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if you're trying to become a product manager the internet has probably suggested to you build a side project I mean I've given that advice to tons of people but there's a reason this advice is so common it works I have proof I am the proof 5 years ago I was a lost Tech girlly desperate to become a product manager and this mobile app was the reason I got my product management job so this is the what the why the how on product management side [Music] projects I'm Alex and welcome back to my channel and whether you're a green bean product manager or a seasoned PM let's talk all things side projects let's level set what is a side project a side project is obviously something you build on the side duh but seriously it's something you build to Showcase a particular skill set they's super common in technical Fields like data science science or software engineering and a way for people to Showcase their coding and technical skills if you're watching this video you're probably familiar with the product management Paradox AKA you need experience to get experience it's one of the most frustrating things for aspiring product managers to deal with but side projects are a great way to circumvent this Paradox you basically give yourself the opportunity to showcase product management skills even if your day job isn't product management your goal is to build something that can be packaged presented and explained easily and quickly from networking and interviews most importantly we need to showcase the product management life cycle which we'll talk about later common side projects you might see for product management are apps websites newsletters podcasts and that was the case for me when I built weather Weare my product management side project 5 years ago I was dead set on becoming a product manager I was in a job I hated I was applying to product management jobs left and right but getting rejected from everything and most importantly I didn't have any of the information that I have today that would have made the entire product management application process so much easier hence why I'm making this video I was just so lost at how to make that next step then I got laid off for my job due to the pandemic nice if I thought I was stuck before I was literally so stuck now stuck at home stuck in my career and I was going crazy I kept asking myself how was I going to progress my career if I didn't even have a job at the same time my sister sent me this video of a product manager from LinkedIn talking about how she built an app to become a product manager I saw that video and to me the logic was infallible if I built an app I'd become a product manager spoiler alert it helped and it turned into the best thing I had done for my career up until that point I attribute my app weatherwear to getting my current product management job and my app started with a question what coat should I wear today now before we get to the how let's talk about the why why oh why do we care about side projects side projects are a great way to make sure that your product management skills have a place to shine remember our product management Paradox from earlier we need to escape the cycle you'll be able to show that you have product management skills before you have product manager on your resume for my side project I built an app called weatherwear here's the thing the app sucked it was clunky it did the absolute bare minimum recommending a Cod but it was funny to talk about an interviews and it gave me a great chance to talk about how I came up with the idea what I learned and what I would improve in the future even more importantly I was able to take this side project and list it in the App Store so that anyone looking at my resume could click and see that it actually existed let me tell you this app itself was nothing special it took the current weather and recommended one out of like eight types of codes it was super simple but I made something I had something to show for it and that was the most important thing and I proved to myself that hey I could actually do this product management thing okay Alex that's all fine in Dandy but this video isn't your life story can you tell us how to actually build one now yes yes dear audience member that looks nothing like me I'm getting there we need to show that we know the product management life cycle AK identify a problem gather feedback and iterate first identify a problem this is where we're going to spend most of our time when we're building a side project we're going to be identifying a problem doing research choosing a type of solution and designing and building version one so this is going to be about 50% of our time next Gathering feedback this is technically what a product manager is supposed to spend most of their time doing I know you're busy I'm busy we need to be efficient with this whole side project thing thus we'll spend about 25% of our time here and then finally iterate this is where we take feedback from the section before and build version two of our product another 25% of our time now in true product management this life cycle would continue on indefinitely we want to complete one full rotation around the product life cycle management Sun one rotation will be sufficient for what we need to do so the first thing that we need to do when creating a side project is choose an idea as I talked about before we need to choose something that can be packaged presented and explained quickly in interviewing and networking settings so you want to choose a problem area that is not controversial and you have some interest in so first we need to start by choosing a problem and I recommend you look inward ask yourself what problems do I run into on a daily basis and how do I solve them and you don't need to solve world peace with this but I bet you can find a problem in your house that you can build a side project on so you want to observe yourself when you say I hate I wish or I want I wish I knew what to make for dinner or I hate being cold or I want better clothes and yes you're probably thinking Alex people have already built those Solutions and I say who cares the point is that you're building this for yourself you do not need to be a revolutionary to become a product manager there are tons of products out there that solve the same problem the point is you need to get your hands dirdy and build something yourself because at the end of the day that is what a product manager does okay okay okay back to the whole figuring out your idea if you don't have an idea at hand let's use the example of weatherwear which started with the statement I don't know what coat to wear now let's ask ourselves what's the core problem here and that is I hate being cold I literally hate it this core problem can also be called a job to be done an unwavering need or want that will not change over time and now from that core Pro problem I hate being cold we can map out a ton of different solutions maybe a scarf that folds up so small it fits in all of my purses or an app that estimates the temperature on my commute based on my mode of Transport or maybe an app that recommends a coat based on local weather and with that list we've just opened up a ton of possibilities for side projects new skill unlock opportunity trees AK take a problem write out potential Solutions more importantly do you see how all of those Solutions relate back to that core problem of not wanting to be cold from this list of solutions we're going to be very practical you need to choose what you think will be the easiest thing to build and what will be a fun conversation topic for interviews and that's exactly what I did with weatherwear some of these Solutions I wouldn't have been interested in or felt too hard to build at my current skill level so an app that did an API call to pull local weather data and spit out a coat recommendation that felt like something I could do now we need to talk about what's going to go into to our minimum viable product or MVP and what we can push to a future release now the startup gurus are going to come after me because I'm about to give you the wrong definition of MVP to them an MVP is building something to test one hypothesis um but we're going to ignore that and change the definition we're going to Define MVP as what is the most basic version of my idea that I can build and now we're going to create a list of things that could be features for our solution here was a list that I used for weatherwear I knew I wanted to be able to pull API data I knew I wanted the user to be able to input a zip code and I knew I wanted to be able to recommend a coat now we're going to decide what we're going to push into version one our MVP and what we're going to push into version two now for this exercise I like to use What's called the Moscow method must have could have should have or won't have so basically assigning each one of the features that I've thought of to one of these four categories then we'll look at our musthave category and make sure those features are in version one I recommend doing this exercise somewhere where you can save the results Google Sheets pen and paper most importantly we need to save this information for a later part of our side project and look we're building another product management skill prioritization in any world and product management world we can't build everything all the time so we need to decide what to build first to design our side project we're going to want to create some mockups for weatherwear I used a pen and paper to create a very simple step-by-step process of what I wanted the user to experience this process of mapping out the product experience is known as wire framing get this another product management skill I'm just chalk full of them today right if you don't want to use a paper and Pen I recommend tools like figma or whimsical that allow you to do this wireframing process on your computer now you can start bringing these wireframes to your friends and family to get feedback or you can keep building so we've got our idea we've got our features we've got our wireframe now it's time to put rubber to the road and build something and this is the point where fear of failure can really stop someone so if you only get one thing from this video is that you are going to learn so much more from trying and failing than doing nothing at all so let's build when I was building weatherwear I had some coding knowledge but at best I'd made a tic tac toe game that didn't have an exit function so I went to YouTube and watched all the code with Chris Swift video tutorials I learned the absolute Basics to get by and build an app but I felt like learning Swift would be kind of just like a fun thing to do but if you've never written a line of code don't worry you can absolutely use no code platforms like bubble.io or makerpad to build your side project so dear viewer it's time for you to do the same and build find resources to build your desired side project that one match your current skill level or two are skills that you want to learn this is where you go and build version one this this is what my MVP of weatherwear looked like I apologize that the video quality is a potato but as you can see it was really really basic and and just had those musthave features in this MVP so once I had my MVP for weatherwear done I took it to my friends and family and asked for feedback my goal here was to collect feedback from anyone that would listen to me you will need to do the same to collect feedback I talk to people about what they thought about the flow the purpose of the app any recommendation they have for things that I should add asking them questions like does anything feel confusing to you what do you wish this app did what do you think the purpose of weatherwear is and get this this is another product management skill you're welcome we are learning how to conduct user interviews and no we're not going to be perfect at it the point here is that we are beginning to build those product management skills we're learning how to conduct user interviews take feedback and then iterate on the feedback it's time to make version 2 so let's take all the feedback you got the feature requests and bring it back to our Moscow feature list now we need to update our Moscow list with features that have been built and any changes we have to our prioritization in that process of updating the Moscow list that's iterating we're taking in feedback and making improvements for our users get this another PM skill this is also a great place that you can and should ask for help for example I hired someone on Fiverr to make my UI for weatherwear to take it from this to that is that a glow up or what uh sidebar this is yet another product management skill learning when to Outsource and when to just build something yourself so we've done all of that let's build again and now we have version two congratulations congratulations everybody on making it to final that is a huge accomplishment in big brother but we can't just hide our side project that would be ridiculous you've done too much work how do we make this project public so that people can see it this is so so so important you need to make sure that your project is publicly available and linked on your resume now I published weatherwear to the App Store like 3 4 years ago at this point and I don't know what year you're watching this video so honestly I would just Google to find a guide on how to get your side project public if it's an app an app store guide if it's a website figuring out how to add a website domain if it's a podcast getting on Spotify etc etc you want the recruiter the hiring manager the interviewer to be able to click on that link on your resume and see your work it is so much easier to show than tell and you're showing them that you know the product management life cycle weatherwear was a huge part of my interview process for becoming a product manager I talked about it in every single interview mainly getting questions about why I chose to build this app what I learned and what I'd improve in the future weatherwear helped me get my current product management job and I have faith that if you follow this guide you'll be able to do the same well that was a whirlwind are you ready to build your side project let me know in the comments below and if you found anything helpful in this video hit the like button subscribe to my channel it helps me out a ton all right let's get building