

Ask HN: I want to transition from marketing to product. Where do I go from here? - mrbriskly

I&#x27;ve been a Product Marketing Manager for 3 years out of college (w&#x2F; an undergrad business degree) at an enterprise networking company in Silicon Valley, but I find the company, its products, and my role a bore. But I love consumer tech– wearables, mobile hardware, mobile apps, social, latest web technologies– you name it.<p>I&#x27;ve taken a couple courses (One Month Rails, Learn Python the Hard Way, and Coursera) to get a basic understanding of coding. I&#x27;ve learned I&#x27;m not a very fast learner in terms of coding and while passionate about it, and don&#x27;t think I would do well as a software engineer (took me 6 months to get through half of the Learning Python the Hard way to give you an idea).<p>I&#x27;ve decided I want to get into product, but not sure how or what way. I love tech, and I want to contribute to building a product but have no technical (official) experience.<p>I have 2 questions:<p>1. What role&#x2F;title should I be looking at to transition from PMM to product? Product Manager (but those require experience)? Operations? What&#x27;s my best option here?<p>2. Is this too difficult a transition? Should I go to an MBA or back to an undergrad program?<p>I don&#x27;t mean to come off as lazy– if it does sound that way, I apologise. I really want to pour my passion into products I love, but I just can&#x27;t get that with routers and data centre software. I also feel that &quot;marketing&quot; in tech is somewhat redundant, since the product&#x27;s features by definition are its marketing.
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Todd
Product Manager or Program Manager, depending on the org, probably makes the
most sense. There is a lot of overlap with marketing. I see people go into
that role from the development side from time to time--people who don't really
enjoy coding or have grown tired of doing it as a job. More often, though,
they come from disparate backgrounds.

If you emphasize your strengths on the customer side, and develop your
capabilities on the product side, I think you'll be in good shape. It might
take a while, and concerted effort, but most good things in life do. It sounds
like the PM role puts you right where you want to be.

Study the lean startup materials (Eric Ries and Steve Blank). Learn about
different agile methodologies, like Kanban (but don't become a zealot). Learn
about continuous integration, configuration management, and get your feet wet
using issue trackers and source code management environments (Github,
Bitbucket). You don't have to get into the details, but at least understand
how they work and what the state of the art is.

With your background, I'm sure you can find a role that would allow you to
transition. It might not be right away. Just be clear about what you can bring
to a position now, and where you would like to go in the future. If you're
working with a good company, or good management, they will try to make it
happen to the degree possible.

~~~
mrbriskly
Thanks for your advice. I do work the PM who uses Agile, but I'll have to
learn more about it under the radar. I'm not sure my company would be too
enthusiastic about it :)

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shanelja
Just as an anecdote regarding your statements of feeling inadequacy as a
developer: When I was 16 it took me a year to complete the relatively simple
w3schools tutorials, it was only once I started building things that my
knowledge really started to grow. 5 years later and I work as a developer for
a BAFTA award winning company building applications I really believe in. We
learn differently under different conditions, try applying your knowledge on a
project instead of just doing the tutorial.

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edoceo
I think that if you can master the art of Lean Customer
Development/Understanding you'll be OK regardless of degree or coding ability.
Might be an easier transition than to a coder/engineer, especially given
background in marketing.

As an engineer pairing with business types is an easy find.

Those two need the third leg of customer zealot who talks to customers every
day and yells at Biz and Tech about what the customers want. Many Lean books
talk about this role. Many say that the Tech and Biz need to "get out of the
office" and I agree. But after some time the company needs this Customer
Expert to be the internal voice.

How you can prove that you are this person I don't know. I've heard the claim
before but never seen the evidence. Evidence I think is things like recorded
customer interviews, complete customer stories, built persona and things like
this. A moderately successful team with you in that role may serve as a good
demonstration too.

HTH

~~~
mrbriskly
Sounds like Steve Blank's advice. Thanks for the heads up.

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seekingcharlie
I'm surprised no-one has said this already, but whilst a technical background
helps, being able to code is never part of a Product Manager's job.

You need to own the product & it's vision. This means understanding the
market, competitors, and most importantly, what users actually want/need so
that marketing can target them. In ANY job, you can ALWAYS be talking to users
in your spare time.

And the specific answers to your questions: 1\. I would try & find a PM role
in a smaller startup, as your Marketing skills will also be seen as valuable
(i.e. you will essentially do a bit of both roles, but this will give you the
PM experience). 2\. Definitely do not go back to study. Waste of time/money
for something that a degree can't teach you anyway.

~~~
mrbriskly
Thanks. I think that's exactly what my short-term vision looks like, and I
can't imagine going back to school anyway. But the main challenge for finding
a PM role in a startup: "Requires minimum 3+ years managing a product"

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Kaizyn
Project manager would probably work for you just fine - have a look at the
PMBOK for greater details on what that might entail.

Also it is worth considering that marketing is valuable to tech. Your post
reminded me of this link, which is probably worth having a read:
[http://steveblank.com/2009/10/08/get-out-of-my-
building/](http://steveblank.com/2009/10/08/get-out-of-my-building/)

If you want to persist in building tech, then the key is going to be for you
to find a project of your own that you're really excited about so that you
will be willing to stick with it through development of all the hard and
annoying bits.

~~~
mrbriskly
Thanks. What is the difference between a Product and Project Manager, from
what you know?

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gordonzhu
1\. Don't do operations. That's going to be a total waste of time.

2\. Don't do an MBA. Very little that you learn in an MBA will apply to
product management. It can help with branding if you didn't go to a great
university for undergrad though.

I made this exact transition a few years ago. The most important thing is to
actually get practice designing and launching products (this is why an MBA
will not be very helpful). This will give you a lot of confidence. It will
also give others confidence that you can get the job done and show them that
you are not just another person that is bored with their job in XYZ.

If you can work with product managers and engineers at your company on a short
project that would be a start. If that's not possible, do it on your own.
Either use the coding skills you have now to build and design a product, or
work with other technical people. Hackathons are a great way to do this. Come
up with an idea before the event, including mocks and detailed interactions.
Programmers at hackathons are always looking for ideas. Many show up with no
idea of what they want to build. If you do this part of the job for them, you
will have a good experience.

Another approach is to force the issue at your current company. Here's a way
to do this. Read the list of customer issues. Actually design solutions for
those problems and show them to the product managers and engineers on the
team. If you have good solutions they will start to listen to you. If you
don't, ask them why and you will start to learn how they think about product
decisions. This may not allow you to transition but you'll get experience that
you don't have now.

At the same time, I'd recommend reading 'Cracking the PM Interview' to prepare
for the interview process. If you're ultimately not able to transition in your
current company you should leave and interview for PM positions elsewhere.

Feel free to email me (see my HN profile). Happy to jump on a Skype/Hangout
call to chat more.

