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Here's how to position your B2B experience for B2C roles: 1. Highlight transferable skills: User research, data analysis, and prioritization are crucial in both domains. 2. Emphasize customer-centricity: Show how you've put users first, even in a B2B context. 3. Showcase your ability to manage complexity: B2B often involves intricate product ecosystems, a valuable skill in B2C. 4. Focus on metrics-driven decision making: Demonstrate how you've used data to drive product strategy. 5. Highlight any relevant B2C touchpoints in your B2B experience, such as end-user focused features. 6. Emphasize your adaptability and willingness to learn new markets and user behaviors. 7. Leverage product-led growth experience: If you've implemented PLG strategies in B2B, highlight how this aligns with B2C user acquisition and engagement models. Remember, many product principles are universal. Frame your experience in terms of solving user problems and driving business outcomes, regardless of the specific market.

When transitioning from consulting to product management, focus on building these key skills: 1. Clarity of thought and communication 2. Problem-solving abilities 3. Comfort with ambiguity and change 4. Collaboration and influence Seek opportunities that allow you to develop deep product knowledge and context in a specific domain. This 'domino effect' of expertise can significantly boost your PM career. For the transition itself: 1. Client-side is often the quickest route, leveraging your existing relationships and industry knowledge. 2. Startup experience can be more valuable than a formal degree, especially given the rapidly evolving tech landscape with AI. 3. While an MBA can be helpful, it may not be necessary given the fast-paced changes in technology.

I've had the opportunity to work with and hire product managers from various backgrounds. Here's my perspective on the strengths an entrepreneurial candidate might bring compared to one from a FAANG company: 1. Resourcefulness: Entrepreneurs often excel at doing more with less, a valuable skill in resource-constrained environments. 2. End-to-end ownership: They typically have experience managing all aspects of a product, from ideation to launch and beyond. 3. Customer-centric mindset: Entrepreneurs often have direct customer interaction, fostering deep user empathy. 4. Adaptability: They're usually adept at pivoting quickly based on market feedback or changing conditions. 5. Risk tolerance: Entrepreneurs tend to be more comfortable with uncertainty and calculated risk-taking. 6. Diverse skill set: They often wear multiple hats, developing a broad range of skills beyond traditional PM responsibilities. 7. Growth mindset: The challenges of entrepreneurship often instill a strong drive for continuous learning and improvement. That said, each candidate brings unique strengths, and the best fit depends on the specific needs of the role and company culture.

Impact as a PM extends beyond direct revenue or cost savings. Consider these aspects when justifying resume points: 1. User growth or retention: Did the feature help sustain or expand your user base? 2. Engagement: How did the feature affect user interaction with the product? 3. Product value: Did it add foundational elements crucial for long-term success? 4. Competitive parity: Was it necessary to keep pace with market standards? 5. Future potential: Did it lay groundwork for upcoming strategic initiatives? Focus on the metric you used (or would use) to define success for each feature. Even if you "just built" something, frame it in terms of its intended impact on these broader product and business goals. This approach demonstrates your strategic thinking and ability to align features with overarching objectives, key skills for any PM.

Currently, I'm best suited to mentor mid-career product leaders facing challenges I've tackled in the last 5-7 years. For aspiring PMs, I recommend finding mentors with recent experience in entry-level PM roles. They can offer more relevant advice on breaking into the field and building foundational skills. While I focus on mid-career mentorship, I do volunteer with Mentors in Tech for aspiring software engineers. If approached by an aspiring PM, I'd appreciate their initiative, explain my current focus, and offer to connect them with more suitable mentors if possible. I'm open to brief conversations about the PM career path, but for in-depth mentorship, it's crucial to find someone whose experience aligns closely with your current career stage and goals.

As a product leader, I've seen successful transitions from partnerships to product. While titles matter, your actual experiences and demostrated skills are more crucial. Some beneficial titles could be: 1. Strategic Partnerships Manager 2. Product Integration Partnerships Manager 3. Partner Solutions Manager For example, in a B2B SaaS environment, partnerships roles can develop key PM skills: 1. Technical Integration: Managing API integrations with partners builds technical understanding. 2. Pricing Strategy: Negotiating partnership deals hones pricing and value proposition skills. 3. Collaboration: Working across teams (sales, product, engineering) mirrors cross-functional PM work. 4. Influence: Aligning partner and company goals develops stakeholder management abilities.

As a product leader, the single most important activity I prioritize is attempting to build an amazing team. A players attract A players and building incredibly diverse, smart and committed teams is the single most important job of a product leader. People come and people go, as a product leader you're always hiring. One of my former boss said to me once that once you team reaches a certain size (~10/12 people) you're always hiring. Something always happens, (internal/external mobility, reorgs, hiring spree, layoffs, performance management etc...) and you end up always hiring. So staying ahead of the curve, networking, always having your next hire in mind and keeping an active pipeline is key, but also ensuring your key players are properly incentivized, motivated, fulfilled and have room to grow and do what they do best is critical too. I know this isn't the original question but I can't help myself 😊 The second most important activity I prioritize as a product leader is keeping up with the product and keeping up my product knowledge. Staying close to the users, the sales teams, the detractors and understanding the ins and outs of your product will contribute to make you a strong product leader.

I don't believe there is one org structure that looks better than an other. so my answer here about my current team PM org structure is irrelevant but I can tell you a few things about it 1. My current org structure will change with various business priorities. And it could/will change a lot. And that's ok 2. Your last "reorg" isn't your last one. It's your most recent one. 3. Optimize your teams by problems they are solving, not by solutions they are providing So many more advice I would be happy to give that heavily depends on the level of maturity and size of the organization so i'll refrain from giving more until I hear more...!

I don't 😬 Obviously it depends on the size and scale and the situation so take this answer with a grain of salt, but I am a firm believer that you shouldn't ship the org chart when it comes to product goals and KPIs and landed impact. You're one team, one unit. You build and ship together, marketing included. Of course you have different techniques and tactics and skillset but you should all goal towards the same KPIs and the same landed impact. Ultimately you should optimize for the same things and the breakdown of who does what should be pretty clear once you have agreed on the end goal. If it isn't I quite enjoy employing a very traditional framework called a "RACI framework" that helps clear roles and responsibilities in a very blunt way.

This is a great question and one that happened to me as well a few years ago! Here is what I would consider doing (in no particular order) 1. Build trust, rapport and product knowledge: Become knowledgeable about the product, the sales cycle (if applicable: join sales reps on calls, meetings, trainings etc...), go do a few shifts of customer support tickets, join marketing and sales on a trade show etc... 2. Formalize the roadmap: Even if you're the first product hire there is probably already a roadmap. But it's probably not formalized, not formatted, not clear, not structured. that's the first most obvious measurable landed impact you can have. Gather it, structure it, tell a story around it, show past half or quarter or month impact and then look forward and build something the whole company will rally behind 3. Find "diamonds in the rough": There are often Product Managers "hidden" in the company. As you look to grow the team, go look in functions like Solutions Engineers or Engineering or Program managers for folks with a knack for solving problems and grow the product team organically 4. Figure out the biggest problems to solve: A high powered highly functioning engineering team might not immediately appear to "need" a product manager, but find the biggest problems they need solving and get to solving them