Make time to mentor new PMs

If you’re lucky to have fallen into product management, make time to mentor someone who has the potential, but didn’t crack their way through yet.

There is no school for product. Product leaders only hire PMs. APM and Junior PM roles are scarce. It’s a catch 22: how do I get experience if I need experience to start?

If you’re a PM/Senior PM/Director/VP or CPO, you have something truly valuable: access and experience. Make time to share it. 30 minutes per week (or even per month). You can even do it via group calls with multiple people, just listening and answering questions.

And if you don’t think it’s a good use of your time because you’re busy: every Q&A session I do is a massive retrospective on my own processes. Helps me structure my thinking.

As a bonus, if you have influence and budget in your org, open an Associate PM role, no experience needed, just attitude and drive. They will pour their hearts out to learn product, huge ROI.

If you believe technology is the best way to solve the world’s problems, your largest impact is creating more product builders. Everyone appreciates.