A founder built his first real mentor relationship by messaging a product recruiter on LinkedIn, meeting for coffee without asking for mentorship, and letting the connection deepen naturally. They shared an immigrant background, and the recruiter eventually became an instructor at his company.
And so I can share a little bit of a story that how I got my first product mentor, actually my second one. When I started Product School, I really wanted to find amazing product leaders from top companies to participate as speakers or instructors. And I didn't even know where to start. So I just went to LinkedIn and I found this guy was a product recruiter at LinkedIn. Anyway, long story short, I sent multiple messages and this guy responded. So it was truly a numbers game. But the reason why he responded is because even though I didn't— I cannot claim that I had relationship with him, I would say he resonated with my story, like the same way I'm resonating with you right now, Joy. Like, he was also an immigrant and he started very early in product and he knew there was a need for what we do, right, for creating more product leaders. So he agreed to just have a coffee. You know, I didn't start very strong with like, become my mentor or become a speaker somewhere. No, it's like, look, I just want to learn a bit more. And this is what I'm working on. And I've seen you super active on LinkedIn. And he agreed to coffee. And we met in San Francisco for coffee, you know, and then I had to earn that second coffee. And he ended up actually becoming a speaker and then an instructor. And what not.
