Product Management - What Did You Learn as a Software Engineer?

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I think the biggest learning with software engineering for me was it was more personal that I felt I would be a very good software engineer but not a great software engineer. And so I realized that what to build is one of the things that product managers work on and that's why I decided to move into product. A lot of it is intuition, creativity, pattern matching, analytics. It's a unique thing which only comes with experience. So I believe anyone can become product manager if they essentially put the effort into learning the various components of it and get exposed to enough reps doing it.

“The best product leaders coach people across the company, not just in their team, and help develop them into the future leaders of the company.” – Gokul Rajaram

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/angel-investor-speed-small-teams-product-management-decision-making-gokul-rajaram-spotlight-show-notes

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/angel-investor-speed-small-teams-product-management-decision-making-gokul-rajaram-spotlight-transcript

CHAPTERS

This episode is our definitive guide to product management in small, speedy teams. In it we cover:

(00:00:00) – Introduction
(00:02:26) – Gokul’s background in product management
(00:06:58) – Applying a computer science background to product management
(00:10:26) – What great product vision looks like
(00:16:32) – The product analyst role
(00:23:11) – Focusing on controllable inputs
(00:26:07) – Experiment design
(00:34:54) – Editing vs. managing a product
(00:42:50) – S.P.A.D.E. decision making
(00:55:18) – Speed in product creation

ABOUT GOKUL RAJARAM

Gokul Rajaram is part of a new wave of solo capitalists, like Elad Gil and Lachy Groom, that play an outsized role in funding and helping many of the world's best startups. As Gokul says in this interview, his goal is for every founder he backs to say that he's the most helpful investor on the cap table. And if there is another thing that Gokul is known for, it's his expertise around product management and decision making, including the Spade framework he created at Square for making transparent decisions at the highest levels. Spade is now used by many of the world's best startups for large, important, and strategic decisions that need to be made transparently so the whole company understands why the decision was made.

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ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

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ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

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