Don't Leave Before You Leave

On managing a career as a woman, by Sheryl Sandberg.

Career Advice

from my CEO

How's the new job?

I finally married a company! After a summer of job dating, I finally found a company that I found as exciting as they found me. This week, I started work at Polyvore, a successful fashion community start up, to work on marketing.

What have I learned?
-Fresh perspectives bring valuable product feedback
-Product managers and engineers solve problems by building products, not that fuzzy marketing stuff

new job advice

In preparation for starting my new job at Polyvore, my old manager gave me the following advice that may help others starting new jobs.

Ask yourself: "What are you most excited about? What are you most worried about? Why?" The answers to these questions may reveal goals, opportunities for development, and opportunities for impact.

Homework:
-Your perspective will be clouded within a few months of working at your new company. Before starting, write down what you've learned about your company's consumers, what works, and what doesn't work
-Understand what past difficulties you've had in past jobs, and find ways to overcome similar obstacles in your new job
-Write a personal development plan for goals to achieve and skills to develop. Refer back to this plan to get you through the day-to-day grind.
-Finally, imagine your new job as a 6-12 month endeavor that you're "testing out" to remind yourself that you always have a choice to stay or leave your company, regardless of whether you stay for many years.

Let's be product managers

In Silicon Valley, working as a Product Manager for Google or another major consumer internet company is a right of passage into working in the consumer internet world. It's like spending 2 years in investment banking (or investment management in my case) at a major investment bank after undergrad before continuing in finance. Other common uses of the "X investment bank" on one's resume is to show that you can analyze something and use excel.

Well, not everyone can be a product manager for Google, or a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs. But, the good news is that there are resources out there to help you learn. I've had the Silicon Valley Product Managers Association recommended to me by a friend. You can find useful articles for new product managers and tips for current product managers to stay up to date. Still on the hunt for other resources, but here's a start.

A Community of Learning

Similar to how airbnb creates a marketplace for people to rent space (eg. couch, room, house), Teach Street creates a marketplace for people to advertise and look for lessons. Teach Street's tagline is "an online community for people who love to learn" - I mean, who can say no to that? I have spent 6 years in undergraduate and graduate school, so I do love being in communities where people love to learn and share knowledge with each other. I think this product appeals to anyone who's ever been a bit bored and wanted to learn something new (eg. housewives, retired people, working people wanting to spice up their routine). My question is who ends up selling these classes. Stay tuned.

Ease of use?

Learned of Polyvore's new mini-editor, which allows people to create online fashion style boards and post to Polyvore's online fashion community. Wondering how easy it is for someone not familiar with the tool to use it. Also, wondering what other widgets sites create for bloggers to use.

Give it a shot. Too bad the mini-editor doesn't fit within the blogger page and it's unclear how to change the fashion items in the tool.

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