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If everything is “asap”, nothing is “asap”
Additional Posts in Aspiring Product Managers
What are some peoples favorite PM resources? Here are a few of mine:
- Cracking the PM Interview
- The Product Book - free e-book https://productschool.com/the-product-book/
- Product Folk’s Guide to learning PM skills https://280group.com/product-management-resources/free-downloads/
- ProductPlan - PM resource guide - https://www.productplan.com/learn/resources-for-product-managers/
- Good product Manager / Bad Product Manager - https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/
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I would go to a big, well-run company and stay until you are a lead PM of a decent sized P&L product before going the startup route. It’ll be helpful to get a few years of well-structured experience before going into a startup situation where no one is likely to be experienced in managing people and all the processes are chaotic.
The next year is probably going to be really really rough for startups. The ones that should be out of business will be pushed to an accelerated timeline when the free VC money disappears. A lot of VC money comes from naïve international investors, and with Chinas economy teetering, it will likely pull down a lot of other country’s economies with it and remove any risk appetite from institutional investors. If you really want to do a startup I would make sure that it’s a unique and mission critical SaaS product. On top of that, b2c and b2b customers are both going to start hammering on pricing and a lot of startups that are built on revenue from other startups or middle class Americans are going to quickly fold
Thanks for this it's a great breakdown. I think with this in mind it's safer to stay where I'm at the moment and push harder for a growth role. While the product is intriguing I can't say that it's extremely unique, it's safer to pass for now. If it makes it to the other side of the recession I'll reach back out.
It can be pretty hard to correctly identify if the startup is going to stay afloat or not. I would potentially try to get an interview or check it out before taking the position if you can.
As a VC, I'd second PM1's advice and avoid moving to a startup. Things are going to get ugly for a while and you don't want to get caught in a bad situation if you don't have to. I'd look at staying and taking on more / bigger responsibilities or going to a bigger, profitable company
Yeah seems like it's time to look at roles at a larger and even more stable company. Thanks for this advice.
Have you pushed for additional responsibilities at your current job? Maybe there is a growth role there where you already have support and like the company/people.
I haven't - thank you for this.
In the same scenario like yours except that startup job opportunity part ?