After his business to make money, want to come back to continue to do product
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Tang Ren” (ID: RyanTang007), Author: Tang Ren.
Tell you a real story. Yesterday, a buddy on WeChat found me and said that he wanted to go back to product development and he wanted to go to a big company.
Why come back to the product post?
He graduated in 2012 and worked as a product manager for a period of time. However, the two companies he had worked with were not lucky. One fell off and the other was disbanded due to the project adjustment team.
I wanted to continue this path, but in 17 years, there was an accident at home and urgently needed money. He made a choice he considered to be a last resort, and went to sea for business.
The reason is also very simple. The main purpose is to solve economic problems.
In this way, since 17 years till now, he has been in the catering business with others. Although he has made some money, he still has a product plot.
After solving the economic problem, he pondered to return to his original aspirations and become a product manager again.
But when I asked him carefully about his demands, I found that he and all the people who want to switch to products have a common problem. He wants to go to a big factory, knows the direction, is not clear on the path, and sets his own limits by age.
This buddy is 31 this year. Although he has a short product experience, he has been a businessman in recent years. According to him, he has been doing business with product thinking.
To be honest, I believe what he said, otherwise he wouldn’t make any money.
However, there is a big mismatch between his core demands and objective reality, with high expectations, shallow experience, and unclear entry points.
He wants to make educational products, and he wants to go to a big factory to devote himself to a better practice environment. He said that he is 31, do he still have a chance to go to a big factory?
Many people have the same problem as him. To be honest, the path to accomplish this goal is more important than age, but it is also ignored by many people.
Going to a big factory is the goal. How to go is the path.
First of all, you have to find an entry point for everything.
Education products are a general term. Education itself is also an industry, which is subdivided into many business areas. For example, K12 education and workplace education can be further divided into groups and subjects.
In addition, the product is a function, specific to an industry and a business field, there are manyShould be the product direction. For example, front-end products, back-office products, commercial products, strategic products, etc.
According to this logic, the exact entry point is the choice in a certain industry, a certain field, and a certain product direction.
To give a practical example, when someone told me that he wanted to make e-commerce products, they only told me about the industry. E-commerce corresponds to the retail and wholesale industry. However, I don’t know exactly what he wants to do. The full statement is that I want to be a trading system for B2C medical e-commerce front-end products.
Look, it’s much clearer this way. In the pharmaceutical retail industry, the direction is the front-end product transaction system, which is the entire process of placing orders for users.
Of course, if you further subdivide, you can also divide the product details page, shopping cart, settlement page, cashier, order and promotion system, coupon system, message system and other modules from the transaction system.
Someone may ask, does it need to be so detailed?
Of course, if you go to see the JD of a big factory, you will be as detailed as this.
For a small company, several people may be responsible for several modules at the same time, but a large company must be a team responsible for one module, which may still seem to be a small module. This is determined according to the volume of business, the volume of users, and the complexity of the product.
With an entry point, the next step is to build a complete path.
The so-called path is the knowledge and skill reserves you need to make to reach the end, as well as the core advantages you have accumulated.
Take the previous example as an example, if you want to trade products for pharmaceutical e-commerce, you must at least understand the characteristics and rules of the industry.
Everyone who has done it knows that the model of pharmaceutical e-commerce is different from that of traditional e-commerce. Displays at the front desk, business processes, and warehousing and circulation are all different.
The most intuitive, the pharmaceutical supply chain system needs to meet the national GSP certification specifications, if it does not meet the standards, it will be offline.
Each industry has its own characteristics, which are all open “secrets” for professionals. Therefore, mastering industry characteristics and rules is the first step to understand and enter this field.
With knowledge, it is necessary to improve skills through practice.
The practical environment is very important. If you do not reach the ideal practical environment, such as in a small company, you can at least complete the original accumulation on your own established route. This can be done.
Really don’t dislike small companies. Large companies have grown from small to large. Don’t treat small companies as an interface that you don’t want to change and make progress. There are more methods than problems.
When you have a complete knowledge system, enough practical experience, and relatively mature skills, you can go to a higher level.
The ideal is beautiful, and the reality is very skinny. It is not that ideals are out of reach, and what is missing is often the path in the middle.
Think about it in another way, why did the big factory want you?
It’s nothing more than you have the knowledge, skills, and experience that a big company just needs. If you don’t have anything, it’s not realistic to have a passion.
Now is the era of oversupply, the demand side is constantly improving, and the phenomenon of survival of the fittest will be very obvious.
So, you see why many PMs now say that it is difficult to find a job, or they have nowhere to go to a big factory. The reason is not that you are not good enough, but because someone is better than you.
This is reality.
Should we say that age will become the threshold for large-scale cardholders? I don’t think it will, because when I was working in a large factory, the newly recruited colleagues were much older than me, which did not prevent others from doing their job well.
But the premise is that people have accumulated many years of accumulation and experience in this industry and field, and have fully practiced. For the company and him, it was just a good match.
So, whether it’s 21 or 31 or 41, to paraphrase the old saying, gold always shines.
Don’t use your age as an excuse for not being able to rise to the top. Think about Ren Zhengfei and Chu Shijian. People don’t set limits on yourself.
The only thing that prevents you from rising to the top is the lack of knowledge, skills, and experience. Age is not an absolute factor. Supplementing the former is the solution to the problem.
However, many people just lack some patience and methods, and are tired of action, so the final goal is always a small number.