 You feel frustrated that you don't have transferable skills into product management, and you don't have a technology background, and you don't have the community of people who is able to support you throughout the entire process. You are not alone. Our guest gel had the same challenges as you do, but she was able to successfully transition from a banker on Wall Street into a senior product manager working for Web3 Technology Company. So today she's gonna share with you her challenges and how she was able to make fast transition within three months, and I believe all of you guys can use the same strategy to advance your career as well. Guys, this is Dr. Nancy Lee, a director of product and featured in Forbes. I have helped hundreds of people learn their dream PM job offer in fan companies and unicorn startups and continue to get promoted as a part leader. If you want to achieve the same kind of success, please go to pmaccelerator.io to learn more. If you want to learn the most effective way to become a product manager, please make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit the like button so it will be notified every time to turn on your video every Wednesday. If you like any of the free tips we provide today, please make sure to hit the like button and share this video with aspiring product managers because we are gonna change millions of people's life together. We are having our influential product leader, Parkha series, and today I had a pleasure to invite gel and who come from Falcon X, which is a leading crypto trading company. I'm very excited for her to share with all of you guys regarding her experience, how she actually transitioned from a trader on Wall Street into the very high-tech and crypto trading industry. So let's welcome gel. Hi guys. Hi gel, how are you doing? Hi guys, I'm good. Thanks Nancy for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be on our channel. Awesome, awesome. So gel, so as you know, for the influential product leader, Parkha series, we'd love to bring in all the leader, product leaders in different industries. So can you quickly introduce yourself regarding your background, what industry you're in? Yeah, yeah. So I grew up in China. I came to New York for graduate school as a financial engineering. And after that I joined Morgan Stanley. So I've been working Morgan Stanley for almost seven years. At first as a risk manager, then I was a trader. I traded at these swabs and indexed through relatives. And you know, trading the same product for four years was kind of boring and repetitive. So I started looking for my next step in my career. And I determined that product management will be my next career move. This is awesome. Okay. So for people who doesn't know Falcon X, can you give them a quick introduction? Like 30 seconds overview regarding what is Falcon X? What do they do? Absolutely. So Falcon X, we are serious to the crypto startup. We just raised our funding in May at eight billion valuation. We have a bunch of really credible investors like GIC, the Singapore Sovereign Fund. And we're trying to build most of the technology events, the trading platform and prime project business in crypto. So similar to Morgan Stanley and Goldman in the traditional asset space. We're essentially, you know, trying to be the best trading partner of all the like SM managers, hedge funds and all the institutional clients. This is amazing. Another side tip, when Jill started into Falcon X, I was very excited. I was like, this is the one because they are like Morgan Stanley for crypto industry, for people inside the industry, you guys know, it's like very prominent major company. And even if they are still like seriously startup, they are still startup, but they have been profitable the whole time. They actually do not need the investor money. Just somehow they just like, they just want to grow faster with a billion dollars evaluation. Very, very excited for you to join them. So Jill, you brought up very important tips regarding when you got started, you are somebody who works on Wall Street as a trader, trading traditional like finance product. And now you're a product manager in a very like high tech and sexy industry which is in the crypto web three industry. So can you tell us what your challenges in advancing your career into product management in the crypto trading company? How it get started with the top three challenges you faced? Yeah, so I think for me, the biggest challenge is to find the transferable skill of trading. And trading, it's kind of specific as you are expert on a specific product and a specific market, but it's hard to transfer that skill in other industry. That's why you see a lot of people work on the Wall Street on the same job for like five years, 10 years and 20 years. Because it's hard to switch around. So it really took me a long time to find, what am I trying to grow skills are and what industry that can be beneficial to. Other challenges was, once I sort of find that product management is really interesting is something that I want to get into. I had no idea of like how long that would take, what sub industry I need to go into because I thought self driving is super interesting. Internet of thing was also super interesting but I didn't have relevant experience. So I didn't know, oh, should I go to FinTech? Oh, should I go to another really interesting industry? And all on that the profession takes, I had no idea. And once I sort of, even when I like a zone into a specific area, the product management interview, it's a lot. They're like a behavioral interview of product design, product execution, product strategy, they're so a lot. And it's, I just didn't know like where to start. I see. So Joe, actually you faced lots of big challenges just like other of our audience. And so can you share with them how we conquer those challenges one by one? Let's start from your first challenge regarding identifying your transferable skills. So that one I probably took a lot of detours is that took me many, many months. I, you know, read a lot of articles on different kinds of careers and I just randomly saw an article about a banker transitioning from, you know his banking job to product management. And I thought, oh, that's really interesting. And I started linking to like a lot of product managers does. And as I learned more, there are actually a lot of transferable skills from my trading job because as a trader, I essentially work out with our font team or tech team to build trading applications. So similar to product management in the sense that I specify the requirements for the tech team to build a product. So you identify, you want to become a PM. So why don't we talk about your second challenge regarding which industry you need to go to. You mentioned several IOT, like self-driving cars that all sounds cool and sexy and how you actually like, decide to join a crypto trading company. How you conquered the second challenge? Absolutely. So that was actually really a frustrating period in the beginning. I'm like, okay, if I want to do the internet of things like what are the things I need to learn? How long does it take? It might take like a year. It might take two years. And I didn't like my trading job back then. So I just wanted to get a job as soon as possible. And that's, I think where your program really helped me. So when I had a first conversation with you, you really learned about my background. You just identified that think tech will be an area where I can leverage my existing experience. And I think if I want to get a job offer as soon as possible, that would be the best route. And turn out it's a really good strategy that I was able to focus my effort on the think tech companies and focus my preparation on the think tech companies. And I got my first offer within three months. This is amazing. Three months. We love this. Now let's also talk more regarding the crypto trading direction. You know, think tech has traditional think tech such as Bank of America doing checking account. I found this very boring personally. Okay. It's like whatever watching this it work for Bank of America maybe it's a couple of changing jobs. But there's also other industries such as like web three industry and you happen to truth niche down into trading inside of web three. So tell us how you make those choices. Yeah. I would say there are like two reasons, maybe three reasons why I chose a crypto company instead of traditional finance. First reason is as you said it's probably a little bit boring but the other thing is still culturally that product management is supporting function in advance. It's still very sales focus and trading focus versus at a tech company product manager to the center of a tech company. So I wanted to go into a more tech driven and product driven companies. That's why I decided not to go with the traditional banks. And the other reason is I wanted to work in a faster growing startup versus a well-established traditional banks where cause I've seen Morgan Sonny that our growth in our current business has been static. Well, in fact, you're actually getting paid higher than fan pms right now which is back to the original like directions you pick. You pick like high growth area and now they also happen to like be able to grow very quickly and fast growing and being able to actually reward the high performance in company with higher salary than fan company. I believe this like fantastic choice. I love this so much. Totally, totally. I mean, a lot of people ask me, oh, if you get a pay cut or something, I think that's the answer I didn't. Actually, much more. With my expertise, it's probably higher than my trading golf, actually. Yeah. Even the cash base is also very high based on my knowledge for all the offers we negotiate. So congratulations. So faster and also getting paid more. So when I learned that there are, it's just the product management to research so complex. I wanted to have a community where I can bounce ideas to with and I can do log interviews with. So when I learned about the program, I looked at other programs as well, like a product school. But when I learned about your program, I just liked the fact that it has a really bounding community and also having very structural courses that tell me how to prepare behavior questions, how to prepare all the other difficulties on execution strategy. Interviews help me a lot. I would say overall, I think your program was really instrumental to my interview preparation process. Thank you so much for saying that. Okay, guys, we didn't pay her to say anything like this, but if you're interested in PMX... Yeah, that's true. Cool. If you guys are interested in PMX Center, you can go to the description of this video and step one, register for our free masterclass and also submit your application to meet our head mission and also whoever selected to join the program to join our communities and you are able to get started, jumpstart your PM career. Now, Joe, let's do this. I actually, I'm very curious about your shift. So lots of guests, we bring into the Influential Product Leader Parkup series. They have this sudden shift that usually they are flat and all of a sudden they hit a shift and then they create a takeoff, right? So what's the most important shift that push you to the next level, especially as banker on Wall Street, probably you're probably the only female trader, I guess. So what's the most important shift that push you to where you are right now? I would say in terms of my career and transition, the breakthrough moment is to niche down on the crypto trading area. Because I quickly learned that, there are other areas within the Fintech company are really not a good fit for me, right? If I go to Payment Company or Interest Tech Company, my past experience are not relevant to them. So sort of a detour to my career versus the crypto trading company is really value my trading experience in traditional finance, especially at a big bank, Prime Broker at Morgan Stanley. And they really value my knowledge and understanding of the financial markets and the financial products. I think that's one of the reasons that I can, I run for really quickly at the current company. I'm already leading really important meetings and projects and I think people think I'm adding value. So this is honest, I think I can't find a better fit where, this is not only, is not a detour for my career, even though I made a transition, I changed my career, it's sort of a booster to my career even because it's perfectly combined in my past experience and what I'm interested in, what I'm passionate about, which is the product management. This is fantastic. So now I wanna ask you this question, I believe all the audience will ask this question regarding, you know, currency, crypto industry in starting from May, the price just dropped and tank, management things going on. And people are being wondering, is it still the right industry for them to join as they're still building like high-tech product? So what's your take on that? And also why actually when you joined them, actually joined them last month, actually when you joined them, crypto market has already went down. So what's your decision-making process? I think there are two things that are only disparaging that are really important. First is I truly believe in the big thesis of the digitization of, that will transform the financial industry. So I believe that, but it's gonna take many years, even decades to achieve that. So with a big vision in mind, I don't think it's a bad timing to enter the markets. And the second reason is you gotta remember there are many fair markets in the, not just in crypto industry, in tech industry as well. And with that happens, what most tech companies do is, instead of expanding and a growth, and they just focus on building the product. And that's what we're doing here as well. Even though we're seeing a lower trading volume, we actually ramp up our product building process, we're launching many new futures, launching new products. And the third reason why I enter this industry now or chose this company was, as you said, Falcon X has never lost money. Even during the bear market, so Genesis lost a billion dollars, we are pretty much in this case because we have a very rigorous risk management as a trader. I think that's one of the biggest reason why I chose Falcon X, just because we don't take access to risk that's not our business model. We offer great technology products to clients and that's why we were able to charge premium on our clubs. That's why we interpret that was like, this is the one, remember? It was like, they are the one. Amazing, very good. Awesome. So now, so tell us more, maybe people are still thinking about joining the crypto industry and actually there is a stats out there, actually 68% of the fortune-frisher companies were born during a recession. And actually like was a commonality between Google, Apple, Netflix and Amazon, all those companies, they were born during recession as well. So your company is very, very smart regarding their product strategy. Let's build the most important and most like adding value of product during a quiet time and also managing those risks. And that's why I can help you guys become the number one premium trading companies within the website industry. So that's very smart. I love the strategy behind it. Awesome, cool. All right, so let's do this. Let me ask you this question. So given that everyone is like, now everyone want to join Falcon X right now. So what's a day today look like at the product manager in Falcon X? Okay, so it's gonna cliche to say that not a single day is the same for product manager, right? So I guess the first component, obviously this is the product design and working with engineers on like what needs to be built. The second component, it's understanding what clients requires. And it's actually really interesting for OTC derivatives because a lot of the backend systems that we just have to build, no matter what client needs. But I quickly realized I cannot be disconnected from the clients because clients can tell me where the market opportunities are and how fast we need to bring the products to market so that I can make trade-offs decisions on, okay, do I want to build this internally? Do I need more engineers or do I just buy a product? And choose to be told, my week two, the second week I joined a company, people were asking me to make a decision on whether to invest in a company or buy the product from a company, which is a huge decision. But the fascinating part of this job is it gives me a big authority and decision-making power. And it's also like a new learning for me. I've done like sort of product management, pseudo product management more than I've done before, like in terms of working with engineers, but I've never made an investment decision or product decision in terms of like do we buy or build, which it's a classic question that even big companies face. This is amazing. Actually, you're actually really leading this new methodology, like focus on doing product management correctly during this quiet time. Actually, this happened multiple times to our students. Actually, Anastasia joined Uber and he's doing the same thing. When Uber was growing like crazy, he basically said the same thing, they don't have the formal product management methodology once he joined, he did like organizational overhaul to say, hey, let's just like redo how product management is supposed to be done in Uber. So now as an influential product leader, can you share with the audience what advice would you give to other people who want to jumpstart their PM career? I think I would maybe just start what you're going to figure out if this is the right career for you because it requires a lot of investment. So definitely do your soul searching, talk to people, read articles, use our network. And after you have that determination, you really got to put together a plan for yourself, like what are your goals, which similar to me, like what industry are you trying to get into? It's impossible for you to focus on machine learning and then self-driving and then out, or then fintech, it's just impossible. So you got to have a focus on yourself and have a plan for your job searching career. I really highly recommend your program, which from the very beginning on helping people identify what direction they should go into, what their strengths are, how they prepare the interview, have a drafting a plan. I think that's really helpful. And the third thing is you can complete a lot more as a group than by yourself. So having a community is really important. Whether you find a community through, Nancy's program, your friend community is through other programs, or through like linking or networking, it's really important to have a community to go through the journey with you. This is amazing. Thank you, Jill. And actually you mentioned communities, actually we have free communities. We have free LinkedIn group and also WeChat group. We're going to put the links in the description of this video. My team may also put some like barcodes on top of us. You can join and also people inside of PM, PM excited communities and we have very tight communities, actually the most engaging PM community. And that's why we have those kind of monthly alumni panel and also like influential leader podcast series for people to grow together. So very excited to see your success and growth. Jill, thank you so much for joining us. Awesome. So any last tips for everyone before we close down the podcast? Yeah, I guess I will just put my offer out there like for people who need some help who want advice on, you know, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'll be available to help people. Awesome. Thank you so much for giving back to the communities and helping other to grow and also get out the traditional banking. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. So I want to transition from banking as well. I'll have one. Yeah, awesome. So thank you very much, Jill. And thank you for joining us. And I believe all the audience enjoys this podcast series so much. And if you like all the advice and Joe gave you guys, please make sure to hit the like button and subscribe and also share this video with any people who want to break into management, especially people working in the traditional finance industry. It's time to move on and do something sexy in tech. Awesome. OK, thank you. Thanks for having me, Nancy. Awesome, awesome. Thank you, Jill. All right, great. Good to see you, everybody. All right, have a good day. See you guys. Bye.