The Day I Became a Happy Product Manager
June 23, 2016

The Day I Became a Happy Product Manager

by Ron Yang

It was a big month. I was leading product for a Los Angeles-based SaaS company in the HR space. Our team had released five big new features and was starting to see engagement with the product. We armed our sales team with the features they needed to close some of the biggest deals we had seen all year.


The company was on a roll. Revenue numbers were through the roof — what else could one hope for?

And yet it felt like something was missing. I couldn’t quite place it. Heads down on day-to-day execution, I had lost touch with why I was doing my job. I was buried in the technical details of my product and jumping from meeting to meeting. This is not a bad thing — any product manager will tell you that each day can be a roller coaster.

The problem? I was missing the bigger picture. Every action that I took each day had become a means to its own end. And I got so busy doing the work that I didn’t feel a sense of mission anymore.

Luckily that feeling changed for the better. I was reminded why my work mattered when I got this email from a customer:

“Thank you for an amazing product. It has enabled us to completely revamp our internal processes for recognizing employee achievements and our team has been raving about it. We can’t wait to see what comes out next!”

I needed that email. It made me proud of my effort and what the team accomplished. We had built a product that customers wanted and needed — a huge end goal in itself. But more important, our product helped our customers accomplish something meaningful to them. This is a much harder goal to achieve. And when I realized that we had hit it, I was a happy product manager.

With that tangible sense of purpose, I gained:

Connection Understanding how our product improved customers’ lives helped me become even more connected — to our customers, team, and product. It made me realize that my frustration was a result of feeling disconnected. This experience taught me that being busy each day was no excuse for forgetting why we all showed up — to build a meaningful product for customers we cared about with a team that was invested in each other’s success.

Confidence Knowing that my work had true value and was solving real problems gave me the confidence to lead with conviction. Being disconnected often led to second-guessing my decisions — even when I believed they were the right ones. It is always good to gut-check your choices, since doing so might reveal a better way. But when you check for blind spots and are assured you are leading down the right path, that is the time to watch your work speak for itself.

Credibility Understanding and being able to articulate the value we brought to customers gave me credibility with internal teams. I had a specific use case and testimonial that showed what we aimed to achieve in market. This proof that our product was on the right track gave the rest of my team the same confidence I had.

Every product manager makes tough decisions daily. And those decisions are not always easy or popular. But one customer email was all it took for me to see that every tough decision I had made enabled us to build a helpful product.

That customer email was what I needed: Creating a product that improves people’s lives is proof that my work has higher purpose. That lesson made me a happy product manager.

What’s the moment that made you a happy product manager?

Ron Yang

Ron Yang

Ron builds lovable products. He was the vice president of product management and UX at Aha! — the world’s #1 product development software. Ron has more than 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship and leading product teams. Previously, Ron founded and sold his own company and has been on the founding team of multiple venture-backed companies.

Build what matters. Try Aha! free for 30 days.

Follow Aha!

Follow Ron

Related articles

The Best Cover Letters That CEOs Love to Read
April 13, 2017
The Best Cover Letters That CEOs Love to Read

A well-crafted cover letter is a great way to get noticed. Find out what to include in your cover letter to catch the attention of a CEO.

New Marketing Managers — Do These 8 Things in the First 30 Days
January 28, 2019
New Marketing Managers — Do These 8 Things in the First 30 Days

Are you a new marketing manager? Check out these suggestions from eight marketing experts on how to show your true value in your first 30 days.