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Hey friends 👋
I've done 65 ADPList sessions in the last six months. Different people, different backgrounds, different goals. But I keep hearing the same question, just dressed up in different outfits.
"Should I apply if I don't have PM experience?"
"Is my Customer Success background good enough?"
"Do I need to get certified before anyone will take me seriously?"
"Should I wait until I've shipped something before calling myself a PM?"
Here's what I've realized: nobody is actually asking these questions.
What they're really asking is: Am I allowed to want this?
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The permission problem
When I was working as a CSM and started thinking about product management, I didn't tell anyone for months. Not because I was being strategic about timing. Because I was terrified someone would laugh and say "you? A PM? With your background?"
So I collected evidence first. I took online courses. I read everything. I practiced frameworks on my own. I built this entire case for why I might be allowed to try.
And when I finally told my manager I was thinking about switching careers, you know what he said?
"Yeah, that makes sense. You've basically been doing product thinking this whole time"
I'd spent six months asking for permission from the wrong people, everyone except myself.
🧠 Pro tip: If you're waiting for someone to tell you you're "ready" to pursue PM, you're going to wait forever. The person whose permission you actually need is you. Everyone else is just validating a decision you've already made (or haven't).
What's actually happening in these sessions
Three weeks ago, someone apologized for "wasting my time" because they "only" had a few years of work experience and hadn't shipped anything of their own yet.
I pulled up their LinkedIn. They had:
Identified a gap in the customer onboarding flow that their team fixed
Created documentation that reduced support tickets by 30%
Built relationships with three key enterprise customers
Advocated for product changes based on customer feedback
"You've been doing PM work," I told them. "You just haven't had the title."
Last week, different person, same dynamic. "I know I should probably get my MBA first..."
They were already running user research sessions for their team. Creating prioritization frameworks. Shipping features based on data they collected.
The credentials weren't the problem. The translation was.
🔧 Try this: Look at your last performance review or LinkedIn profile. Anywhere you "identified a problem," "advocated for a solution," or "improved a process" - that's PM work. You've probably been doing it without calling it that.
Here's the pattern I keep seeing
People who've done PM work without the PM title think the gap is:
Formal education
Certifications
"Real" PM experience
Technical skills they don't have
But the actual gap is usually:
Not recognizing the PM work they've already done
Not knowing how to talk about it in PM language
Asking for permission instead of building proof
The person who needs to believe you can be a PM isn't a hiring manager. It's you.
☀ Quick Reflection: Every PM I know who came from a non-traditional background (Customer Success, Support, Sales, Creative roles) went through this exact thing. The ones who made it weren't the ones with the best credentials. They were the ones who stopped waiting for permission and started building proof-projects, spec docs, side-of-desk PM work, anything that showed PM thinking.
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The real question
Here's what I wish someone had told me when I was asking "Am I good enough?":
You're asking the wrong question.
The better question is: "What's the smallest step I can take to prove to myself that I can do this work?"
Not prove it to a hiring manager. Not prove it to your current boss. Prove it to you.
For me, that was:
Writing a spec doc for a feature idea at my current company (even though nobody asked for it)
Running a retrospective with my team using PM facilitation techniques
Building a prioritization framework for my own backlog of work
None of that was "official PM work." But it gave me proof that I could think like a PM.
And once I had that proof, for myself, the permission question disappeared.
☀ Quick reflection: What's one piece of PM work you could do in the next week that would give you proof? Not for a resume. Not for LinkedIn. Just for you. To prove to yourself that you can do this.
Try this today
Open your resume or LinkedIn. Look at the last two years of your work.
Ask yourself: Where did I identify a customer problem and advocate for a solution?
That's PM work. Even if you were in support. Even if you were in sales. Even if nobody called it product management.
Write down three examples. Not perfectly. Just write them.
Then rewrite each one using this framework:
Problem I identified: [customer pain point or business gap]
Action I took: [what I did to investigate, propose, or push for change]
Outcome: [what happened, shipped feature, reduced friction, influenced roadmap]
You don't need permission to see your experience differently. You just need to look at what you've actually been doing.
Pro tip: If you're stuck on the "outcome" part because nothing shipped or changed, that's okay. Reframe it as: "Outcome: Brought visibility to [problem], which influenced [team/decision/conversation]." Advocacy is PM work even when it doesn't immediately result in shipped features.
I'm still figuring this out too. Some weeks I feel like I belong at HubSpot. Some weeks I'm convinced someone's going to realize I don't have ann MBA and show me the door.
But I've learned this: the gap isn't what you think it is.
You're probably already closer than you realize.
See you next week,
Stef
💬P.S. Want to talk product? I'm mentoring on ADPList! If you're managing roadmaps with limited resources, trying to figure out what to cut, or just need to talk through capacity planning, you can book a free session with me right here.
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