Should product managers have side projects while employed?

Hello and welcome into another episode of Lessons in Product Management. I'm your host, John Fontenau. And on today's episode we're gonna have a solo cast talking about whether or not you Side projects? As a full time employed product manager. Now I will caveat this from the very beginning saying that I am extremely biased in my opinions on this because it seems like I've always had a side project going on since being employed as a a product manager.

So I'll kind of take you through my journey, uh share with you some things that I've learned, and kinda outline some of the pros and cons that I've found along the way. And I hope this is helpful for you. I know some uh companies, some organizations frown upon doing side projects. I think that's a bit of an outdated mindset, and I'll share why. So if you're a product leader listening to this, I hope that This conversation. With an optimistic mindset around why it should be okay.

for your product managers to have side projects. I'll give some examples of large corporations who embed this into their culture. I'll give examples of how it's benefited me personally and how I believe it could benefit your product managers as well. So let's dive in. So a little bit about my background, if if this is one of the first times you're hearing from me or you haven't heard my story.

So I I spent I kind of accidentally fell into tech, not really product management. That was very intentional. Uh unlike a lot of product managers, I did not accidentally fall into it. I actually had a very frustrating time trying to get into it. I started my professional career after doing a small stint of teaching high school science, which is a whole a whole nother story.

I got a job as a contractor, a green badge employee for Intel in their software group doing software partnership. And that's that's where I discovered product management. I I worked with a lot of product teams around the world, Asia, Europe, Um South America, North America obviously, Australia.

I don't I don't think it worked with any African companies I might have, but almost every continent. Um and got to see product management done at a very high level from some very uh prominent companies globally and it was really formative in my early twenties. to see that in my temperament, my personality. I I like to be in the note, I like to be in the middle of things.

Um, I always thought I had kind of a a bent towards business and strategy and you know had ideas of running my own business someday. And so working with product managers kind of from a distance, I I fell in love with what they did, right? And I I didn't hold the role I didn't do it personally, but it got me interested enough to start studying and talking to some of my my partners.

and and some of the product leaders at those companies and just getting kinda mentored and getting some advice and getting some feedback and it really seemed like it's something that I I kinda wanted to do and, you know there was a fork in the road of my my career doing what I was doing for Intel and um decided to try to make that pivot into product management. And, you know, it took me a good two years and still had to backdoor my way in.

Uh getting into a a small SaaS firm in a sales role, even though I had no sales background whatsoever, didn't like sales, still really don't like sales. Um, probably would never do it as a full time profession, but Ended up getting mentored into a role in UX research at that small SaaS firm. Still really good friends with the guy who gave me my shot.

um shot at product and then pretty quickly from UX research made a transition into full-time product management. So it was during that two year journey But I discovered for myself that the talent acquisition process for product management was broken.

And I'll tell you why. Most of the thought leaders that we hear from today, most of the the you know, the Lennies of the world and the Marty Kagans of the world Uh the these people who have had long tenured product careers did not start as product managers. Right? They were engineers, they were founders, they did something else. Right. And so now you have these very tenured, very senior product directors, VPs, founders, investors, yada yada.

who never had experience before getting the job, yet killed it at the job.

And now you have a discipline that is becoming more formalized, even though it's still pretty nascent. It's becoming more formalized. It's becoming uh the the recognition and awareness of this role, even at the university level, is becoming You know much much more visible, much more desirable. And, you know, there's probably gonna be um, you know, degree plans now that that are going to be more ubiquitous over the next ten years, I would I would predict.

at the university level specifically to help people get into product management, especially in the states and cities and and university um where there's a lot of employment opportunities in in tech and in product. So well why do I say all this? I I say all this because fundamentally it's the job market is still broken. There's a lot of extremely talented people who aren't getting a chance at product management who should.

And what happens is at some point the the talent pool will eventually drive to nothing unless and until product leaders give a an aspiring PM a shot at the role. And and really the only quote unquote systematic way that this is happening today is someone in product recognizes the the talent, the capabilities, the potential.

of someone who they think could do good at product and they kinda tap them on the shoulder as whether they're an employee or current employee, past employee from another department, and like, hey, you should really look into this. I think you'd be good at this. That's really the only way it's happening today.

you know, individuals who th there's there's thousands if not tens of thousands of of individuals whether they're grad students or early professionals, mid-career professionals who want to get into product and are just banging their head against the wall and many of them giving up.

Why am I saying all this? I'm saying all this because the root cause of why these aspiring professionals, aspiring PMs, who are in many cases experienced professionals, They're not getting a shot because the very first filter everyone puts on product roles is experience. And and I I go back to the original point. Most of the ama like most amazing product managers in the world Someone had to take a chance on them before they had any years of experience.

So the problem still remains. There's no good bridge between non-experience and experience. So it it becomes a pretty significant catch twenty-two, which is why I started Path the Product, why it exists. It's the whole mission of bridging the gap between um the aspiring PM and the experience they need to land their first product role.

And side projects are a great way to gain experience, especially if you know how to market them correctly. And so should you do side projects as a full-time employee PM or a full-time employee period, right? Depends on what end of the spectrum you're on. And I'm going to talk about both. So first, the aspiring PM. Doing side projects. that there's a number of of types of side projects you can do for a variety of reasons and there are learning opportunities all o all all around you.

Depending on what type of side project you do. Um I'll call out the fact that there are no code website builders, no code full stack app builders. Um, th there are plenty of opportunities to build digital products and practice the things that you're learning. 'Cause if you're like me, you were probably reading books, taking courses, getting mentored, asking questions. Now you have things like Chat GPT where you can ask anything under the sun.

Um, which is pretty cool. But if you don't have a way to put that theory into practice, it's really irrelevant. That's why employers and hiring managers don't really look at uh certificates, right? They're really meaningless because you can in a lot of cases hit the play button, go go to sleep and wake up and then you get your certificate of completion and you didn't even listen to a word. But even if you listen to the whole thing, if you can't practice it, it really doesn't do you much good.

Right. The the longer the time goes by between when you heard something and then you don't put it into practice, really, most of that theory gets lost anyway. So it's really important to put into practice and that's where side projects come in. So if you're an aspiring PM, There are a number of ways you can get experience through side projects. And uh part of Path to Product is putting that theory into practice with existing products and building your product sense.

um practicing a lot of the skills in discovery and building artifacts for delivery. uh that you would be doing in your day-to-day PM model. And so I I don't want this to be a whole infomercial on path to product, but there there are a large number of ways once you understand what product management is, where you don't have to have the job for you to practice it.

So side projects are a great way to get some experience. Now, pivoting to product managers who are actively PMs, many PMs are very entrepreneurial in nature. One of the benefits of side projects is when when you're an entrepreneurial PM Who you you would probably rather be doing your own thing and have like legitimate ownership of a product, actually being the CEO of a product versus like pretending you are within a company.

'Cause in reality you don't call the shots. You have a director, a VP, a CEO, th there's somebody who can overrule you and really frustrate you. um i in the things that you're trying to accomplish in your day to day job. But a side project is something that you have complete ownership of. So I I can't tell you how often

my side projects were my saving grace, where I could leave a a a frustrating day on the job and work for a couple hours at night on my side project. And guess what? It was all me. I called the shots on what features got built. what got shipped and when, what my prioritization was, how I was gonna make money, how I was gonna price it, what was the pricing model, what was the price point, who was I targeting, what was the messaging and value proposition.

I got to decide all of it and that felt and feels still today so good. And guess what? The results are all on me. And if you're like me, that feels good. Um, so you're not bound by the limitations of your company culture or what your compliance department says you can and can't do, whether you think it's legitimate or not. or the tools that your company will buy versus the tools you actually want to use. In many cases, you know. financially financials permitting.

Um, you can use and do what you want, which is awesome. And it's a great outlet for you to have that full ownership and autonomy that being being employed and having layers of bureaucracy above you just doesn't give you all the time. And so it's a great outlet for that and a great release and a great um to me a a great mental health outlet when when you feel frustrated by your day to day.

So that that's one big one big benefit. The the potential downside is it could be distracting. You have to be very self disciplined to make sure that your job gets done'cause Side projects unless they blow up and then they become full time things. While they're still side projects, by definition, it's probably because they're not paying the bills.

Um and so one from an ethical standpoint you have to make sure that you're actually earning a living and not stealing money from your employer by doing your side projects on company time or sacrificing product quality or your craft at work. So I'll caveat those things because th those are important. Yeah. You need to make sure that you guard against those things.

But if if you can time box an hour, maybe two hours a day, you know, w one less episode of whatever HBO show or Netflix show that you were watching. And dedicate some time to practice your craft. There's there's amazing benefits. One, I mentioned the mental health benefits of having that full ownership and autonomy. But

There's a lot that has been written and said about, you know, the 10,000 hours of intentional practice. If you want to become a master at your craft, Stepping outside of your current employer in that current industry for those current customers. And being able to practice discovery in the way that you want to do it, in the way that you believe it should be done, but may but maybe your organization isn't giving you the time and space to do.

and being able to use tools that you can't use or don't have access to in your day to day. and being able to practice the prioritization techniques that, you know, the the strict and rigid processes at work won't let you do. Right. I'm I'm kind of making some of this up and I hope You know, your day-to-day uh and c company culture isn't as uh restrictive as I'm talking about here, but sometimes they are. So

What side projects allow you to do is to get more reps. And just like a professional athlete, the more reps you get, the better you get. And that can translate at work as well that in your craft specifically, you're gonna get better, you're gonna get faster, you're gonna get more confident. And that's why if you're a product leader listening to this, you should encourage your entrepreneurial minded product managers to have side projects, to have an outlet.

it it may seem like it's more tiring, but really it's energizing. When I go home from a long day at work and then I hang out with my family and I put my kiddos to bed and I get to spend a couple hours, is it just like grinding on the thing that I want to do and seeing this come to life and seeing people use it. That's energizing to me.

Right. Yeah, it takes work. Yeah, I might stay up an extra hour. But, you know, your employees are staying up'til one in the morning playing video games anyway. Right? You know, a a lot of us are tech nerds and a lot of us are gamers at the same time and that stuff inevitably happens. So I I wouldn't be discouraging employees.

from doing side projects. And and there's a great example of this. I think Google, um it's not specifically for side projects, but I think they do a great job of fostering the same type of outlet and the same type of entrepreneurial creativity and mindset experimentation um by having what they call their twenty percent time.

Where essentially one day out of the week, 20%, um, you know, I'm sure they probably break it up as Whether it's twenty percent a day or twenty percent a week, I I don't know if they care or how strict it is, but either way, there's twenty percent of an employee's week.

they can spend t they they can spend on like Skunkworks projects or um experimentation or uh probably even doing side projects, I don't know, but like I I've seen several examples of innovation that have come out of this and I I would have to bet that that is such a benefit Similar to all the things that I've outlined before, from mental health to uh having that ownership and that escape.

from kind of the day to day grind and being able to do something a little different, kind of mix it up and um get a a diverse set of experiences that you're not getting in your your full time role. So I'm a firm believer that side projects are very, very beneficial. But again caveat cave caveat.

Um, you know, it shouldn't come at the expense of the core job that you have, especially if that's what's paying the bills. Um,'cause that will lead to, you know, negative repercussions of, you know, poor performance reviews and Um there's a lot of people on your team and cross-functionally that are counting on you to perform at a high level. But um there there's so many benefits to doing side projects too. So

I if nothing else, I hope this was an interesting perspective to to hear. Um I I get a lot of questions around like, hey, how how do you have so much time to do all these other things? And truthfully I don't have any more time than any of you do. We have twenty four hours in a day. Um

And and I could sit here on a high horse and saying, I've got really good at being disciplined and it comes and goes. I go through spurts where I'm super disciplined and I get a ton of stuff done. And sometimes I have to take a break and it it gets overwhelming and life happens and I have to you know, skip a week or two of not doing a podcast or skip a week of two of not writing a blog article or

skip a few nights of not working on path to product and um those things happen. Like you gotta manage life as it comes. But uh the the the benefits that come along with being able to have these various outlets to talk and to write and to do um you know, it's so much more beneficial than than binging the the coolest show, even though there are um

There are some shows that I still watch. So again, going back to it, I think everything's definitely a balance. Um but you know, we we we don't we don't get satisfaction in life. From consumption of entertainment, right? There's a much more fulfilling life to be had by creating value. uh versus consuming it. But um But yeah, it's about uh so enjoy life while you can.

Um but take some time to to create some value for others and if that happens outside of your day job I think we're all the better for it. So with that, I appreciate you sticking with me for this uh 20 minute monologue on side projects. I hope the perspective was interesting and thoughtful. Feel free to drop some comments, especially if you're on Spotify. I think there's a spot where you can go drop comments. Hit me on link.

Let me know what your feedback is. Up me a rating and review on the podcast, no matter where you're listening. And uh tell me what you think. Thanks for joining me for another lesson in product management.