See your Career as a Product - Erik Torenberg

Every great product should have a moat, and careers are no different. I previously wrote about personal moats, today I want to further flesh out the “Career as a Product” metaphor. When building products, you first want to focus on having a solid product that’s 10x better than the competition. Only after you have that do you begin doubling down on marketing, PR, and other growth tactics — the common advice is to nail retention before focusing on growth. Similarly with careers, you want to Get So Good They Can’t Ignore You (10x better product) before doubling down on networking (marketing & PR). Part of being so good at something is that it brings with it it’s own form of defensibility: in careers, that’s legibility and durability — as time goes on, does your work look more impressive or less? Having founded Netscape looks more impressive as time has passed, to name one example. Other product tropes also apply to careers: Capitalize on unfair advantages, insights, or relationships. Dis

Every great product should have a moat, and careers are no different. I previously wrote about personal moats, today I want to further flesh out the “Career as a Product” metaphor. When building products, you first want to focus on having a solid product that’s 10x better than the competition. Only after you have that do you begin doubling down on marketing, PR, and other growth tactics — the common advice is to nail retention before focusing on growth. Similarly with careers, you want to Get So Good They Can’t Ignore You (10x better product) before doubling down on networking (marketing & PR)