Shilpa Vir, Taylor Street at Spring St, San Jose, CA (2026)

10/03/2021

Twitter APM program is now open and accepting applications! Twitter typically accepts less than 10 APMs each year. You need to be a student graduating in 2022 or an industry hire with less than 2 years of experience.

This year’s application window closes on October 8th! I’d recommend you apply by 7th to be safe. I have heard horror stories of people trying to apply for APM on the last day, only to find that the application had already closed due to timeline issues.

Lastly, be sure to select “Product Management” as an area of interest on the application.

Save this post (and share it with others too). Be sure to watch my IGTV AMA session for the APM programs from last month! I will comment with tips and resources as well.

What is APM?: Associate Product Manager (APM) programs are special new grad roles designed to train young top talent to be great product leaders. They consist of training and a few rotations between teams within the company.

Note: Instead of sending me dms with questions about this post, please leave a comment and I will reply them here. It will be faster for you and help many other people at the same time.

https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/ni/Twitter2/38c17a4c-60d1-4333-b666-22632c1ce39b-2022-engineering-new-graduates-and-early-career-north-america-latin-america

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09/22/2021

Of all the product management questions, “How to enter Product Management?” is the question that I get asked the most often. My answer, anyone can get into product management, but not everyone will enjoy it and not everyone will be great at it without learning and developing ______. Learn more about this 5th product manifesto PM challenge today in our clubhouse chat. Join me with Mayank Yadav and Felix Watson Jr.
When: Sept 22nd, 3:30PM-4:30PM PT
Where: clubhouse

We will have the podcast and video link for this event in two weeks, drop a comment here in you can’t attend today and need a link.

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09/20/2021

The much awaited Google APM program is now open and accepting applications. But hurry because it will close in 3 days!!!

This year’s application window is incredibly short: you’ll have to apply by this Wednesday, September 22nd — though, to avoid timezone mixups, I’d recommend you apply by tomorrow, the 21st. I have heard horror stories of people trying to apply for APM on the last day, only to find that the application had already closed due to timeline issues.

Save this post (and share it with others too). Be sure to watch my IGTV AMA session for the APM programs from last month! I will comment with tips and resources as well.

https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/115697436187337414-associate-product-manager-university-graduate-2022/

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09/15/2021

Product Prioritization is an art? Well it should not be an art - its should be a structured, data driven decision process with all stakeholders included. Join us today (Sept 15th) as I discuss the 4th Product Manifesto Topic ""How do i prioritize" with Andrew Nguyen (Bark) Mayank Yadav (Facebook) and Soumeya Benghanem (VMWare). Its going to be a packed room!!! See you there
When: Sept 15th 6:00PM PT
Where: https://www.clubhouse.com/event/xVKYJoe3

(Please leave a comment if you cant attend and want a podcast/video link later)

09/06/2021

BIG NEWS for 2022 grads who are aspiring to be PMs! Coinbase university grad APM positions are now open. Detail and application at https://www.coinbase.com/careers/apm

Please note that these are fresh university graduates positions not experienced hire positions and are only available for students that are graduating in 2022.

Save this post (and share it with others too). Be sure to watch my IGTV AMA session for the APM programs from last week!

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09/02/2021

Announcing

Back in May,
the CEO of reached out to me and asked my opinion on what he called a crazy idea!

The idea was Product Manifesto! “Think of it as agile manifesto for product managers” he said. The idea was to bring together some of the prominent product leaders in the industry and create a resource that any product manager can use to orient themselves when they feel lost as a product manager. As someone who was intimately familiar with the feeling of being lost in the new product manager role, I was instantly onboard.

After several working sessions with other members of the core working group ( and some other brilliant product managers Not on IG) and review meetings in the past 2 months, we now have a working draft which we are evangelizing and getting feedback on. Check out http://product-manifesto.com and https://productmanifesto.substack.com for more details on the initiative

I am truly excited about this and I hope you are too!

07/28/2021

Podcast link: https://www.unseenbattlespodcast.com/podcast/s1e14

When people see my career trajectory and all the marquee companies I have worked at, it’s easy to assume that I was given a good start in life, or got great sponsors or had a great network that got me into companies. The reality is that I am a first generation immigrant brown woman who has had to fight every step on her life… to be heard, be respected, taken seriously, escape toxic and abusive environments, defend her choices, break stereotypes and claim her due…. All before I even entered adulthood! Even after that, I didn’t just get lucky in my career… ever!!!

I have grown my compensation more than 10x in my career… on my own terms and never compromising my happiness… but I worked hard for every bit of the success I have achieved. I persevered through every hardship that came my way. I always dealt with my struggles behind the scenes, quietly and privately… I have never been the one who depends on others for strength and support or shares a lot publicly… because in most cases either I was let down or had to be strong for others who depended on me. I became my own hero, my own cheerleader and my own champion.

Today I am openly sharing one of my unseen battles. This is not the hardest thing I have had to do my any means, but I know many of you have faced similar challenges and will get courage from this story. My only request is that if this story helps you in any way, please do share that with me and others.

If I could only have one virtue in me, I’d pick courage. Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

If I can give you one advice, I’d say “Believe in yourself, and the rest will fall into place. Have faith in your own abilities, work hard, and there is nothing you cannot accomplish.”

06/28/2021

Happy Monday everyone!

Monday is not the day to be back at the grind stone. Monday is the day to be back at your passion. If you’re working for the weekend, you’re doing it wrong.

KICK ASS, EVERYDAY!

Inspired by the productivity boost I am getting by sharing my progress everyday with you all (thanks ), I am taking it further and sharing my weekly goals. This week, I am going to conquer the following:
1. Strategy papers at work and other things I can’t talk about outside work
2. Course outlines and curriculum for my PM courses
3. 5 workouts
4. Progress on backyard re-design
5. A blog post or reel for you all

What are you going to conquer this week! Leave a comment below and experience the productivity boost yourself!

PS: Shoutout to and for sharing their daily to-dos a while back! I’ll be using the idea to share my priorities from time to time!

06/22/2021

Day 16 of update!

Having finished the business models, I have moved on to GTM (go-to-market) strategy next. I picked this area because each business model has diff challenges while launching and growing and needs specific considerations while creating a go-to-market plan.

I often use Nextdoor for a GTM case study while coaching my clients because depending on the product strategy and MVP, the GTM plan can have many variations and it serves as a great exercise to understand GTM considerations. Naturally, I am going to write it up for my course. But I am also planning to cover others including , Gmail, Uber, Facebook Messenger, Fitbit to name a few.

I have been going about course content in rather haphazard way because there are some modules I have thought about in details in the past few months. But after this GTM module, I am going to spend some time in curriculum design.

If someone know a consultant that has experience in curriculum design, please do make a connection. Oh and I am also looking for a designer to help design some assets.
Thanks

What’s happening with everyone else’s challenges?

06/15/2021

Day 9 / 100 of completed

Last week was all about product strategy. Dug into various as well as frameworks and even prepared student case studies and worksheets but it’s time to move on.

Theme of this week is business models and business model innovation frameworks. Don’t forget to swipe and see a couple memes I found on the topic! 😄

Spent today’s focus time cataloguing various common and finding successful implementations of each. Also looked for failure examples and digging deeper into moviepass for a failure case study. If you have any examples of business models that succeeded or failed, please do share!

My picture here is from a recent outing at San Jose rose garden. The flowers were not in full bloom back then, but I had enough flowers in my attire! The point I want to make is that sometimes you will find amazing beauty and joy around you and you will@soak it up but sometimes you have to bring joy and beauty to your surroundings and make the best of what you get. Such is the nature of life and thanks to the downtimes and gloomy weathers, we learn to appreciate the upswings and sunny days in life! ☀️💐

.subedi_ .vedantt and everyone else who is doing a challenge with us!

shilpavir.com

06/07/2021

Day 3 / 100 of done! Version 1.0 of the checklist seems complete. I will field test it myself as I am onboarding into a new role and come back to it to make adjustments and do one more pass at it before locking it down. As I was working on it, I realized that the checklist was made for a senior product leader and some of the things will not be applicable to new PMs so I will likely make a variation to go along with the main checklist that new PMs can use.

On to Product Strategy now! Head over to my stories to vote for what to work on next.

Finally, a few details about this picture. This is a potato plant that I grew almost by accident. I was propagating roses in my garden and I stuck the rose cuttings into potatoes before planting then to ensure the roots stayed moist. Funny enough some of the rose cuttings didn’t take off, but the potato plants did and now I am growing more potatoes, Taro and ginger because it was so easy. But the point I want to make it that as product managers, we should keep experimenting with product s and features. Sometimes those experiments will succeed, sometimes they will fail and sometimes, like in this case they will help you make an amazing discovery and pivot.

On to day 4

06/03/2021

I am beginning my 100 day challenge tomorrow! Thank you
for the inspiration and encouragement! I spoke about it on my stories yesterday and got a bunch of questions from people who were interested in doing a challenge as well. So here is my take on the challenge which I call

❓What is the challenge you need to do? The challenge is “whatever you want to learn, create or be better at” To be clear, I am taking on a personal challenge that is meaningful to me and I am inviting you to set your own goals. It could be learning about PM, working to land/ change job, take a PM course etc. or something completely different. The idea is to be intentional and consistent about achieving your goal.

❓What is my challenge? I am taking on this challenge to create a 2 product management courses and launching my PM Acadamy later this year. I have been thinking and dreaming about these for over a year and I see this challenge as a perfect opportunity to make a meaningful progress on it.

❓What are the rules and milestones
1. Share your goal publicly! Don’t forget to tag me and Aakriti so we can cheer you on!
2. Identify at least 3 milestones spread over 100 days so you can track your progress and celebrate smaller wins. They matter!
3. You have to spend a fixed amount of time each day working on your goal.
4. It’s up to you if you want the challenge to include weekends. Akriti is taking on her challenge all 7 days of the week while I am doing 6 days a week given my other commitments in life. Do what works for your life but make it a bit hard otherwise what is the point of calling it a challenge?
5. If you miss a day, treat yourself kindly and be better the next day. Don’t let one failure stop you!
6. Share at least weekly on your progress to keep yourself accountable. We are more likely to stop/give up when no one holds us accountable!
7. We will likely not all be in sync and that is completely OK!

So wish me luck and tell me about a goal you want to achieve this year?

Shilpa Vir