Coffee with Product Michael Fountain

Tune in to listen to Susan Stavitzski, Senior Product Manager @ CarMax, share the stories behind some of her best product wisdom & career tips for new and aspiring product managers.
Susan's product wisdom & career tips discussed in this episode
How to develop customer empathy? Go talk to as many people as possible every single day.3 buckets of PM specialties; customer-focused, tech-focused, business-focusedYou can stand out as an aspiring PM by taking on personal projects, put your ideas out there, get feedback from others, don't just sit on it and do nothingEveryone has workarounds when the software does not do what they want it to do, these are opportunities Make it a priority to hang out with your customer success team, they are the front-lineThe most powerful teams are the ones that actually do everything together.Take every opportunity, create your own luckDone listening? Great, do this next...
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Tune in to listen to Greg, Product Manager at Veygo UK, share the stories behind some of his best product wisdom & career tips for new and aspiring product managers.
Greg's product wisdom & career tips discussed in this episode
Never underestimate the value of networkingTake a step back and never forget the goal you are there to deliver ... meaningful solutions to customer problemsThere are two sides to the product coin, discover problems and deliver against themit's way more difficult to deliver something that actually works for your customers if you're not starting with the problems they're facingCool tech does not equal customer valueWhen applying for your next product rile, look just beyond the product leader when you're stalking people on LinkedIn and think about, okay, who else am I going to learn from here? Who else is in this company is going to teach me stuff.Done listening? Great, do this next...
Tell me how you heard about the podcast with a short 2-minute surveyThen, GO TO https://coffeewithproduct.com AND SUBSCRIBE for complete transcripts of every episode as well as even more curated product content that will help you get started and get ahead in your product career

Tune in to listen to Avinoam Zelenko, Senior Product Manager of Feed at LinkedIn, share the stories behind some of his best product wisdom & career tips for new and aspiring product managers.
Avinoam product wisdom & career tips discussed in this episode
Try to solve the problem any way you can, don't wait for a perfect solutionWorry less about looking the role and trying to check the boxes of like what a PM should be doingDuring change, you have to bring people along for the journey- applies to the people you are working with and applies to your customersIf you're doing anything that involves change, like change management, it is not a sideline thing, it is not the byproduct, it is a thing within itself that deserves principles and attention, and thoughtfulnessThere are problems everywhere, all around you, try to solve them any way you can, but you can't solve them on your own, so be collaborative, get out of theoretical, get into the driver’s seatDone listening? Great, do this next...
Tell me how you heard about the podcast with a short 2-minute surveyThen, GO TO https://coffeewithproduct.com AND SUBSCRIBE for complete transcripts of every episode as well as even more curated product content that will help you get started and get ahead in your product career

Tune in to listen to Jess Sudo, Product Manager at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, share the stories behind some of her best product wisdom & career tips for new and aspiring product managers.
Jess's product wisdom & career tips discussed in this episode
When pivoting to product, It's important to understand how your previous experience ties into being a product managerI would say with a great opportunity as a product manager comes great ambiguityYour performance is going to be evaluated on how much you're either saving the company or gaining the company financiallyYou are not going to be an amazing product manager because you know everything about your product. That's a great skill set. You're the conductor, but people don't necessarily see you that way.Do the planning that you need to do to make your career pivot a good idea.Done listening? Great, do this next...
Tell me how you heard about the podcast with a short 2-minute surveyThen, GO TO https://coffeewithproduct.com AND SUBSCRIBE for complete transcripts of every episode as well as even more curated product content that will help you get started and get ahead in your product career

Tune in to listen to Merlin Woodman, former Senior Product Manager at QorusDocs.com, share the stories behind some of his best product wisdom & career tips for new and aspiring product managers.
Merlin's product wisdom & career tips discussed in this episode
You need to understand the market, and not just the marketingBe comfortable with the unknownAggregate the tribal knowledge that you've accrued and present it in such a way that other teams respect the decisions that you make,Get from an idea and direction through to execution; there's a lot of opportunity for learningDefine the success metrics, but also define the failure metrics- they are just as important because you will not be right all the timeA real challenge is being able to aggregate tribal knowledge and present it in ways that other teams can understand and respect the direction you are headingIf you're sitting on the fence, it's better to tumble forward than back.Done listening? Great, do this next...
Tell me how you heard about the podcast with a short 2-minute surveyThen, GO TO https://coffeewithproduct.com AND SUBSCRIBE for complete transcripts of every episode as well as even more curated product content that will help you get started and get ahead in your product career#productmanagement #breakintoproduct #pivottoproduct #productmanagementcareeradvice

Tune in to listen to Lauren Lee, Founder & CEO ProductLivity, share the stories behind some of her best product wisdom & career tips for new and aspiring product managers.
Lauren's product wisdom & career tips discussed in this episode
Set aside 10 minutes a week to journal what are the top three things that I really did that added value, or what did I learnBe mindful of your comms strategy when you change something in your product, your end users are people too and if they are on the losing end of a change, you may need to help them through itProduct decagon framework to help you grow your product careerProduct discovery and execution - insights, roadmap, to executionPeople management - beyond IC, peoples, managersLeadership - any PM should be displaying some amount ofCommunication - tons of meetings, devs, designers, stockholders, customers - articulate what you are trying to doStrategic thinking - more important as you get more senior in your product career, what is the right set of things to put on the roadmap in the next 12 monthsUser empathy - understanding users, how to best solve problems, uniquely do that that the alternatives are notAnalysis - understand the data, quant / qual - why success criteriaTechnical fundamentals - speak enough engineering to have trade off conversationsDesign fundamentals - good conversations with your designersNew technologies - always changing Don't wait for perfect, share it, workshop it along the way, get feedbackDone listening? Great, do this next...
Tell me how you heard about the podcast with a short 2-minute surveyThen, GO TO https://coffeewithproduct.com AND SUBSCRIBE for complete transcripts of every episode as well as even more curated product content that will help you get started and get ahead in your product career