AMA: Matterport VP of Product, Preethy Vaidyanathan on Product Management Career Path

'What is a project that you are proud of accomplishing'. I like asking this as one of the first few questions. The reason I like this question is for a few reasons:  When people think of their proudest accomplishment, they typically tend to share more, get into the details organically  By using this question as a jumping off point, you can go deeper into a number of areas like problem-solving, strategic thinking, communication, ability to influence and more Some examples include how do they proa ...Read More

Remember your safety instruction on a flight ‘put your oxygen mask on first, before assisting others’. Its a good rule to use when you are a PM in a start-up, especially because you can actually do more for others. As a PM your oxygen mask equivalent is you are critically aware of your top 3 goals at any given time. Especially in an early stage startup, its important to reassess your top 3 in a monthly or at the very least quarterly basis because it tends to be fast moving and lot of changes as ...Read More

If you are already in a Product role, there are common skills that apply across SaaS or non-SaaS products. These include strategic thinking, problem solving, customer and market validation, ability to influence, strong communication and so on.  There are a few additional considerations when you are in a Product Management role in a SaaS company:  Strong analytical skills:  There are terms like Monthly Recurring Revenue, Active Users (daily, weekly monthly), Cohort usage and behavioral metrics, C ...Read More

A few key areas include strategic thinking, problem solving, customer and market validation, cross-functional management, analytical and strong communication. These are all broader skills that you can actively employ even in a non-product management role.  A few areas to explore as you consider transitioning to product management career:  Develop and actively deploy some of the above skills in your current role  If available, shadow a PM in a project to learn more about the day-to-day  Volunteer ...Read More