Who is Shaw Li?

Shaw lives in Brooklyn, NY, USA. Over his almost decade career in product management, he’s worked at seed-stage, VC-funded, corporate-funded, and Fortune 500 companies building customer-facing and back-end products.

Besides his professional experience, he’s also taught product managers at UC Berkeley Executive course and Cornell University.

But he didn’t start his product manager career by joining an APM program. He started out as a strategy consultant.

What is Shaw Li known for?

Shaw's best known for his free product templates and Substack writing. Thousands of views and hundreds of downloads.

You can find highlights of his best writings in his book, Elements of Product Management: Advice and templates to get sht done

He focuses on writing content for PMs early in their careers. You can read more by visiting The Elements of Product Management

What is Shaw Li's advice for other product managers?

Advice for PMs with at least 2 - 3 years of work experience

There is no single "silver bullet" when it comes to developing a successful professional career. While the profession has started to mature, product management is still relatively new compared to other professions like engineers, lawyers, or architects. Thus, there are many opportunities to grow and push the career forward.

Thus, when seeking advice from more experienced product professionals, learn to evaluate their advice based on their career successes and failures. They may or may not apply to your specific situation. This is especially true for PMs in Asia markets who might be looking to US or Europe as a case study. Not all lessons carry over.

Advice for anyone starting as a PM

Congratulations! You have selected an exciting career (yes, I’m biased). While you might feel overwhelmed with the amount of content available, take a breadth. You don’t need to learn everything at once.

Instead, recognize that it’ll take you many years to learn and master new skills. If you think of your career in years rather than months, you can then develop a learning plan. One way to start is by read Ravi Mehta's great piece “How To Become a Peak Product Manager”. Use it as a tool to identify areas of study and practice.

How can you connect with Shaw?

Shaw loves to coach and mentor other PMs. He does this professionally in groups and 1:1 settings. Teaching is one of the best ways to learn.

A quote attributed to Einstein: “once you stop learning you start dying”.

Exclusive to a partnership with airfocus, Shaw’s offering free 15 minute 1:1 video chats on Saturday mornings (Eastern Standard Time) 6/18/2022 - 8/13/2022

Join him in his morning tea by booking a time to chat via this link.