So you want to be a product manager? Or you are just product-curious? Here are some resources and tips I recommend to folks who are looking into a career in product. Of course, every product manager will have a different list of recommendations. So you should ask others whom you respect for their list too. Never stop learning!
Reading List
Introductions to Product Building
- Inspired by Marty Cagan
- The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Technology & Innovation
- Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
- Crossing the Chasm by Geoffry Moore
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- Agile Product Management with Scrum by Roman Pichler
- The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks
- Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
UX and Design
- A Project Guide to UX Design by Russ Unger
- The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
- Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
- Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Business & Marketing
- This Is Marketing by Seth Godin
- Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donal Miller
- Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis
- Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics by Thomas Davenport
Biographies and Autobiographies
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
- The Everything Store, Jeff Bazos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
- Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
- Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
Leadership and Influence
- Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff
- Drive by Daniel H. Pink
- Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard and Naomi Klein
- High Output Management by Andy Grove
- No One Understand You and What to Do About It by Heidi Grant Halvorson
- The Diversity Bonus by Scott Page
- 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings by Sarah Cooper
Talks and Useful Videos
- Empowered Product Teams by Marty Cagan
- Product is Hard by Marty Cagan
- The art of Innovation by Guy Kawasaki
- What is Agile by Mark Shead
- Intro to Scrum in Under 10 Minutes
- 20 years of Product Management in 20 minutes:
- Steve Jobs – The Lost Interview
- Steve Jobs Commencement Address
Entertainment
TV & Movies about Tech, Business, and Growth
- HBO Silicon Valley
- The Company Men
- Steve Jobs
- Fyre Fraud & Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened
- The Inventor: Out for Blood
- Halt and Catch Fire
- The Social Network
- The Internship
- The Pixar Story
- Office Space
- Pirates of Silicon Valley
- Something Ventured
Articles
- Lessons of Inspired
- HBR: Become a Great Product Manager
- Product Management Skills by Level
- Design Sprint book
- Jobs to be done
- Maker vs. Manager Schedules
- The Amazon API Manifest
- Yin and Yang of Product & Engineering
- Product Requirements Document
- Top skills of product manager
- 15 Things You Should Know About Product Managers
- Product Manager You Are…
Classes
- Udemy: Programming for Non-Programmers: Fundamentals by Christopher Michael
- Udemy: APIs Crash Course by Christopher Michael
- Udemy: SQL for Marketers by Justin Mares
- Udemy: Become a Product Manager | Learn the Skills & Get the Job by Cole Mercer and Evan Kimbrell
- Udemy: 1 Day MVP 2.0 | GO from idea to MVP in just 1 day by Evan Kimbrell
- W3Schoos: SQL Tutorial
- CodeAcademy: Learn SQL
- CodeAcademy: Analyzing Business Metrics with SQL
Informational Interviews
- Find 4 product managers from these backgrounds
- Customer Service
- Business, Marketing, or Consulting
- Technology
- Design
- Ask them these questions
- Why did they become a product manager?
- What did they learn in their previous role that they use regularly?
- What areas did they have to teach themselves? What resources were useful?
- Think of the really good product managers they have worked with. What did they do better than others?
Interviewing for Product Manager Jobs
- Read the Product Manager Interview by Lewis C. Lin
- Watch Exponent Mock Interviews