The essence of product management | Christian Idiodi (SVPG)

Most people don't like product managers often because they haven't experienced good product managers. The core of product management is competency-based.

The holy grail of product work is really a reference customer. This is somebody that has used your solution or your product, loves it enough to tell people about it.

You're going to find the loudest, most influential person in your organization, the person that everybody knows, knows everything, and you're going to ask them to teach you.

The most powerful way I have found to get trust with many people is to have them accountable for an outcome of mine, which is to know. So if I wanted to accelerate trust with Lenny, I will ask Lenny to teach me.

If you truly, truly want to solve a problem, get out of your building, get out of the assumptions, get out of your opinions. Immerse yourself, find someone who has the problem, stick with them until you discover a solution for this problem.

You don't get mastery by avoidance. In the absence of getting good coaching, you need to find practice arenas. Go volunteer at a non-profit working with the team... Find places where people do collaborative problem solving.

For B2B, I want six to eight references, for B2C, I want maybe 15 to 25 references as an indication that we've achieved product market fit.

Just because somebody can use your product doesn't mean that they will buy it. Just because they can use it doesn't mean they will choose it. Just because they can use it doesn't mean that they will actually use it.

There's nothing better in learning how to solve a problem than trying to solve the problem. You will get all the answers, the research, the failure, the mistakes, all the evidence.