A Product Chat with Yelp’s Leo Zhang

Key takeaway: Figure out your value by asking yourself why your team even needs a Product Manager

Welcome to PM Nation (PMNation.co), an interview series where we shine a spotlight on personalities behind great products, learn more about how they got into product management, and provide insider perspectives into how the craft of Product is evolving. To learn more about why this got started, click here.

For the benefit of our readers, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do as a Product Manager (PM)?

Hey y’all, I’m Leo. I graduated from the University of Waterloo just over a year ago and am currently a Consumer PM at Yelp. My main focus is on relevancy in Yelp’s search flow and other surfaces in the consumer app.

Outside of work I spend my time lake surfing and playing the piano. Prior to starting university, I had considered trying to make it as a concert pianist, and I am still hoping to learn to teach and start teaching piano one day.

So how did you land up in product management?

I first got interested in tech as an undergrad student. I received a degree in mathematics, but did my first couple of internships as a software developer much like many of my classmates. Halfway through my degree, I interned as a data scientist at a small non-profit where I saw how relatively simple solutions could make huge waves when targeting the right problems. Execution was certainly not easy, but building impressive technology was not the point. Targeting our efforts at the right problem was.

This is where I found an appreciation for contributing to solutions to impactful problems. Following that, I was lucky to be given an internship in Product at Yelp. And here I am today.

Why is it so hard to get into product management these days?

In my view, the position isn’t very easily defined, and the responsibilities and required competencies vary greatly between even product managers in the same company. Since PMs also come from so many different backgrounds and have different strengths, it’s a difficult matching problem with an additional wrinkle in that it’s hard to tell which role you’re suited to from a job description alone.

“The hardest and most interesting parts of my job are determined by the question “why?” Any thinking which brought me away from the “how” and closer to the “why” helped me grow my product skills.”

For those interested in a career in PM — what kinds of experiences should they seek out?

The hardest and most interesting parts of my job are determined by the question “why?” Any thinking which brought me away from the “how” and closer to the “why” helped me grow my product skills. For example, as a data scientist I tried to take the time to understand the problem space, both for the work I was tasked with, and the overall mission of our team. It helped me understand, for example, the rationale behind the requirements I was handed and why we limited investment on certain projects.

As a PM, what do you do exactly on a day-to-day basis?

My days are occupied by:

• Execution updates with dev teams and product leadership
• Lots of 1–1s and other meetings to map out collaboration and common problems to solve, iron out staffing and execution with engineering leads, or give and receive frank feedback on ideas
• Updating stakeholders in meetings and emails
• Focus time where I think through and write out proposals, analysis requests, kick off slide decks etc
• Talking to users

The balance of time spent on each of these is dependent on what part of the quarter we’re in, and whether we’re focused more on planning or executing.

What do you love about being a PM? What do you wish you could change?

Since the role is so coarsely defined, there’s always something fresh and new to pick up. Of course there are bread-and-butter tasks when it comes to planning and execution, but on the day-to-day level I’m frequently working with new people and finding new problems to solve.

The downside of being a PM, especially an early career PM, is it’s sometimes hard to gauge where I’m providing great value for the team, and where I could improve. Since my specific tasks differ even from my Product organization colleagues, there isn’t an easy way to measure the quality of my work. I’ve found it important to actively collect feedback from my manager and peers. It’s super helpful to have a manager who is forthright as well. Fortunately, I do. Big shout out to them!

“Product success is no longer just a question of who has the most user-friendly solution. We compete on things like mindshare, brand associations and brand reputation.”

What is the difference between product management and project management?

Project management is part of what I do as a product manager. I work with engineering, design and occasionally dedicated project managers on the details of scheduling and estimation for different stages of execution, but I am present throughout to support these stakeholders when it comes to prioritization and milestoning.

So while project management is a collaborative task for project execution, it is definitely something I’m responsible for supporting.

How do you develop a vision for a product?

I have to admit, product vision is something I suspect we all interpret differently. I am personally still developing my own style.

Product vision for me has 3 elements:

1. a clear statement of the problem I’m trying to solve
2. a user flow illustrating what we’re unlocking for people, and
3. criteria for how we define success

Problems come from users or other stakeholders, or are surfaced from exploratory analyses. Then the flows and success criteria usually start as a proposal from me, and are refined and validated through internal collaboration and research before we commit to building.

“In my view, it’s crucial to clearly convey the thought process behind your decision making. Be ready to use visual aids where appropriate to get your point across.”

What skillsets are essential to being a PM? What skills will PMs need in 5 years?

User research. This is probably particularly important for a Consumer PM. Findings from interviews and surveys have been indispensable in giving us direction and validation. The often qualitative nature of these artifacts makes it very hard to conduct and draw conclusions from, which is exactly why PMs should support researchers. We have a lot to lose when we misunderstand the people using the products we work on, and the richness of the stories which a researcher can highlight cannot be obtained from any other channel.

Marketing is something PMs will need to understand well in the future. This is something I am working on myself. These days, any consumer’s life is flooded with competing digital products claiming to solve just about any problem they might have. Product success is no longer just a question of who has the most user-friendly solution. We compete on things like mindshare, brand associations and brand reputation. Learning how to collaborate with their Marketing peers to compete and win on these frontiers is becoming a must-have for PMs.

What’s the most important quality a PM should have (or develop)?

User empathy. I think this is a large part of what people mean when they say “product sense”. Developing my empathy through research and learnings from past successes and failures helps me in two key ways:

1. It gives me confidence when making decisions. Prioritizing problems to solve with target personas in mind makes impact much more concrete and comparable.
2. It helps in finding alignment across stakeholders. User satisfaction is a common language across teams and functions, and allows us to make tradeoffs and move forward as a group.

“Always make clear the assumptions you’re building on, the reasons you take risks in cases when you do, and how you’re defining success.”

What’s the best way to shine in a PM interview?

In my view, it’s crucial to clearly convey the thought process behind your decision making. Be ready to use visual aids where appropriate to get your point across.

Product isn’t an executive role, and in an interview situation you don’t have access to real data and research. So whether you are drawing “correct” conclusions isn’t a make-or-break. But you should be communicating the whys of your choices so you can refine and adjust through feedback and new findings your interviewer may provide. Always make clear the assumptions you’re building on, the reasons you take risks in cases when you do, and how you’re defining success.

How do you figure out if you’re the right fit for a prospective PM role?

This is a hard one. To be honest, the only way to get a really good handle on this without actually starting the job is to somehow convince the previous person in that role to grab a coffee. This is unrealistic in just about all cases so do some due diligence research on the company’s product process and style of work, and try to have a candid conversation during your interview with the hiring manager. They are likely the only person in the process who actually knows the day-to-day highs and lows of that specific position, and your working relationship with them will highly impact your enjoyment of and performance on the job.

Beyond that, the variability in the role requires you to take somewhat of a leap of faith. Just ensure the team’s mission resonates with you. You’ll have a rough patch here or there, but being aligned with your mission will never fail to see you through the day.

It’s time for the Lightning Round! What’s a good book, movie, TV series or video game you’d recommend right now?

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Favourite place for a coffee chat?

The park or anywhere outside where there’s a couple trees and birds like to hang out.

Favourite dish to pick up after a long day?

Fresh rolls.

Where do you dream of traveling to next?

Sri Lanka.

What’s your hidden talent?

I can produce pretty decent Chinese calligraphy.

If you ever decided to get a tattoo of a brand or a logo, which one would it be, and why?

No brand or logo comes to mind, but I’m into skeleton as subject matter, so if there’s something out there with a nice dancing skeleton or something I’d be down.

Leo, thanks for your time!

Thanks for having me!

For the rest of our conversations with Product minds from around the world, visit PM Nation.