life as a pm @ pre-seed startup :')

hello.

i’m almost 2 months into my role as a product manager at a pre-seed startup.

now i get why most people's main goal is to go corporate. this shit is CRAZY.

i’m not trying to sound cocky, but 99.9999% of people couldn’t do what i’ve done these past two months.

coming from a pure data analytics background, i came in knowing absolutely nothing about product management or software engineering.

but i was excited — i wanted the challenge. how hard could it be?

turns out... really fucking hard.

i came in like a blind dog. i had to run engineering sprints, completely redo the jira board, oversee a full overhaul of our app’s main feature, prepare for the v2 launch of another one, and make decisions on technical stuff i barely understood.

the engineering team had no direction, and most were junior devs with no prior experience.

as product lead, i also had to update stakeholders and investors about product progress early on. when shit hit the fan, i had to explain why — even when i barely knew what the fuck was going on.

i’d get asked my recovery plans during meetings.... IDFKKKK

all of this was within my first three weeks.

then shit kept hitting the fan. mistakes piled up daily. timelines slipped.

i was overwhelmed.

most people would’ve quit.

and honestly, i thought about it.

but i didn’t. i kept pushing. i asked the engineers a ton of “dumb” questions so i could learn the basics of software engineering and understand what the hell was happening. i didn’t care if i looked stupid — i had to learn fast if i wanted to lead them.

i reviewed all the meeting notes and literally had chatgpt explain technical terms to me.

i was getting the hang of it — until i realized half the product features weren’t even on the engineering timeline.

so when i told stakeholders we were 90% done, turns out... that was just the main features.

most of the buttons weren’t even functional.

i had to regroup, comb through every ticket, and create new ones for everything we missed.

suddenly, we were back to 40% done.

but honestly, that was the turning point.

i realized i had to take full ownership of the product timelines and tickets. after all the chaos and mistakes, i began to run shit (somewhat) properly.

now we have actual processes (somewhat) in place.

at a pre-seed startup, things change every day, and i constantly have to adjust and re-strategize. and that means a lot of the shit i'm doing currently doing right will have to change in the future. it doesn't mean what i'm doing is wrong. it means that a lot of what i'm doing is leading to growth, thus, i have to re-adjust for scaling.

it's a good sign!

i’m now managing (currently all) five projects within our product, and it’s finally clicking.

do shit -> fuck up -> restrategize -> reiterate -> improve

do shit again -> fuck up on something new -> restrategize again -> reiterate (AGAIN) -> improve

i still have a long way to go, but having this mindset is really helping me.

looking back, i’ve learned so much. this shit has pushed me harder than anything else. once i come out of this with a working product and a smooth launch, no future role will phase me.

shit will come easy after this.

wish me luck :D