A Day In The Life Of A Director Of Product At Stiddle
A Director of Product's day is defined by "spontaneity and always being on your feet," requiring constant prioritization between urgent and important tasks, as well as balancing profit and loss responsibility with product development. This involves collaboration across teams, gathering user feedback, and strategically weighing feature requests against product quality and the overall roadmap to ensure success.
Project Management, Communication, Problem-Solving, Leadership, Decision-Making
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Joshua Han
Director of Product
Stiddle
UC Berkeley
N/A
Political Science, American Studies
Technology
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Immigrant, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Greek Life Member
Video Highlights
1. The day-to-day activities of a founder and product manager are highly varied and spontaneous, demanding adaptability and proactive problem-solving.
2. Effective communication and prioritization are crucial; distinguishing between urgent and important tasks to allocate resources efficiently.
3. A significant part of the role involves gathering user feedback, collaborating with the tech team to implement features, and making trade-off decisions based on product quality and other factors. Measuring success and staying on track with product roadmaps is also essential.
Transcript
What does the day in the life of a founder and product manager look like?
There's no single way to answer this. There isn't a regular day. The only thing you can count on is spontaneity and always being ready to react. You also need to know how to be proactive without getting ahead of problems.
As a founder and product manager, every day is different. You are responsible for the P&L, which is whether your operation makes money or not. That's a huge responsibility.
I can take you through what a week or a cycle of going through a product problem looks like. As a founder or product manager, getting a quick rundown of what everyone is working on is essential. Having a good communication cadence and relationship with your teammates is the most important thing.
This helps you check in on what everyone is doing and understand how to prioritize problems. There are urgent things and important things, and it's crucial to differentiate between them. This allows you to focus on what needs fixing now versus what's a nice-to-have.
In my current role at Tittle, a day might involve creating a list of potential customers to reach out to for sales. It also includes getting feedback on our current product. This could mean hopping on a demo with founders, explaining our product to potential users, and gathering feedback.
Then, I'd have a separate conversation with our chief technology officer about how to implement requested features without jeopardizing product quality. A huge part of being a PM and founder is weighing what we can do against what we need to balance as a trade-off.
Another important aspect for these roles is understanding how you're measuring success. A lot of your day will revolve around whether you're on track and if the roadmap for the product or feature is being rolled out properly.