Community
Product Buds
Breaking into product during COVID's hiring freeze was disorienting — no community, no feedback loop, no way to practice the craft. From May 2020 to January 2024, I and my team grew Product Buds into a 40,000+ member community, guiding 600+ aspiring PMs into real product roles.
Mentorship
1:1 pairing hundreds of aspiring PMs with people who'd actually done the job.
Teaching
I designed and taught the curriculum myself — workshops, fireside chats, case studies.
Community building
Grew a community of 40,000+ from scratch, leading the 20-person volunteer team behind it.
Product management
Ran it like a real product — a funding model, a program roadmap, metrics that mattered.
40,000+
community members
600+
landed real PM roles
45+
live webinars hosted
15,000+
unique event attendees
12
company partnerships
$20,000+
grassroots revenue
Members have landed offers at
What members say
Nicole Chui
Rotational Product Manager at Dell
“These past 11 weeks flew by — I'm joining Dell's Product Management Rotational Program after graduation.”
The problem
Breaking into product during COVID was disorienting — no community, no feedback loop, no way to practice the craft before a real interview.
Metric that matters
The metric that mattered: aspiring PMs who actually landed a role — 600+ over 4 years, without diluting 1:1 mentorship quality as we scaled.
Key tradeoff
Stayed grassroots — funded by partnerships and ticket sales, not investors — so the mission stayed accessible, not extractive.
Biggest risk
Volunteer-run momentum is fragile; the real risk was ever letting growth outpace the mentorship that was actually getting people hired.
The programs
Fellowship
10 weeks · flagship
The paid flagship: 1:1 mentorship, fireside chats, and a final case study for your portfolio.
Protothon
Design-thinking pitch
Teams pitch a new product to industry judges — a few projects became real startups.
Product Jam
4 weeks · recurring
A faster, recurring version of the same arc, with weekly PM office hours.
Product Splash
5 weeks
The earliest version of the format — refined over time into Protothon and Product Jam.
Product Opportunities
Ongoing
A community-run job board, built on Notion so volunteers could keep it current.
