Three Paths to Product for the Smart Generalist

By Nadia Eldeib, Jen Yip, and Jonathan Lai

In our last blog post, we discussed optimizing for company growth, not title, when looking for your next role. When optimizing for growth, we encourage smart generalists to fairly consider all kinds of startup roles, from business development to operations to product management. 

In this post, we focus on what to do if you decide product management is right for you. We’ll explore the different flavors of product management as well as three different paths that a smart generalist can take to become a PM.

Where you fit in

If you want to be a PM, you should first figure out which type of product management best fits your skills and interests.

Elad Gil — investor, entrepreneur, and author of “High Growth Handbook” — discusses four types of product managers: the business PM, the technical PM, the design PM, and growth PM. While some people may function well as more than one of those types, others thrive as one particular type of PM. Identifying your “type(s)” within this framework can help you effectively position your skills for a given position or to future hiring managers.

Some PMs are product "visionaries.” They focus on developing an inspiring, long-term vision for a current product and building excitement around future products. They may draw upon a marketing background or a storytelling superpower to articulate a strong product value proposition and communicate users' desires to their team. Other PMs focus on growth. They are extremely data-driven and often use analytical skills to help scale the org. They focus on A/B testing and optimizing every possible detail in the user experience to improve metics and drive growth and love incremental, methodical tweaking and iterating. 

As a smart generalist, you might come across job descriptions that sound “technical”—describing someone with an engineering degree or deep technical subject matter expertise that you don’t have (at least not right now). We’ve all seen PM job posts filter for folks with “an engineering/technical background” and/or “5+ years of product experience at a fast-growing startup.”

Don’t be discouraged. Being a successful PM is seldom about having a technical background—rather, it’s about the ability to communicate effectively with, and, perhaps more importantly, to earn the trust of technical people. 

The Three Paths to Product Management

Here are the three main strategies we recommend for smart generalists making the transition to product management.

  1. Internal transitions: Taking a product-adjacent role and transitioning to product management

  2. Early believer: Joining an earlier-stage startup as a PM 

  3. Structured programs: Joining a later stage company as an Associate Product Manager (APM) or Rotational Product Manager (RPM)

Each of these paths has a unique set of benefits and tradeoffs. Let’s dive into each to help you identify what approach(es) might work for you:

1. Internal Transitions 

When you join a company in a product or product-adjacent role—such as marketing, operations, analyst, or business development—you can leverage your existing expertise as a foundation for product management. You will develop a firm understanding of the product and its customers from a vantage point that allows you to bring unique insights back to the product team. If the company is growing quickly, there will be an ever-expanding frontier of opportunities. When you have a strong understanding of the product and its customers, you'll be well-equipped to make the transition. 

If you take this path, you can position your current experience as an additive benefit as you build a natural bridge to product management. In most companies, it’s a myth that the PM ‘owns' the product: building products is usually a very collaborative experience, so you can have meaningful product impact as a non-PM. Depending on how roles are defined, ops or marketing may even own some PM-type responsibilities as part of their core job. For example, if you’re in marketing, you’re already deeply invested in understanding the customer, their pain points, and the messages that resonate with them. You’ll be well-versed in product positioning and defining the value props for the product. Consider ways to have product influence -- like testing a specific product value proposition with a segmented audience to build buy-in across the team of product leaders.

When you explore product-adjacent roles, look for opportunities to add value in the product development cycle. Be curious and develop a deep understanding of your users, tech stack, and key metrics. For example, one of our community members who was working in growth at a startup led the strategic shift and development of several new products after impressing the founding team with her deep understanding of key metrics and their target users. Earn trust and build relationships within the organization, particularly with the tech team and key stakeholders in engineering, science, and design. This way, people will proactively look out for opportunities for you to move into PM and advocate for you as a good PM. You may even get to know your (future) hiring manager—if someone on the product team already knows you and thinks you're amazing, it’s potentially a win-win situation for both of you.

Some risks to consider and dig into before choosing this path are whether:

  • A product-adjacent position could typecast you in a non-product role (the book “How Women Rise" isn't about PMs, but there’s a relevant discussion about how being too valuable in a role can actually limit mobility.)

  • The org or leadership is biased against internal transfers. Sometimes leadership won't support internal transfers into product either on principle or the team won't have the budget / headcount / leadership experience to take a "risk" on you.

  • You’ll earn less than someone hired directly into the company as a PM since the comp of your role at time of hire affects you as long as you're at the company. Your initial base + equity grant is typically the anchor for your comp, and your total comp package is likely to be lower for a non-tech vs. tech role (product is considered a ‘tech’ role). 

2. Early Believer

As a smart generalist, it’s certainly easier to join an earlier stage company as a PM. That said, recall from our previous article that you should be slightly wary of an organization that’s willing to offer you a PM title when you lack prior experience. 

Choosing an early stage company that you believe in leverages your passion for a given industry or process in a high-growth environment that can give you the opportunity to build the role you want. It includes lots of hands-on experience and opportunity for self-directed learning.

One of our members who recently joined a seed stage startup as their first product hire says, “Two things contributed to my decision. I learn best by getting my hands dirty. So I was looking for a blend of trial-by-fire and support, which I was able to find working with a CEO who has deep product knowledge, and within a highly collaborative team. Second, I've been with a startup that has grown from Series A to C before, and felt confident that I'd enjoy the early discovery work, and that working on product at this stage would push my current limits as a leader and as a product thinker. For me, going to a young company actually felt optimal.”

It’s important to dig into whether the company has the runway and resources to support your shortcomings and allow you to navigate and course-correct on the job.. For example, a C-level exec with a PM background may not have the time to own product in their upgraded role, but may be able to provide you with the vision, mentorship, and guidance to assume that role in their company. 

The tradeoff is if the startup fails, merely having PM experience at a startup that no one has heard of won’t set you up to be competitive for a PM role at a fast-growing startup. 

3. Structured Programs

A few larger tech companies have established Associate PM (APM) or Rotational PM (RPM) programs that are often designed for people, including smart generalists, who want to pivot into product. These programs are newer at earlier stage companies and are often hyper-competitive, but this is a fairly direct path if you "know" you want to be a PM. If you're okay with taking the level hit (which you should be if you're willing to do another role altogether to get to PM), these paths often give you mentorship support and resources that can help you join a high-growth company  at a later stage. 

Other benefits of an APM or RPM program include building your network alongside a strong peer group within your program and the company. One former Facebook RPM noted, “You grow by finding the intersection of working on impactful problems and learning from talented people. Developmental PM programs offer both by giving you stewardship of hard product problems (that often have huge scale!) and mentorship from the industry’s best product people.” You’ll be exposed to different products, teams, and perspectives in a short time span. And, if you’re not thrilled with the company when your program ends, you can leverage the experience you’ve gained there to find a PM position at another company.

You’ve got this

There isn’t one right path to product for the smart generalist. We’ve had several members and friends of the Renaissance Collective community successfully move into product management via all three of these paths. If we can support you as you navigate your own journey into product, please reach out and apply to join our community.

We believe in a world where the diverse perspectives and unique backgrounds of smart generalists help create tech products that serve everyone. We also believe that smart generalists have the creativity, resourcefulness, and communication skills to excel at building products, and we’re excited to help you succeed.

So, what are you waiting for? You’ve got this!

More resources that we recommend: 

Thanks to David King, Vidushi Sharma, Kali Borkoski, and Henry Soong for their insights and contributions on early drafts.

Ready to join our community?