In the Internet industry, the transformation from technical positions to product managers is one of the career development directions of many technical people. But this transformation road has not been smooth sailing, full of challenges and confusion. As a veteran with 10 years of product transformation experience, the author of this article shares his tortuous journey from Android development to becoming a product manager without reservation for your reference.
As the beginning of “Project Xin: How to Transform to a Product Manager”, I started my own journey to become a product manager.
I always believe that it is necessaryThe key to truly understanding a person or a business is not to look at what they have achieved now, but to understand every step they have taken。 Today, I want to share with you my real-life journey from Android development to product manager.
Beginning of the workplace: Android development at an outsourcing company (2011)
In April 2011, I started my career as an intern, with a monthly salary of 2,500 yuan and 4,000 yuan after becoming a full-time employee. At that time, he participated in the development of Shandong Mobile’s mCloud project – an OA system integrating video calls, voice, text messages, and emails.
A few points that may interest you:
- This is a cross-platform project that needs to be adapted to Android, Apple, and even the defunct Symbian and BlackBerry systems (yes, Symbian and BlackBerry used to be mainstream systems);
- As an outsourcing team, we were stationed near Nanjing Huawei Park for more than a year, and then transferred back to Beijing due to love.
- thenWe call product managers not product managers, but prototypes。 Because the important thing in outsourcing projects is not the product manager, but the project manager;
- This experience made me realize the limitations of the outsourcing model:Just like “selling children”, one stubble at a time, one stubble at a time, without much growth。 This also prompted the departure of outsourcing companies.
Enjoy learning: a failed product praised by the chairman (2013)
In 2013, I joined Zhijin Education, led the development of the “Xiangxueba” APP, and served as the supervisor and part of the product design work. The app provides video learning, assignments, exams, and community communication functions for middle and high school graduates who are self-studying online universities to help them learn efficiently.
One of the highlights at that time was at the annual strategy meeting, where the CTO asked me to present the product to the group executives as the technical leader. When the debriefing is over,The chairman suddenly stood up and applauded: “This is the product we want!” ”At that moment, I felt like a product hero, and it was the first time I became interested in the product manager role.
After 10 years of interaction design, why did I transfer to product manager?
After the real job transfer, I found that many jobs were still beyond my imagination. The work of a product manager is indeed more complicated. Theoretically, the work of a product manager includes all aspects of the product, from market research, user research, data analysis…
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However, after more than 2 months of hard work, we released almost all domestic app markets, only to find that almost no one used it.
This process gave me three realizations:
- A product that executives recognize is not necessarily a good productThe key is that users buy it;
- We focus too much on “how to do it” and not on “why”。 For example, use the popular side menu bar, add gesture recognition page return, and the loading animation of the drop-down list should be smooth.
- Our goal is to get the product online, not for users to actually use it。
Youku Tudou: Two years of chasing the tuyere (2015)
Youku Academy: Metamorphosis under the VAM agreement
In 2015, I left Zhijin Education and joined Youku Tudou Education instead, hoping to create a masterpiece that truly belongs to me on a larger platform. At that time, I was full of longing and expectation for a big factory, believing that it would allow me to realize my dream of creating a real product.
But reality gave me a resounding slap in the face.
The Youku Academy APP in charge of our team is positioned as the “Chinese version of Coursera”, an online learning platform launched in cooperation with educational institutions, colleges and universities and excellent lecturers, targeting college students, white-collar workers, etc. The course content covers the workplace, IT Internet, language learning, life interests, open classes, etc., allowing users to learn conveniently and efficiently.
It is said that the person in charge at that time signed a “VAM agreement” with the group leaders, and it took 2 years to do the education sector, but when I joined, it was more than halfway through, but there was still not much improvement.
Even for this “agreement”, the person in charge of the business chased a wave of outlets and wanted to make a live broadcast product, similar to the very popular peppercorn live broadcast and Yingke live broadcast at that time, but in the end it failed.
We were merged into the Tudou business line and officially participated in chasing another outlet – short video.
Tudou short video: 200 people make a tragic charge of a product
In the second half of 2016, Douyin was still a “Baby” at that time, but the volcano video and watermelon video were more popular, so our entire group mobilized a production and research team of more than 200 people to prepare to officially “do a big job” with ByteDance.
At that time, the person in charge of the business was Yu Yongfu, especially remembering that he rented a venue for a few hundred people at Peking University, led us to take the oath, and all the staff sang together: “I believe that I am who I am, I believe in tomorrow, and I believe that I can reach out and touch the sky….”.
At that time, Youku Tudou Group had two core products: Youku APP and Tudou APP, both of which belonged to long video products, but the content form was different.
In order to quickly cold start and reach 20 million DAU (daily active users) within half a year, executives decided to adopt a simple and straightforward product approach – shelling. The Tudou APP, which has fewer active users, has been completely transformed into a short video platform, officially benchmarking volcano and watermelon video.
As a result, no one expected that the Douyin APP would dominate the world, and potatoes, volcanoes, watermelons, etc., all became “younger brothers”, and finally the Tudou APP transformed into overseas markets – this is the story after I left the job.
Later, I also wrote an article dedicated to reviewing the failure of the Tudou APP (“Review: How did the Tudou APP “disappear” in the competition of short videos? 》）。
The biggest lesson from this experience for me:In the Internet industry, it is easy to see the outlet, but seeing where the wind comes from and where it is going is the real product skill. At the same time, the genes of enterprises are engraved in the bones, and they can definitely make good products without large factories。
Unfortunately, it took 200 people × 18 months × hundreds of millions of dollars to really understand this truth.
Initial transformation: Why did I change products nakedly?
After three failed products, especially playing the role of a product manager to a certain extent, I was very familiar with the job of a product manager (I thought so at the time).
meanwhileI lost the motivation to further my technical studies, and I consciously kept repeating “making wheels”, only dealing with computers every day, and I prefer to communicate with people。
Therefore, I decided to truly transform into a product manager, and first switched to a C-end product manager that I am relatively familiar with.
The leader advised me to find an opportunity to change jobs internally, with a lower risk, but it did not fit my state of mind at that time – I felt that I had achieved something, so I resigned.
Reality once again gave me a resounding slap in the face,When I thought I was fully qualified for the product manager, the interviewer’s feedback made me aware of the gap。
For example, the interviewer asked me:Do you have any product methodology?I replied very embarrassedly: “I understand interactive design experience, can draw prototypes, and can also data-driven product design….”
The other party asked me again: “So how do you use data-driven product design? Can you give an example?”
I will talk about a very basic data embedding function – users enter the homepage – > course details page – > consultation – > the buried points and corresponding conversion rate of the purchased course.
The result is naturally a feather return.
When I was repeatedly rejected, I realized that I still had some way to go before becoming a qualified product manager.
After each interview failure, I memorized the interviewer’s questions, went home to reorganize and summarize the answers, and slowly formed an interview routine –More than 60% of the interviewer’s questions are repeated。
After more than a month, I finally found a job as a product manager – 101 Education, responsible for the new large class business, which belongs to a different business line from the original core business 1-to-1.
We gave it a product nameSugar app, mainly to provide online double-teacher live class business for primary and secondary school students, covering the whole process of pre-class preview, in-class live learning, after-class review, etc., and I am mainly responsible for the construction of its mobile products, including App and H5, adapted to mobile phones and Pads.
The business has experienced about 1 year of development, and has always been attacked by strong competitors (such as Xueersi, Ape Tutoring, Homework Help, Gaotu, Homework Together, etc.), we have no power to fight back at all, and finally the business leader resigned, and the business was merged into the school business, becoming a supplement to its products.
The time has come to 2017.
From C-end to B-end: Tempering and Awakening in a Good Future (2017)
In 2017, I joined the Good Future One-to-One Business Department and plunged headlong into the product construction of the online business. At that time, the business was mainly offline 1-on-1 and 8-person shifts, supplemented by online 1-on-1 classes, which led to my focus gradually shifting from C-end products to B-end products.The once clear C-end and B-end product boundaries have become increasingly blurred due to changes in business forms。
Later, the online business unit merged with the offline business department, and I naturally transitioned from C-end products to B-end product manager.
At that time, our entire product team had about 20 people and the R&D team had seventy or eighty people, and we jointly built a product system covering the whole process of traffic acquisition, lead cleaning, student conversion, and academic affairs and teaching management, involving nearly 20 systems. The platform business team I work for is responsible for core modules such as curriculum management and teacher scheduling, and subsequently expands to the teaching business, undertaking the construction of teacher workbenches and student evaluation systems.
The three years in Good Future are the fastest growth stage of my product career. Here, I deeply understood the system architecture and synergy required to support the business line, mastered the workflow and methodology of B-end product managers, and also clarified the product manager promotion system, and felt the profound impact of corporate culture on employee decision-making.
However, with the implementation of the “double reduction” policy in July 2021, the online education industry, which was once in full swing, took a sharp turn for the worse. I subsequently went to the homework gang and Gaotu, but before I had time to exert my strength, I encountered business mergers and layoffs. The once glorious business has also been shut down.
This ups and downs experience made me deeply realize:Products are dependent on business, and business is subject to policy, just like driftwood floating on a boat, which is ultimately dominated by the current。
From B-side to SaaS: Three years of change and unchanging (2022)
In 2022, one year after the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, I clarified the development direction of B-end products and began to focus on product opportunities in the fields of CRM, ERP, SaaS and middle and back office.
After more than a month of intensive interviews, I was fortunate to receive an offer from my current company and officially entered the HR SaaS industry for three years.
From education to human resources, from ToB products serving a single internal customer to SaaS products for multiple customers, this journey has both changed and persisted.
What remains unchanged is:
- methodology: The underlying methodology of making products is the same. For example, “business is greater than product”, “demand is 1, solution is 0”, “product manager is the user first”.
- Experience skills: Core experience, skills, etc. of B-end products. Such as demand analysis management, product planning, product design, project management, etc.;
- Learning ability: The ability to quickly learn new services and new user groups.
Tip: The person in charge of the technical side at the time asked me the same question: “Do you have any methodology?” ”
The changes are:
- Customer groups: From a single customer group (such as K12 parents/students or teachers, tutors, etc.) to a multi-customer group (such as HR, HRD, CEO in the Internet, manufacturing, medical care, store chain and other industries);
- Abstraction ability: From the abstraction ability to deal with a clear single business to the solution to the adaptability challenge between standardized products and individual needs, the complexity and requirements are higher.
During this experience, I deeply realized thatFor B-end products, the importance of business is self-evident。 However, I found that as long asMastering the ability to learn quickly, common product methodologies, and learning from past experiences is not an insurmountable challenge, even when faced with a new business。
Written at the end
As a R&D who used to be “ignorant and fearless” of product managers, I relied on courage and a little luck to complete the transformation into a product manager. However, looking back, I have to admit that if I underwent such a transition again, I might not have been able to guarantee the same smoothness.
Each person’s career experience is shaped by cycles, industries, markets, and self-selection, and while the past cannot be recreated, certain universal principles always apply.
For example, every transformation is a combination of these three variables:Industry x Company x Position。 The fewer variables, the easier the transformation;
For example, every time you transform,Learning ability, general ability, methodology are the most core thingsThis is the ability you need to accumulate before transformation. These abilities can be acquired by learning from others, practical experience, and summarizing reflections, which are also the focus I want to share.
