Sachin Rekhi

Video: The Style of Product Management
Slides: The Style of Product Management
Essays: The Art of Being Compelling | Engaging in Product Debates

In January I was invited to Atlassian to share my wisdom on product management with the global product organization. I decided to delve into the style of product management, covering some of the critical soft skills that are so crucial for the success of product managers. I dove into the art of making a compelling argument, a task a product manager does every week in their role, whether it's with peers, R&D team members, executives, and more. I shared 6 specific style techniques that can be used to make effective arguments. I also dove into how to engage in productive product debates, which product managers also often find themselves in. I talked about how to make these discussions effective, fruitful, and ideally enjoyable instead of how dreadful they often end up being.

Video: What is Product Management?
Slides: What is Product Management?

In January I was invited to the UserTesting Sales Kick-Off in Napa Valley to give a keynote on product management. This was a far more foundational talk compared to many I've given in the past, really trying to establish what the role is all about for those just starting to get familiar with it.

I set out to address three key questions in this session:

1) Where do product managers fit in the R&D organization?
2) What do product managers do?
3) How do product management roles differ?

Listen on: Mixergy | iTunes

I got a chance to sit down with the famed Andrew Warner of Mixergy, who's shared the startup stories of over 1000+ entrepreneurs in podcasts and videos. In this candid interview we cover everything from my entrepreneurial roots, my first two startups, as well as the story of my current startup, Notejoy.

I've had the opportunity to mentor a breadth of product managers through the years as well as entrepreneurs through my work as an advisor to early-stage startups. And in doing so I've spent countless hours working through product challenges, startup challenges, and everything in between. As I work more closely with each individual, their guard starts to come down, they start to open up, and ultimately become willing to share some of their biggest challenges, uncertainties, and fears holding them back.

What's been fascinating to learn is just how many folks struggle with self-confidence. As well as how many suffer from deep-rooted imposter syndrome. This effects so many of us, including folks who are regularly perceived as successful. And this certainly isn't just a female issue. While it flies in the face of the Silicon Valley stereotype of founders having some of the biggest egos out there, I've seen the opposite to be true and think these issues are some of the most pernicious affecting folks from realizing their full potential.

Listen on: Growth Everywhere | iTunes | Google Play | Spotify

Ada and I recently sat down with Eric Siu for a discussion on the Growth Everywhere podcast, a podcast focused on sharing the stories of entrepreneurs to help the next generation of entrepreneurs thrive.

We talked about where the idea for Notejoy, our most recent startup, came from and how we set out to solve the problems that we experienced first hand as leaders at LinkedIn and SurveyMonkey. We talked about some of the initial challenges we've had along the way as well as some of the new customer segments we discovered have been great for Notejoy. We go on to cover some of the growth channels that have been successful for us.

We then dived into the more personal side of Notejoy, talking about what it's like to build Notejoy as a husband & wife team and how we manage to keep each other productive and sane, leveraging personal & professional OKRs as well as daily standups!

If any of this sounds interesting to you, do check out the podcast.