 Hello, my name is Zee and I am currently a product manager at LinkedIn. Today I will be talking to you about being a product manager at different company scales and how to find out which one best suits you. So for today's agenda, I will talk about briefing tour about myself and we'll talk about different company sizes and kind of what they mean, we'll then talk about the trade-offs to consider when choosing a company of different sizes. And finally we'll talk about how to make the decision for which one best suits you. And within that, Ba Ke would talk about how to make this general type of career decision like a mental framework and also mention some caveat and tips. Before we get started, let's take a quick pause. Just wondering, you know, whether you have ever wondered about this. What's it like to work as a product manager at a different company size, which is different from what you are doing right now? And what scale of company should you maybe start or go to next if you are looking for a new opportunity? And would you like somewhere else better or maybe it would be a bad move if you take that job offer on the table? And how to make this type of decision in general when you either want to make a move or you have opportunity laying on the hand? So yeah, let's find out together if you ever wonder about this or start thinking about this. So a little bit about myself, I have around seven years of experience being the product space, five years focusing on product management and two years as a product specialist. I am also a part-time painter as you see on the picture on the right hand. So I actually graduated as a mechanical engineering major from Georgia Tech before I became the product specialist in professional services team at VMware AirWatch. I then went to Cornell get my master's degree in data science slash information science before I moved to the Bay Area and worked as a product manager at a small startup called Link. It had like 40 people, but then I wanted to be a little bit more focused on product management work instead of wearing so many hats. So I went to a medium-sized company, medium to large app dynamics, which is part of Cisco before I made my latest move to LinkedIn. I gave this briefing to also to talk about, you know, kind of, I'm not a person with 30, 40 years of experience, but sometimes it can actually be good to give you advice as someone who is similar or a little bit more experienced than you because we actually have more similar contacts and experience in our professional career. So we actually have more relevance. It is easier for me to kind of be in your shoe at a few, what type of problem you are facing and why you might be thinking what may be helpful for you, not actually vice versa as well. So let's get into it. What are the typical company sizes? Let me put it in the front. There are many different ways to kind of categorize company sizes. Some people say one to 10, five, 50 to 100 and vice versa. I am just going to do like a generic size categories that is small as 1 to 100, medium, 100 to like a thousand, larger, 1,000 plus. These are employee counts. Again, these are not setting stone. You could bucket them a bit differently, but just for kind of context for this presentation, this is kind of what I mean when I say like a smaller place versus large. And these company sizes is not the only thing that you want to consider when you make a career move. However, this is pretty important as each company size kind of process a different, a very different kind of property and the work environment. Not to be confused though. I want to point this out. I know there's many things you want to consider when you make a career move, but do not confuse it with different product stages. Like product have a development cycle from the actual development to market intro to growth, mature, decline. These are sometimes tied to the company size, but not always at all. Do not confuse these two. A very big company could have product in development or in intro while like a company of small size maybe have a very mature product that's possible. So just be aware and keep in mind that these are two different things. And if you want to work on a product that is mature, yes, larger company probably it, but look into each company and the product you're working on individually do not make assumptions. So what are some of the pros and cons of working smaller versus larger company sizes? I will go to the smaller first. So some of the good things or pros typically, again, depends on the company and team. But typically you are likely to be more efficient and move a lot faster in a smaller company. So for example, I was working at Link. There was 40 people. I have everybody I work with, mainly in the office next to me. If I want to make a big change, I just grab it already, have a meeting, see whether there's any caveat, any suggestions. Then I go ahead and write a spec, ask people to review, just tap on a shoulder and work out all these details in the spec and then address any concerns on the fly. Then we can move very, very fast. And if there is any questions during the development cycle, the developer will just reach out to me directly, either virtually if we are working remotely or in the office, just tap on a shoulder again, for me to answer any questions. This is easy with cross-functional as well. Again, small team, tighter communication, less process, very high efficiency. Another good thing about working at a smaller company is I usually make a very company-wide impact. So again, use my personal example at Link. It is a little bit more extreme as I was the only PM other than the CEO of the company back then. Basically, I own 100% of the product. So basically, whatever the product direction is going to go, it really depends on just the CEO and my collaboration. Obviously, we also take everybody else's suggestion, but we are the only two actual product people. Even though later on as a company scale there, we have more PMs drawing, each PM actually owns a huge part of the product, so you can really make a big impact on the overall company's product direction. So if you're looking for really product leadership and make huge impact within the company, within the team, that is a smaller company, maybe right for you. Another thing is you have more autonomy. Along with the wear multiple hats, these could be pros and cons, because everything could be pro and con, but especially for wearing multiple hats. Yes, you have more autonomy in a smaller company yearly, and along with that, you wear as many hats because you don't have a very specialized team for every step of the way. So for example, I have to do sales training sometimes. I have to come up with designs at times. I have to run queries manually before we had an analytics team. This is, again, good and bad because you have a lot more growth opportunity to learn a lot more than just product management itself. You also know a lot more about if, let's say, we were to hire another team or specialized person, what that person is going to do and what pain point they're going to work on. So you have a lot of saying those type of things. You also understand how a company works a lot better. But then that brings me to the cons. Startups or smaller company yearly have higher risk, especially during a time when the economy is not doing super well. I'm not saying do not take risks, but take calculated risk. Depending on your situation, how much financial and personal risk you can take, think about this when you plan to join startup. Because while there are many brilliant founders and the companies, it is still true that for startup, the risk is not higher. There are still many failures that could come. Not bad, but just remember. Another thing comes with wearing multiple hats is certain work can be really scrappy without established process tools and data. You could enjoy it, but sometimes it can be tedious when you don't have, for example, an easy way to run a query. You have to write it manually, then double check whether you get the data right. Or even you don't even have data pipeline. You either need to have some way to get the raw data, or you need to build the data pipeline with your team to have better analytics, for example. Again, it comes from my personal experience and some of my coworkers with startup experience as well. You also probably don't have enough or many tools. As you run into new problem, you probably will discover different tools and team needs as well. You also may not have all the different teammates that specialize in each and every single thing when you are working. So for example, analytics or design or data science, these are a team I work with a lot currently or in companies with bigger sizes. But when you are in a smaller company, a lot of times you have to discover these needs and work with your team to find out those people or just be scrappy at times. One last thing is it's likely that your product is in early stages, as I mentioned previously. That means you may not have as many user impacts. So that means you probably don't have a huge user base. The dollar impact wouldn't be so huge. So for some people, it really doesn't matter to them. But keep in mind, if you are looking for making an impact, that will spread out to many user base. So on the opposite hand, larger companies. It's pretty much just the opposite. So I'm not going to go through the details as much. But yeah, you have lower risk because a larger company, you already have your back, even if, let's say, your project got cut or it's not super successful when you're experimenting. Then you really have ways to either fund something else or even transfer to a different team. So you are likely to have lower risk. Another thing is you will have, on the other hand, like a huge product impact even if you change something small. So for example, I could be at LinkedIn, I could be making a super small change, but that impacts multi-million dollars or many, many users. You also have more data and tools to work with, obviously, because you're within bigger companies. They have faced many problems and have tools to solve each and every of them. You're also more focused in product. Again, you may not like it, but typically, because every single function has a dedicated team, you can be a bit more focused outside of cons because you have such a big organization and when you work cross-functionally, there are many, many stakeholders. So you tend to have a very complex process. You can't just tap on the shoulder and do whatever. Instead, you're likely to submit tickets or go to a office hour and then go through a formal process approval from different levels. Things like that when you are trying to make any changes. Again, there's a reason for this, which I'm gonna go into, but this does make things move slow as well, which is another account. You have to make sure you communicate thoroughly among your own team, cross-functionally to upper level and lower level. There's many people, many organizations, so this makes things slow. You also have lower company-wide impact for obvious reasons. Instead of three PM, you probably have 300 or something. Each product manager will just own a smaller piece of the whole product. So why is that the startups have less processes and moves faster and larger companies don't? Why do you have to have such a huge process? And why sometimes the lack of process actually a problem? It's actually because usually if you design as well, obviously, when you have more process, in place, you're less error-prone because you make sure the communication is clear among everybody that's involved in the process. From development, we write products back all the way to product launch, like marketing, and customer service. There's many organizations and people that are involved in this have a good process among every step of the product lifecycle and among all these teams are important to be less error-prone because humans will make error and there are many human beings, many teams are involved in this. However, this also means you will have more time spent. So the best thing to do is to find a sweet spot where you have not so much process that it takes forever to do anything, but enough to avoid majority of the errors. This is true for both startup and larger company. However, in startup, because you have less people, you are less to make many human errors in here. So now that we talked so much about all these different company sizes and how they are, how do you decide which one is right for you then? And also let's say we're not talking about the company sizes, we're talking about product stage or a different type of product, like B2B or B2C, how do you make these decisions? Is this what you think, like, oh, I'm a college grad, maybe then I go to startup, if I got a job offer, I just take it and if you're experienced, then you have more choices and maybe go to a large medium once. Yes, decision tree is pretty easy, but that's actually how now to approach this or any type of decision you kind of wanna make. Don't do this. I wish it's that easy, but I will tell you kind of the mental framework, which is still not too bad. There are three main step of actions I recommend doing. So one is do the research. Kind of like this course, you know, you are asking others who has a bit more experience, you read articles and watch courses online, which is, you know, super easy to get all these resources online these days, great. So after you understand a bit more of the kind of the trade-offs, what it's like from a research perspective, ask yourself, what is your priority? Is it learning more about how different functioning the product works? Is it leading the, is it like having product leadership? Is it just having a job and be very stable? What is it that you care the most? And also along the way, you know, what are you good at? What, which bucket of area do you wanna grow? Or would you not like? I think it's actually very important. If you don't wanna hate a job, don't find some type of work that has a large bucket of time spending on the things that you don't like to do. But basically ask yourself these questions and prioritize based on these research data, say, okay, based on my P0, P1, if you're a product manager, you know what I mean. Based on my P0, P1 criteria, maybe which move should I do next? And then last but not least, try it if you can. I know the opportunity is not always there, but in turn, shadow other people, do side projects if available to try this. Because sometimes you may think you like one thing or you actually do it, you may not. That's totally okay. It's also totally okay to actually, you know, take the job and find out you don't like. It's all normal. You could internally transfer a team who go somewhere else. My point is while you can't avoid, you know, these more processes from like moving too much, but do have the expectation that you may not actually like what you think you're like. So try it if you have the opportunity. And again, we don't do the decision tree stuff because everyone has different experience, interest and strength. And remember these before you, you know, kind of do all these and think you have a decision. Again, reputation is your friend. So I'm gonna repeat some of my previous points. Company skills does not always correlate or doesn't mean product stages. If you like working on a product that's early stage, doesn't mean you have to go to a startup. Again, research all what these means and what the trade-off is for a different company, scale verse and product stages make a decision among all these information based on your priority. There's other things to consider as well, obviously. Again, are your users, you know, for product managers, users are very important. So are your users a business or is it consumers? It's actually very different. Again, recommend research. So B2B, B2C, PN is very different. I've have done both, I've also done B2B2C, very different. And then you have different company cultures. You may think you like a product that they work on, you may think you like a team, but if you don't like the culture, you may not be happy within the team. You may not enjoy the work that you do. You also need to remember macroeconomy. There's risk, there is industry trend, you need to think about the bigger picture we make this type of decision. And once again, your expectation may not be your reality. Try it if you can. One last thing is like, you may hear other people, like that's why I avoid talking about my own feeling towards each company scale. I didn't say I like it one or the other. Really, other people cannot answer a question for you. Even the very successful PM tell you they like certain things, you may not like it, please remember that. So always think for yourself before you think, basically before you just blindly take others' suggestion. And some tips in making this decision also in life. Once again, keep an eye on the big trend. You want to make sure you see the big picture. When you are planning your product roadmap and when you are making career decisions, you want to be flexible. The only thing that will not change is change yourself. Things will always change. Do not think, today I'm very comfortable, I'm just going to be like this forever. Things I like to change if you don't kind of look out and seek growth, it may be a problem. And take calculate a risk. So I think no matter how much you research and try and all that, there are still some risks, it's okay. Just make sure you are making a conscious decision by understanding what may be the risk involving each decision. And go ahead and do it, today is the best day to make any changes that are too late. So don't be afraid, but just make conscious decisions instead of blindly doing something. Last but not least, have a gross mindset and keep learning. If you have one takeaway from this presentation, honestly, I hope is this. I personally, I used to think like a while back, people are either smart or they're not. I can either be good at one thing or I'm not. Actually, that's not true. I read this book called Mindset, which the author talks about the gross mindset. That means whatever you are maybe not good at right now, you can work on this to improve. It sounds really cliche, but when you actually think about this, it's fantastic because then you are not afraid of failure because there's no failure, there's no mistakes unless you don't learn anything from it. Actually, if you never make mistakes and there's no failure, quote unquote, then that may be a problem. It probably means you're not growing or maybe you are super genius as possible as well. But yeah, keep learning and keep growing. Okay, here's a summary for reference. You know, we talked about different company sizes and what not to be mixed up by. And then we talked about the pros and cons for different company sizes. And we talked about how to make the decision which is like do the research, think it through for yourself and try out which company size or any other aspect of career decisions will fit you. And then we talked about some tips and caveat which I try to summarize as keep the big picture in mind, be flexible and have a gross mindset. Okay, so here's how you can contact me and once I asked my mentor in coffee chat, I was like, why do you do this for me? You know, it's free, you're not getting paid. He said, because others help him like this as well. So that really stuck with me. That's why I'm doing this today. You know, if you think I've helped you a little bit, please just remember this and to help others as well. So here I also have my LinkedIn, my Medium, which I don't publish as often anymore and the website. So feel free to contact me there if you have any questions, I'll try my best to get back to you. Thank you.