The other day I received a LinkedIn message from a young graduate. She asked how to break into a career in Product Management.
It prompted me to reflect on my career journey. I started in software development. After being told all technical roles were being offshored, I became a Business Analyst, Product Owner and more recently Product Director. The common thread has been product discovery and obsessing relentlessly about the end user/customer. But I have never had a clear plan in mind.
Until recently, there wasn’t a linear pathway into Product Management. I say until recently because last year I helped launch the Digital Product Manager apprenticeship.
So in today’s episode, I was keen to explore career insights from Janna Bastow, an experienced Product Manager and co-founder of Mind the Product. The below is a summary of our conversation.
Product Management: The Accidental Career
Some people plan their careers meticulously. Others—well, they just fall into them.
For many product managers, including Jana Bastow, co-founder of ProdPad and Mind the Product, the journey into product wasn’t exactly mapped out in advance.
"I don't think I've ever made a career choice in my life," Jana says, laughing.
Before she was a product leader, she was a retail worker, a sales rep, a webmaster, a marketer, and even a customer success manager. None of these were part of some grand plan—but every role shaped the way she connected the dots between business, technology, and user needs.
And that’s what makes a great product manager.
Not a degree in computer science.
Not years of coding experience.
Not even a perfectly optimised LinkedIn career path.
It’s about curiosity, adaptability, and seeing the connections that others miss.
What You’ll Learn in This Article
📌 What Even Is a Product Manager?
📌 Breaking Into Product Management (Without an MBA or a Time Machine)
📌 The Power of Product Discovery: Why Most Ideas Are Bad Ideas
📌 The Accidental Community: How Mind the Product Took Over the World
📌 AI & Product Management: Fear or Opportunity?
📌 Final Thoughts: What Would I Obolish in the World of Work?
What Even Is a Product Manager?
If you’ve ever tried explaining product management to someone, you’ll know it’s not exactly straightforward.
Even inside companies, the definition is fuzzy. Jana puts it like this:
“You’re sitting at the intersection of what the customers want, what the business needs, and what’s technically possible. Your job is to guide the company and the team to orchestrate decisions that create the best version of the product.”
You don’t own people.
You don’t dictate features.
You don’t just “manage” a product.
You bridge gaps, align teams, and tell compelling stories that bring a product vision to life.
In other words, you connect the dots.
Breaking Into Product Management (Without an MBA or a Time Machine)
Unlike becoming a doctor or a lawyer, there’s no official way to become a product manager.
And that’s a good thing.
"Wonderfully, there's no single path," Jana says.
Some PMs start as developers who get tired of just writing code.
Some start in customer service and realise they want to fix the problems, not just hear about them.
Some come from marketing, sales, or operations and transition into a role that blends all three.
But what if you’re starting from scratch?
Jana’s advice is simple: Start doing product work before you have the title.
Here’s how:
✅ Shadow your PMs – If your company has product managers, offer to help them with research, customer interviews, or backlog management.
✅ Look for product-like projects – Have you ever improved a process at work? Solved a customer pain point? Built something from scratch? That’s product thinking.
✅ Start a side project – It doesn’t have to be a startup. Set up an Etsy shop, a newsletter, or even an automated Notion template. The goal? Learn how to validate ideas, prioritise features, and gather feedback.
✅ Tell your story – Just because your job title isn’t “Product Manager” doesn’t mean you haven’t done product work. Learn how to frame your experience in a way that makes sense to hiring managers.
The Power of Product Discovery: Why Most Ideas Are Bad Ideas
If you work in an agile team, you know the theory:
➡️ Product Owner creates a backlog.
➡️ Engineers pick up a ticket.
➡️ A new feature gets built.
➡️ Profit???
Except—it rarely works that way.
“Most ideas aren’t good ideas. And that’s okay,” Jana says.
That’s why product discovery matters.
Rather than assuming an idea is great just because a senior stakeholder suggests it, great product teams test assumptions, run experiments, and validate ideas before committing serious time and money.
How?
🔹 Talk to customers. Find out what they actually struggle with—not just what they say they want.
🔹 Prototype before building. Before writing a single line of code, create a mockup or test an alternative, low-effort solution.
🔹 Kill your darlings. If an idea isn’t working, be willing to pivot—no matter how much you love it.
The Accidental Community: How Mind the Product Took Over the World
Jana and her co-founder, Simon, didn’t set out to build the world’s biggest product community.
It started small. A single meetup in London in 2010.
Then it grew.
A blog.
A conference.
More meetups in more cities.
Until suddenly, Mind the Product wasn’t just a meetup—it was a movement.
At its peak:
🚀 300+ cities running ProductTank meetups
🚀 Five annual conferences across the world
🚀 Tens of thousands of product people connected
“It started off as a tiny little thing,” Jana says, “and then just got totally out of hand.”
And that’s the magic of consistent, value-driven community building.
AI & Product Management: Fear or Opportunity?
With AI infiltrating every industry, many PMs wonder:
“Will AI take my job?”
Jana’s answer? No—but it will change how we work.
“AI is already transforming how we think and build. We’re in the ‘mobile apps in 2007’ phase. We’re still figuring out what works.”
At ProdPad, they’re embedding AI to:
🔹 Summarize customer feedback and surface trends faster.
🔹 Generate insights based on roadmap data.
🔹 Reduce decision-making bias by analyzing vast amounts of product data.
Instead of fearing AI, the best PMs will learn how to harness it.
Final Thoughts: What Would I Abolish in the World of Work?
If Jana could abolish one thing from the working world?
“Meetings that could have just been an email.”
But if she could give every PM a superpower?
Tenacity.
Product management is about trying things that might fail.
And then getting up, learning from it, and trying again.
So if you’re thinking about becoming a product manager—or if you already are one—just remember:
🔹 Start before you’re ready.
🔹 Test ideas before you build them.
🔹 Stay curious, stay flexible, and keep connecting the dots.
Because that’s what great product managers do.
Guest: Janna Bastow
Janna Bastow is the inventor of the Now-Next-Later roadmap and is co-founder and CEO of ProdPad, product management and roadmapping software for product people. Janna is also co-founder of ProductTank and Mind the Product, the global community of product managers. She often starts and stops conversations with the question: “What problem are you trying to solve?”
Share this post