This post was originally published by Ben Sampson on Medium.
We’re back! It’s your favorite product email where we cheer on the product managers or entrepreneurs that are grinding daily to build great products that SELL! Let’s dive in!
Looking to get a job in Product Management? You’ve likely encountered the requirement to have some product management experience under your belt before the company even considers you for an interview. #9 most popular question I’ve been getting in my inbox lately is “how do I get experience as a Product Manager when I can’t get a job as a Product Manager?”. This is definitely a chicken and egg problem, but there are a few things you can do to get the experience needed to get your dream PM role.
- Go out and start something — I’m serious. Go out, build a product and take it to market. There is no better way to learn how to be a good Product Manager than actually going out and trying to build a successful business. I promise you’ll learn way more doing this than you will in the classroom. If you need ideas on something to start, DM me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If it’s a great idea my business partner and I may fund it!
2. Go out and buy something — Buy a cheap product or business and run it. Flippa and MicroAcquire are both great for this. Funny story, back in college I bought a site called Island Trunks. We sold the best cheap swim trunks China could make. The best part, I kept all the returns because it was way too expensive to mail the trunks back to China. In other words, my swim trunk drawer in my dresser was LIT.
I bought this company for $2,000. I sold it for $2,400. I know, a massive success but it gave me great experience in those early years of college.
3. Go work somewhere for free — My sister is a medical student applying for residency programs across the country. She is working for free at 8 different hospitals for 3–4 weeks per hospital. No wonder student debt for med students is so high! That being said, you can apply some of this to your product job. In college, I got a job at Design By Humans because I offered to work there for free. I really just wanted the experience and they took a shot on me. You can do the same!
The story here is to get off your single-click LinkedIn application binging and go do something different than all of your competition. Be unique, stand out, and companies will start paying attention.
Design Matters
Have any of you used any of these AI art generators? Pretty amazing! To do some testing, I tried having one make a CGI version and a Japanese art version of our WeHero mascot Kai. Still a long way to go but pretty cool. Check it out!
