In the first episode of the Augusto Digital Insights podcast, Brian Anderson interviews Mike Belsito, founder of the INDUSTRY conference in Cleveland, Ohio and co-host of Rocketship.fm.

Mike considers himself a product person that just so happens to manage a totally different type of product: a community and a conference. He explains that his journey into product management started before he even knew it. When his start-up failed, several companies approached him—one for a director of product strategy role.

Mike remembers Googling “what does a director of product strategy do?”. He hadn’t gone to school for it, so he felt he wasn’t qualified. But the company laughed and said, "Oh no, Mike, nobody went to school for product management. You'll be fine."

As he began reading books, listening to podcasts and talking to other product people, he realized there was a potential niche for a community centered on product management. That idea sparked the launch of INDUSTRY and the Product Collective. 2021 will be the seventh edition.

Mike goes on to explain that a product person doesn’t sell solutions but rather pulls out the problems customers are experiencing and guiding them to new solutions. He defines the product mindset as a hypothesis that needs to be validated by getting as close to customers as possible.

He shares that the best relationships between product managers and engineers are when there’s an immense level of trust. The product manager has to demonstrate that they deserve trust by being able to speak the engineers’ language, ask enough questions, and understand what tech stack they’re operating. On the flip side, engineers need to have a natural level of curiosity about what needs to be built and the business implications of it all.

We thank Mike Belsito for his time on the Augusto Digital Insights podcast and wish him the best with Rocketship.fm and the INDUSTRY conference!

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