Product School Reviews
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Usha
"I would recommend Product School to people who want to transition into software product management...."
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I attended the 8-week(Fall 2015) product management Weekend course in San Francisco. The course is very valuable for people looking for transition from Engineering to Product management. You need to keep up with technology, homework and articles in order to get the most out of it. Carlos is knowledgeable, very friendly and really very good in teaching(esp. Public Speaking) really did a great job giving students the confidence boost they needed into looking to become Product Managers.
I would Highly recommended especially if you don't know much about Product management, this course will cover all the basics.
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Cecilia White
Great choice for people getting started in their career
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I am a new Product Manager, so I took the class to gain a deeper understanding of exactly what a PM is responsible for and how to work together with all the other teams in the company. It's helpful if you have a background in software engineering, but I came from Marketing so I'm continuing to study some programming on my own so I can talk to developers. The material is fantastic, but your experience will vary depending on the instructor and number of students. The course was geared toward people who were just getting started in their career and who wanted to be a PM.
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Dhimant Bhundia
Much needed for all engineers thinking about product management career
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Product management course from Product School is a must needed impetus for all engineers thinking about product management career. Before I joined Product School, I had tried very hard to move into product management on my own and had encountered only failures. Product School provided me much needed rebranding of my profile. I not only learned new concepts in product management but also used those concepts in my side project. I came in touch with product managers from various companies and they gave me feedback on my side project, on my resume and on my overall profile for a PM role. Product School completely changed my resume, LinkedIn profile and other online profiles (Blogs, About Me, Quora). I started getting calls. I started hearing this from many recruiters - “your profile is really highlighted and hiring manager is really interested in talking to you”. Product School also prepared me for interviews. I practiced a few mock interviews with actual product managers and that really helped me. Carlos, the founder, is really very friendly and helpful. Within a few months I had 3 offers in my hand. And now, I’m a product manager.
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VC
Software product management boot camp
I'd recommend Product School to people who want to transition into software product management. The program provides industry knowledge, hands-on project experience and a product manager network.
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Richard Fleming
I learned more in that day than I had in 6+ months searching for jobs in Product Management and studying online materials.
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=== Overview ===
I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who wants to transition into Product Management. Remember though that: [ what you put in (effort + contributions) = outcome ]I wrote this to the PM facilitating at the last day of class:
"Thank you again for all your contributions on the last day of class. It was really great having you there and coordinating everything with all the PM’s there. The last day was by far one of the most valuable days I had at Product School. I learned more in that day than I had in 6+ months searching for jobs in Product Management and studying online materials."
Elaboration / Details
Pros:- Resume feedback and mock interviews from experienced / seasoned PMs
- Small group to allow for personal feedback, small group collaboration, and face-to-face time
- Developed a portfolio throughout the course
- Worked with a real feature and its data to apply PM skills
- Personal and timely feedback
- Frameworks and toolkits that are applicable for a PM
- Class diversity
- Course adapts based on students feedback and needs/wants
Cons:
- Materials were lightweight
- No whiteboards, post-its, and other such tools to engage students in group collaboration
- The Vault has horrible acoustics
- First week or first two weeks were not in-depth enough
- Some tools are discussed but not in-depth
- Lunch was not provided
Like any Product, Product School is actively testing hypotheses to ensure the curriculum is moving forward and engaging the students. Their success metrics are the number of students who move into a Product Management role and the feedback they receive for the course. However, what makes this so much better than taking Product Management at UC Berkeley Extension or other universities is that this course is taught by passionate, full time PMs who truly want to help you get a job as a Product Manager.Josh Anon was the instructor for the weekend class I enrolled in and his was an amazing person. He always offered out his ideas, support, questions, and feedback. I had pinged him late at night and in less than 24 hours he had responded back. That seemed pretty amazing given his busy schedule—though I admit I didn’t start reaching out to him until week 3 or week 4.
Let me contrast the many positive things about this course with some of the negatives or rather concerns.
First off, this class had a large group of engineers in the course. This isn’t a bad thing since diversity is a great thing and helps with empathizing from different professional backgrounds. However our class tended to fall back onto their own roles instead of putting themselves into the mindset of a PM. This stood out and unfortunately there’s not much you can do about that if you have unmotivated peers.
Secondly, I had already spent a great deal of time studying and getting experience in Product Management. The first two weeks did not blow me away in the course curriculum and tended to bore me. If you’ve done your work, you may find yourself nodding off like I did. However, after about the third week, the material started to get “hearty”.
On my last gripe, there was a lack of materials to get people to collaborate as a group and tools/frameworks weren’t always discussed in depth. My peers would stay stuck on their laptops a lot of the time, which is unfortunate. The largest skills a PM needs are soft skills and you cannot develop those being glued to your laptop. As for the frameworks and tools, those were a mixed bag. Some were covered in great detail, which was wonderful, but others were glanced over.
Overall this course was wonderful! There were many opportunities to network and to learn from Josh and other PMs. Stany who is the Program Manager was coordinating job postings and offered many opportunities to us. The course did have us understand the role, the skills needed to succeed, and develop our soft skills as future Product Managers.
If you take the course, then take these two things:- Stick around for the mock interviews and resume feedback. This was the greatest experience I had with the course next to getting to know Josh.
- Remember that: [ what you put in (effort + contributions) = outcome ]
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Anonymous
Excellent Course
I am glad that I enrolled for Product Management course at Product School.
I am happy with the training I received and my trainer was experienced product manager.
He was well organized and understood where his students are coming from. I am thankful to Product School for providing
perks and additional resources to continue learning product management. -
Kara S
Great Value!
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I have been recommending Product School to my friends ever since I started. I am currently a PM and used this class to learn where I needed to improve my skills. The pace was perfect for this! The curriculum is high level enough for me to get a refresher on certain topics, while letting me hone in one other topics that I need to learn more about. If there was something I wanted to learn more about outside of class, I got access to tons of online classes for FREE.
I do think they need to work on improving the job placement part of the process. I didn't get much help from there there, but I think the skills I learned are still worth taking the class considering the price and duration. -
Shin
Product Management is a mindset put into execution
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My purpose for attending Product School (PS) is to prepare myself as a day-to-day product manager (PM) in an interactive setting, improve upon my strengths and weaknesses as a PM, and to network. Let me unpack that:
- We all have different learning styles. My learning style is heavily visual-spatial / solitary. However, I’ve realized early on that I needed to develop other learning style to be succeed in the work place. Having worn many collaborate hats in my professional career, I understood what learning style worked best for me. Being a PM is a social role, and it was easy to see that the practical knowledge can only be improved upon when it’s seen in practice and used in application. For a good portion of you readying this, we’ve all read at least two to three books about Product Management. If you haven’t used what you’ve read, then you need to put yourself in a spot where that transfer of knowledge to application takes place. For me, it was putting myself in front of current and aspiring PM’s. How else do you get feedbacks, fail fast, and iterate fast?
- The catch-22 for breaking into Product Management is that even associate PM positions often require a minimum of 2-year experience in product management. And I didn’t see myself fitting the perfect product role that these job posts often seek since I’m transitioning into products. The truth is, a medium to large company often do not have the ideal PM as one person, but four different people - tech, market, domain, and business. From talking to a seasoned Director of Product, I learned that the ideal PM should have more than one strength while developing all others over time and experience. With that said, I took the 14 week course at Product School. The first 6 weeks was to develop my technical understanding for code with Ruby on Rails framework. The later 8 weeks focused on learning about the product management lifecycle (software) and applying the missing puzzle pieces to my current projects. From my own experience, I couldn’t have gotten there with just books.
- I’ll offer this the comparison. The top reason for going to a top MBA program is to network right? I look at PS as a setting where I took the opportunity to engage the tech/product community. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still attending meet-ups, PM panels, and demo-days around the area. The reality is that our time is precious, and it takes time to nurture those relationships. I think PS is a great place where product minded people can come together to connect.
A PS classmate said it best: “Product Management is a mindset put into execution.” I agree with this wholeheartedly because it encapsulates the essence of Product Manager. We live by Agile, and we are humble, collaborative, empathetic, and so much more.
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Anonymous
Great job support!
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I attended Product School in Spring of 2015 to learn Product Management skills and to pursue a career as a PM. I was an engineering manager and wanted to transition to Product Management. The program provided a good review of relevant topics, and extensive coverage of PM interview strategies and practice. All the instructors were passionate individuals with hands-on industry experience. I highly recommend Product School!
I really appreciated that Carlos, the founder, went over my resume many times until it was refined to land me several interviews. I built a great network with the instructors and fellow students. The instructors go out of their way to connect students with hiring managers. My job search was incredibly positive and fast. Within a month of finishing the program, I got 5 phone screen interviews, out of which 4 resulted in on-site interviews, and I received 2 job offers. Not every graduate will have this experience, and the instructors are honest about setting realistic expectations. Now I work as Senior Product Manager! -
Anonymous
Great job support!
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I attended Product School in Spring of 2015 to learn Product Management skills and to pursue a career as a PM. I was an engineering manager and wanted to transition to Product Management. The program provided a good review of relevant topics, and extensive coverage of PM interview strategies and practice. All the instructors were passionate individuals with hands-on industry experience. I highly recommend Product School!
I really appreciated that Carlos, the founder, went over my resume many times until it was refined to land me several interviews. I built a great network with the instructors and fellow students. The instructors go out of their way to connect students with hiring managers. My job search was incredibly positive and fast. Within a month of finishing the program, I got 5 phone screen interviews, out of which 4 resulted in on-site interviews, and I received 2 job offers. Not every graduate will have this experience, and the instructors are honest about setting realistic expectations. Now I work as Senior Product Manager! -
Josh Anon
Through an Instructor's Eyes
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I'm an instructor at Product School, and I wanted to share my perspective.
This past session (July/August 2015), Nik Laufer-Edel and I have completely redone the curriculum based on the original curriculum, student feedback, and our own experience. We set out with three personas in mind.
- People looking to transition into product management (engineers, designers, business experts)
- Startup founders looking to gain a better experience of product whether to manage product themselves or to make their first product hire
- Current PMs who stumbled into the role, looking to fill in any gaps in their knowledge.
- While we optimized for the first persona by setting a course goal of "we want our students to have their first entry-level product job within 6 months of graduating," we had students from the other personas in our classes. We received really great feedback about how useful the content was to them, so we're on the right path!
To achieve that goal, we focused different parts of the curriculum. The lectures still remain quite practical, but we have tried to create a balance between theory, example applications of that theory, a consistent in-class case study to apply the theory with exercises, and an ongoing homework assignment/final project where you apply what you learned in class with the goal of producing an artifact that will help you get a job.
While it'd always be nice to have a little more time to go more in depth into the exercises and material, my students seemed very happy with the density we covered. Many of them after the last class specifically told me how useful certain weeks were to them immediately and how they really appreciated learning about areas they had limited experience with before.
We're also working on updating the curriculum further, based on feedback, so it will be even better when you enroll!
Product School pre-screens its students, taking people they feel will get the most out of the course. This keeps class sizes small (<= 12 students), and I think it helped create a really motivated and interesting group. I taught the Saturday session, which had many students driving up to San Francisco from San Jose, and they were there at 9:30, smiling (well, once they had their coffee). This diversity also led to some great discussions where we talked about people's experiences in product and with PMs, both good and bad.
Product School's staff (Carlos, Mike, Stany, and beyond) all work really hard to make this a great experience for the students. Practically, Stany made sure we had all the handouts, materials, and snacks we'd need for each class. Mike and Carlos work hard with students to help their job search after class ends, and as others have noted, Carlos is a great instructor, too!
I will say that what you get out of this course is proportional to what you put into it. If you skip most classes, show up late to those you attend, and don't do the homework, you're probably not going to be happy. If you only apply for one or two jobs, you'll likely not make the transition to PM. However, nearly everyone in my class did put in the effort, wanted to get something out of the class, participated and made it fun to teach them, and I look forward to seeing where they are in six months!
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Anonymous
Product Management program bootstrap style
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I initially stared the PM class at GA (General Assembly) before transferring over to Product School (PS), so I can provide some insights into the difference. At PS, the classes were a lot smaller. You can get more individual attention; on the other hand, you can miss out on learnings from having more classmates as well. At PS, the classes were less structured and the materials were not as developed - presentation-wise. This depicts the bootstrap feel, but I'm sure this will change as the program grows. PS class was much faster pace. PS was 8 weeks vs GA was 10 weeks. I think that's part f the reason why the materials were not as developed because they try to cram you with lots of "to-the-point" information, which you should then go do further research and readings yourself. The nice part was the ability to attend either the weekday or the weekend program, especially when work schedule is unpredictable. Also, great that food was provided.
I would say this program is great to get you a taste of key things a PM does and it's probably sufficient to get you started to look for an associate PM role. You have to keep in mind that you should still do a lot of your own homework post class, especially if you're trying for a non-associate role. Your PM career journey will most likely be a long one. Don't expect taking this program to be the start and the end that journey. In fact, PS can remain a part of your jourmey because they will still notify you of opportunities, events and various promos even after you have completed the program, so that's a great benefit as you continue to job hunt. This is something you won't find with the GA program.
Good luck!
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Anonymous
Product management taught in a bootcamp setting
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Few things :
1. Structure of curriculum:
Curriculum is structured in most efficient way. It is tailored to gain real hands on experience of product management. From the start of the course each student selects a company to work on and then by the end of the course recommends a feature in the company's product( app,website) . Hence the probability of getting the interview increases since throughout the course each candidate has gained enough knowledge about the company and its reviewed by instructors(Product managers).2. Flexibility to attend the missed lecture:
Due to my academic stuff I was not able to attend all the weekends but due to availability of week night classes I was able to make up for the missed lecture.3. Insights about the hiring process:
During the resume review and interview session they had called real product managers to mock the interview for us and it was really helpful since we knew exactly about their expectations and specific traits which are required for PM job.4. Mike's network:
Mike helped me a lot to connect with Product managers and to schedule a interview. He has great network and really resourceful.thanks Product School
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Anonymous
The Best School for Transitioning to Product Management
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Prior to starting my career as a product manager, I had spent considerablemoney and time on other PM courses but was never impressed and felt that the material from other courses were too high level and never practical. I first met Carlos González de Villaumbrosia a year ago when Product School had recently been founded and was extremely impressed with the curriculum of the course.
I was curious what differentiated Product School from other programs (I knew that Carlos had initially been the top lead instructor for GA's Product Manager course) so I spent a few weeks dropping by the school as well as attending their one-time workshops to learn more about the program. Not only was I even more impressed with what I saw but I also continuously heard extremely positive feedback from initial student cohorts, some of whom had already managed to land Product Manager jobs after the course.
The course has continuously gotten even better over time and I have yet to find any other course that can even come near to the level of practical education that Product School provides. If you are looking to acquire product management skills, and get access to a strong PM alumni and mentor network, I highly recommend checking out Product School. -
Anonymous
This program is awesome
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I just finished the Product School and the course is very valuable. You need to keep up with homework and read the shared articles in order to get the most out of it. Instructors Carlos and Hamid are solid, genuine and have a very deep knowledge of Product management. They will always give you real feedback and push you in order to improve and reach your goal to transition to a PM role. The location is nice and amount of people for each class is perfect, not overcrowded and good to interact with everybody. Highly recommended especially if you don't know much about Product management, this course will cover all the base.
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Matthew Deutsch
Awesome course for Engineers looking to get into Product Managment
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After researching a couple options to learn more about Product Management and advance my career, I settled on Product School. I completed the 8-week part time Product Management course in early 2015, and would highly recommend it to others. As the course is targeted towards engineers looking to make a career transition, this allows more class time devoted to the non-technical aspects of Product Management, which is exactly what I was looking for.
Carlos (founder) is a knowledgable and super friendly instructor, and you can tell he genuinely cares about teaching the subject, as well as helping out his students in whatever way possible. Carlos’ passion shines in his lecture style, and I thought he really did a great job giving students the confidence boost they needed into looking to become Product Managers.
One of the key differentiators for me between Product School and some other programs out there is that a huge focus is placed on post-class development, which included resume reviews, mock interviews, public speaking, and assistance in the job search process. To me this is reason enough to go with Product School for anyone with a technical background who is looking to get into Product Management.
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Anonymous
Product School for Jr PMs
Awesome Experience! Carlos and Hamid did a great job of drilling the Product Manager fundamentals into my head. I am confident now that I can walk on to any product mangement team within an organization and make a difference. In addition, the course educates you on a variety of tips and tricks for getting a product management position!
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Donnie Wang
Product Managers need a great portfolio of their own work and this course really helped me get mine started
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This class taught me how to validate and rapidly prototype my ideas and also to write technical specifications that could be handed to software engineers to develop. I had been a Product Manager before (in consumer goods, not software) and have worked as a Product Marketing Manager (works closely with PMs) so the topics covered were a little slow for me at first since most of the class came from zero Product Management or startup exposure, but eventually sped up and ended up being really fun and constructive once we got into the building phase.
I recommend it to friends looking to transition into Product roles all the time.
I took this class when Carlos (Founder) and Hamid (Co-Instructor) were teaching the same curriculum at General Assembly, prior to Product School launching. GA provided us little to no job support, but Carlos and Hamid themselves have consistently been there for me throughout my journey to help out in any way possible.
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Kevin Kantz
Great for upskill or career transition!
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I just completed to Product School T/TH program and wanted to give a review for people considering it. I am a 40+ year old professional looking to make a career transition. I have been a start-up founder recently and in my twenties so have managed products before but without all the process, frameworks and lingo used in startups today. These were the missing elements in my own background I wanted to supplement and understand. First, the staff. The Founder is Carlos González de Villaumbrosia, and he is very experienced and super-friendly. There is another instructor as well, but Carlos was mine. The classes had a very informal collegiality but we didn't mess around. All the students were attentive to the material and Carlos made this easy by being well prepared, interactive and generally very likable. Other members of the staff were friendly and competent. Michael Duchen in particular went out of his way to be helpful in reviewing and revising my resume with a skilled eye and insights. One caveat on staff. Some of the classes are taught by visiting lecturers. I believe we had 3 and each one was outstanding. They were all very experienced and added tremendous insight with stories about challenges, successes, characteristics of startups in different phases, etc... Guys like Nik Laufer-Edel @Udemy, Carlos Jiminez @Trov, and Kevin Lee @AltSchool. I learned so much from these guys! Second, the curriculum. Recognize that the program was 2 nights a week including dinner. It is not a 9-5pm submersive. At first it felt like some of the issues were covered at too high a level. But then you really get into some of the subjects in additional readings and the "side project" each student is working on. For example, we covered some high level prototyping elements, but much of the real learning came in applying the concepts in Balsamiq and Invision, 2 of the top tools available and frequently used in Bay Area startups. Overall, I think the curriculum covered the ground well and segued nicely into a job search element covering resume, interview and product presentation. It was all very valuable stuff One caveat on the curriculum. We covered Agile, again, at a high level. This was an area where I felt most employers would require a more robust education. It's clearly beyond the scope of the Product School, however. I supplemented the Product School with a Certification as a Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) at Agile Learning Labs, which was outstanding. Second caveat on the curriculum. If you have little to no programming skills, The Product School gives you access to programs like OneMonth. I bolstered my skills strongly during this period and was then able to have productive conversations with classmates around ruby, git, heroku and other key areas in the engineering domain. Third, the students. In my class there were a mix of engineering skills from none to robust. Some people played a product management role already. One was a Scrum Master (engineering focused) and wanted to broaden her skills. Some people were paying their own way and some were paid for by their companies. In all, a good mix of people. Everyone I met was friendly, inquisitive and eager to learn. When it came time to present side projects I was blown away by some of the great ideas! There was a lot of talent there. We have already established a group to stay connected and I believe these folks will be an important part of my network going forward. In summary, I found the experience extremely valuable. I am currently pursuing a side-project using the skills and frameworks I developed at Product School while simultaneously looking for a Product Management role at a funded (series A+) startup where I can add significant value. I highly recommend the Product School to anyone looking to upskill or transition roles or career. -
Dinesh
Great Experience!
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I took the 8-week Product Management course at Product School and have very positive feedback for anyone looking to take the course. Carlos was an extremely intelligent and knowledgable instructor who deeply cared about his students success. With the help of Product School I was able to get multiple job offers within just a few weeks after graduation. The consultation that was given to me during my interview process was priceless.
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Medha Ghatikesh
Hit the ground running with this hands-on Product Management course
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This course covers everything you need to know about Product Management to jumpstart your PM career.
It covers the absolute fundamentals of a PM role such as writing solid product specs, creating wireframes and interactive prototypes, developing personas, market sizing, A/B testing, metrics, product marketing, etc. But it doesn't just leave you there - they also teach you how to apply for PM jobs, how to position yourself as a PM, and help you prepare for interviews. They can also make intros to the companies they work with.The best part is that it isn't all theory - you get to apply everything you learn every week to your own side project, and the instructors provide VERY DETAILED, brutally honest feedback to help you learn and improve over the course of 8 weeks.
The instructors teaching this course are SOLID. They are product managers by profession so they use real life examples to explain PM concepts, have relevant silicon valley PM experience, have exceptional teaching styles, and are very keen to help you excel in the course. TIP: With this course, you get as much as you put in to it. If you passively attend classes and leave the homework assignments incomplete, you will not learn very much. So take notes actively, apply everything you've learnt, ask tons of questions and give it all you've got!
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Anonymous
The most 'product'-ive and practical course
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I took the 8-week Product Management for Engineers weekend course and found it extremely beneficial. Both Hamid and Carlos are very energetic, experienced and encouraging and this helped me push myself outside the comfort zone and chase what I'm really passionate about! We got to learn about a number of tools that I can immediately start using without requiring coding experience such as Balsalmiq, Invision, Roadmunk. We got to interact with guest speakers with an entrepreneurship drive who took on risky products, and the lessons they learnt along the way. I really enjoyed learning about many of the 'soft' skills needed to be a great PM, this is something that you don't get to experience by reading a PM book or from a typical theory class. While working on a side project, I got to learn about key ingredients required to build a new feature or product, including how to be extremely focused and prioritize on key features, how to ship an MVP out quickly, track metrics, then rinse-n-repeat. All in all, it's one of the best courses I've taken and I'm already recommending it to my friends and family.
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Anonymous
Drop the theory and get real at Product School
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Product School is a great place to learn about product management, be a better PM, and get a job as a PM. First, Product School helps students with finding a PM job. Secondly, the class sizes are small, which means more hands-on mentorship from the instructors and mentors. Third, the selection process for the courses creates a great environment -- the students are highly-motivated and are high-achievers which fills the classroom with an unmatched energy.
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Saket Jain
More than what I expected
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I attended Product School in early 2015, and it was one of the best decisions I made to advance my career. I was reluctant to make this decision but there was something about the curriculum that caught my eye. It covered several aspects of Product Management in which I was inexperienced at. I met Carlos in one of the meetups hosted at The Vault. He is a lanky guy with a thick accent. I made my first mistake by judging this book by its cover. I was questioning his abilities as a teacher without even giving him a chance. I was wrong. I am glad he proved me wrong. There were several reputed professionals who took over various aspects of the class, but Carlos turned out to be better at teaching than anyone else. Carlos is a young, confident and experienced entrepreneur, making an impact in this industry with his unique methods of teaching. Anyone looking to hone their PM skills should give Product School a shot, its worth it. -
Laura
The best Product Management class I have taken!
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I highly recommend taking this class if you are transitioning to Product Management or brushing up on the latest Product trends. It offers a very practical and experiential learning approach that really prepares you for real-world challenges. The instructors come from a variety of backgrounds in large and small startups, so you get the best of both worlds and learn to apply techniques from people who run top products and are entrepreneurs themselves. Carlos and Hamid have a rare gift for teaching and are very enthusiastic about each topic. Their class is super engaging and they keep the students inspired to learn and work on their own projects. I took the class from 6:30-9:30 pm after work, and it was so exciting and intense that I would come out invigorated rather than tired! Carlos and Hamid are also extremely dedicated to the needs of the students and go beyond what's expected to offer you the tools to succeed. We got free access to commonly used online tools, they provided reading lists, lists of blogs & experts to follow, and recommended sites to continue learning about product management. They also invited a variety of experts to give talks and encouraged us to attend hackathons and conferences. Product School also offers a wide network with immense value. Carlos and Hamid are great mentors and are always happy to introduce you to new opportunities. They made themselves available throughout the program and afterwards; it's been a year since I took the class and I still continue to receive support from them! Many of my classmates have now started their own companies or started working as Product Managers shortly after finishing the class. -
bruce
Intense, hands-on, practical, great way to make a move on a PM position
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I found Product School on MeetUp, and my first reaction was “wow, they’re doing that in North Beach in SF??!!” It was just what was on my mind, so I went to the free intro night and started thinking. It was like having cold water thrown in my face- all this practical info explained in a very street-smart, passionate way by Carlos. I was impressed by his intensity and accomplishments, but also his honesty. “NO, it is not easy transitioning to a PM. You have to do many things and learn many things.” So I jumped in.
My perspective: unlike many of the students who come here, I have not been working as a sftwr developer in the web/mob/SaaS space. These are the ideal target for this class. I am a general hw/sftwr engineer who has a lot of experience doing mrktg/biz dev , so my perspective might be different. But since I want to be in that space as a PM, it seemed like a pretty good fit. I was sure it would be useful.
- It is fun, fast and furious: There are guest speakers who really know their stuff. Impressive people who are really doing it, have recently gained their success through hard work. It is nothing like a UC extension course. I didn’t do a lot of cost comparison, but it seems like a good deal compared to general assembly.
- You will get so many pointers and links to interesting resources. I wanted to read everything, but it isn’t possible.
- Be prepared for really direct feedback. Like “that answers sucks”. Not easy to hear this stuff, but that is what I paid for.
- Carlos is a good presenter and his feedback and the practice presentation sessions were good.
- The side project takes some real time, more than I expected. If you want to get more out of the course, invest time early and try to take some PTO so you can get ahead of the curve on this.
- You get free access to web/mob prototype tools like Balsamic, Justinmind, Invision.
- Learning about growth hacking and advertising/retargeting and the acquisition to revenue market cycle.
- The resume feedback sessions were really good, and the mock interviews were damn good. I have never seen anything like this. We met people from Linked-In and other smaller companies.
- At the end we met a few companies that have a relationship with product school, and we had little short discussions with them on the last day of class, which they call product day
- You can connect with the guest instructors and Carlos and other people through the meetups that follow and continue after the class
- In keeping with Agile thinking, the course will be evolving and changing quickly. So the course you take will be a bit different (and probably better) that what I took
You are sure to learn a lot and have fun. But to land a job afterwards takes a lot of work during the course and tons of work afterwards. I’m happy I took the course.
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Anonymous
Great PM course
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It's incredible what the team at Product School have put together. The material they teach you here is the most relevant and top notch information you can get. They key is the real-world experience of the instructors and the high quality and interest of the students that get accepted into the program.
You really get what you put into Product School, and if you are not giving it your all to understand the material and do your homework, you will have a hard time in this program. If Product School sees that you are not able to make the cut, they will remove you from the program. This has happened to multiple people in my time here, so bring your 200%!
Furthermore, I was pleasantly shocked by the level of support Product School gives its graduates after finishing. They are continuously sharing interesting job offer and other recruiting events. The team network is incredibly strong, with contacts at every major tech company in the Bay area.
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Anonymous
Best way to learn Product Management
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Product School provides an environment where I've been able to grow and work with some the greatest product managers I've ever met. As Product School continues to grow, they will probably have to work hard to keep such a great high bar for students and instructors.
Product School takes feedback from its students every week. As such the curriculum and logistics of studying there are constantly being tweaked. This means that each cohort should be getting a slightly improved experience from the last. I certainly think that's true. Having said that, I would certainly recommend the program to any of my friends who wanted to break into product management. By far the most innovative and effective educational experience I've come across. -
Anonymous
Great introduction to Product Management
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I just finished the 8-week Product Management course at Product School and have only the best things to say about the course and the CEO/instructor Carlos!
I believe this course is useful for two categories of people - those who are new to product management (even if they have interacted with PMs before) and those who are looking to start their own companies but do not have a product manager in the founding team.
It really is a hands-on course that takes you through a live project (that you conceptualize and develop) - to get the most out of the course, you should be prepared to put in significant effort. The effort is certainly worth it! By the end, you will have a very good idea of whether a PM career is for you, how to handle a PM job and how to go about getting a PM job. For those who wish to pursue their live project further, there is plenty of great info on how to quickly validate the idea and take it to market.
Carlos' energy is unbelievable - and very contagious! As other reviewers have already pointed out, his connections in the startup scene, and his willingness to go out of his way to help you can make a big difference.
The course is a great way to start along the road to becoming a PM. You do get to find out a lot of "inside info" that you would not otherwise come across. You also get to try out many of the tools that PMs would need to be familiar with - including design tools and A/B testing tools. Again, what you take away is proportional to your own interest and effort!
Overall, I would certainly recommend the course as an effective introduction to Product Management.
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Adrian Ostolski
Best Product Management course in the Bay Area
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I took the 8-week part-time Product Management course at Product School. It was a very good investment in my career. I was a QA Engineer and I wanted to become a Product Manager. I would not have been able to do this without taking this course. Well, technically maybe I could, but I don’t think I would have known what I was doing without this experience. It has been invaluable to me.
After researching the various schools in San Francisco that teach Product Management, I selected Product School because they were professional, passionate, and reasonably priced. What I got was more than I even expected. The course was life-changing, they provide tons of connections, and they are constantly providing perks, discounts on professional tools, and opportunities for networking and job openings. Carlos, the CEO, is very passionate. You can’t listen to him talk without feeling excited and motivated. For me, this had a huge impact and I now feel that I can really do my future dream, which is to start my own startup with my husband (an unintended side effect). Since CEO's are essentially their own Product Managers at early startups. I learned so much from this course and it gave me a lot of confidence about my decision to become a Product Manager.
Some things I loved about the course:
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The course is part-time so you can take it while working a full-time job or going to school
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There are week nights or weekend classes (I took the week nights)
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The course is just 8 weeks, so it is packed full of information but I liked that I could be finished and start on my next step sooner
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It’s very hands on, meaning that you will be creating your own product
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You will also work with others in your class and build a great network of other Product Managers
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It’s very cost effective, compared to other Product Management courses
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Product School actually takes the time to mentor you, help with your resume, and public speaking skills
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They help you in the job search process, in every step, throughout the course and after
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Food was provided, so that you didn’t have to worry about making time for it between work and class
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My favorite class was the day we had resume reviews and mock interviews because this feedback was excellent and so helpful
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Carlos’ connections are amazing. Everyone who was brought in for class was extremely knowledgeable. Although Carlos taught our class himself, he also brought in a Senior Recruiter from LinkedIn, and other Product Managers from top companies and local startups.
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Several of my classmates got PM jobs before class was even over
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The school has weekly Meetup events, which once a student, you can attend for free for life
I think that this course is the best Product Management school around, and I would recommend it to anyone coming from a technical background who is thinking about becoming a Product Manager or is already a PM and wants to become a better one. -
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Gaurav Tater
Great Stepping Stone for new PM's
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This review is for the 16 week coding & product management course. I just finished my entire 16 week course. Casey, Hamid and Carlos were my instructor and they are one of the best instructors you could get for this course. I did come from a non-technical background so I am impressed with the course and myself to be able to have a good understanding of product management at the completion of the course.
The best part about the course is the instructors and what is amazing the energy, passion and keenness they share to teach this course. Carlos and Hamid are available at any time of the day to guide and answer questions. What I really like is how I met other students who are in the same boat as I am and being able to share experience and frustation even after the class.
Highly recommended for people for are looking for career change in the field of PM. Great stepping stone.
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Peter Wang
Great way for non-technical individuals to get a foot in the door.
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This review is for the 14 week coding & product management course. I finished the 6 week coding course and it was INTENSE. Jason was my instructor and he has a very caring soul. I came from a non-technical background so I was very impressed with the course and myself to be able to have a very good understanding of coding at the completion of the course. Jason is able to take a complex concept and break it down into very manageable pieces.
I am currently in week 1 of the PM portion of the course and I have to say I LOVE Carlos' teaching style. It is very obvious within 10 minutes of the course that you can tell he has the passion for teaching this subject. Carlos is not only a very knowledgable instructor but he is also very caring as well. He definitely has your back throughout the whole program and you can sense that on day 1. -
Francisco de la Pena
Great course for Engineers looking to get into Product Management roles
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I took the 8-week Product Management course at Product School and have very positive feedback for anyone looking to take the course. When I took the course I was Technical Director at Realsec, Inc and wasn’t really looking for a new job but I wanted to improve my Product Management skills. I was doing my job but I couldn’t help to feel that I wasn’t performing at 100%. The course greatly exceeded my expectations mostly because I wasn’t looking for a technical training or tons of literature on the subject of Product Management (I can google that myself.) I was more interested in all the other (soft) skills required to become a great PM, I also really liked how everyone in class had a technical background.
After the course, I co-Founded Twister Labs, the company behind GoProover.com, a platform that helps people improve their lives while overcoming fun challenges in a variety of fields, no matter what their goals are.
This is definitely not a traditional course where you are overwhelmed with piles of mostly pointless literature. It is instead a course where you learn best practices for any aspiring PM from actual PMs. It’s not the kind of course where the instructor tells you exactly what to do in every situation, but a course where you get guidelines, general rules and tricks that you only obtain through years of experience. It’s a very practical course, plenty of group activities.
About the course itself, here are some facts:
- The network that you have access to is really amazing. In my class (I took the Weekend course) there were engineers from Google, Cisco, Symantec, PwC and Microsoft among other companies. At least half of the class drove every weekend all the way from Silicon Valley to San Francisco just for the course and we all made it to the end. No dropouts.
- The instructors and guest speakers were all experienced professional in their own fields and work for some of the best companies in their area. For example:
- Carlos, taught most of the course. He has co-founded at least 3 companies related to education. One of them got into 500Startups and won the best startup prize at Startup Chile. He was also an instructor at General Assembly.
- AB Testing was taught by a Product Manager at Optimizely
- Online Marketing was taught by a Product Manager at ReTargeter
- Our resume was personally reviewed by a Senior Recruiter at Linkedin
- We did mockup interviews with recruiters from at least 3 companies looking for PMs at that time
- The Demo Day was hosted by Riviera Partners (recruiting firm in SoMa) and they invited several companies looking to hire PMs
- We were asked to provide a few names of companies that we’d like to work for and the Product School team helped with personal introductions to these companies
- We all got our resumes reviewed by Hired.com and were offered to publish them in their site
- We got access to a platform called PerkHub where you find hundreds of discounts and free versions of apps like JustInMind or Balsamiq (Prototyping)
- You get access to the weekly meetups where Product School brings experts in different fields to discuss hot-topics in the Product Management area. I absolutely recommend this meetups, not only for the guest speakers that are always relevant (Founder of Do.com, Nir Eyal author of Hooked, etc), but for the networking.
- We receive every week - even after the course is over- the PM ToolKit, an email with job offers, news, tools and other resources to keep us up to date in the trends in Product Management.
Summarizing, this is probably the best Product Management course you can take in the Bay Area and, at a very reasonable price for a 8-weeks course. It’s even cheap if you think of all the perks included in the tuition. Only the resume review and mock up interviews would cost hundreds of dollars. Not to mention the privileged treatment in some hiring processes at selected companies.
I would recommend this course to any engineer looking to transition from Engineering into a Product Management roll.
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Anonymous
Amazing!
It was a great experience overall. The course included latest methodologies and practical techniques. The instructor was super supportive throughout the course. I was a part of product management course. It was well segmented in terms of module and the exercises in between classes was very useful. -
Anonymous
Completely Useless
I took the course and am now not only with no job as a PM but also down $4100 because not only was the course a poor learning experience but so has been its promise in making me more marketable as a PM. -
Anonymous
Great Course!
The product management course instructors are awesome and super supportive. The content included in the course although intensive and comprehensive, I enjoyed the 10 weeks I spent learning about PM and excited to start my PM career. -
Anonymous
PMC Certificate with Shilpa Vir
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Recently finished up my Product Management Certificate course and had a great experience with our instructor Shilpa Vir. I didn't have a technical background and was able to learn a lot and gain many valuable skills in the class with Shilpa's instruction and through our productive discussions. The group homework and assignments were nicely tailored to teach me main PM skills and examples our instructor provided have been very helpful to understand the topic even if you have not worked in tech companies before. Learned a lot over the last two month in our class and working on landing my first PM job. -
Anonymous
Product Manager Certification with Shilpa Vir
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I got what I was looking for with the Product School Certification. I am so glad I took the Class with Instructor Shilpa Vir as her feedback is always honest and objective. She is able to be quick on her feet and is clearly highly experienced, which makes her reasoning when solving a problem extremely insightful. She made sure everyone felt heard and followed through with extra office hours. The Students in the class were very supportive as well and we learned a lot from each other. Highly recommend it if anyone is looking to shift careers or go more in depth as a PM. -
Anonymous
Product Management Certificate
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Just completed the Product Manager certification course. WOW. First and foremost - Shilpa the instructor was amazing. Her resume looked impressive which is why I decided to dedicate my Saturday nights for two months for the course. She dished out knowledge and expanded on the course material whenever she felt that she can bring added value. She held office hours TWICE a week for both European and U.S. timezones and provided deep feedback to all assignments.
It was a privilege and an honor to learn from her.
The course material was also fantastic and immediately applicable. As a student, you can get out of the course as much as you put it. With reading assignments and homework, you should plan on investing at least 8 hours a week if not more and use all the resources that are added in the class notes. It's a great tool for both those who are trying to get into product management and those who are looking to round up their skills. My 19 cohorts included many who will make amazing product managers and will have a great career. And this is the last great thing about the course: the class. It was such a fantastic mix of cultures, backgrounds, ages and a vey healthy 50/50 female/male ration, one could not have asked for a better cohort.
Highly recommend.
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Anonymous
Product Management Certificate
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My experience with product school was great. Management is very flexible and tailored the course material to cover all aspects of product management. Our instructor Shilpa Vir came with a strong background in Product Management with many years of industry experience. She is very knowledgeable and gave many practical examples from her own expertise. Under her guidance and with the knowledge we gained in the class, we were able to successfully deliver our final project starting from setting the product goal & Business objective to GTM strategy & Market funneling. Our classes were very interactive, and she encouraged all students to participate in class discussions and share their insights. I would highly recommend Shilpa as instructor to anyone who is interested in taking a course at Product School.