You don’t need a computer science degree to participate because Startup Weekend is a weekend-long experience where teams (technical and non-technical) get together and work on customer development, idea validation, and build a minimum viable product which they then pitch to a panel of experts on the final day. I e-mailed this to the hiring manager and got a lot of positive reception from their team for this work.Īnother example of a “side project” you could do is join a Startup Weekend in your area.

I also wrote about how I might quantitatively / qualitatively measure the ROI of rolling out product development of this feature and what would determine feature success. I then created a quick wireframe on PowerPoint (you can use any tool you’d like) of a product feature I would add to the startup’s current product offerings to address this issue. Given this was just a case study, I wrote about my process in prioritizing which user need I’d address first based on the data I had collected – this also gave me a chance to show the team that I was actively using a prioritization method. I synthesized all the responses into a few key user needs and brainstormed a few potential solutions.

You could volunteer to help a non-profit or small business or you could just do some research on a company’s current product / and show how you might improve it.įor example, when applying to a small education tech start-up for a PM role, I did a short case study where I went out to target customers (who I felt accurately represented the startup’s direct customers) and surveyed them about their problems in the education space. One of the best ways to demonstrate your interest in product management is to work on a side project that gives you the experience in shipping a product.Ī side project could be anything from a tangible iPhone app, wireframe, or even a PowerPoint case study. In order to become a product manager, you should follow these tips: 1.

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