Do you need an MBA to become a Product Manager?
Programming Note : I’d mentioned a few weeks ago that I will be taking a writing class which just started last week. The writing class, Write of Passage started last week and so far has been intense and enjoyable. The next 5 week’s I will be experimenting with my writing mostly for the class so expect these to be non standard. Thank you for supporting my journey to become a better writer which I hope will in turn add value back to YOU.
The question I get asked most often is one I had many years ago as an aspiring Product Manager. The question is “Do you need to have an MBA to become a Product Manager?”
What I’d like to do in this essay is draw on my experience and hundreds of conversations with PM Leaders, PM’s, Aspiring PM’s who’ve been on this journey.
Why it's hard to answer this question
While I switched from an engineering role to a product role back in the day, I’ll caveat that I am only partly qualified to write about this topic. There are several reasons for this:
An MBA is only one of the many paths to a product management position, unlike careers such as a Lawyer or Doctor, where the only gate is a higher degree.
Another reason is that there is no good definition of what a product job entails. Product roles are defined and set by the prior expectations and experience of the product leader hiring you,
the kind of product you are building, the domain you are building the product in, the company (famously Google asks an interviewee to write code for product interviews or pseudo code at least!)
If you are an AI engineer trying to switch to product at a large company working on AI products is quite different from a startup which might need more hands or, or a large company that has many mentors (and as Marty Cagan has written, don't be a feature factory)
Now you’re probably thinking “That was useless”. You told me nothing that I need to know. Ok Ok i'll concede that I am mostly useless! But the fact is that that is the nature of Product Roles. The ambiguity, the uncertainty is all part of the job.
I don’t really think it's a good idea to cover the roles and responsibilities of a Product Manager in this article primarily because, as I mentioned earlier, they are varied (here are some references for you)
My experience getting into Product Management
If you are wondering, yes I did get an MBA and half way through business school bSchool I started applying for Product Roles at various companies. I thought to myself “I got this and it's going to be smooth sailing” I was completely mistaken! I got rejected at every single company that I applied to. I was unhireable AFTER the MBA!! Ha! To this day I have 600+ emails that say “You are amazing, but not good enough for us” and I always felt like replying back with “Who was more amazing than me??”
I finally did land a product management job after almost a couple of years of struggle and I’ll talk more below about things you can do to land yourself a product job
An MBA is not necessary, it may actually be detrimental
What I’d like to do now is turn the question on its head : “Does having an MBA make you unsuited to Product Management?”
What makes me qualified to write about this is primarily the fact that I have indeed been there over a decade ago and struggled with the exact same transition. I thought, incorrectly, that what one needs to get into a Product role is an MBA. Every Linkedin Profile I snooped on - MBA right there that too from a top school
Not surprisingly, there are several well known executives that won’t hire an MBA because they spend more time on “fact finding” versus “execution” which might not work for a specific type of company. For example Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist once said: “Never ever hire an M.B.A.; they will ruin your company.”
Let's take an example : Early stage startups often do not know their product market fit so the skills you learn in business school - preparing a 100 page deck on market, strategy, and competition - are not going to be useful at all – since it doesn't help the startup ideate or experiment. In this case, not having an MBA might work to your advantage rather than disadvantage. So don’t fret if you don’t have that MBA, just read on ..
What is necessary and what are the different methods to getting that experience.
Should you get an MBA just to switch into product?
NO! You can make this transition into product roles without an MBA. I know many folks who have done this and are doing fine. Remember Product roles are typically feeder roles. What do I mean by this? Quite simply you don’t get a “Product Degree” you have some other sort of degree (even though these days there are a bunch of training classes to “make you a product manager”) these days. Anyone can become a product manager. It's important to take the first step to transition into Product. This step, quite simply is to do
Feeder Roles
There are a variety of feeder roles into product management. Here are some examples:
Sales to Product
Biz Ops to Product
Marketing to Product
Eng to Product
Project Management to Product
Customer Service to Product
Training to be a product manager?
If only it were that simple. Let me unequivocally just say this. You CANNOT “train” to be a product manager. You have to execute, to feel the pain, the stress of releasing a high quality product. For example most classes will talk about some kind of a prioritization matrix and stakeholder management and provide examples of how to manage stakeholder expectations when you have a prioritization problem, however having these conversations is much harder. Going to a VP and saying “Sorry this is delayed” sounds good on paper but actually having the conversation is more complicated!
After all, you need to be building all the time. A Product Manager is one of those roles where you are the most important contributor (keeping the wheels running) but the least important contributor (the team could function just fine without you!) at the same time
My advice for you
Do the job without having the job!
Many years ago when I wanted to make the transition the first question I got was “Ok you want to be a PM right? Show me what you have done?” What does that mean? This could be creating a product or app yourself or asking PM’s within your company for extra work that you could do on the side. Try to attend some of the product meetings and learn how the bacon gets made.
If you want the job you have to do the job without having the job. As simple as that! A lot of you are thinking “Wow that seems like a lot of work” and yes it is. We live in competitive times and this could be the difference that could make you stand out from the competition.
Mentors
I highly recommend getting a mentor to guide you. The feedback is invaluable and you now have an insider who is going to bat for you. I had the benefit of a few amazing mentors who selflessly made time for me, guided me, prepped me for the role
Two step transitions
One more thing to try would be a two step transition. The two steps being Role (your function from your current title to Product) and Domain (the expertise you bring on the Industry you work in). Transitioning both at the same time are complicated and challenging but what you could do instead is to transition your role first and then into a more suitable domain that is of interest to you
You have the expertise in another function - be it sales, marketing, engineering and you know the product that is being built intimately.
You could go the other route where you use your domain expertise to transition. For example if you are a salesperson that is very familiar with CRM’s working for an upstart that is building a CRM might be a good start. Or if you are a CS with years of experience using other CS tools working for a company that is building CS tools who is better qualified to understand the customer pain point than a CS who has done that in the past
Training classes
There is a huge cottage industry of training classes, interview prep books, interview practice groups. I have found that prep books and practice are enough. I have nothing against product training classes having taken two myself (Marty Cagan’s more execution focused and Berkeley Haas’s more strategy/discovery focused). These classes however add value once you have done the role and understand the nuances. I'm sure there are people who have used those classes as a jumping point but not really as a learning point.
As someone who works in product and hires product I am personally less likely to hire a person who took a class versus a person who actually tried to execute and build something on their own. In fact I’d probably be opposed to hiring someone who just took a class and nothing else.
Think back to your college years - how much of your college learning is both useful and relevant today? I wager less than 5%. These are all just heuristics that companies put in place to quickly evaluate candidates. What most companies don’t realize is that these heuristics don't result in good product hires in the long run. At least not always.
I hope this essay was useful and for anyone interested in figuring out a customized path and options feel free to email me or reach out on LinkedIn.
Thank you for reading. Stay safe, be well! If you enjoyed reading this please consider sharing with a friend or two (or sign up here if you came across this or were forwarded this)
