Since the emergence of several great products in the Internet industry, the product managers behind the products have become popular. For a time, product managers have become the goals pursued by many industry practitioners. Everyone hopes that one day You can also make a very good product. This influence has led many freshly graduated students to think that product managers are the most promising ones. However, the reality is not like this. The product manager of many companies today can only be a UE designer or a follower of the project. Many product managers talk about the needs clearly and clearly, but they are left to design products, make future plans, and even target When it comes to the market, it is pale and powerless. I have met many product managers. In addition to being able to draw UE interfaces, they have little understanding of market needs, business needs, user needs, and industry needs. The products they design make people feel stupid. Therefore, the product managers of many companies are just UE designers and should not be called product managers. A real product manager should meet the following four conditions.

1. Have a good understanding of the industry

If you want to understand many industries, you must have worked in the industry for at least two to three years, and the amount of reading should be large, so that you can clearly understand the industry. The current situation and future development trends, and you must be familiar with the current product forms and business models of the industry. For example, in the mobile Internet industry, you must at least have an understanding of the development history, current status, and possible future opportunities of this industry. , this is the appearance. In addition to the appearance, there must be an inside, that is, the appearance and the inside must be the same.

That is to say, as an industry practitioner, you must at least understand the situation of the industry practitioners. For example, I used to be the product manager of a QR code app. I spent two months doing industry research. During this period, I read a lot of articles, including at least several articles on industry history, current situation, future trends, and technology. We have thoroughly studied the advantages and disadvantages of various similar companies at home and abroad, how long they have been established, the origins of their founders, etc., their promotion methods, etc.

Of course, at the end of the research, the author became an industry expert. He wrote a lot of industry articles, which were reposted by many websites. What he learned was even able to communicate with those Ph.D.s who study these fields, so that others asked Of course, there are many experts in this industry, and they also know the industry very well. At least when I talked to those practitioners on Weibo in the later period, I was able to talk to each other better. These are the understanding of the industry.

2. Know users very well

I often encounter product managers who keep talking about user needs, but when asked how many users you have contacted and how much market research you have done, they all What is it like? How did they think about it? I guess many product managers are speechless. To truly understand users is not to make up your own imagination, but to truly contact and chat with users. In fact, the person who knows the users best in a company should be Customer service, why is it a customer? Because customer service often chats with users, they should have a very good understanding of user needs. Some people who understand user needs are sales, because these people face users offline, so they are talking about real products. The manager must have at least done sales, or worked in customer service, or often hang out in various forums, post bars, and netizens of Q&A products.

The author was once a level 7 answerer on Baidu Q&A, and has answered questions about thousands of industries. After that, I had a deep understanding of users’ problems, so I wrote a post that spread to millions of web pages, and was also used as a tutorial by many Taobao store owners. I think this is the only way to truly understand users.

Here, let’s take the topic of renting a house as an example. You have at least rented a house and been a renter, and you have a very good understanding of the user’s psychology. The author has viewed dozens of houses in a few days. In the end, I was only satisfied with two or three houses, and I received hundreds of calls for renting houses. Of course, most of them were agents. After going through this process, I discovered that there is an industry chain, including homeowners, agents, tenants, cleaning, broadband, There are many links such as freight transportation and shared renting. If we make such a product and expand it from one point to the next, wouldn't it also open up a great market?

3. Have a good understanding of the market

Speaking of the market, it may also be business. In many companies, business and marketing are actually one department, and many product designs do not consider these needs at all. , the designed product was released for business or the market to promote, but the market and business were dumbfounded at first sight. There were no slogans, materials, and business models. They had to initiate demands, require technical modifications, add interfaces, and take over development. As a result, the whole day After a few months of meeting and discussing needs, most of the prime promotion time has passed, making promotion and cooperation between business and the market more difficult. Moreover, many product managers design language for product external promotion that allows business and the market to come. Written, in fact, these are things that product managers should think about in advance, at least when designing products.

There are also many slogans designed by product managers that only they can understand. , or written from one’s own perspective. For example, many domestic mobile phone manufacturers always tell users how many cores our mobile phones have, how many pixels, and how many millimeters thick they are when promoting to the outside world. Most of these professional terms are in the product. It’s from the manager’s mouth, but users can’t understand it at all. In this regard, Apple’s copywriting is the best. These are worthy of many product managers to think and learn.

So, a good product manager should also know the market and business very well, at least you have worked in the market or business.

4. Have a very good understanding of the product itself

Finally, when it comes to the product itself, if the previous points are macroscopic, the last one is microscopic and related to the product. Yes, that is the technical development of the product and the current and future development direction of the product itself. When it comes to technology, at least we should have more exchanges with technical students, so that technical students can also understand some introductions to the product, which can better inspire technology People develop passion.

At the same time, as a product manager, you should make a long-term plan for the product. This plan includes the development and changes of the product in the early, mid-term, and later stages. For example, a product must have core functions, security, anti-cheating, data statistics, product updates and other functions in the early stage. In the past, security was not considered thoroughly, resulting in a lot of data being captured by competitors, which was also a major loss.

WeChat does a good job in this regard. The author once intercepted the historical message links of WeChat and used them as menus. I found that they could be used at first, but later found that they could not be used. It turned out that they had expired these links. Processing, this also prevents the risk of data being maliciously captured. In fact, it is the function of the product. Although many product managers have designed the product, it is really difficult for them to talk about the function of the product. For example, the main core functions and auxiliary functions of the product. These should be well known, and they can be said clearly and logically. .

This is the future development trend of products. Many products are not designed with the future in mind and do not have a good product structure. As a result, they develop backward and have to constantly modify. Finally, the product is perfect. Like four different products, the future of the product includes membership system, upgrade system, update system, profit system, new functional interface, data export, etc. Therefore, the product must know the product very well, otherwise there is no need to be a product manager. An excellent product manager must talk about products with clear logic, clear classification, and accurate description.

So, what should a good product manager look like? At least someone who has done a variety of jobs and positions. At least he understands industry trends from a macro perspective, and understands users and products from a micro perspective. The best people who can see opportunities and seize them, and still stay awake at all times without getting confused.