One Tactical Path Into Working On Product

I don’t know why, but I get this question a lot: “How do you get into a product role?” Well…

I am not the most-qualified person to answer this, yet I’m receiving this inquiry now about 4-5x per week, so I’ll offer my two cents on what I’d do:

First, find a product, or few products, that you truly love. True love means that you use them daily, or at least 3-4x per week.
Start taking notes on each product, especially the elements you love and the elements that frustrate you and/or you’d change.
Start collecting feedback from other people outside the company that makes the product, and try to record it in some structured fashion. For instance, this means going through how others onboard in the app, what pieces may be broken, or confusing, and so forth.
Unify this information and take it to the company, so that you can structure your conversation (or interview) with them around the product. This is critical because it will help differentiate you from others who just want a job, it will help filter out companies or people that don’t value this kind of engagement, and you’ll learn through the process, even if you don’t get the first or second gig.

Ultimately, the reason #4 is important is because it sets the tone for a conversation that is not about you or what you want, or about the company or the person you’re talking — it’s about the product. In that discussion, if you can’t show a mix of enthusiasm and depth about digging into the specifics (even just from a user’s perspective), it means you need to do more investigation. I was able to shortcut this because I had the fortune of being at a venture firm for six months and invited mobile founders to come in and pitch all day, nearly every day. Without that, there’s no way I would’ve been able to talk to the Swell folks about radio and podcasts, and to start building a relationship with them around product feedback. That’s how I’d answer the question, but take this with a grain of salt. Good luck!