Product School

Course: 8-week PM/Location: Santa Monica/Instructor: Gio

I just wrapped up the 8-week product course and am really happy with my decision. I had an awesome experience and would highly recommend it for anyone who is motivated to learn more and get a more formal framework/education for how to approach product thinking to advance their career, become more effective in your job, or transition into a product role.

Since product is really the intersection of design, business, and engineering let’s start there.

• Business: If you don’t have a business background, Product School gives you a nice overview of some key frameworks that help you structure your approach to problems. You don’t go super deep but if you’re someone technical or just don’t have a formal education in business this is a great way to get it. If you have a business background (like I did) its a nice overview but don’t expect these pieces to be the real value add for you at PS.
• Design: In PS you’ll do some wireframing in Balsamiq but that’s pretty much the extent of it. To be fair, PM’s don’t really need to design in most cases but it seemed like my classmates would have liked a bit more of this. Personally, I do the prototyping and design for my startup and spend a lot of time in Sketch and Invision so I’m glad we didn’t spend too much time on this. I think spending too much time on design takes away from the real ‘job to be done’/value to be added/purpose of a PM…identifying/validating opportunities and solving problems. I think PS does a nice job of focusing on these important aspects but also covering concepts like usability research, UX, and a touch of wireframing.
• Engineering: I think this really depends on (a) your instructor and (b) your classmates more than the cirriculum. Gio always provided awesome examples from his experience at Yahoo and Snapchat that really helped paint vivid & tangible pictures of experiences and challenges as a PM working with engineers. I think this is one area PS could add some more umph with maybe some videos to watch at home or a required Udemy overview of coding class ahead of starting PS to help students come in with a little more confidence and color (or you could just do it yourself ; ). Again, you can only cover so much in 8-weeks but I think we had time to squeeze in more about concepts like front end vs. backend, common terminology, etc. There were a few of us with technical backgrounds but for the others I would imagine some things went in one ear out the other without having prior experience with engineers.
• Project Management: I think this is sort of the ugly duckling/4th circle of the PM ven diagram that isn’t talked about as frequently bc its not as sexy and more administrative than anything, that said I think its pretty important. PS doesn’t touch too much on project management so I’d recommend (if you don’t have prior exp and aren’t detail oriented) to take an online class in project management to help fill that gap for yourself. Learning is much better on-the-job with real experience (as with everything) but a key PM skill is being able to take a goal, and turn it into manageable small pieces that can be sequenced and executed on which often can be complex with dependencies.

Some Qualitative KPIs from my experience at PS (in order of importance)

• Instructor (A+): When it comes to product, I felt without a teacher with real, relevant, AND current experience, there was point in taking the course. Other courses at different schools (no names need be mentioned) had pretty weak instructors…not PS. Our instructor Gio has really deep product experience, is a PM at Snapchat, and was absolutely awesome. Every question brought up he had 10 salient and relevant real world examples to color his answers and was extremely articulate. Gio is also just an awesome and fun guy which made sitting in class for 2+ hours and giving up Tuesday and Thursday a lot more fun than it sounds ahah.
• Cirriculum (A-): After taking PS I personally think this cirriculum should be taught in every business school and honestly every undergrad as a general requirement. PS does a really nice job of putting product knowledge into a logical flow that’s easy to understand, with a great reader filled with examples to help reinforce the lessons. The reason I didn’t give it an A+ is because I think there are a few areas that could be improved but overall was really happy with it and just what I was looking for.
• Classmates (B++): To me this was really important so I researched literally every alumni that had gone through PS before taking the course. One of the big selling points of PS (for me) was that everyone was supposed to have some prior relevant experience and that it wasn’t an intro level 101 type of class and overall I was pretty satisfied along this criteria. We had a APM from Dollar Shave, Proj Mgr from Fox, PMM from Activision, etc which was great to bring various experiences into the conversations. The reason I give it a B+ is only bc I think there was still a little more variance in the experience and motivation levels than I was hoping for—but obviously this is going to be the case in any course (even was in business school). The people were great though and we all had a lot of fun together and I definitely hope to keep in touch with people afterwards.

If you have questions or want some personal advice on whether its the right fit for you I’m happy to reply on this thread or hop on a quick call. Overall I had a great experience and would highly recommend it for anyone who is motivated to learn more and get a more formal framework/education for how to approach product thinking. I truly believe this thought process and approach is the future of creating value in any business and applicable to everything you do in life so there’s no way to go wrong here.

Thanks for a great 8-weeks Gio and team PS!

Coming into Product School's Coding for Manager's course, I had little technical experience: I was an English major as an undergrad and most of my work in tech has been in marketing.

Considering that I wanted to get closer to the product in my day-to-day and how glaringly untechnical my background was, I decided that learning to code was the best first step.

Upon examining the syllabus, my expectation for this course was to gain a light but diverse understanding of the technical stack a typical PM should be familiar with. After speaking with a sales rep, I learned that this was indeed the intention of the course, as it introduces frontend development, backend development, and deployment/hosting all in a part-time two month program.

Despite such a fast-paced and hands-on curriculum, course instructor Charlie Depman's strong theoretical foundation in CS enabled me to understand the conceptual underpinnings of what we were coding. Additionally, his patience and clear articulation of responses to the many questions asked by our class added an extra boost of context that further reinforced my learnings.

Besides creating full-functioning product that I can add to my portfolio, by the end of the program, this class has inspired me to seriously explore an actual role in software engineering. Product School has provided us with great support from Charlie, his TA, and even the program manager: all of them willing to help post-graduation. I highly recommend this class for the purpose of:

1. Getting more technical for a PM role
2. Intro to software engineering at a reduced price (coding bootcamps are typically $15k)

Product School certainly reinforced my passion for building great products and on pursuing "product" for my career.  I was lucky to have a great instructor, Yenyi Fu, and a great cohort to work with.  

(CONFIDENCE) It gave me the confidence that I too have already acquired similar skill sets over the years in the product owner role. It also helped fill in the remaining knowledge gaps.  Though this course is probably geared toward anyone who is new or with little product management experience, I was able to put in the extra efforts and to acquire deeper learning by taking my assignments to the next level.  I was fortunate that our cohort also brought in interesting ideas and experience to share.  

(CAREER) For job seekers, the course is designed to provide useful, practical tips but with product management flavors.  Everyone in class got first hand practices with presentations, resumes reviews, participated and evaluated mock interviews, and practiced and evaluated design and estimation assessments.  

(NETWORKING) This is a great place to network with others who share the same passion.  Our instructor Yenyi Fu is the Director of Product Management from Tripadvisor who brought practical industry experience and wisdom. Where else can you spend 40 hours (over 8 weeks) with a PM veteran willing to help you learn?  Even in an actual work environment, one may not feel safe or appropriate to freely ask any product or any career questions.  She demonstrated many of the great PM qualities: leadership, openness to ideas, and great relationship skills on making everyone feel collaborative but guided. 

Overall I'm very happy to have spent 8 weeks learning from and making new friends with the same passion.

Suggestions for Product School:
(1) More "real-life" case studies - It would be great if we can learn from the network of the many instructors real-life experience.  If we can try tackling their real-life examples, it would give us more hands-on experience to learn and "fail."

(2) B2B vs. B2C product management - There are many nuances with the two disciplines, more information would help guide us choose wisely and understand how to get from B2B to B2C or vice versa.  

(3) Beyond basics - since everyone has different level of understanding/ experiences in aspects of product management, it would be great to provide "bonus points" questions or exercises and additional references for some of us who want to learn beyond the basics.

Product School created a great foundation for all things related to product management. Coming from a non-technical background, it helped give me a roadmap for all the things I needed to continue to learn in order to attain a product manager job.  The instructors gave us invaluable feedback, support, and insights on what the life of a product manager is like (most if not all of them were Product Managers in well-known companies).  Even after the class was over, I continue to learn through access to their events and slack forums that provide never-ending sources of knowledge. I definitely recommend you sign up for the class if you are interested in learning what it takes to get a role in product management.

I completed the weekend course from November 2016 to February 2017.

Solid introductory program for those with a few years' experience seeking to transfer into a software PM role. While the provided curriculum is helpful, the school's real value lies in its instructors.

To get the most out of the experience, I recommend that future students learn as much as they can from their teachers' specific experiences, eg, how they made past strategy or design decisions, how they work with engineers, how their Product functions are organized, how career pathing works.

To that end, Joel Palanthikal was an outstanding instructor. He shared insights from years of relevant  experience from various industries and companies, constantly sought and responded to feedback, and energized the classroom with communal spirit. He even offered to continue mentoring us well after the class finished; without question, we'll take him up on it.

(I should mention I also attended a few session of the weekday class, taught by Adam Stafford, and enjoyed learning from him, as well.)

Taking this product school class was a great decision for me. I was tossing up between General Assembly and Product School - and I’m very glad I made the decision to go with PS. 

The course itself taught a broad range of topics, that were well dived into. It was a great combination of being introduced to topics, having explanations, case studies from the instructor and many resources to follow up on. 

The instructor, Joel Palathinkal, had an incredible amount of energy and catered the class to our cohort. He provided a tremendous amount of value from his experience and provided great support to the cohort inside and outside of class hours. 

I would definitely recommend this course (and specifically, Joel’s class) to anyone interested in product management -  The money was well worth it.

I was lucky enough to attend the Product School December 2016 - February 2017. 

Having worked as a software engineer for the last 5 years I thought I had an excellent idea of what it would be like to step into a product management role. I was happily mistaken. 

My experience was excellent.  The quality of students was exceptional, with talents and interests that far reaching.  Joel, my instructor,  was a leader in the field, able to bring countless real life experiences to the table as examples. Material which could have been very basic was brought to life with Joels enthusiasm and insights into the product management field. Joel has also been a major support throughout this process and I see him as a huge asset to have in my future endeavors. 

The Product School delivered exactly what I wanted, an in depth look a product management and a network of peers whom I hope to do great things with in the future. 

I took the Dec 2016 to Feb 2017 cohort that just ended yesterday. Prior to the class, I was looking for a course that fit my background and after speaking with two former instructors, I figured this was the best course for me.

Overall, I definitely recommend the course for people looking to understand and demystify Product Management. My instructor was Joel Palathinkal and, perhaps I am bias since I didn't have any other instructor but, he really made the class worth the money. For one, spending your Saturdays for 6 hours to learn outside of work is not an easy task but Joel's energy really made it alot easier. He also had the foresight to ask us for a course review in the middle of the class, instead of at the end. This was incredibly helpful because we shifted from theoretical and conceptual discussions, to much more pointed lectures on specific workflows and tools used by Joel in his workplace. His knowledge in the PM space also comes clear during potential interview questions that some of the students have received. He also makes himself avaliable during all sorts of hours during the day to ask him questions and get feedback. He also brought in guest speakers and made the content much more digestible in real-world application.

The only feedback for improvement I have is for the curriculum itself. I think that it has to be edited to fit the needs of the NYC market where most students don't necessarily come from a technical background. Had Joel not shifted the direction of the class midway, I'm not sure how satisfied I would have been with the course. We focused on specific case studies, features, etc that the curriculum or book didn't go into depth about. I also wished that there were more technical discussions on frameworks and specific languages best used in varied cases. 

Otherwise, the course equips you with the knowledge and confidence you need to either deconstruct a product or feature or transition into a PM role. Definitely recommend the course and definitely recommend Joel

I took the weekend class from Dec to Feb 2017 in NYC. I started looking into product management courses and after comparing a few, decided to go with Product School based on their curriculum and a great experience with Brad, whom I interacted with during the initial consultation. I was debating between two instructors/cohorts within Product School and Brad gave me insight on the instructors' styles and strengths. After I started the course, I was happy with my decision and choice of instructor. 

The course was taught by Joel Palathinkal, and Brad was right about him bringing energy and life to class. His enthusiasm made the 6 hour weekend class easy. The parts I found most valuable about the class was the "What would Joel do?" discussions. Our class often asked him what he would do in certain scenarios, or how he would answer various interview questions. His answers adds an extra dimension to what we would've come up with ourselves. Joel also made himself available outside of class and followed up with us individually to see if we had further questions.

We also had the opportunity to meet Carlos, the founder in our class one day, and boy does he have a lot of energy! From the way he talks you can tell that he truly has a passion for product management and how to make the knowledge and tools more accessible to people. It's great to be part of a community that is open to share their experiences as well as offer help when you need it. 

As for the curriculum itself, it is an intro class and gives you an high level understanding of what product management is like and the terminology used in the industry. It's a course for people with various backgrounds so there's a mix of hard skills and soft skills. As I already work in a position that works with multi-functional teams, I wish more deeper-level hard skills were covered in class. Others who are more specialized may find the discussions on soft skills (which there was a good portion of in each class) new and useful. 

Overall, I'd recommend this course.

TL;DR: Intro to PM course taught by great instructor who is knowledgeable about the subject and open to share all his experiences and insights. Best for those who are not currently working in product management. You will be part of a community that is active and passionate about what they do.

I attended the Saturday cohort in NYC from October to December 2016. While I really enjoyed being with a great set of peers, I felt some parts of the curriculum were lacking and not in-depth enough. The lecture slides are also not exactly pleasing to the eye sometimes and can come off as tacky.

Thankfully, I had a brilliant instructor who was very down to earth and was able to relate all of the lectures back to his personal experiences as a product manager. He was very real and straightforward when it came to feedback and advice which I can really appreciate.

What I feel good paying 3K for was the people I was surrounded with who all had interesting backgrounds and a desire to work more in product and also my instructor whose personal anecdotes and knowledge were far more valuable than what the curriculum had to offer. As usual, it really comes down to the people.

If there was a way to just get in a room with my instructor spewing out all he knows with some cool people surrounding me, I probably would have paid for that versus what he was paid to teach formally.