I spent two years of my life in business school, fell off the blog train, and have finally returned to the real world. I am now a product manager at VMware in Palo Alto, which is surreal when I think about it. I was drawn to Silicon Valley by the power of some invisible magnet;Continue reading “Learning from Robin Matlock”
Category Archives: Product Management
Vanity vs Sanity
I just read a great post by Dan Wolchonok at HubSpot about the impact of retention on user growth and revenue. At face value, this sounds pretty darn obvious, but really it isn’t until you see the models that you realize just how much of an impact this one metric can have on your product.Continue reading “Vanity vs Sanity”
Fake it till you make it
I recently met with my friend and former colleague, and over a few drinks we started talking about how our careers have panned out. While I’m fairly happy with what I’ve done so far, his trajectory has been extraordinary. When I asked him how he did it, he told me Perception is everything. He startedContinue reading “Fake it till you make it”
How not to find a mentor
In order to succeed in the tech world, the most frequently touted piece of advice is to find a mentor—a mentor is someone you aspire to be and has probably been down the same path that you have. And then of course, there is advice about how to find a mentor. Follow them on Twitter. AskContinue reading “How not to find a mentor”
Data first
It’s been a while since I last blogged, and I can only say that I’ve been managing my time poorly! I really need to get better at this. In an ideal world, I’d like to come out with one blog per day, but I feel like I would be setting myself up to fail, whichContinue reading “Data first”
The deluge of email
A friend once joked that product management is 20% talking and 80% email. Even with modern collaboration tools like Slack, most PMs I know still send and receive lots of email. Ken Norton in “How I Manage My Inbox“ Most days on the job, I feel like all I do is reply to an endlessContinue reading “The deluge of email”
Product Manager: Spiderman or Peter Parker?
Most people in the tech industry can attest to the fact that the definitions of roles vary across industries and companies. This definitely holds true for product management. In smaller companies, it isn’t unusual for a product manager to be an analyst, a UX designer and a project manager rolled into one. However in largerContinue reading “Product Manager: Spiderman or Peter Parker?”
Your data smells
You know what a product manager eats for breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner? Data. It’s always about the data, and it’s not always palatable. When I started working as a product manager, I had absolutely no experience with any kind of data analysis tool—hell, I didn’t even know how to do a VLOOKUP in Excel. I remember spendingContinue reading “Your data smells”
The unbearable heaviness of being late
If it’s one thing I am terrible at, it’s being on time. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not the worst. I can compare myself to friends and acquaintances who are much worse than I am at showing up when they’re supposed to, but the whole point is to compare myself to the best, notContinue reading “The unbearable heaviness of being late”
Both Sides of the Table
I’m going to be a bit of a fangirl here so bear with me. Twitter is proving to be a great source of reading material, and I’m starting to see the appeal of it now more than ever. I’ve also come to the inevitable conclusion that there is no single formula to become a great entrepreneur,Continue reading “Both Sides of the Table”