Ramblings of an Amateur PM : Part 2
2020, the year we saw Liverpool lift the PL trophy (among other equally awful things) saw one very interesting phenomenon - people aspiring to get internships. Doesn’t matter what age, education level, financial security, some were looking to make money, some were searching because their curriculum dictated that, others because they were being furloughed from their jobs, and some (like me) because they wanted some sort of relevant experience for the roles that they were prepping for.
I was on the hunt for some product related internships and came across this very new startup which was operating(or wanting to) in a very interesting space - Creative spaces renting. I applied and after a brief call and interview with the founding team with discussions ranging from past experiences to what were my ideas about their offerings, I was offered the position of product intern. (Yeah that Udemy course on product management had come good finally!)
Why product management?
The fascination with product is admittedly fairly recent.I was one of the people who are very easy to find in India, someone pursuing MBA , with a tech background, but do not posses any full time experience in the same. Initially inclined towards marketing, I realized my interest while attempting my various B-School corporate competitions, that the most fun I had was while designing different wire-frames for the digital solutions of the problems posed by brands. At that point I did not realize that it was wire-framing in essence but then further enlightenment received after some really intense career options research narrowed my answers to PM/APM roles.
What is product management?
To the uninitiated, product management is being responsible for taking a particular product(or a feature in larger companies) through all the stages from ideation — research — conception — wire-framing — prototyping — development — testing — release — user feedback — — — — looping back to research and constant nitpicking until you achieve the right Product-market fit(Or whatever it was you wanted to solve/achieve with this — read metrics, more on it later).
To say that PM lies bang in the middle of Tech, Business and Design(UX) wouldn’t be wrong. But to miss the “people” factor, which I would say is the overarching umbrella above this trisection would be very wrong indeed. People play the biggest role, whether it be in the form of the team that a PM is working with consisting of developers, designers and senior stakeholders or as the consumers , for whom the product is being conceived.
Coming back ..
The company is extremely young, a stealth stage startup venturing into the creative spaces rental and the problem pretty unique. We needed a platform that acts as a market place between the space owners (host) and users (customers). And as a PM intern hire, I was given complete ownership right from deciding what will the platform be (App/website) and thus began the journey of thrill, lows, highs, disagreements within the team and everything that one can and will encounter in a people oriented role as a PM. But more on that later!
Also if you’re coming from part 1, I created this entire cliffhanger on the dashes and yeah its not a biggie, it’s PM, as in Product Manager (Couldn't have been Prime Minister now could it, not like there are any amateur ‘PM’s).
Yeah didn't land that joke well. So yeah. Good night!
Do check out my other stuff here!
