I help undervalued Product Managers gain influence, impact, and respect they deserve

"How do I prove my value as a product manager?" This is one of the most common questions I get. Heck, I've asked myself that question throughout my career. Still do. It's often articulated in different ways: How can I get more empowerment? How can I convince my boss / leadership / execs to "let go"? How can I get engineering to follow my ideas? How can I get sales to not just see me as "technical"? How do I help my boss understand my impact? How can I grow from being an order taker to a...

What Product Managers Get Wrong About Money Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes As product managers, we talk a lot about product strategy, discovery, and customer value. But if we want to actually ship the things we believe in, we also need to understand how those things get funded. Most PMs tend to think of "the budget" as a monolith. That all money is created equal — it's just a question of crafting strategy and allocating money to realize it. Or simply giving each department its...

Why PM Directors Struggle Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes Recently, I had an interesting call with a Product Director. He was an excellent Senior Product Manager and some time ago his company promoted him to Director - a role he had coveted for some time. He's enjoying a fat salary, has a team of Product Managers, and is leading some cool products. Sounds like what every PM aspires to until you look under the hood. He booked a call with me because he's drowning in chaos. And being...

Building the Business Case for a Customer Happiness Feature Read on my website / Read time: 4 minutes Not every feature we build will have a direct line to revenue. But that doesn't mean it doesn't create value. As product managers, we often advocate for enhancements that improve the customer experience—things like simplifying workflows, improving performance, or refining the UI. We know these investments matter. But when we pitch them to the execs, we're often asked: "What's the ROI?"...

Commercial Acumen Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes "Great user experience, Shardul. But where's the business case?" Early in my product career, I led a team building a tool our users loved. Engagement was off the charts. NPS was solid. Feedback channels were buzzing with praise. So when I walked into that exec meeting to pitch a plan for expansion, I felt confident. I had data. I had vision. I had user love. The Product Force was with me. Or, so I naively thought. The questions came...

We're Not 9-1-1 Operators. We're Product Leaders. Read on my website / Read time: 9 minutes Here was a typical day for me as a Product Manager: It would start with a flood of pings—emails, Slack messages, calendar invites, "quick" requests. Before my first coffee even hit: Someone needed a bug fix. Someone else needed a status update on the latest release. Someone wanted to discuss a "cool new" feature idea. Design wanted my feedback on their latest Figma. Sales was asking if that one feature...

We Can't Feature Our Way To Product Success Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes You can't feature your way to market fit. What do I mean by "market fit"? It means your product or feature solves a critical need for a specific group of customers, and needs to do this so well that they adopt it, stick with it, and - ideally - advocate for it. It's that feeling of a strong "pull" from the market. When this happens, the sales process becomes less about justifying the product to customers,...

Emotional Intelligence Read on my website / Read time: 4 minutes Product Management happens through people. As Product Managers, we know we have to influence without authority. Even product executives - VPs, SVPs, CPOs - can't dictate to the rest of the organization what to do, because they don't report to them. (Unless they are specifically in a P&L GM type role.) We have to deal with lots of people in different parts of the organization who don't report to us. But we have to influence them...

Justifying Your Existence Read on my website / Read time: 9 minutes Harsh truth: As Product Managers, we need to be generating 3x-50x returns on our compensation. If not, we'll find ourselves diminished to task-based delivery work, sidelined, ignored, undervalued. Ultimately, we risk losing our job and - worse - stagnating in our careers as we struggle to communicate our impact in job interviews. "But, Shardul," I can hear the protests now, "we're not sales or marketing, so we can't be...