Tips for Founders at their First Product Manager Jobs
After I wrote about how to land a product manager job as a startup founder, readers asked me to follow up on how to succeed as a product manager once you’re at the job.
I’m ten months into my job at Oscar Health. Here are a few things I’ve learned:
Figure out what you can uniquely bring to the table and make that a non-negotiable in your process.
After joining Oscar as a product manager, I noticed that I spiked high against my peers on user research and user empathy.
At Oscar Health, my team owns the administrative portal that doctors use to interact with insurance companies. My users, who are doctors, their office managers, and hospital administrative staff, are hard to reach.
After rounds of low booking rates, I was at a crossroads: stop doing research or push on. I made user research a non-negotiable because I believe it is core to building a great product.
This first-hand research has given me confidence when making decisions and helped me earn trust from my colleagues because I’m able to back up my ideas with stories from the field.
