Last Saturday I grabbed some coffee with Jason Evanish (@evanish) a bright, dare i say wise, product manager from KISSmetrics (think of a supercharged version of google analytics giving you better information about user experience). Jason Shen, who is also a superstart but I have yet to meet, hooked the meeting up after learning about my interest in product management.

Some take aways from our conversation.

1. The vision I had of product management, and I don’t know exactly what influenced this vision, is not what it REALLY is. Will elaborate below.
2. San Francisco’s tech culture makes it easy to get almost anyone’s time. Apparently this comes from a tradition of mentoring. Everyone who has “made it” in the Bay at some point received advice at a time where they couldn’t offer anything back. Good news for me because I have little to offer anyone immediately. However I see these blogs entries as way to share something and hopeful someone take something away.
3. “If you want advice, ask for a job. If you want a job, ask for advice.” Jason adopted this from a saying in the startup community. It reasons if you want money from someone and ask them for it there likely to offer only advice, however when your agenda is ostensibly just advice they may actually surprise you with an investment.

Meeting Jason was useful to shatter my picture of what a product manager is. Continue Reading