You do Product in real life

Have you ever gotten the sense that most advice for PMs is crafted for Product folks who work in some kind of magical, idealized organization? I’ve never worked at any company, within any org, with any team, or on any product — where the theory taught by the “gurus” I follow and respect was directly applicable. My work has always been messier than that, and I’ve been left to figure out most situations on the fly.

I’m trying to share supplemental lessons I’ve learned over almost two decades in Product — from Startup to Fortune-100 — that are useful for the rest of us. This is all stuff that I’ve gathered over time or learned from my own mistakes, and I try to keep it practical for an actual Product person in a real role, doing the messy work of PM with some mix of other humans.

• PM and career advice I wish I got 10 years ago

• Technical concepts and skills for PMs

• Life advice I hope my kids stumble onto at some point

• Memes from the great Tim Robinson’s sketch-comedy show, I Think You Should Leave

• Sports metaphors (sorry, bad habit I picked up over 6 years at a major sportswear brand)

• My perspective on the emerging field of decentralized IDtech

I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do or how to do it. I am though telling you what I’ve found success with or how I’ll plan to do things in the future — based on my own experiences and lessons learned.

If you read something I’ve written, and you think I’ve gotten it wrong — please let me know what I’ve missed or misunderstood! But be warned: I may respond with naive-seeming questions.

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Dan Robertson | PM & Product Leader

I write about product management and strategy based on nearly two decades of experience: from co-founding a ticketing startup, to leading Platform PM at Nike, to building fintech enterprise SaaS, to early-stage-startup fractional consulting.

I dig deep into complex product areas. Once I start digging, I tend not to stop until I get to the bottom.

You do Product in real life, not in theory. I share what I think I’ve learned from my experience.

Product Intuition is a brand operated by Product Intuition LLC.