Product Manager

What do we do // Honestly... there's no right answer. In general, product managers are involved in the customer exploration, design, development, and post-launch analytics of features and products. They aren't expected to be an expert at any of those functions but rather should have a well-rounded understanding of each - enough to work effectively with designers, engineers, business, legal, and any other party required to make good product decisions. Above all, product managers are focused on unblocking teammates, prioritizing and advocating for user-centric features, and communicating information between all functions.

Build. Build. Build. // A strong record of leading and completing projects is crucial. Here are tips for increasing your project exposure:

• Build with friends // Grab some buddies, pizza, and a laptop and spend the weekend googling simple code tutorials. It doesn't need to be fancy - a basic website or app won't take more than a day. Then turn it into a "product". Think of something that annoys you and your friends and how a website could help. Add features that provide a solution and share it amongst friends. If you get positive feedback, you're on the right path to creating a great product. If not, reiterate and try again!
• Build at hackathons // Hackathons can be scary for non-technical people. Thankfully, the PennApps team has done an amazing job making the event friendly for people of all skill levels. If you're not comfortable hacking, you can always attend tutorials scheduled around the clock and reward yourself with free food. Most seminars will result in a basic website or mobile app. There's no better rush than creating something that was just an idea yesterday.
• Join clubs that build products // Clubs I recommend are: Penn Labs, The Signal, Wharton Design Club, and Mack Institute's Consulting for Startups program.
• Apply product management skills to your existing activities // A Penn mentee once voiced that he didn't have the time to build complex projects on the side. However, he was heavily involved in his acapella group and was wondering how he could develop product management skills through that. Knowing that product managers use analytics to determine whether a new feature is good, he decided to track analytics on his group's YouTube videos, Spotify tracks, and website to determine if specific content was more well-received than others. His "product" was his acapella group and he took the initiative to improve it.
• Be proud of what you create and show it off // Keep track of your work-in-progress and final products online. Having something on-hand to quickly show a friend or company representative can instantly make you memorable. It's also confidence-boosting to look back at all the progress you've made. You can either create a personal website via Squarespace, which doesn't require any coding knowledge, or share projects on platforms like Product Hunt and Medium. Pro tip: Attach your website url in your resume and email signature. I've gotten more callbacks from people who viewed my website than simply from a resume drop. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words.

Stay curious // To develop good "product sense", I recommend the following literature:

• Books // Cracking the PM Interview should be your first-and-foremost guide to recruiting. It covers interview questions and answers, what different companies are looking for, and an overview of technical and design concepts. Other books of note are: Decode and Conquer, Design Sprint, Competing Against Luck, and Ken Norton's book list.
• Industry blogs // Most tech companies have blogs and Mediums featuring articles written by their product managers, designers, data analysts, and engineers about product problems and decisions made. Some prominent product managers in the industry also have personal blogs. Here are some of my favorites:
  • List of 16 blogs to follow
  • Compiled list of best writing for PMs
  • "So you want to be a product manager but you don't know where to start"
  • "Getting to "technical enough" as a product manager"
  • "So you want to be a PM" - Twitter edition
  • "Top 75 resources for product managers" - a Wharton alum
• Podcasts // How I Built This with Guy Raz, 99% Invisible

Learn @ Penn // Recommended Penn courses and professors:

• IPD department, Analytics in the Digital Economy (Prasanna Tambe), NETS classes, intro CIS classes, Scaling Operations in Tech Ventures (Gad Allon), Digital eCommerce (David Bell), Enabling Technologies (Kartik Hosanagar), Engineering Entrepreneurship (Various), Product Design (Karl Ulrich), Negotiations, Public Speaking, MGMT101

Business Analyst, Data Analyst, Product Analyst, Business Intelligence Engineer.

What do we do // Business analysts are in charge of analyzing company data and recognizing patterns to help the team make the most informed product and revenue decisions. This includes opportunity sizing, querying and analyzing data, building dashboards and visualizations, and conducting experiments.

Develop an analytical mindset // Do you find yourself always questioning claims and saying "show me the data"? A great way to build data intuition is to practice analyzing it on your own:

• Step 1: Find free datasets online. My favorites are:
  • Kaggle // Practice analyzing real company data via competitions and challenges
  • OpenDataPhilly // Data released by the Philly government
  • Awesome Public Datasets // Github list of hundreds of datasets
  • Data Is Plural // Archive and email subscription of weekly new free datasets
• Step 2: Learn how to analyze data.
  • Learn @ Penn // Recommended Penn courses and professors:
    • Analytics in the Digital Economy (Prasanna Tambe), courses in STAT department, Dev Tools for Data Analysis, Analytics for Service Operations, Intro to R, Management Science, Marketing Research
  • Learn online // The most relevant hard skills for a business analyst are Excel, SQL, and R or Python. Here are some online tutorials for beginners:
    • SQLZoo
    • HackerRank
    • DataCamp for R and Python
• Step 3: Visualize that data. Data visualization is often underappreciated but extremely important. A business analyst who can analyze the most challenging datasets is unhelpful if he/she cannot express it well to stakeholders. Great resources are:
  • Tableau // Industry-standard data visualization tool with no coding experience required
  • Google Charts // Simple web-friendly charts with copy & paste JavaScript
  • Data Viz Project // Collection of data visualization examples
  • Data Visualization Catalogue // Another collection of data visualization examples
• Step 4: Be proud of what you create and show it off! Keep track of your work-in-progress and final products online. Having something on-hand to quickly show a friend or company representative can instantly make you memorable. It's also confidence-boosting to look back at all the progress you've made. You can either create a personal website via Squarespace, which doesn't require any coding knowledge, or share projects on platforms like Medium. Pro tip: Attach your website url in your resume and email signature. I've gotten more callbacks from people who viewed my website than simply from a resume drop. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words.

Stay curious // To develop good "data sense", I recommend the following literature:

• Books // Freakonomics, Data is Beautiful, Moneyball, and How Not to Be Wrong
• Industry blogs // Most tech companies have blogs and Mediums featuring articles written by their data analysts, designers, product managers, and engineers about product problems and decisions made. Other references include:
• Comprehensive list of all data resources
• Data journals // Data journalism is an up-and-coming form of storytelling. Use these as sources of inspiration for stellar visualization and communication. Favorites include:
  • The Pudding
  • FiveThirtyEight
  • Washington Post Graphics
  • Data is Beautiful subreddit

Product Marketing Manager, Strategy, Operations, Growth Hacking

What do we do // Product marketing puts the customer at the front and center of everything. Responsibilities include researching customer needs, building brand awareness, growing new markets or audiences, and crafting product adoption strategy with product managers, designers, and finance.

Get involved with local organizations // The best way to learn how to develop business strategies is to simply do it:

• Volunteer to lead growth and marketing efforts for a club, nonprofit, or your roommate's startup.
• Join existing consulting groups on campus, like Marketing Undergraduate Student Establishment (MUSE), Penn International Impact Consulting (PIIC), and Mack Institute's Consulting for Startups program.
• Compete in case competitions.

Learn @ Penn // Recommended courses and professors are:

• Courses in MKTG department, Scaling Operations in Tech Ventures (Gad Allon), Digital eCommerce (David Bell), Enabling Technologies (Kartik Hosanagar).

Stay curious // To develop good "business sense", I recommend the following literature:

• Books // Case in Point is a great guide for consulting-type interviews. Other books of note are: The Lean Startup, Crossing the Chasm, and Hooked.
• Industry blogs // Most tech companies have blogs and Mediums featuring articles written by their marketing team, data analysts, and product managers about business problems and decisions made. Other journals include:
  • The Economist
  • Bloomberg Tech
  • Break Into Tech guide to Product Marketing and BizOps
• Podcasts // How I Built This with Guy Raz, 99% Invisible

Financial Analyst

What do we do // Financial analysts ensure the company can stay afloat. They forecast revenue of new products or changes, make strategic acquisitions, and discover growth opportunities for the business. Since I've had the least experience in this role, I'll defer to this wonderful interview of a financial analyst at a tech company.

Learn @ Penn // Recommended courses are:

• Courses in FNCE and ACCT departments, Venture Capital (David Wessels)

Stay curious // To develop good "finance sense", I recommend the following literature:

• Books // M&I Guide is one of the best guides to recruiting for any finance role. Other books of note are: Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean, The Intelligent Investor, and Sam Walton: Made in America
• Financial journals // Motley Fool, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg Tech all have great analysis on tech company quarterly earnings and strategies.

Play with real company financials // All public companies list their financials on the SEC website. Dig up your favorite tech company's 10K and put your learnings to the test. Get involved by:

• Join an investing club // Wharton Undergraduate Finance Club (WUFC), Smart Woman Securities (SWS)
• Compete in case competitions