20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Does ‘Good Product Manager’ equal ‘Strong CV’? It’s actually negatively Correlated!
Successful product managers often emerge from backgrounds with no prior experience in the domain, suggesting that having experience in the field is actually negatively correlated with being a top performer. The top performers tend to come from diverse backgrounds, demonstrating ambition and a strong desire to prove themselves. These individuals are willing to go the extra mile, understand the customer deeply, and craft creative solutions to their problems. The two core parts of being a product manager are the ability to deeply understand the user and the ability to create effective solutions. To understand the user, one must be willing to put themselves out there, even if it means feeling like a fool or facing rejection. Coming from non-traditional backgrounds often helps develop the resilience necessary to handle rejection. The second core part is having sufficient knowledge of product building, including engineering and design, to lead the team and build a product that solves the customer's problems.
