Community
Product Buds
Breaking into product management is confusing and lonely without a network. I co-founded Product Buds in 2020 to connect aspiring PMs with mentorship, mock interviews, and real case-study practice — it's grown into a global, volunteer-run community.
The problem
Breaking into product during COVID's hiring freeze was disorienting — aspiring PMs had no community to lean on, no honest feedback loop, and no easy way to practice the craft before an interview.
Metric that matters
Primary: members who land a PM role after engaging with mentorship or mock interviews. Leading: weekly active participation (the community passed ~925 weekly actives within its first 3 months). Guardrail: signal-to-noise in the community — growth that dilutes the quality of help defeats the point.
Key tradeoff
Free and volunteer-run vs. a funded, paid model. Chose to stay free and community-led so cost was never a barrier to access — the tradeoff is depending entirely on volunteer bandwidth to keep programs like the Fellowship and mock interviews running.
Biggest risk
Volunteer-run momentum is fragile — it lives in whoever has bandwidth that season. The risk is real impact (people actually landing roles) getting harder to sustain as the founding team's attention shifts to full-time jobs.