduces the communication barrier and helps with culture building
- Beer nights
- Team challenges (30-day walking challenge)
- Wellness programs (yoga, eating healthy, art classes, etc.)
- Annual off-set gathering
Achieving $0 to $10M growth
Focus on the unmet needs
Johnny led the growth of the Product Management vertical at Toptal. For the PM vertical, there is no lack of talent at larger tech companies. However, in the more traditional industries such as retail, banking, and healthcare, it is more difficult for them to attract and identify top talents. Johnny focused on those sectors and started building the vertical.
As with all platforms, Johnny faced with the chicken and egg problem of which side to start first. He chose to start from the talent side because he already has close relationships with some of PMs throughout his career. After onboarding 10–15 product managers, he opened the vertical up to clients. The wheel started to turn from there. As the vertical grew, it became a continuous act of balancing the supply and the demand to ensure a good utilization rate.
In conclusion, to achieve high growth, the PM should focus on identifying the market needs and start a platform from the side with the least friction.
Where to start as a PM freelancer
What makes remote work depends on the setup of the company. If everybody is in office working 9 to 5, then the remote PM will not be successful. However, if the company has multiple offices and people have experience working with outsourced teams, then the remote PM can succeed.
Choosing the right platform
Choosing the right platform is very important for freelancers. This is where you will find work and build a reputable portfolio.
Few freelancer platforms offer the PM vertical. Toptal is a premium platform that accepts only the top 1~3% of applicants. They sell pre-vetted and on-demand PMs to businesses. The jobs in the PM vertical are primarily coming from industries that are undergoing digital transformations such as retail, finance, and healthcare. The platform offers dual-sided protection, meaning clients can try out PMs for a trial period before starting the full engagement.
Upwork is another popular freelancer platform. It is an open-for-all marketplace that offers a diverse range of talents. The PMs will need to build a presence on the platform and seek out clients themselves. Since the platform does not have a stringent vetting process, clients need to do more work in assessing the candidates’ competencies.
The interview process
The interview process for Toptal is split into three parts:
- Language and Personality. This is the first step in the interview process. The candidate is assessed for his ability to communicate in English and his personality traits.
- Online Screening. The second step is around PM theory questions. The topics may include product marketing, project management methodologies, and product management concepts. The candidate is asked to answer 50 questions in 25 minutes.
- Technical. The third step is an in-person interview involving going over the candidate’s background, answering a few warm-up questions such as thoughts on technology, product trend, and ending with a complex product design question.
Unlike Toptal, Upwork does not require candidates to go through a vetting process, so it is much easier to start and create an account.
Challenges
Many freelancers do not know where to begin after signing up for an account or why they are not getting clients. One of the most important things is to make your profile as complete as possible so that it is easier for clients (in the case of Upwork) or Toptal’s matchers to discover you. Toptal does their matching by searching through profiles, so a more complete profile will help get you matched sooner.
We know the higher pay and working from a beach are attractive, but let’s not forget about the paperwork. Yes, the contracts and taxes. This is one area where Toptal exceeded other platforms because it does the legal contracts for you, however, it does come at the price of a lowered hourly rate.
How to be in the top 3%?
Now that we know where to start, Johnny provided few things on what looks for in a top product manager:
- End-to-End PM. Since clients expect freelance PMs to lead products, PMs should have experience with the full product lifecycle such as market research, customer discovery, execution, go-to-market, and growth strategies.
- Be the translator. If you are at a business table, you better be the technical expert. When you are at a technical table, you should be a business expert. Always strive to be someone who can bring unique value to the table.
- Have common sense. Data is not everything. Sometimes data can be biased or incomplete, so you need to use common sense to judge if what you collected makes sense.
Johnny shared a story about when he was working for a financial company. The company surveyed Singaporeans for their most desired credit card benefits. The result came back to be ATM robbery protection. That doesn’t make sense because Singapore is a very safe country. Baffled by the result, Johnny dug a bit deeper and learned that the reason Singaporeans wanted this insurance was not for within Singapore but for when they travel aboard to other Southeast Asian countries on weekends. Had the company proceeded with the initial data, they would’ve created something that completely missed the mark. This shows how important common sense is.
- Admit mistakes. The ability to accept you are wrong is powerful. We need to recognize that we cannot be right all the time and that if one becomes oblivious to this fact then he becomes the emperor with no clothes.
To learn more about Johnny or Toptal, check out the interview below!
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About the Author
Oliver Xu is currently an MS of Product Management student at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a product manager with domain knowledge in Ad Tech, IoT, and Telecommunications. He has worked at both startups and established corporates with eight years of experience leading software teams building enterprise solutions.
