Practical tips that guide you from first-time product manager to leader

"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...

How To Make Our CFO Love Us Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes Thank you to our sponsors who keep this newsletter free for the reader: Support This Newsletter With A Sponsorship Product Managers lead buy recommendations and decisions for their companies. Promote your product or brand to a passionate community of over 3,300 product managers and leaders. Book Your Sponsorship Today Two stories to share with you today. They may not seem like product management stories initially, but they...

Product Management Can't Make Engineering Go Faster Read on my website / Read time: 9 minutes Thank you to our sponsors who keep this newsletter free for the reader: Make AI Part of Your Daily Life WithQuick 5-minute Insights Learn how to save time and money with AI. Join 530k+ readers benefitting from the latest AI tools and insights for personal and professional growth. Subscribe to the AI Tool Report Discover the Latest News,Tools, and Trends in AI Join 40,000+ subscribers including...

Our #1 KPI in Product Management Read on my website / Read time: 10 minutes Thank you to our sponsors who keep this newsletter free for the reader: 59k+ Growth Hackers Swear By This Newsletter Stacked Marketer provides you with carefully curated industry news, tech, and insights. It’s a 100% free jam-packed 7-minute daily read. Sign Up For Free Today This week’s issue may take longer than 5 minutes to read. But it’s about an incredibly important topic. So I encourage you to take the time to...

What Our CEO Wants Us To Know Read on my website / Read time: 4 minutes Thank you to our sponsors who keep this newsletter free for the reader: You're Amazing! Your Resume Should Show It Not getting interviews? It's not you - it's your resume. Nils Davis has helped 100s of product managers build a killer resume. It starts with a FREE resume review. Book Your Free Call Today, I’m going to talk about your CEO. What they care about. And why it’s important for you to know. Unfortunately, many...

What's Our Primary Job as a Product Manager? Read on my website | Read time: 4 minutes Thank you to our sponsors who keep this newsletter free for the readers: You're Amazing! Your Resume Should Show It Not getting interviews? It's not you - it's your resume. Nils Davis has helped 100s of product managers build a killer resume. It starts with a FREE resume review. Book Your Free Call One of the biggest lies in product management is agile. I appreciate agile as a software development...

In the summer of 1993, I did my first customer interview. It was a disaster. I didn't speak with another customer for six years. I avoided it like the plague. I hid in software engineering jobs where I didn’t have to. In 2000, I pursued my first startup and I had to start doing customer interviews again. Even then, it was hit or miss and I got absolutely nowhere. Surprise, surprise – the startup failed. I continued fumbling through doing customer discovery over the next five years. This was...

When I started as a product manager, I spent years trying to perfect my resume. Skills, keywords, activities, employment history. Nothing worked. Meanwhile, hundreds of other product managers were getting jobs. Building amazing careers Notching up successes Reaping the rewards But my resume got zero. Crickets. Basically ignored. Then, I started to reverse engineer some of the best product management resumes. I wanted to understand what they were doing differently from me. So, armed with a...

My God, we product managers can be so boring. We love to talk about tech, process, and "user value". All of which we're responsible for. None of which get us: Recognition. That job. That promotion. Better compensation. When I started as a product manager, I was seen by business people as too technical. And I had a tough time getting promoted. And this was after I had been a tech entrepreneur. Go figure. Over the years, I've found so many product managers, even product leaders, have this same...