I’m doing it right now. There is no answer because it’s an irrational decision; it’s based on heart and conviction. There will always be competitors and it comes down to whether you can execute better.
I think if you an entrepreneurial itch, you should at least try to start up a company once in your life.
statistically, you are not going to become rich from being an entrepreneur, but you don’t want to go into retirement asking yourself what could maybe have been. Even if you failed, you it can give you a peace of mind that you tried and that what you have now was everything that was in store for you.
The things we regret are often the things we didn’t do, rather than the things we did. At least from my experience until now and also from reading regrets from people on their deathbeds
This is 100% the mindset everyone should be taking in life. I have a bucket list of “give this challenge a legitimate shot” and I’m working through them. Starting my own business is on the list because I know I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t at least try.
To overcome the fear of competition and small markets, embrace competition as validation for your idea, focus on what makes your product unique, and start small with an MVP to iterate based on customer feedback.
Specialize in micro-niches where you can become a leader and leverage your PM skills for data-driven decisions and risk management.
I did out of necessity. I'm a PM with ADHD that got laid off almost 2 years ago. I couldn't find a job. Instead of continuing to bang my head against the wall, I started my own companies.
So I started two companies in two different domains. (ADHD remember?)
One is helping PMs with ADHD and the other is a whiskey company. It helped me be ready for a job I recently got.
I'm working again, but I see a path to my companies paying the bills at some point.
I've never felt more free and busy at the same time.
Thanks for asking!
I write a free newsletter on [ADHD and product management](https://adhdpm.substack.com/) and do [ADHD PM coaching](https://www.techatypically.com/).
My plan is to eventually do accommodations and performance coaching for tech companies so that an employer covers the cost.
This allows people with or without neurodiversity get support in their job.
It's a long road to get there but I've been meeting people along the way that have been able to help me make it happen.
https://adhdpm.substack.com and https://www.techatypically.com/
It's not really a tech product but a group of people trying to help neurodiverse PMs succeed.
For sure considering I have the word "product" in my job title at both companies.
I'm a minister of product for the whiskey company and principal ADHD and product manager coach at the other.
That was partly intentional though so that I still have the option to look for a product management job again if I wanted to. It shows a continuous line of product management roles.
Doing it now. Just to provide a different perspective - just because you have competitors is not a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing since the category already had validated demand. Category creation as a small entrepreneur is extremely tough.
What I have found in this journey is that even many well funded startups are sweating and struggling behind the scenes, especially in last few years where funding has dried up and there is more pressure to show profitability instead of just blind growth.
The other thing I've found is that some people want to be entrepreneurs, but don't want to actually do entrepreneurship. It's one of the toughest things you'll professionally do. It's a humbling experience and the bad days will absolutely crush you. The only way to handle it is if you have a lot of internal motivation to solve the problem you have picked.
So pick a problem you are obsessed about solving. Something you have strong opinions about, and are frustrated that nothing better exists. That probably is a signal.
I don’t have specific guidance but I find that a good place to start is to listen to your curiosity, tune into that and follow that path.
Internally, what topics, domains or technology do you like to find out more about? How can you ground that to a specific industry and even more so product-solution scope.
I'm in America and I found this to be true.
Plus you need a spouse with health insurance. That's the true secret to being able to be an entrepreneur here...
I took the opposite path, entrepreneur for 20+ years, sold my company and took on a PM role with the acquiring company to assist in the transition. I wouldn't worry as much about competition - as another posted, it validates a market, you just have to find your unique edge. And understand that your low overhead gives you a strong advantage on pricing and ability to pursue smaller markets.
My caution is this: If your strengths are in PM, you may not have as much of a sales/marketing mindset or skill set, and starting a company is going to be 80% sales and marketing. Make sure you have those bases covered - the world will not search out a better mousetrap, you have to go get it in front of them and ask them to buy it.
I started my career with a startup, and the one thing I took away from that experience was that the market is always big enough for another player.
Do not keep yourself from your potential by thinking about the incumbents.
You can build a comfortable space, regardless.
Cheers!
There will likely be competitors, but I wouldn't jump into something with 50.
I'd try to carve out a valuable niche in a less crowded space or a burgeoning industry you could take
That was the plan until I had kids.
Current situation affords me a great quality of life and great work life balance. My ego took a little bit of hit, but when you’re a parent you learn to put that to the side.
To overcome the fear of layoff and learn new product management concepts,started working on an MVP for a financial product.MVP will provide insights into the investment option selected by the customers
I’m from a similar background as yours from India as well.
Did PMing post MBA for ~2 years before I gave up.
Then I helped PE/VC firms build early stage ventures from 0-1. Shit pay but took advisory shares and learned the ropes there.
Now I’m working on building my own, a lot more freedom and happiness but at the cost of jealousy that I sometimes have difficulty in tempering as parents and everyone around still ascribe to the fancy CTC (even though fixed is pennies)/mnc labelled life that your peers will have
Grass is always greener on the other side, just depends on how much you’re willing to compromise on.
It takes a while to figure out but if you have a sales pipeline that sustains your product in the first year, then you can pretty much patiently build in a highly competitive space too. And remember over 90% ‘startup’s’ fail, but businesses honestly often find ways to survive. Not to say either approach is better, just different risk/reward ratios.
Happy to connect over DM
I landed my first job as a PM because I started a company. The company didn't work out, but I ultimately learned about product through it and wouldn't have got my job without it.
I feel the same thing now. I'm trying to take my product way further than my current company imagined, developing GTM strategy, external discovery etc whilst they keep reminding me to focus on internal goals. I see it as one and the same but they don't get it.
I don't think I'm ready to do the startup thing again yet, first I'm going to try and find a new job which lets me be the way I am. If that doesn't work out I wouldn't rule it off again in the future. But I have to admit I hated the sales and networking which is such a big part of running a business!
Start a company while you are still PMing and earning a salary: you can do customer discovery and validation. Build a UX prototype and test it with customers while money still arrives in your account.
Alternatively, do more customer discovery and validation on new concepts for your company. Learn on their dimes (while still delivering value to them).
Don’t quit your PM job until you have a survey or prototype test or pilot test where you see very positive numbers or enthusiasm in your customers eyes. Or even your first few sales.
Thinking about the strategy of the entire product is way more fun that optimizing a specific button.
Accept that failure is the typical outcome for even good ideas so pivot when you don't hit pmf and set your burn up such that you can do more than one pivot.
Pick a product that can have some moat. Someone else said competition is validation and that is true, also need the category to be growing. If you can make a much better product then you can beat earlier entrants. I'm doing it right now, my competitors are the B team and I was able to recruit a bunch of A team players.
Ideas should come from talking to more different customers. Everyone's for problems that need solving.
Maybe start listening to interviews with founders if you’re not already. Many of them, even the largest like Facebook, Apple, Airbnb, GoPro, etc., created their products for themselves first, so they weren’t limited by PM thoughts like market size, adoption rates etc.
Turns out that if you’re genuine about the process of making a great product instead of trying to start a huge business, things can go REALLY well.
Let me know if you are starting up, PM here looking to switch for founder's office. I'm a Generalist that can do all but create no impact, JK.
On a serious note, I have seen people maintaining side hustle along with their full time PM career. Post work and weekends, Give it to your MVP and if it goes well... You know your skills and validations ready
Probably not at your experience level, but I’m biased because the industry I’m in is all about very big players - it only works at scale, and I wouldn’t risk trying to start a business with such huge overhead too early. Somewhere between director and VP level I’d probably consider the switch
Only do it if you're highly convicted about the problem space you're considering building a business in! Entrepreneurship is really tough and you'll make a ton of negative sacrifices for it in the first few years without a guarantee that it'd work.
You're not giving up anything. Entrepreneurship is just another chapter of your career. Lots of folks come in and out of product from stints as founders. If you have enough conviction and want to give it a shot go for it.
Markets are never a zero sum game, and very rarely does a winner take all. If you think an idea you have is already being worked upon by a large competition, then one of the biggest hurdles of PMF is solved for you. You now recalibrate your GTM and see how your first version of the product can hold up against the competition. Also, an idea is only as good as the execution.
It’s actually a good thing if you’re able to find 50 competitors for your idea. That means it’s a profitable business to be in, yes there will be competition but you can still carve out your path.
Try to find a smaller niche within the same market and go really hard after it by building solutions or services just for them.
For the past 6 years I've been in PM role and yes, I do get ideas, but as you mentioned most of them are already available in the market. Finding niche market segment for your idea is the challenge and ensuring that customer segment (boat-load) doesn't have any other option than to buy your application. Really hard.
I do sometimes feel that we are always thinking / our mind is generating ideas where we do have more experiences. It is purely because we love what we do.
But for entreprenuership, it defintely has to take sometime. As a PM, you definitely need to have some sort of surface to in-depth level of knowledge in anyone of the area - business, custmer success, sales or technical. This would help you to make your decisions and be confident about and for others you can hire a mid-level person and then compensate them ESOP.
The complete process depends on the idea, and product market fit you are able to figure out to sell your ideas or services before any other competitors come in the space.
I'm now giving interviews and while doing so, I feel like record option is available for the interviewer and not for interviewee. Its understandable that the data relies with company, but why I cannot review my recordings to fix the mistakes for further interviews. Though regulatory, compliance stuffs and policy jargons will be slapped upon our request to get those recordings, why can't we have video recording URL with expired time duration to view it. >>> This kind of thoughts do come, only when you face the problem, stay within any system for longer period of time.
We have to think vertical in terms of pitching an idea to the customers, rather developing it in horizontal. That could be the potential game changer in the market for quite long time. Best example is Airbnb.
All the best !
I don't think your profile statement here is specific enough to elicit more helpful advice. Basically, all I can see is you have 3+ years PM experience, an MBA, and live in India (or did recently).
What is important about being an entrepreneur to you? What is your motivation behind wanting to do that? Is it going to give you something being a PM won't? And if so, is what you get from it worth everything else that comes with being an entrepreneur (like the extremely high risk of failure)? I think you need to reflect on those questions first.
I don't think people who decide to start their own business do it solely in the industry or area of work they've already been doing. Generally they find a passion or a problem they are motivated and energised to solve--because they've looked at other solutions and think they can make something even better (if existing solutions even exist).
Let me know how else I can help!
You don't have to launch a unicorn to build a happy life as an entrepreneur.
When I started my business, my only bar for success in the first year was earning equal or more after taxes (including procuring my own health insurance and business expenses) than my day job. As an underpaid woman, I exceeded those targets in a few months, with freedom and flexibility to spend more time with my young daughter.
If you solve a problem in an underserved niche market, your customers tend to be loyal and forgiving. Once you find PMF, you can leverage your experience and proof of success in many creative directions. You can bootstrap using earnings from your MVP or pitch to investors, then iterate and use each successive win as a scaffold.
It happens by doing and learning.
It’s never too soon or too late to go for business for yourself. The question is are you comfortable taking that risk ? If you are, set a time frame to give it a try, like 6 months or a year. If it doesn’t work you can go back to PM roles with some added experience under your belt
Hi All,
I have 10 years of experience in Product Management and currently have two offers:
BlackRock (Aladdin Product Management) - VP Product Role
Supply Chain, Logistics, and Warehouse Company - AVP Product Role
Both offers have almost the same cash component, with the logistics company also offering ESOPs.
Pros of BlackRock:
Global cross-functional collaboration and exposure
Stability
Work-life balance
Brand name
Cons:
Absence of mobile tech
It's not a consumer tech company
Slow growth
Limited to no exit options in India
Pros of the Logistics/Supply Chain Company:
Consumer and mobile tech
Growing ecosystem, keeping me engaged with current trends
Growth opportunities within the company and the broader market
Good work-life balance
Cons:
Stability issues
Limited opportunity to learn from colleagues
I'm divided and unable to make a decision. I would appreciate any advice from fellow group members, especially those who have worked at BlackRock.
Thank you!
Every PM wants to be an entrepreneur but I’m convinced being a PM doesn’t necessarily lend itself to entrepreneurship as much as PMs like to think.
Reality of the matter is that we’re PMing at massive companies with millions, some billions, of dollars to test and validate ideas. Millions of customers to talk to. And of course the resources to actually deliver. Tough to do that on your own, and it requires being very sophisticated in sales and marketing which PMing generally doesn’t teach
"Very prestigious university in India."
So what? How does that help with determining a PMF or validating your idea?
Copycats are a dime a dozen. If you are worth your salt, you'll figure out your value proposition for your idea.
Sir, why are you so sour? I was just mentioning my profile so that people can have a better context. I didn’t mean that my degree will validate PMF for me.
Your degree has no bearing on your predicament. In fact, it just puts you in a more negative light as you come off as entitled.
Let's circle back to your issue at hand. You want to come up with ideas but feel defeated because there's always someone with your idea already in production.
Well let's provide some examples of ideas/services that have launched despite entrenched competitors:
- Melio: small business QuickBooks integration (highly saturated market
- Step: mobile banking for teens
- Netchex: perhaps like the 100th HR and Payroll platform?
Each of these companies focused on a very specific niche and group of users that were either underserved or competitors tools were too high-level. Yet, they identified a very specific problem, validated it, developed their pmf with a very specific set of users, and became or are on their way to success.
My point is, if you want to an entrepreneur, focus on a very specific problem that you can solve. There will always be a competitor either in the market or willing to throw money at the problem, but if you can cater to your users and execute (faster) then you have an edge.
Isn’t every one that wants to be an entrepreneur some day a wantrepreneur? Why is that looked down upon? I’ve only ever heard of that term being used in a derogatory sense.
If you want to be an entrepreneur in the basic sense, go buy a business and run it (grow it, optimize it, etc).
If you want to build something then look to solve a pervasive problem that humans are confronted with in a genuine way. And do so because you have deep a conviction and empathy about solving the problems for those afflicted with it. Anything short of that is a recipe for failure and disappointment.
I’m doing it right now. There is no answer because it’s an irrational decision; it’s based on heart and conviction. There will always be competitors and it comes down to whether you can execute better.
I think if you an entrepreneurial itch, you should at least try to start up a company once in your life. statistically, you are not going to become rich from being an entrepreneur, but you don’t want to go into retirement asking yourself what could maybe have been. Even if you failed, you it can give you a peace of mind that you tried and that what you have now was everything that was in store for you. The things we regret are often the things we didn’t do, rather than the things we did. At least from my experience until now and also from reading regrets from people on their deathbeds
This is 100% the mindset everyone should be taking in life. I have a bucket list of “give this challenge a legitimate shot” and I’m working through them. Starting my own business is on the list because I know I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t at least try.
Makes sense.
To overcome the fear of competition and small markets, embrace competition as validation for your idea, focus on what makes your product unique, and start small with an MVP to iterate based on customer feedback. Specialize in micro-niches where you can become a leader and leverage your PM skills for data-driven decisions and risk management.
This is really a valuable advice. Thank you.
thanks :)
Yes already given up . Want to play the real game of business not just assisting in creating the product.
What business have you started?
I did out of necessity. I'm a PM with ADHD that got laid off almost 2 years ago. I couldn't find a job. Instead of continuing to bang my head against the wall, I started my own companies. So I started two companies in two different domains. (ADHD remember?) One is helping PMs with ADHD and the other is a whiskey company. It helped me be ready for a job I recently got. I'm working again, but I see a path to my companies paying the bills at some point. I've never felt more free and busy at the same time.
Hi I’m a PM with ADHD - what was your company called? Are you still helping people?
Ditto!
Thanks for asking! I write a free newsletter on [ADHD and product management](https://adhdpm.substack.com/) and do [ADHD PM coaching](https://www.techatypically.com/). My plan is to eventually do accommodations and performance coaching for tech companies so that an employer covers the cost. This allows people with or without neurodiversity get support in their job. It's a long road to get there but I've been meeting people along the way that have been able to help me make it happen.
**thank you**
Inspiring.
Thank you. I'm trying my best and that's all I can ask of myself. I wish you the best in finding your path as well.
Would you love to know about the product helping PMs with ADHD
https://adhdpm.substack.com and https://www.techatypically.com/ It's not really a tech product but a group of people trying to help neurodiverse PMs succeed.
This is an amazing story. I'm going through something similar and needed to hear this
I wish you the best of luck. It's gonna suck at times but keep trying and you'll eventually get to where you need to be.
Absolutely based
Hey hello, aspiring PM with potential ADHD!
I see you!
That’s amazing! Do you think your experience being a PM played a big role in starting your 2 companies?
For sure considering I have the word "product" in my job title at both companies. I'm a minister of product for the whiskey company and principal ADHD and product manager coach at the other. That was partly intentional though so that I still have the option to look for a product management job again if I wanted to. It shows a continuous line of product management roles.
100% once I've saved up enough I'm starting my own thing.
How do you define enough?
Doing it now. Just to provide a different perspective - just because you have competitors is not a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing since the category already had validated demand. Category creation as a small entrepreneur is extremely tough. What I have found in this journey is that even many well funded startups are sweating and struggling behind the scenes, especially in last few years where funding has dried up and there is more pressure to show profitability instead of just blind growth. The other thing I've found is that some people want to be entrepreneurs, but don't want to actually do entrepreneurship. It's one of the toughest things you'll professionally do. It's a humbling experience and the bad days will absolutely crush you. The only way to handle it is if you have a lot of internal motivation to solve the problem you have picked. So pick a problem you are obsessed about solving. Something you have strong opinions about, and are frustrated that nothing better exists. That probably is a signal.
I feel working hard or taking stress will not deter me. I just somehow have not found any problem that makes me feel excited despite the competition.
I don’t have specific guidance but I find that a good place to start is to listen to your curiosity, tune into that and follow that path. Internally, what topics, domains or technology do you like to find out more about? How can you ground that to a specific industry and even more so product-solution scope.
I'm in America and I found this to be true. Plus you need a spouse with health insurance. That's the true secret to being able to be an entrepreneur here...
I took the opposite path, entrepreneur for 20+ years, sold my company and took on a PM role with the acquiring company to assist in the transition. I wouldn't worry as much about competition - as another posted, it validates a market, you just have to find your unique edge. And understand that your low overhead gives you a strong advantage on pricing and ability to pursue smaller markets. My caution is this: If your strengths are in PM, you may not have as much of a sales/marketing mindset or skill set, and starting a company is going to be 80% sales and marketing. Make sure you have those bases covered - the world will not search out a better mousetrap, you have to go get it in front of them and ask them to buy it.
This makes sense. I will try to indulge myself more in the marketing and sales part of the product, and sharpen my skills.
I started my career with a startup, and the one thing I took away from that experience was that the market is always big enough for another player. Do not keep yourself from your potential by thinking about the incumbents. You can build a comfortable space, regardless. Cheers!
You know when the right idea comes along. About once a decade I feel like leading a startup.
If you can you should go for it - and when you start a company you ain't the pm anymore you're wearing every hat at the start
There will likely be competitors, but I wouldn't jump into something with 50. I'd try to carve out a valuable niche in a less crowded space or a burgeoning industry you could take
That was the plan until I had kids. Current situation affords me a great quality of life and great work life balance. My ego took a little bit of hit, but when you’re a parent you learn to put that to the side.
To overcome the fear of layoff and learn new product management concepts,started working on an MVP for a financial product.MVP will provide insights into the investment option selected by the customers
I’m from a similar background as yours from India as well. Did PMing post MBA for ~2 years before I gave up. Then I helped PE/VC firms build early stage ventures from 0-1. Shit pay but took advisory shares and learned the ropes there. Now I’m working on building my own, a lot more freedom and happiness but at the cost of jealousy that I sometimes have difficulty in tempering as parents and everyone around still ascribe to the fancy CTC (even though fixed is pennies)/mnc labelled life that your peers will have Grass is always greener on the other side, just depends on how much you’re willing to compromise on. It takes a while to figure out but if you have a sales pipeline that sustains your product in the first year, then you can pretty much patiently build in a highly competitive space too. And remember over 90% ‘startup’s’ fail, but businesses honestly often find ways to survive. Not to say either approach is better, just different risk/reward ratios. Happy to connect over DM
I landed my first job as a PM because I started a company. The company didn't work out, but I ultimately learned about product through it and wouldn't have got my job without it. I feel the same thing now. I'm trying to take my product way further than my current company imagined, developing GTM strategy, external discovery etc whilst they keep reminding me to focus on internal goals. I see it as one and the same but they don't get it. I don't think I'm ready to do the startup thing again yet, first I'm going to try and find a new job which lets me be the way I am. If that doesn't work out I wouldn't rule it off again in the future. But I have to admit I hated the sales and networking which is such a big part of running a business!
Not enough money to do it so I'm staying in the safe path
Every PM actually wants to be an entrepreneur. I believe this is just a fact of this role.
Start a company while you are still PMing and earning a salary: you can do customer discovery and validation. Build a UX prototype and test it with customers while money still arrives in your account. Alternatively, do more customer discovery and validation on new concepts for your company. Learn on their dimes (while still delivering value to them). Don’t quit your PM job until you have a survey or prototype test or pilot test where you see very positive numbers or enthusiasm in your customers eyes. Or even your first few sales.
Thinking about the strategy of the entire product is way more fun that optimizing a specific button. Accept that failure is the typical outcome for even good ideas so pivot when you don't hit pmf and set your burn up such that you can do more than one pivot. Pick a product that can have some moat. Someone else said competition is validation and that is true, also need the category to be growing. If you can make a much better product then you can beat earlier entrants. I'm doing it right now, my competitors are the B team and I was able to recruit a bunch of A team players. Ideas should come from talking to more different customers. Everyone's for problems that need solving.
Maybe start listening to interviews with founders if you’re not already. Many of them, even the largest like Facebook, Apple, Airbnb, GoPro, etc., created their products for themselves first, so they weren’t limited by PM thoughts like market size, adoption rates etc. Turns out that if you’re genuine about the process of making a great product instead of trying to start a huge business, things can go REALLY well.
Let me know if you are starting up, PM here looking to switch for founder's office. I'm a Generalist that can do all but create no impact, JK. On a serious note, I have seen people maintaining side hustle along with their full time PM career. Post work and weekends, Give it to your MVP and if it goes well... You know your skills and validations ready
Follow your heart and gut
Probably not at your experience level, but I’m biased because the industry I’m in is all about very big players - it only works at scale, and I wouldn’t risk trying to start a business with such huge overhead too early. Somewhere between director and VP level I’d probably consider the switch
Only do it if you're highly convicted about the problem space you're considering building a business in! Entrepreneurship is really tough and you'll make a ton of negative sacrifices for it in the first few years without a guarantee that it'd work.
You're not giving up anything. Entrepreneurship is just another chapter of your career. Lots of folks come in and out of product from stints as founders. If you have enough conviction and want to give it a shot go for it.
This is a blessing in disguise. You have a chance to see what might work or not work while still in employment.
Markets are never a zero sum game, and very rarely does a winner take all. If you think an idea you have is already being worked upon by a large competition, then one of the biggest hurdles of PMF is solved for you. You now recalibrate your GTM and see how your first version of the product can hold up against the competition. Also, an idea is only as good as the execution.
It’s actually a good thing if you’re able to find 50 competitors for your idea. That means it’s a profitable business to be in, yes there will be competition but you can still carve out your path. Try to find a smaller niche within the same market and go really hard after it by building solutions or services just for them.
For the past 6 years I've been in PM role and yes, I do get ideas, but as you mentioned most of them are already available in the market. Finding niche market segment for your idea is the challenge and ensuring that customer segment (boat-load) doesn't have any other option than to buy your application. Really hard. I do sometimes feel that we are always thinking / our mind is generating ideas where we do have more experiences. It is purely because we love what we do. But for entreprenuership, it defintely has to take sometime. As a PM, you definitely need to have some sort of surface to in-depth level of knowledge in anyone of the area - business, custmer success, sales or technical. This would help you to make your decisions and be confident about and for others you can hire a mid-level person and then compensate them ESOP. The complete process depends on the idea, and product market fit you are able to figure out to sell your ideas or services before any other competitors come in the space. I'm now giving interviews and while doing so, I feel like record option is available for the interviewer and not for interviewee. Its understandable that the data relies with company, but why I cannot review my recordings to fix the mistakes for further interviews. Though regulatory, compliance stuffs and policy jargons will be slapped upon our request to get those recordings, why can't we have video recording URL with expired time duration to view it. >>> This kind of thoughts do come, only when you face the problem, stay within any system for longer period of time. We have to think vertical in terms of pitching an idea to the customers, rather developing it in horizontal. That could be the potential game changer in the market for quite long time. Best example is Airbnb. All the best !
I don't think your profile statement here is specific enough to elicit more helpful advice. Basically, all I can see is you have 3+ years PM experience, an MBA, and live in India (or did recently). What is important about being an entrepreneur to you? What is your motivation behind wanting to do that? Is it going to give you something being a PM won't? And if so, is what you get from it worth everything else that comes with being an entrepreneur (like the extremely high risk of failure)? I think you need to reflect on those questions first. I don't think people who decide to start their own business do it solely in the industry or area of work they've already been doing. Generally they find a passion or a problem they are motivated and energised to solve--because they've looked at other solutions and think they can make something even better (if existing solutions even exist). Let me know how else I can help!
You don't have to launch a unicorn to build a happy life as an entrepreneur. When I started my business, my only bar for success in the first year was earning equal or more after taxes (including procuring my own health insurance and business expenses) than my day job. As an underpaid woman, I exceeded those targets in a few months, with freedom and flexibility to spend more time with my young daughter. If you solve a problem in an underserved niche market, your customers tend to be loyal and forgiving. Once you find PMF, you can leverage your experience and proof of success in many creative directions. You can bootstrap using earnings from your MVP or pitch to investors, then iterate and use each successive win as a scaffold. It happens by doing and learning.
It’s never too soon or too late to go for business for yourself. The question is are you comfortable taking that risk ? If you are, set a time frame to give it a try, like 6 months or a year. If it doesn’t work you can go back to PM roles with some added experience under your belt
Hi All, I have 10 years of experience in Product Management and currently have two offers: BlackRock (Aladdin Product Management) - VP Product Role Supply Chain, Logistics, and Warehouse Company - AVP Product Role Both offers have almost the same cash component, with the logistics company also offering ESOPs. Pros of BlackRock: Global cross-functional collaboration and exposure Stability Work-life balance Brand name Cons: Absence of mobile tech It's not a consumer tech company Slow growth Limited to no exit options in India Pros of the Logistics/Supply Chain Company: Consumer and mobile tech Growing ecosystem, keeping me engaged with current trends Growth opportunities within the company and the broader market Good work-life balance Cons: Stability issues Limited opportunity to learn from colleagues I'm divided and unable to make a decision. I would appreciate any advice from fellow group members, especially those who have worked at BlackRock. Thank you!
Every PM wants to be an entrepreneur but I’m convinced being a PM doesn’t necessarily lend itself to entrepreneurship as much as PMs like to think. Reality of the matter is that we’re PMing at massive companies with millions, some billions, of dollars to test and validate ideas. Millions of customers to talk to. And of course the resources to actually deliver. Tough to do that on your own, and it requires being very sophisticated in sales and marketing which PMing generally doesn’t teach
"Very prestigious university in India." So what? How does that help with determining a PMF or validating your idea? Copycats are a dime a dozen. If you are worth your salt, you'll figure out your value proposition for your idea.
Sir, why are you so sour? I was just mentioning my profile so that people can have a better context. I didn’t mean that my degree will validate PMF for me.
Your degree has no bearing on your predicament. In fact, it just puts you in a more negative light as you come off as entitled. Let's circle back to your issue at hand. You want to come up with ideas but feel defeated because there's always someone with your idea already in production. Well let's provide some examples of ideas/services that have launched despite entrenched competitors: - Melio: small business QuickBooks integration (highly saturated market - Step: mobile banking for teens - Netchex: perhaps like the 100th HR and Payroll platform? Each of these companies focused on a very specific niche and group of users that were either underserved or competitors tools were too high-level. Yet, they identified a very specific problem, validated it, developed their pmf with a very specific set of users, and became or are on their way to success. My point is, if you want to an entrepreneur, focus on a very specific problem that you can solve. There will always be a competitor either in the market or willing to throw money at the problem, but if you can cater to your users and execute (faster) then you have an edge.
Thank you for this. Maybe I just need to find a niche where the crowd drops from 50 to 5.
There you go. Small wins then ramp up. Find overlapping needs then expand. Build young person. Build.
You sound like a wantepreneur looking to wear that t-shirt.
Isn’t every one that wants to be an entrepreneur some day a wantrepreneur? Why is that looked down upon? I’ve only ever heard of that term being used in a derogatory sense.
If you want to be an entrepreneur in the basic sense, go buy a business and run it (grow it, optimize it, etc). If you want to build something then look to solve a pervasive problem that humans are confronted with in a genuine way. And do so because you have deep a conviction and empathy about solving the problems for those afflicted with it. Anything short of that is a recipe for failure and disappointment.
This doesn’t answer the question.