Gabriel Borges

👋 Hey product hiring managers! You may have noticed dozens of people now with a new certificate from the Alberta Product Leadership Program. If you manage or are prospectively seeking a new PM to join your team, you should know that: 1) The program is selective. You can't just sign-up. Since it's inception, the program has sought to upskill professionals that have shown their motivation for growth and desire to hone their product management craft. 2) The graduates get broader exposure to practices and industries beyond their resume. Our sessions are interactive and facilitate sharing of perspectives and ways of working across multiple organizations - from grassroots startups to FAANG giants. 3) There's more to it than training. During the course of the program, many participants gain mentorship, build a supportive peer group, and get out of their comfort zone. The program is refreshed every year by hiring managers just like you to optimize for the skills we need to hire and promote for. So if you see the APL certificate with a candidate profile, know that candidate choose to do more than your average course. #abtech #yyctech #yegtech #productmanagement

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User onboarding can be hella hard to create and conceptualize, especially if the PM's product sense and hands-on experience is not in-depth. If you lose your onboarding, you pretty much lose your product game. Master your onboarding, and you'll have a more streamlined journey to the "aha" moment of your product. I've compiled a quick carousel of 9 onboarding models/tricks used by top products I admire: → 1st strong impression → Interactive tutorials → Progressive profiling → Benefit-oriented copy → Guided tours → In-app messages & tooltips → Gentle nudging → Gamification → Error handling & exit strategy Enjoy! 🙂 ------------------------ 🔔 Hey, this is Shehab Beram, a product leader, PLG, and product discovery advisor, and the founder of VisionX®, the first personal branding studio for product leaders worldwide. I share product management & growth insights every week. #technology #startups #ProductManagement #ProductManager #product

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How much do Product Managers, Senior Product Managers, Lead Product Managers, and Principal Product Managers get paid in the USA? I get asked this type of question multiple times a day! I've spoken with thousands and thousands of Product Managers and Product Leaders across the USA over the years and have compiled the salary ranges for IC Product Management positions to help try and answer this question. These salary ranges represent what the majority of Product Managers make at their respective level. In addition to this, here are some themes I've noticed that are worth considering when reviewing these figures: 🤔 Early-stage companies may offer lower salaries but offer greater equity to bump up the overall compensation on offer to the candidate. 🤔 Companies hiring in big cities/tech hubs on hybrid or in-office policies tend to pay higher salaries. 🤔 "Specialized" PMs generally command higher salaries than generalists (e.g. Growth/Platform/GTM PMs). 🤔 Some industries pay more than others (e.g. FinTech vs EdTech) 🤔 Base salary is only one part of the compensation package and bonus + equity/options can significantly change the overall compensation on offer If companies want to attract and retain the right person for the job, they have to be aware of what the competition is paying for talent. I'm seeing some companies go to market for positions like Senior Product Manager and offer a salary of $120k. No one at this level is going to move for a below-market rate salary and if they do find someone, it will be a stop-gap job for them until they find something that pays them fairly. Companies paying within the salary ranges (or above) I've provided will be snapping up the best talent. Talented Product pros won't move jobs for below-average pay or a below-average opportunity, no matter how competitive the marketplace might be. Fair pay and compensation are not only a benefit to the employee, but it also helps the company improve staff retention (it makes them feel valued) and consistency which drives productivity and output ($$$). Everyone is a winner when compensation is balanced and fair! #hiring #recruitment #productmanagement

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Most Director to CPO Product Leadership roles are never posted - here's how to find them. The hidden job market for product leadership roles is a reality that many aspiring Directors, VPs, Heads of, and CPOs may not be aware of. We interviewed 7 external Executive Recruiters, 2 internal big tech Executive Recruiters, 2 VC talent teams, and 12 CPOs/ VPs about the product leadership job search. Here’s what we’ve found: At least 80% of Chief Product Officer roles are never publicly advertised and even 30%-50% of (Sr.) Director roles get filled without cold applicants. This means that solely relying on job boards, you're missing out on a significant portion of available positions. Companies post these roles much less often for a variety of reasons: 🚫 They don’t want the press to speculate 🚫 They don’t want the current leaders to know 🚫 They don’t want to waste time on lots of low quality applicants 🚫 They don't think the best candidates will apply Remember that reputation matters as much as your resume when you become a leader. So how do you find the roles? 1️⃣ Executive Recruiters They run a high percentage of leadership searches at top startups and public companies. Exec Recruiters have helped me get more than half of my Director, VP, and CPO offers. 2️⃣ VCs VC firms, especially those with talent arms, know which portfolio companies (even public ones) are hiring and want to deliver valuable candidates. They can direct you to executive recruiters or directly to the companies. 3️⃣ Your Network To sniff out opportunities, tap your network of tech executives, past bosses and skip managers, founders, and other product leaders. Shift your mindset from a reactive job seeker to a proactive opportunity seeker. While it may require more effort, the payoff is big. The difference between a great and a bad product leadership role can mean 5-10x outcomes in your career. Of course, leaders have landed roles by applying online at the Director/Sr. Director level, but almost never without a connection. 💬 Comment with your experience and any questions. Follow to learn more about finding, landing, an negotiating product leadership jobs. Find the full deep dive into the product leadership job search I wrote with Aakash Gupta in the comments.

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Product Trios are challenging. Good Product Trios build great products. But to get teams to "good" is hard. I love how no-BS Teressa Torres is about Trios. Common goal, common responsibility, common accountability. One PD/UX, one PM, one Engineer. They do Product Discovery together ("What to build"). Sounds easy enough. I've seen 14 teams in different companies attempt this. And what I can say, about introducing this way of working: Short term pain for long term gain. For companies where "fluidity of collaboration" is more important than "role understanding" already, this might be a very short term pain. For teams where "role understanding" is a real and important part of their daily life, we have a lot of work to do. Especially for engineering. I used to work as a fullstack engineer. If you would have told me I was supposed to juggle my time between "doing Discovery work" (fuzzy, what is that even? mostly meetings?) and pushing code, I'd told you, that sounds hard. If you then told me, I needed to do so without clear boundaries and rules but on in a "fluid" way, I'd told you you are crazy. Now, don't get me wrong, right now I'm working with a few very role-fluid Product Trio's and loving it. But to assume that it is something you can just "do" is unrealistic at best and borderline irresponsible for many orgs. 📕 Teressa Torres - Blog post about Product Trios in the comments -------- I post 5x a week here in an attempt to get 1000 companies to do weekly Product Discovery. I'm at 21/1000. Which is more than four weeks ago. Follow along to see if I make it before turning 90 - and shoot me a message if you need a little help to get your Discovery rolling. Ah, and check out Juttu if you want to automate your weekly user interviews.

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I have been thinking pretty much the same as is talked about in the below post, a combination of tough market conditions and acceleration of Gen AI adoption has lowered the demand for junior - middle range product roles.

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I found ‘product manager’ in the list of ‘bullshit jobs’. Now come on, if you’ve ever built a product, you’d know all the challenges, if not I’ll list them for you. Bane of every product manager's existence: - Sentences starting with 'but I thought you meant...' If we can somehow solve the miscommunications that happen in meetings and minds among team members, being a PM would be easier. You can’t keep a ‘not-confused’ team when you’re functioning on guesswork. -A product could have many features, so which ones do you decide to build? Each feature can behave in many ways, which way would you choose? The one backed by user evidence. Getting insights into past and present user behavior to predict future reactions to certain features in the particular app market is the holy grail of planning for the perfect product. You’re a PM building product and user journeys, get AI to do the data collection and analysis for you. I’m working on an AI capable of understanding huge databases and connecting data silos with customer details to process your queries in natural language- so you get insights without writing mySQL queries yourself or involving data analysts in your team. If we get the user research part sorted you’ve got an evidence-backed plan to go along with so no other challenges should matter but. 1. Teams take their own time Sales are still figuring out features that sold well withholding buyer insights, engineering wants three more weeks for what should have taken two days, and the design team is still waiting for inspiration to strike. All teams could 100% benefit from less guesswork. 2. Product strategy meetings You’ve probably gotten used to defending your product roadmap like it’s Fort Knox, all while everyone aims their strategic missiles of 'just one small change' at your carefully laid plans. Lead with evidence-backed research into user behavior. But at the end of the day, when you see your product solve real problems, all the chaos, all the juggling acts, and all the heated debates fade into the background.

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Found: A better way to measure product value 📊 NPS feels broken. "Would you recommend?" doesn't match what users actually do. Enter the Sean Ellis Score. It asks one powerful question: "How disappointed would you be if this product disappeared tomorrow?" Why I'm excited to try it: - Measures real product dependency - Shows if we're truly essential - 40% "very disappointed" = product-market fit I'm planning to: - Send it to our power users first - Compare results to our NPS - Share what we learn Used the Sean Ellis Score? Drop your experience below 👇 Looking for: - Survey templates - Response rates - Success stories - Pitfalls to avoid Let's learn together. 🤝 https://lnkd.in/gTEnDVC8

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Can a Product Manager own the P&L for a product if the teams building and supporting the product don’t report to the #ProductManager? You must set people up for success if you want them to succeed. Giving a product manager the responsibility of profit and loss over a product without authority over how it is built and maintained is the opposite of setting them up for success. I had a conversation with Ruby Raley about this yesterday. I shared a story about a company I know where the CTO was charged with building a new product. He outsourced it to an IT vendor. They got it built in about 9 months. It was sold to a handful of clients. The clients started using it. The bill arrived from the cloud hosting service and it was $1.2M for the month‼️ The company was going to lose over $1M a month just to run the product. 👆🏻This is what happens when goals and incentives are misaligned and constraints are not communicated. The CTO was not involved in pricing; nor had he considered the cost of the architectural decisions made by the outsource team. I rarely see the engineering organization report into the Head of Product. And even more rarely are product managers setting pricing for the products they manage, or determining the size and quality of their design and development teams. Honestly, I am on the fence about this topic. I see so many product managers struggling with the demands of doing all the things they need to do to manage their products. Many PMs only have 3-5 years of business experience. Do they have the time, skills, training, and aptitude for managing a P&L too? Does the reporting structure support it? Will the executive team support it? I would love to hear from product managers. Do you manage your product’s #ProfitAndLoss? Do you want to?

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How can product managers navigate business ambiguity? Business ambiguity is a product manager's ultimate test. Here’s a 5-point guide for product managers to turn ambiguity into opportunity: 1. Embrace Flexibility: Adapt quickly and pivot as new information emerges. Flexibility keeps you responsive and relevant in ever-changing environments. 2. Keep the Vision Clear: Focus on the bigger picture. A strong, compelling vision guides your team through uncertainty, providing direction and purpose even when specifics are murky. 3. Prioritize Communication: Engage in transparent, continuous communication with stakeholders, team members, and customers. Regular updates and open dialogues manage expectations and gather crucial insights. 4. Experiment and Iterate: Adopt a test-and-learn mindset. Small, iterative experiments yield quick insights and refine your strategy with minimal risk. 5. Make Data-Driven Decisions: Use data to inform your choices. Even incomplete data can provide valuable direction and help reduce uncertainty. Trust the numbers, but don’t let them paralyze you. BONUS - Use customer voice as anchor, when data doesn't exist. Regularly engage with end users to understand their needs and pain points, ensuring your product stays aligned with real-world demands. Remember, in the face of ambiguity it is not about having all the answers. Rather, it’s about being flexible yet focussed to navigate the questions to reach the outcomes. #ProductManagement #BusinessAmbiguity #Leadership #Innovation #CustomerFocus #Adaptability

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Here’s what I’ve learned after years of working with Product Managers (PMs): the best PMs are the ones who truly understand design. It’s not just about moving metrics or delivering features—it’s about working with designers, not just handing off tasks. Too often, I’ve seen PMs come in with fully baked solutions ("prescriptive", as most say), leaving no room for creative input or exploration. But the PMs who take the time to listen, who start with an open mind and ask, “How can we make this better?”—those are the ones who foster real collaboration. It’s not about dictating; it’s about co-creating. PMs, if you want to elevate your product, understand this: the best ideas often come from pushing boundaries, experimenting, and taking risks. The most successful partnerships I’ve had with PMs weren’t about checking boxes—they were about creating value together. Want a stronger partnership with your design team? Start by listening. Collaborate early. Give us space to do what we do best. Together, we can build something better. Read more on my book: https://sigit.co/book

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As a PM, I sometimes feel like a chronic overplanner. These 7 principles help me move projects forward: A well-written PRD or spec is one of the most important deliverables for a product manager, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of overspecifying features or getting stuck on the “how,” delaying progress. Over the years, I’ve learned a few principles that help me write specs that not only guide my team but also speed up execution. Here’s what works for me: 1️⃣ 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 > 𝗡𝗼 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Don’t overcomplicate specs when there are many unknowns. If risks are low, make decisions quickly. Can’t decide? Shrink the scope until a decision becomes clear. 2️⃣ 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗚𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 Plans aren’t set in stone—they’re educated guesses. Avoid overanalyzing every edge case upfront; many will emerge during implementation. Focus on execution. 3️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 Well-written documents are only as effective as the engagement they drive. Enforce reviews and encourage proactive feedback. Specs aren’t presentations—they’re collaboration tools. If stakeholders haven’t reviewed them, presenting them is a waste of time. 4️⃣ 𝗢𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 Define the “why” (value to the customer) and “what” (features to solve their problems). Leave the “how” to engineering and design teams—overspecifying can slow progress and stifle creativity. 5️⃣ 𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 Always maintain one reliable document as your central reference point. Think of it as your product’s passport—clear, updated, and universally trusted. 6️⃣ 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲, 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸 Written communication outlasts verbal instructions. Specs serve as a consistent reference for the team and create accountability. Use them to document decisions and foster alignment. 7️⃣ 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Specs guide direction, but success is measured by shipped products, not perfect documentation. Keep the focus on delivering value to customers, not obsessing over the process. Did I miss anything? Share below👇

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Product Trios are challenging. Good Product Trios build great products. But to get teams to "good" is hard. I love how no-BS Teresa Torres is about Trios. Common goal, common responsibility, common accountability. One PD/UX, one PM, one Engineer. They do Product Discovery together ("What to build"). Sounds easy enough. I've seen 14 teams in different companies attempt this. And what I can say, about introducing this way of working: Short term pain for long term gain. For companies where "fluidity of collaboration" is more important than "role understanding" already, this might be a very short term pain. For teams where "role understanding" is a real and important part of their daily life, we have a lot of work to do. Especially for engineering. I used to work as a fullstack engineer. If you would have told me I was supposed to juggle my time between "doing Discovery work" (fuzzy, what is that even? mostly meetings?) and pushing code, I'd told you, that sounds hard. If you then told me, I needed to do so without clear boundaries and rules but on in a "fluid" way, I'd told you you are crazy. Now, don't get me wrong, right now I'm working with a few very role-fluid Product Trio's and loving it. But to assume that it is something you can just "do" is unrealistic at best and borderline irresponsible for many orgs. 📕 Teressa Torres - Blog post about Product Trios in the comments Excerpt from my conversation with Afonso Malo Franco. -------- I post 5x a week here in an attempt to get 1000 companies to do weekly Product Discovery. I'm at 24/1000. Which is more than four weeks ago. Follow along to see if I make it before turning 90 - and shoot me a message if you need a little help to get your Discovery rolling.

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🚀Top  Product Mgmt Career Cheats I wish I knew when I was 30 as a PM.🚀 Note: Inspired by Tim Denning 1. Independent problem-solvers love their job more than people who solve problems by memorized frameworks. Use your creative problem solving skills gang. 2. The path to follow that isn’t obvious I was a math major. I thought I would be an actuary. How the heck I ended up as a leadership coach was a path was not even close to obvious. It was about 100 twists and turns. Don't fight the turns. Just let them happen. The path to follow though, which leads to career happiness, is to follow your curiosity. 3 Take the risk Careers where you never take a risk lead to regrets. You’ll wake up one day and wish you did something else for work. For me, it took getting cancer before taking the risk 4, Get great at telling stories. I followed too many storytelling frameworks. Now I tell a story using my heart. Yes, there is a framework there. But I lead with my heart. 5. Stop waiting and do work that makes a damn difference. We build tech for people. Who is the person at the end of the tech you are building...whose life you want to make better? 6. Everyone’s got a great career plan until they get laid off. 7. The #1 sign of a successful career You love what you are doing. So do what you can’t stop thinking about every day for a job. Spend your career hanging out with people you like working with, doing work you enjoy, trying new experiences, and having fewer regrets. #productmanagement

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Whether the PM serves as the CEO of the product or not—a topic ever since Ben Horowitz's "Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager"—they must fulfill their primary responsibility: ensuring the viability of their product domain. I see this unfolding in three main areas (to any PMs who disagree, tell me why I'm a dolt in the comments): 1. With internal stakeholders. From sales to customer success to marketing to the CTO, stakeholders face problems that PM collaboration, prioritization, even a quickly turned around execution can help solve for. This might sound like "feature factory, stakeholder-driven work" to some, but how Product engages internally—from aligning on and delivering on the brand promise to impacting the product experience with new value to strategizing on how to reduce friction across the greater org—affects business viability. Inexperienced PMs can struggle with supporting internal customers, as if it conflicts with their perceived job of building a great product in and of itself, yet these discussions operate within a realm of abundance that lead to alternative paths of human-centered value propositions of all shapes and sizes 2. With external human-centered needs. PMs must ensure their products serve their customers, yet this gets tricky as "customers" vary. > There are internal customers as mentioned above > External customers present as buyers controlling budgets, and their end users; in the consumer space they're one and the same > Some business models have paying customers that are separate from end users > And then there are the intangible, yet ever so real customers, such as investors Depending on the capabilities and adaptability of design and research, and how a PM might engage with them and other stakeholders, identifying and delivering high-value human needs is a high wire act of iterative investments of both discovery and execution. And while delivering a desirable user experience is important, it isn't the sole variable for reaching product-market fit and revenue streams. 3. With system needs. Our industry moves quickly towards delivering realized value, and systems accrue debt regardless. > Design systems need constant nurturing and intermittent updates. > Platform architectures need iterative shifts and code needs refactoring. > Product features often need to sunset, and certain elements reconsidered into other areas of the experience (UX). And rarely are these investments considered to be new value opportunities by the business. If the Heads of Design and Engineering can't get alignment with the Head of Product as to why their respective functions need to allot resources to such system debt, the viability of the product will begin to wane over time. This same struggle trickles down to PMs and their IC counterparts. For many reasons, the PM ≠ CEO, but good ones claim similar degrees of responsibility, and may very well lose the same amount of sleep for a fraction of the compensation.

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three things to get better at Product Discovery this week. 1 talk to a user 2 get a baseline 3 ask for help sounds obvious. let's highlight what isn't obvious about them: 1 talk to a user you are tempted to over-engineer this. Bias, interview guide, ... I'm a fan of all these. But the best product teams have one thing in common: they talk to users. so start with the output instead of the outcome (counter intuitive). 2 get a baseline measure the basics of something you will work on. a feature, a page. people think Discovery has to do with the things that are not yet built - quite the opposite. Starting from what you've already built is a great way to leverage Discovery. 3 ask for help lateral leadership does not mean doing the thing yourself. Offload, outsource, empower - call it what you want. But whenever I really leaned into getting helping hands from Analytics, UXR and Product Design on board, I made great strides. disagree? what would you suggest somebody to do this week to improve their Product Discovery?

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Question to product ops people (I'm looking at you May Wong Graham Reed ) Something I rarely see spoken about as a responsibility of product ops is hiring PMs. I feel like your product ops people understand what makes a good PM, especially in the specific context of your company, as well if not better than anyone. If the role of product ops is to make your product org a slick well oiled machine then adding the right people feels like it should fit squarely within that wheelhouse and is one of the highest leverage activities that can be done. I'm not suggesting that they should own the whole process end to end but it feels to me as though it's a place where they could add a lot of value.

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> you always have a strategy, even if it is implicit and not written down. Writing helps you sharpen it, have a shared understanding. > one of the simplest yet most powerful things you can do, is to write your strategy down.

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Product management is one of the toughest roles out there. Why? Because you have to get work done without having any direct control over the people doing it. Only those great at influencing others can truly thrive in this role. In the world of product management, you’re expected to lead cross-functional teams without direct authority. You need to inspire, motivate, and influence team members from various departments to work towards a common goal. This demands top-notch communication skills, a lot of empathy, and a keen understanding of what makes each individual tick. Key Strategies to Succeed: 1. Build Strong Relationships: Trust and respect are earned, not given. Invest time in building strong relationships with your team members. Understand their motivations and challenges. 2. Align on the vision: Clearly articulate the product vision and how each team member's work contributes to it. A shared vision fosters collaboration and commitment. 3. Leverage Data: Use data to back your decisions and convince others. Data-driven discussions minimize biases and build credibility. 4. Encourage Open Culture: Create an environment where team members feel valued and heard. Encourage open communication and collaboration. Effective product managers are just like conductors of an orchestra. They don’t play every instrument, but they ensure all the musicians play in harmony. #ProductManagement #Leadership #Influence #Collaboration #Teamwork #ProductLeadership

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