Profile Review and Help [Experienced Product Manager]

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Hi everyone, this group is great! I’ve been following and learning from post here for the past few days. I want to say a big thank you to the volunteers here.

Please I need help in reviewing my profile for the exceptional promise category.

Background:
7+ year in Information Technology, below is a detailed breakdown:

  • 3+ years in Customer Service role (Oil & Gas)
  • 2 years in Product Management role (Tech Consulting)
  • 2+ years in Product Management (2 Product-led companies)

Mandatory Criteria: As an Experienced Product Manager
Led the product development of the first and second versions of a company flagship product. Introduced key product features.
Currently hold the position of Chief Product Officer in a new product-led company.

Evidence:

  • Letter of support: From the Founder/CEO of the previous company, where I managed the entire product development and market entry of the flagship product
  • Contract letter showing 87% increase in salary between my last two roles

Optional Criteria 1:
Led the user research, process mapping and documentations which resulted in the launch of the second version of the product-led company’s flagship product, introducing these key features:

  • A feature that allows users to make long-range investments based on their income and goals. Once you answer a few questions, it generates an investment plan for you with all the asset classes in different percentages. It also lets users know how much they should invest weekly, monthly, or yearly to meet their goals.
  • P2P Fund Transfer — allows users to easily send money from their wallet to their friends within the application
  • Advisory — get advice from financial experts within the application
  • Sharing investment plans with friends and family within the application

Evidence:

  • Letter of Support: From the CTO of the company where these features were launched
  • Software documentation of the features listed above
  • Product launch video - hosted on company’s official Youtube channel - showing the features specified above
  • Contract letter with the company
  • AppStore and PlayStore download links to review the features on the application

Optional Criteria 3:
First and Only Product Manager within the first 2 years of product launch. Responsible for internal processes, roadmap, strategy and product lifecycle for the company’s full product suite. Led cross-functional teams to launch two different versions of the company’s flagship product and an internal admin dashboard for customer success team.

Evidence:

  • Documentations of internal processes and roadmap introduced by me
  • Screenshots from the company’s official website and a reputable tech news platform, showing the growth in user numbers from the time of launch till now. (There are three screenshots showing the numbers at launch, year 1 and year 2 respectively)
  • Documents / investor notes showing the increase in Asset Under Management from the time of launch till now
  • Screenshots of Twitter posts from the Founder/CEO and my colleagues acknowledging my impact in the company

References:

  1. Founder / CEO of a product-led company where I worked for 2 years and helped the team launch the flagship product
  2. Country Manager of a product-led company and an LP in a firm that led the seed round of my previous company
  3. C-level executive (Design) in a product-led company, that have worked on a project with me and can describe my work in a product-led company

My concerns:

  1. I’m using the reference letter from the CEO of my previous company as an evidence for Mandatory Criteria. How does that affect my claim?
  2. Are Twitter screenshots enough to be incorporated as an evidence?
  3. Are there some areas where I can make improvements?
2

Looks good the way you structured it. My response to your concerns

1.) I would be careful about using a reference letter (I know this isn’t a recommendation) from the CEO of a tech-consult company. Doesn’t align with TechNation’s expectation that your recommendations be from a digital product-led company. Except you have other evidences that are really strong, and whose impact dwarfs the reference letter, I would not recommend this.

2.) Yes they can be. However, you need to help the case assessor contextualise what they are looking at in the screenshots. In this regard, I don’t know how much of a buffer that a twitter screenshot in itself can offer. Therefore, I think Twitter screenshots can corroborate a particular line of evidence, but not as a line of evidence in itself.

3.) You are on to something good with the structure you have highlighted above, however, a good application might need more than good structure for it to stand out.

Will leave room for others to share their own thoughts.

3

Hi @Chinedu.Okeke Did you eventually apply? and how did it go?

4

Yes, I did apply and got endorsed. However, the evidences on this thread went through multiple iterations.

Here’s what the final list looked like;

MC:

  1. Profile and earnings - brief description of my experiences, including links to public profile and my earnings
  2. Role at previous product led organization
  3. My current role (at the time of submission) - my day-to-day and the work I’ve done
  4. Reference Letter

OC1

  1. Documentations highlighted my contributions in an innovative product in a previous role
  2. Same as 1 but for a different organization
  3. Evidence of salary in organizations (highlighted in 1)

OC3

  1. Revenue generated in a product led organization (and my contributions)
  2. Number of people reached with the product I worked on (and my contributions)
  3. Reference letter from the CTO of the organization specified in 1

I hope this helps.

6 Likes
5

Congratulations and thanks for breaking down your application. I am just about to start my own application journey.

I founded a company which is basically website that helps users create custom merchandise online. I have also lead as a product manager for a few other small startups.

My worry is, do I have to get reference only from people I’ve worked directly with, and how strong does their profile have to be?.

I’m still putting my documents together but would appreciate any input you have for me.

1 Like