Succeeding as an introvert, building zero-to-one, and why you should PM your career like you PM your product | Deb Liu (CEO of Ancestry, ex-Facebook, PayPal, eBay)

Aug 22, 2024 1h 11m 17 insights Episode Page ↗
Deb Liu, former VP of Product at Facebook and current CEO of Ancestry, shares tactical career advice. She discusses PMing your career, building zero-to-one businesses within large companies, and succeeding as an introvert.
Actionable Insights

1. Choose a Supportive Life Partner

Consider the long-term impact of your relationship on your career, choosing a partner who lifts you up and acts as your greatest cheerleader. A balanced home life is crucial for a successful career.

2. Plan Your Career Like a Product

Approach your career with intentionality, just as you would a product, by defining milestones, desired skills, and metrics for success. This allows you to measure decisions against long-term goals and shape your path.

3. Prioritize Continuous Learning

Consistently seek to learn from the best and get feedback, as continuous learning will help you improve daily and outperform those who are merely experts today. Balance learning new things with having impact in your current role to keep growing.

4. Embrace Adversity for Resilience

View failures and hard feedback as opportunities to learn and grow, rather than avoiding them. Overcoming adversity builds resilience, which is crucial for long-term career success and strength.

5. Fall in Love with the Problem

When seeking a role, especially in product, demonstrate genuine passion for the problem you’re trying to solve, the use case, and the customer, rather than just the product or company. This passion can help you succeed even without extensive experience.

6. Reframe Self-Promotion as Education

Overcome discomfort with self-promotion by reframing it as educating others about your team’s great work or advocating for more resources. This shifts the focus from personal gain to collective benefit.

7. Practice Speaking Up as a Skill

For introverts, treat speaking up and communicating your work as a learnable skill, not an innate trait. Practice it consistently, even if uncomfortable, to build credibility and momentum for your product and team.

8. Take Strategic Career Swings

After gaining core skills, strategically take ‘big swings’ in your career (e.g., working on innovative, high-risk projects) to create impactful stories and change your trajectory, understanding that these ventures come with a higher failure rate.

9. Envision Ideal Career, Work Backwards

Envision your ideal long-term career destination (e.g., joining a specific board) and then break down the path into actionable first steps. This approach helps guide your choices and provides a clear direction.

10. Implement a 30-60-90 Day Plan

When joining a new company, adopt a 30-60-90 day plan focused on listening and learning first (e.g., a listening tour for the first 30 days), then aligning on vision, and finally executing. Share this plan with your manager to align expectations.

11. Focus on Incremental Growth

Understand that significant growth often comes from a ‘game of inches,’ where small, consistent optimizations (e.g., 1% faster each week) accumulate over time. Prioritize shipping many small hypotheses to learn and iterate quickly.

12. Cultivate Patience for New Product Innovation

When building new products or ‘zero-to-one’ initiatives within a large company, cultivate patience, as the failure rate is high and success often requires significant iteration with minimal resources and attention. Treat it as a portfolio strategy where not everything will succeed.

13. Ensure Equal Voice in Meetings

Implement practices like offline voting in documents or going around in a circle for opinions to ensure all team members, especially introverts, have an equal voice in decision-making and discussions.

14. Offer Help to Build Relationships

When joining a new team, actively ask colleagues, especially in cross-functional roles like engineering, what one small thing you can do to help them. This builds reciprocal relationships and trust.

15. Leverage Coaching for Feedback

Seek out coaching (individual or peer groups) to help process feedback constructively and overcome personal challenges like perfectionism or imposter syndrome. Coaching can transform how you react to setbacks and adapt.

16. Transform Your Current Role

If you don’t get a desired job, choose to transform your current role and team into what you want it to be. This involves taking the raw materials you have and shaping them towards your aspirations.

17. Document Repeated Advice

If you find yourself repeating the same advice or insights more than once, write them down. This practice helps you organize your thoughts and share your knowledge more broadly.