How do you 'practice' getting good at product?

Question

Startup founder here and I'm really struggling doing a good job with product. I aspire to be good at it but I tend to think abstractly, overcomplicate things, etc.Are there books you'd recommend? Courses? Things I could do daily to improve the skill?I ask because most blog posts are vague and unhelpful... Also "just build things" is a great approach that I've been taking but it also takes a long time so I'm wondering how to actually iterate, get feedback, etc.Thank you.

rogerkirkness · Accepted Answer

* Make a list of at least 50 "jobs to be done" your customer has. Force rank by highest to lowest impact on their business outcome.
* Write out as much detail as you can about your customer in the form of personas.
* Read every support@ email for a day and cluster their problems into groups, build whichever group has the highest frequency.
* Read Mythical Man Month, Softwar, Design of Everyday Things
* Write up what you think the world will be like in 5 years. How does that connect to what you're building?

bredren · Answer

Use more web products and read support forums where users ask how to do stuff.
Read complaints about UI in highly upvoted issues of public ticket tracking systems.
Practice explaining why a workflow in gmail is great. Or why it sucks out loud.
Learn to code. At the very least learn to manipulate static html and css using the console.

pmthrowawayhi · Answer

Also, one more question: are there good communities you'd recommend around product managers or those focused on building products?