Stage 12–3 weeks
Product Thinking Foundations
- What PM is and is not
- Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)
- Product lifecycle: discovery to iteration
- Business models and unit economics
- North Star Metric
- Stakeholder mapping
- Building product intuition
Product Management
Decide what gets built, why it matters, and how you will know it worked.
Medium4–6 monthsgrow
Progress
Your Progress0%
Overview
Product managers decide what gets built and why — not how. You sit at the intersection of business, technology, and user experience, translating real user needs into products engineers can build and customers will love. It is one of the highest-paid and most influential non-engineering roles in tech, and one of the few careers where deep human empathy is as valuable as analytical thinking.
Who is this for?
- ✓ Students starting from zero who want structure
- ✓ Self-taught learners who need a clear path
- ✓ Career switchers ready to commit consistently
What can you build?
- Product requirement documents (PRDs)
- Product roadmaps
- User research reports
- Competitive analysis frameworks
- Full product case studies
- A/B test designs and results analyses
Jobs you can get
Product ManagerAssociate PMSenior PMTechnical PMGrowth PMDirector of ProductChief Product Officer
Salary range: $70,000–$200,000+/year
Roadmap
Follow each stage in order. Mark stages complete as you finish them.
- Stage 23–4 weeks
User Research & Discovery
- User interviews: prepare, run, synthesise
- The Mom Test — honest customer conversations
- Surveys and usability testing
- Competitive landscape analysis
- Opportunity sizing
- Assumption mapping
- Stage 33–4 weeks
Strategy & Prioritisation
- Product vision and strategy
- OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)
- RICE, ICE, MoSCoW prioritisation frameworks
- Kano Model — delighters vs expectations
- Product roadmaps that are honest and useful
- Feature vs outcome thinking
- Saying no professionally
- Stage 42–3 weeks
Writing Product Requirements
- PRD structure and best practices
- User stories and acceptance criteria
- Wireframes for PMs (Figma basics)
- Working with design: handoff and feedback
- Edge cases — the questions to ask before engineering starts
- Stage 53–4 weeks
Metrics, Analytics & Growth
- AARRR Pirate Metrics framework
- DAU/WAU/MAU — when each matters
- Retention curves and churn analysis
- A/B testing design and interpretation
- Funnel analysis — finding where users drop off
- Mixpanel and Amplitude for product analytics
- NPS and customer satisfaction
- Stage 62–3 weeks
Shipping with Engineering
- How software development actually works
- Writing tickets engineers love
- MVP thinking — what minimum viable really means
- Beta programs and phased launches
- Launch checklists
- Post-launch monitoring and response
- Technical debt and roadmap impact
- Stage 7Ongoing
PM Career & Portfolio
- Breaking into PM without formal experience
- APM programme applications
- PM interview frameworks
- Building a PM portfolio with case studies
- Communities, newsletters, and mentorship
Resources
Product Management Full Course
FREEIntroduction to product management fundamentals, frameworks, product life cycle, and strategy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p5YPBl_uBI
The Mom Test Summary
FREEThe most useful book ever written about customer conversations. This summary explains how to talk to customers and learn if your business is a good idea.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk3VOO9WT8o
OKR Framework by Google
FREEGoogle's original OKR documentation and templates from their re:Work initiative.
rework.withgoogle.com/guides/set-goals-with-okrs
User Story Mapping Guide
FREEHow to use story mapping to go from user research to actionable product requirements. Free guide.
www.productplan.com/learn/user-story-mapping/
Writing Good Acceptance Criteria
FREEGuide to writing acceptance criteria that developers and QA can actually use. Examples included.
www.atlassian.com/agile/requirements/acceptance-criteria
PRD Template & Examples
FREEA practical PRD template with real examples from top tech companies. Fill in the blanks to get started.
www.notion.so/templates/product-requirements-document-template
Hotjar
FREEHeatmaps and session recordings. See what users actually do on a page rather than guessing.
www.hotjar.com
Mixpanel
FREEProduct analytics platform. Understand exactly how users behave inside your product. Free tier.
mixpanel.com
Lenny's Newsletter
FREEThe best product management newsletter alive. Essays by top PMs at Airbnb, Uber, Figma, and more. Free weekly posts with the option to support.
www.lennysnewsletter.com
Product School Free Resources
FREEFree PM resources, webinars, and community from one of the most respected PM schools.
productschool.com/resources
ProductHunt
FREEPlatform where products launch. Essential for understanding what resonates and what does not.
www.producthunt.com
Mind the Product
FREEThe largest PM community. Articles, events, job board, and a global Slack community.
www.mindtheproduct.com
Shreyas Doshi on Twitter/X
FREEOne of the most insightful PM thinkers sharing publicly. Read every thread, especially on influence and leverage.
twitter.com/shreyas
Projects
beginner
#01
Product Teardown
Pick any daily-use app. Write a teardown: target user, jobs-to-be-done, North Star Metric, what works, and what you would change with justification.
#02
User Interview Report
Conduct 5 user interviews about a specific problem. Synthesise themes, needs, insights, and 3 opportunity statements.
intermediate
#01
PRD — Product Requirements Document
Write a full PRD for one feature of an existing product: problem statement, personas, user stories, acceptance criteria, and success metrics.
#02
Competitive Analysis
Map 5 competitors across target user, value proposition, pricing, key features, and differentiation. Conclude with a market gap analysis.
advanced
#01
Full Product Case Study
Problem → research → opportunity sizing → strategy → MVP scope → 6-month roadmap → launch metrics. Package as a polished PDF portfolio piece.
AI Guide
What AI helps with
- ✓ Drafting PRDs from a problem description
- ✓ Generating user interview question sets
- ✓ Writing user stories and acceptance criteria from feature notes
- ✓ Structuring competitive analysis frameworks
- ✓ Summarising user interview transcripts into themes
What AI cannot replace
- ✗ Replacing actual conversations with real users
- ✗ Making strategic decisions without business context
- ✗ Generating authentic product insight without research
Recommended Tools
Claude / ChatGPT
PRD drafting, user story writing, interview synthesis, case study structuring
Notion AI
Filling templates, summarising notes, generating meeting action items
Sample Prompts
I am writing a PRD for a feature that lets university students set weekly study goals and track completion. Write the full PRD including: problem statement, 2 user personas, 5 user stories with acceptance criteria, out-of-scope items, and 3 success metrics.I have these 5 user interview notes: [paste notes]. Synthesise them into: 3 key themes, the top 3 user needs expressed, 2 surprising insights, and 3 opportunity statements formatted as "How might we..." questions.Generate a RICE prioritisation matrix for these 6 features: [list features]. Estimate each dimension and explain your reasoning.Career Path
Product ManagerAssociate PMSenior PMTechnical PMGrowth PMDirector of ProductChief Product Officer
$70,000–$200,000+/year
The fastest path into PM is building something — even a side project. Run it like a PM: do user research, write a PRD, build an MVP, measure it, iterate. That process, documented as a case study, is more persuasive than any certificate.