His title is Director of Product and Strategic Market Development, but Andrew Kirchner is much more a crusader for clean energy than any job title could do justice to.
"I went to law school. I had a stint as an environmental prosecutor where I was chasing down people who polluted lakes or tire factories or things of that nature. I realized pretty quickly that I was too backwards looking. It wasn't going to be building a more sustainable future. It was going to be trying to punish people who fifteen years ago committed some ill, which is a valuable task, but for me it was how can I make a difference in this mission in a forward-looking way? How can I build the companies of the future that are going to address climate change, that are going to address resource scarcity."
Andrew is telling me this - as well as giving me tips on how to train for a marathon - from a tech campus in Santa Monica, where his company Inspire is co-headquartered (their other office is in Philadelphia).
Inspire is making incredible strides to bring renewable energy into homes across America. But its big vision is to disrupt regulated markets with low costs to consumers, better service and big returns on home investments.
The biggest challenge Andrew and his team face today is learning how to leverage effective Product Management strategies to roadmap, market and sell "invisible" services.
In today's conversation, we talk about the Swiss Army approach to getting hired and six other Product Manager molds, Andrew's best friend "Eric," as well as how to deploy experiments when there's no code involved and "humble Product Management."
Tune in to the whole conversation below or subscribe on iTunes.
It's such an important question. The first thing I would say is let that passion seep through. Work your network, take every meeting you can get your hands on, and just let that passion be clear. Andrew Kirchner on leveraging your personal mission to help you land a product management job.
In this episode:
- Where do startups go wrong with implementing OKRs
- Can OKRs really scale for enterprise?
- What are pipelines and how do they change the way we think about product roadmaps?
In this episode:
- From retail to product management
- Why relationship building is the number one required skill a product manager could have
- The value of having confidence with humility
In this episode:
- Establishing a clear vision of your career path
- Using metrics to answer burning product questions
- What product managers can learn from biology
