career pivots: education -> ed-tech & product management
It’s funny and surprising to see myself on the other side of a career pivot, strongly gravitating towards the world of product management, and admiring the thinking of leaders in the field like Teresa Torres, Marty Cagan, Shreyas Dosi, and Lenny Rachitsky.
Because if you met me half a year ago, you would have seen me check out of the conversation whenever people talked about tech, startups, or business. I had zero interest.
I had zero interest because the conversation was rarely framed in an angle that was interesting to me. I didn’t care about equity or acquisition events or who raised how many millions of dollars.
But what recently unlocked my sudden interest were simple reframes:
Can I solve the customer’s problem?
Can I convert society’s needs into opportunities?
Can I discover products that create customer value and business value?
Great product teams know their customers deeply, empathize with a real problem they face, and come up with solutions that customers are happy to throw their money at.
Simply put, great products make people’s lives better. While bad products prioritize revenue or growth at the cost of the customer experience *Cough Instagram*.
I’ve always deeply empathized with people and the deep needs or desires that we as humans carry. I’ve always deeply cared about the impact I can make by solving worthy problems that empower people. Except instead of harnessing tech and business, I used the tools of counseling and education to solve a very different set of problems within the field education and mental health.
When I worked in education, I loved building student programs from scratch and driving everything and everyone that was needed to make these programs meet the holistic needs of the students, not only as students, but also as humans. Where I shined was my deep commitment to my students, my comfort with program development in an environment of ambiguity, my initiative and capabilities for rapid implementation.
It’s been SO cool and validating and a big relief to see these passions evolve into something that I can still carry with me while I enter the world of product and early stage companies / startups.
I happily embrace the ambiguous nature of early stage startups and am excited about how much impact I can make because of the opportunity to touch so many pieces of the customer journey and business. I have a feeling that my previous career in education and mental health have laid the groundwork for me to become relentless advocate for customers and their problems and needs and I’m really grateful and proud of that.
So far I find myself gravitating towards product work, user research, design psychology, and coaching. I love contributing to strategy to decide what to build and what problems to prioritize and discovering what’s most important to the customer. I love the implementation work of delivering a product and being a scientist that is always hypothesizing, running experiments, and checking their assumptions.
It’s been really really fun and I constantly feel like I’m solving this incredibly complicated and multi-dimensional puzzle that is so rewarding. Very curious to see how this early interest in product work will deepen or evolve over the next chapter of my career.
Since I’ve been learning the inner workings of the product world, I’ve been noticing the products that have entered my life and how I subconsciously hired them to address my needs, problems, and desires.
This is a fun exercise for me to analyze the products that I’m happy to pay for and how they enhance my life.
Recurring products/services in my life:
Barry’s (HIIT Classes)
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I hate cardio and Barry’s makes HIIT and sprinting actually fun.
I want to be healthy and fit.
Lucid App (Visual book summary app with daily quizzes to help you remember the content)
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I hate that I invest hours in reading a book, only to forget it all.
I want to keep learning and growing.
Shortform App (High quality in-depth book summaries)
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I hate that book summaries or apps like Blinkist don’t capture the depth of a book. I use Shortform to complement Lucid.
Yoga Classes
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I’m too much in my head and need to get more in my body.
I need a teacher to keep me accountable in going deeper into my practice.
I want a reminder to just “be.”
I want a source of spiritual / personal growth and want to be surrounded by others who are taking action to be more mindful.
Bay Club Tennis Membership
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I need a something to bond with my siblings over.
I want something to get myself out of my head and more in my body.
I want to do something active that is fun with my boyfriend and friends.
I want to feel a sense of progression in a fun skill.
Whoop Watch subscription
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I want to data analytics to monitor my sleep, recovery, and fitness, particularly because my sleep has been bad.
Coffee
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I want something to look forward to in the morning that I center my morning routine on.
Sleep supplements
Problem/Desire/Need Addressed:
I haven’t been consistently sleeping well and this impacts my mood, confidence, health, energy, and susceptibility to burnout.
If you also nerd out about this stuff, holla. 🤓🤓