Hi, I’m Sam! I have been a product manager for years. Now, I work as an industry mentor for the product, strategy, and operations track at Pathrise. In this role, I help people land their dream jobs through 1-on-1 mentoring. Check out my review of Product Talk Academy!
- What does Product Talk Academy do?
- Who is Product Talk Academy for?
- What does Product Talk Academy cost?
- Ratings and reviews of Product Talk Academy
- Alternatives to Product Talk Academy
- How does Product Talk Academy compare to Pathrise?
What does Product Talk Academy do?
Product Talk Academy is an online product management association with over 6,500 members. They offer courses, workshops, and coaching to help people become a product manager.
Masterclass
Their masterclass features live instruction with small 20 student cohorts. Classes run for 6 weeks and meet weekly for 2-hour sessions. Students participate in live lectures, Q&As, and hands-on exercises as they apply the lessons they learn to case studies. In addition to getting access to a Slack channel, students can subscribe to the optional 12-month “Continuous Discovery Habits” for a more in-depth curriculum. In addition, they receive bonus Q&A community calls every month.
Students in the masterclass develop the habits and critical thinking skills they need to thrive in a high-performing continuous discovery product team. The curriculum covers professional skills like making team decisions, starting with outcomes, and discovering opportunities. Students learn to conduct interviews, automate the recruiting process, synthesize across interviews, and outline customer experiences. The curriculum also teaches students to navigate the opportunity space and map solutions. Finally, they learn to surface and test key assumptions and even master ideation.
Deep dive courses
Deep dive courses run for 4 weeks with instruction delivered via recorded videos and articles. Students get lifetime access to the material, participate in 4 hours of live group practice, and get access to a Slack channel where they can ask questions and get feedback.
Currently, deep dive courses are available on 3 subjects: continuous interviewing, defining outcomes, and opportunity mapping. Students in the continuous interviewing course learn to ask useful interview questions, improve their listening skills, take better notes, and automate the recruiting process. In addition, they also work on synthesizing interview responses into snapshots they can more easily act on.
The defining outcomes course first teaches students to set specific goals. Then, they learn to understand lagging business indicators like market share in terms of customer behaviors. Finally, they go over how to negotiate product outcomes with their leadership team.
On the other hand, students in the opportunity mapping course learn to synthesize across customer interviews, identify unmet customer needs, find pain points, and structure the opportunity space.
Who is Product Talk Academy for?
People with little to no experience in product management who are looking to get their PM careers off the ground could benefit from Product Talk Academy. Likewise, the program is especially helpful for people with full-time jobs who are seeking short, self-paced courses with hands-on activities.
What does Product Talk Academy cost? How much work is involved?
The masterclass costs $1,500. However, deep dive courses cost $449 each. In addition, discounts are available for groups of 5+ students. A subscription to Product Talk’s newsletters, articles, and workshops is free.
Masterclasses and deep dive courses are open to anyone. In fact, there is no formal admissions process and no technical experience is required.
Ratings and reviews
Although Product Talk Academy does not have too many reviews, so far the reception has been positive. Redditors described the curriculum as “really powerful” and appreciated that it “covered a little bit about so many different things.” Others said it had a solid reputation among product managers. Similarly, one Redditor was recommended the program by a mentor who “speaks of it very, very highly.” Although one student felt “the price was steep” and another was disappointed that “it was a little too breadth but not depth kind of a class”, overall grads seemed very satisfied with the program’s practical curriculum and small cohorts.
Alternatives to Product Talk Academy
If you decide not to enroll in a Product Talk Academy course, there are a number of other resources and bootcamps to help you land a job as a product manager.
- The product management association Product Gym offers training, job support, and networking opportunities for aspiring product managers. Classes are flexible and can be taken remotely.
- Similarly, Mind the Product is a product management community with 150,000+ active members who participate in workshops, memberships, and networking events.
- You can also check out Bubble no-code bootcamps to learn how to make products without coding. Learn more about Bubble in our review.
- Product managers with 1-3 years of experience can check out Product Faculty. Their part-time online bootcamp helps students accelerate their product careers. Students get access to their Slack community, 1-on-1 career mentorship, and advanced product management (APM)(R) certificates that they can add to their resumes upon graduation.
- If you are looking for formal certificates, Product School and Product Innovation Educators are good options.
- Likewise, Product Academia also offers full-time and part-time PM courses with formal certificates for grads. Their focus is on helping women launch new careers as product managers.
- Women, GNC people, and trans people can check out CodeOp, which has courses in web dev, data, and product management.
- The Menon Labs fellowship helps people learn the skills to become web developers, data scientists, and product managers.
- You can also consider Linky Product, which has self-paced courses and a bootcamp.
- Likewise, School16 teaches marketing, sales, and product management. Beginners can also check out Dorm, which helps people get into startups.
More alternatives
- The popular bootcamp General Assembly teaches full-time, part-time, and 1-day courses on a variety of tech topics including product management. Their program features 19,000+ hiring partners, hands-on projects, and a 91.4% job placement rate. Read more about General Assembly in our review.
- Similarly, BrainStation is a tech bootcamp with product management courses. Students work on product management projects, participate in professional development, and get access to 1,000+ hiring partners like Google and Facebook.
- Students seeking a bootcamp experience can also check out Thinkful, which has a 6 month online, part-time course in product management. Their curriculum includes live classes, PM projects, and 1-on-1 mentoring. Students access to an income share agreement (ISA) so they pay with their salary after they land a job.
- Likewise, GrowthX Academy has courses for people who are interested in product management, UX design, growth marketing, sales, and business development.
- Students seeking university courses can check out edX. Their online platform hosts courses from top universities like Harvard and MIT, plus big tech companies like Microsoft. Students can choose to learn the fundamentals or dive deeper into specific topics, like Agile systems for product management. Learn more about edX in our review.
- The online learning platform Coursera also offers free product management courses taught by professors at accredited universities with recorded lectures, hands-on assignments, and community discussion forums similar to Product Talk Academy’s Slack channel.
- Finally, people seeking hands-on learning and mentoring on a budget can look into Udacity. They offer self-paced courses on product strategy, design, and launch. Students in their “nanodegree” programs work with both a technical mentor and a career mentor as they build polished PM projects. Learn more about Udacity in our review.
How does Product Talk Academy compare to Pathrise?
Product Talk Academy offers masterclasses and courses to people who want to launch their product management careers. While courses cover key professional skills for the job search, the program does not actually provide any job support or career services.
Pathrise is a career accelerator that has helped 1,000+ people land their dream job by helping with all phases of the job search. Fellows work 1-on-1 with mentors on resume and LinkedIn optimization, portfolio building, technical and behavioral interview skills, and much more. The curriculum is tailored to the needs of each fellow.
Our program is flexible with only 2-4 hours of group sessions per week and 1-on-1 sessions that can be scheduled as needed. The Pathrise income share agreement (ISA) means that fellows don’t pay anything until they land a job they love and start working. We never require deposits or upfront payments.
Pathrise optimizes the job search through 1-on-1 mentoring. Fellows in our program see their interview scores double and their application responses triple, landing jobs in just 3-5 months on average. If you want to land your dream job faster, join Pathrise.
Apply today.
