First Day of Class - Wait, Didn't I Just Graduate...
iXperience classes kicked off today. The pre-work has been interesting, so I am excited to get going! The assignments included reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug, watching some YouTube videos about Product Management featuring Josh Elman, Hunter Walk of Homebrew VC, and Adam Nash of Wealthfront, answering some questions about how I think about Product Management, and pitching an idea in 100 words. I pitched the idea I have been thinking about for a few months now, a platform that would make the transition to the real world easier and more fun for recent college graduates. The 4 week Product Management class is going to be taught by Johann Van Tonder, a Product Manager at AWA, a online advertising agency in London, and TA'ed by Trevor Hinkle, class of 2017 from UVA.
Finally, it was time for class to begin. The teacher, Johann Van Tonder, seems awesome. He is from South Africa and was involved in the anti-apartheid revolution in the early 90s (he said he attended university more to throw rocks and start riots than to study), then worked as a photo journalist for 5 years covering the South African transition to democracy and other conflicts in Africa. He then moved onto the corporate world but soon quit to join a failing startup, which he then promptly turned around to huge profitability before quickly leaving there as well. He now works as COO at AWA digital, a "leading international conversion rate optimisation (CRO) agency, specialising in e-commerce." He also shared 3 fun facts - he is a Bruce Springsteen groupie and has seen him live over 100 times, he is a karate instructor, and he handles venomous snakes in his spare time.
Trevor Hinkle, who just graduated from UVA with a degree in Business will be the TA, and he also seems pretty cool.
We spent most of the 3 hour class talking about why we were here at iXperience and what we wanted to get out of the class. I really appreciated that the Johann and Trevor seem so involved and really care about whether we as students enjoy the class and take something positive away from it. We also talked about the definition of a product (my simple description as "something you sell" was pretty spot on!), and watched a video about the founding of Airbnb.
My classmates seem interesting, and several have an entrepreneurial background and have taken classes like the one I just completed with Kyle Jensen called "Apps, Software, and Entrepreneurship". Most of the class, including me, was engaged and participating, a great sign for the rest of the month. The main work for the class will be designing and pitching a product idea, and I'm excited to collaborate with (most) any of the other students.
For homework we had to read an HBS case study, "The Product Manager", that just outlined in more detail what exactly a PM does, how he/she fits into the team and organization, and what traits make for an effective PM. It was only 15 pages, but it took me about 2 hours to read over a beer at Dizzy's with Henry, Holt, and Zach. We also had to make a LinkedIn (check) and prepare a 60 second pitch for our product idea.
Overall seems like a really chill, but interesting class with a chill but interesting professor.
Finally, it was time for class to begin. The teacher, Johann Van Tonder, seems awesome. He is from South Africa and was involved in the anti-apartheid revolution in the early 90s (he said he attended university more to throw rocks and start riots than to study), then worked as a photo journalist for 5 years covering the South African transition to democracy and other conflicts in Africa. He then moved onto the corporate world but soon quit to join a failing startup, which he then promptly turned around to huge profitability before quickly leaving there as well. He now works as COO at AWA digital, a "leading international conversion rate optimisation (CRO) agency, specialising in e-commerce." He also shared 3 fun facts - he is a Bruce Springsteen groupie and has seen him live over 100 times, he is a karate instructor, and he handles venomous snakes in his spare time.
Trevor Hinkle, who just graduated from UVA with a degree in Business will be the TA, and he also seems pretty cool.
We spent most of the 3 hour class talking about why we were here at iXperience and what we wanted to get out of the class. I really appreciated that the Johann and Trevor seem so involved and really care about whether we as students enjoy the class and take something positive away from it. We also talked about the definition of a product (my simple description as "something you sell" was pretty spot on!), and watched a video about the founding of Airbnb.
My classmates seem interesting, and several have an entrepreneurial background and have taken classes like the one I just completed with Kyle Jensen called "Apps, Software, and Entrepreneurship". Most of the class, including me, was engaged and participating, a great sign for the rest of the month. The main work for the class will be designing and pitching a product idea, and I'm excited to collaborate with (most) any of the other students.
For homework we had to read an HBS case study, "The Product Manager", that just outlined in more detail what exactly a PM does, how he/she fits into the team and organization, and what traits make for an effective PM. It was only 15 pages, but it took me about 2 hours to read over a beer at Dizzy's with Henry, Holt, and Zach. We also had to make a LinkedIn (check) and prepare a 60 second pitch for our product idea.
Overall seems like a really chill, but interesting class with a chill but interesting professor.
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