Field Notes
Quick thoughts, observations, and ideas. An activity feed of what's on my mind.
4 Common Mistakes that junior Product Managers (including myself) make
1. Not Saying No Enough
This isn't just saying no to meetings; it is saying no to stakeholders' requests, timelines, or customer feature requests. This can be hard, especially if you want to please everyone but its critical in order to prioritize the product vision and strategy.
2. Starting with solutions instead of problems
Another common mistake is to become too feature-focused. For example, wanting to incorporate AI into the product and directly focusing on getting buy-in without clearly defining the problem and why AI would solve it.
3. Relying Solely on Data
Data is essential for making decisions but is not the only factor. Junior PMs must move from data-driven to data-informed decisions, which factor in market trends, business objectives, intuition, and context.
4. Choosing complex solutions over simpler ones
It may be tempting to create complex solutions to problems so that you can incorporate a specific technology. This can result in longer development time and increased costs. Keep it simple and lean.
Writing is thinking on paper.
Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly—about any subject at all.
-- William Zinsser
A quote from "Writing to Learn"
Seeing is Not the Same as Understanding
Dr. Fei-Fei Li often highlights a massive gap in AI: we can easily teach a computer to identify a person, a boat, and water.
But it takes incredible processing power to realize those objects combined represent a rowing team.
As humans, we don’t just "take a picture" with our eyes. We use heuristics and past experiences to interpret:
Physics: How the oars displace the water.
Intent: The intense synchronization of the athletes.
Narrative: The stakes of a high-speed race.
We often take our mental processing power for granted. But the real magic isn’t in identifying the objects, it’s in making sense of the scene.
Claude Code + Cursor
This has been my personal tech stack when developing new projects.
FAQ: Do I need to know how to code to be a Product Manager?
No, unless you want to work on platform or developer-focused products like an API, SDK, etc.
Why?
Because, as a PM, you should be able to use your product.
You need to be able to understand how it works, its limitations, and its experience.
So, if you don't know how to code, you won't be able to use your APIs, SDKs, etc
Do I recommend you learn how to code? Yea, it certainly helps. But you will more than likely not contribute to production code.
Do you know what every PM should know?
System Design, you will spend most of your time on this level and will be communicating with your engineers and other technical stakeholders on this.