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Mr. Luu Dinh Thang is currently Senior Product Manager at Cốc Cốc. Here, he is in charge of Desktop browser products and other feature products such as Newsfeed, Cốc Cốc Accounts, Cốc Cốc Points,... and if you are a follower of Cốc Cốc browser, you will be able to easily identify these products.

 

With diverse experiences in different positions, Mr. Thang has made an impressive working experience base, starting at FPT Software, FPT IS,... and now at Cốc Cốc Technology Company. Having been working with Vietnam's leading browser product, Mr. Thang used to be the Assessor Manager of the DNA team in the first 4 years of joining, and from the beginning of 2019, he returned to work in a new position, a Product Manager.

 

In the first episode of Ask a Senior, let's discover with us the story of "making products" from the view of a Product Manager through Mr. Thang's sharing!

 

 

As a Senior Product Manager at Cốc Cốc, can you shine some light on the responsibilities as well as the required skills of this position?

 

I must admit that I have never been in the position of Product Manager officially, before returning to Cốc Cốc, but my experiences working in different positions, working with different projects and products helped me a lot when I started as Product Manager at Cốc Cốc.

 

In my opinion, the key thing for a Product Manager is to: understand the product, understand the users, understand the market, understand the team.

 

• Understand the product: To understand what product features are helping to solve the user's pain points, what are the core features of the product. Also to understand the "health" of the product through statistical indicators that track each feature.
• Understand users: To always put yourself in the shoes of the user when evaluating/developing a certain feature.
• Understand the market: To grasp the developments in the market, actions of the competitors as well as development trends to have a suitable orientation for the products.
• Understand the team: To understand the team, to build a team with the same goal to develop the product. Understanding the team will also help you to build a suitable product development plan.

 

Furthermore, the Product Manager is the one who will direct the product development and make decisions about the product features to be developed. So there are always key factors to decide on new product/feature development, which are:

 

• The users: Which user group is this product/feature aimed at? What user's pain point does it help solve?
• The business: How does this product/feature deliver business results? User growth, revenue…?
• The development costs: How much does it cost to develop this product? With current resources is it possible to deploy?

 

And when you understand and answer the above questions in the process of developing a product, or a new feature, you are working as a true Product Manager.

In addition, one of the other important skills of the Product Manager is data-driven evaluation. In the process of making a product, you can receive information from many dimensions, but the most important thing is to prove the correctness of the actual data.

 

So what makes you come back and take on the challenge in this position at Cốc Cốc?

 

Hmm... my choice to return and to handle the Product Manager position is definitely starting from the love of working with technically demanding products, like the Cốc Cốc browser - a product that has millions of Vietnamese users every day.

 

Moreover, the love of working with the product will be the motivation to make the difficult work easier. For a Product Manager, the biggest challenge will often be how to build a highly cohesive team. All members must have a common goal, always be ready to support each other, and believe in the product development plan. Besides, I will also need to listen to people's opinions, to better understand their thoughts and personalities:

 

• What makes them persistent with the common goal?
• What makes them contribute to the direction of product development?
• What makes them decisive when making decisions?

 

All will be for the aiming of a finished product, meeting the requirements and desires of the users.

 

 

Your advice for youngsters who want to develop themself in the way of becoming a Product Manager in the future?

 

Actually, the starting point to become a Product Manager might come from many: From Engineer, Designer, or Seller, Marketer, ... then with the right direction and enthusiasm to pursue the career path, you will all have the opportunity to become a Product Manager.

 

So for me to give out some advice, I think you should start your way with small products/features first. Then approach more complex products with a large user base or an ecosystem with many different products. Steadily moving up will be an effective strategy to help you take the next steps in your career on the way to becoming a Product Manager.

 

In addition, keep your passion for the product, persistent in pursuing the goal. Just embarking on practical work, you will accumulate experience faster and richer. Persistence is the key to achieving your goals!

 

And in the upcoming future, I also have a goal to accomplish, which is to build a Cốc Cốc products ecosystem, so that not only Cốc Cốc is known for its browser products, search engines, or advertising platforms, but also for its variety of other products in the digital world. Moving towards the prospect of Cốc Cốc becoming the gateway for Vietnamese people to access the Internet every day makes me very excited to start working. If you really love the product that you are developing, you will surely feel the same way!

 

 

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Ask a Senior - The series Cốc Cốc “Seniors” share their expertise and direction of career development for youngsters, helping them to have more inspiration to build the career path up ahead.