You need to have a clear understanding of why one product works, which customer segment is it targeting, what makes the product engaging — nearly all the successful products are used daily- both in B2B and B2C, marketplaces.
TECH Skills —
Server, Database, Frontend — understand how they work. Understand the deployment phase — AWS etc. — It will help you to understand developers constraints. APIs — APIs are widely used as in all the products for transfer of data across apps. You should understand how they work technically and their business aspect(a16z has a good video on it). Resources —
Twitter is the best platform for breaking into Tech. The learning and Networking are unparallel. You have to follow the right people and engage in the discussions.
You can stalk these people — mostly twitter, a16z website, and youtube Frank Chen — for B2B Andrew Chen — for marketplaces, platforms, B2C Connie Chen — Consumer Space & China
Also, follow Daniel Gross(@danielgross), Jeff Morris Jr (@jmj), Erik Torenberg(@eriktorenberg) on Twitter.
A16z summit videos(youtube) — good overview of innovation in various sectors — try to understand their approach while studying an industry.
Books -
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Customer interviews — 1 book — When coffee and Kale Compete
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Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aullet- A great book on segmentation and personas, with good examples.
Podcasts —
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Venture Stories by Village Global Do listen the Daniel Gross Episode for insights into Gamification. If you’re interested in AI products, then 2 great episodes have been recently uploaded as well.
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This is product management.
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Saastr — for Saas.
Communities-
Product School(Slack) Product Hunt That’s pretty much for now, will keep on adding pointers. Thanks for reading.