How can we become a good product manager?

Now, Internet companies are focusing on product managers. This is a good thing. In the past, the Internet talked about financing, business models, and strategies, and seldom talked about products. Because products can be copied from outside China, the first advantage will be given to anyone who wants to get started quickly. Now, the Internet capital is no longer a problem, and the speed of plagiarism is as fast. At this time, the Internet competition is about who can better understand user needs and who can make better products than others. At this time, the role of the product manager is crucial.

So how can we become a good product manager? Or, What qualities do a good product manager need?

If a product is not ready, there may be many reasons, such as too many features or unclear positioning. All these reasons are easy to tell and give to the product manager. However, if the cause cannot be found, the product manager will make the same mistake, which means it will not become a good product manager at all.

From my personal experience, to become a good product manager, you must have a "big me" and a "little me" in your mind. You may have to hone in these two processes, to find the cause.

　　What is "Big me "? I mean, a product manager wants to treat himself as a CEO..In brother and brother Lian, the company director is nicknamed CEO. The product manager is responsible for a product. Although the product manager title is attached, the general manager is responsible for driving the product. Because the product manager is responsible for the product, the product manager should often coordinate many departments to promote a lot of people and things that do not belong to him. For example, to deal with design, you must deal with technology, we need to deal with tests, understand users' ideas, and talk about support with the market. The product manager has no less confidence than a general manager. Therefore, I said that a good product manager should first treat himself as a CEO, responsible for both executive and experience ). Maybe others don't take you seriously, but you have a "big me" in your mind ". You are responsible for a product. Your title is not important, but you must shoulder this responsibility.

Therefore, a good product manager does not need to care about how many people are in charge today, and does not need to care about whether the title is high or low. The key is whether you can use the company's resources or not, finally, make a good product. Hundreds of millions of users choose to use your products, which is the biggest recognition of product managers. Under the same conditions, your products are used by hundreds of millions of users. The products you make are only used by millions of users, so you are better than him.

You may say that I want to be a good product manager, but I am too young and have no qualifications. I think the product manager should be very confident and you should have such momentum. Without such self-confidence and ambition, I suggest you do not work as a product manager. More than a decade ago, I was a very inconspicuous product manager at founder Founder Group. Other people said, "How does Zhou Hongyi look like a cool man? He cares about the world all day and is like a boss every day?" They are right. At that time, I thought I was the boss and my own boss.

　　A good product manager has "Big me" in mind, but at the same time, he has to constantly "ego" and even "Forget Me ".That is to say, the product manager should forget himself. According to my experience, the product manager is most likely to make several mistakes, including the fact that I am still making mistakes today, that is, the product is doing the work, not for users, but for themselves, we made products for our colleagues and for our leaders.

Therefore, the product manager needs to be "personal" or even "Forget Me", that is, the product manager must be immersive and treat himself as a typical user to split his mind, in this way, you can understand your real thoughts and needs.

For example. I have been a technical engineer and have been working on client software for so many years. I believe that it is not difficult to deconstruct any client software. However, I can tell you that 360 of the products come into use in my hands and there will be problems. Why? As long as I use a product, I will immediately become another "Zhou Hongyi", a "Zhou Hongyi" who knows nothing about computers, is very impatient, and randomly knocks on the keyboard, A lot of programs have crashed after a few steps.

Some people may laugh, but I tell you that users are so impatient, so impatient, and so random. Users use your products to complete tasks, not to understand the complex technologies behind them. In addition, he will not reflect his opinions to you, and will directly unload the matter. However, if a product manager cannot put down his self and does not have "ego" or "Self-forgetting", how can he make a product that the user prefers?

How can we develop the "ego" and even reach a "self-forgetting" realm? When I made products, there was no guidance, and I had to explore it completely. In fact, it was because there were more failed products than everyone else, and there was a lot of frustration. So I felt more, thought more, and summed up more. For example, when I was a graduate student, I made an anti-virus card and sold it out. As a result, you may receive a call and get scolded. Technical Talents like me can't be scolded by users. At that time, I felt that the original user idea was different from my idea. It was very simple to make products for users rather than for themselves.

　　Sometimes, product managers make products not for themselves, but for the company.. We often see that a company makes a product because the company needs it, not the user needs it. A company needs to make a product, not to serve users, but to serve the company. I once saw a large Internet company report on how to do im. The 50-page PPT is about the IM from the beginning to the end. It does not show the help of the company's business, but what needs the product to meet.

Therefore, a good product manager must avoid the trap I mentioned when you can mobilize the company's resources for products. Sometimes I fall into this trap, but I often remind myself to be vigilant, so I can climb it out.

In fact, I have been engaged in the Internet industry for so many years and made some products that people still think are good about. But sometimes I think back and think about it. In fact, there are some components of luck in it, it is a mistake to do the right thing unconsciously at the right time.

　　Many product insights are actually honed in failure.For example, I have been feeling recently that Steve Jobs actually made a mistake. In the Dharma, people are greedy, greedy, and crazy, and greed is the nature of everyone. Therefore, CEOs of the company always like to develop new products, and product managers always like to add new features to products. In the PC era, Jobs had to defeat Microsoft and do everything, but suffered many setbacks. But when he got back to Apple's iPod for a certain age, he only focused on a product at each stage. Steve Jobs may not be as sensitive to new things as a young man. His creativity may not be as sharp as that of a young man. But he found the feeling, found the right method, and achieved great success.

How to be an excellent product manager? This topic is actually quite complicated. I hope the industry can discuss it more, because only when there are more excellent product managers can the Chinese Internet generate more excellent products. You must know that products are the foundation for Internet development. It is useless to leave this foundation and talk about virtual resources and big things. I also hope that every product manager, no matter which company you are in, whether you are competing with 360, whether you like 360 or Zhou Hongyi. After reading this article, I am proud to be a product manager, a confident "Big me", and a "little me" based on service users ".

Make a good product for tens of millions of users and hundreds of millions of users. It is not important for others to think about your title. It is very important to make a good product because it is the only criterion for testing whether a product manager is excellent.