Take Your First SIP

⏰ The time is now.

⚠️ ATTENTION: Climate tech, sustainability and other social impact fields are FINALLY getting the attention they deserve. As product managers, this is the perfect time to make the biggest impact possible by leveraging cutting-edge thought frameworks and expertise. ⚠️

💥 The recent explosion of interest in impact-oriented thinking has been spurred both by 1) at-large realignment of corporate values following the pandemic and 2) the recent flood of available talent in this layoff economy. Whether it be social, political, economic, or environmental problems, we have no shortage of impact-oriented issues. With the effects of many of these problems becoming increasingly tangible, the time to adapt our ideologies, thought processes and decision making as product managers is now.

A quick hello: Before I dive into the exciting stuff, I just want to quickly introduce who I am and why I’m writing on this topic!

🧍🏽 Who am I?

👋🏽 My name is Somil, and I am an incoming APM (now called the TGT program) at Schmidt Futures. This program seeks out premier talent to fill a cohort of between 10-12 new graduates each year to do product work for impact-oriented ventures. To get this opportunity, I went through the same grueling recruitment processes that many other new grads and working professionals do to break into product management. I’m also a previous founder of an agtech startup that builds data tracking tools to increase the technological competences of small farms, and would consider myself an aspiring serial impact entrepreneur and lifelong learner.

💻 Why is product important?

tldr: product managers’ position as decision makers within organizations make them the ideal candidates to increase the social impact and conscientiousness of our products.

One of the most daunting tasks that PMs can face is tackling climate change, and Clement Kao, founder of Product Teacher and industry expert, expands on this by writing: 

Last year, McKinsey released a report on the crucial role product development has in social impact, sustainability and climate action. They note:

💡 It is not inherently the title or the knowledge of product managers that make them well suited to affect change, but their position as decision makers that enable their impact. The opportunity to evaluate and choose between tradeoffs is largely passed onto the product manager, but in reality, any roles in which those design choices are made have the same potential for impact as product managers. For that reason, the work of this newsletter applies to decision makers — namely product managers, entrepreneurs, and solution architects, to name a few.

👎🏽 Lack of frameworks

Product managers employ a number of frameworks to evaluate their decision making and ground their assumptions. In order to meet the growing needs of the many social impact problems, our frameworks and thought tools need to rapidly evolve to reflect this additional complexity. Making more conscientious decisions means better understanding impact-oriented trade offs and metrics. 

This means quantifying impact early on in the product design process. Zack Berke, CEO of Exygy — an groundbreaking organization in social impact using their “skills in design and technology to make a real difference in the world”, summarizes it perfectly when he says the following in his article about fashioning product for social impact:

🚶🏽How I stumbled across this

While recruiting for product management roles, I noticed a simple but glaring gap in how I was preparing and thinking about product design as a whole. In system design questions, for example, we could be asked to architect a solution to create a platform similar to YouTube. You have to go through the hard work of figuring out the database design, tables, partitions, use cases, and functionality required to achieve such a feat. At some point, we are asked to consider how many servers, resources, etc. we would need to accommodate the volume we anticipate. The answer usually goes something like, “if one server can account for xyz amount of data, we’ll need approximately abc amount of servers.” Full stop. 

❌ No consideration or assessment for the energy usage, impact on the environment, resource consumption, or any other impact-oriented metric.

I realized that while those in programs like APMs @ SF are fortunate enough to learn about product for social impact, what about the many, many, many other current and aspiring product managers who, when equipped with this knowledge, could create the next generation of impact-oriented technologies? 

☕️ How to take a SIP

A few very encouraging conversations with impact influencers such as Joni Cooper, Jonathon Lyons, Jack Fritzinger, and Canute Haroldson later, I realized I was just beginning to understand the vast amount of useful, impactful knowledge worth sharing. In the absence of it currently being done, I want to change that.

This is a weekly newsletter featuring:

1. Interviews with leading experts covering their experiences in product, entrepreneurship, and impact

2. Frameworks adapting leading innovative contributions both from and outside of the interviews to traditional product frameworks and concepts

One last thing

It’s my hope that the work I do here allows others to feel both empowered and enabled to pursue more impact, sustainability, and climate-oriented ventures. So much has already been done, and yet there is so much more to do. In the social entrepreneurial spirit, I consider this my building in public — building a more sustainable, environmentally-friendly, and likable future for our products and their design. 🚀

Take a SIP. You won’t regret it. Thank you for reading.