Comprehensive and thoughtful, this is a worthwhile read, especially for folks new to Product Management.
For experienced or well-read PMs, this book would more likely be a convenient way to refresh on key concepts. In other words, it may offer a few new insights but it likely won’t transform the way you think about Product Management. (Off the top of my head, some books that were gamechangers for me are Competing Against Luck, Don’t Make Me Think, Sprint, and Monetizing Innovation.)
I’m rating the book 4 stars instead of 5 for two reasons.
First, I wish a Kindle version of the book were available. According to one of the authors, Amazon’s incentive structure made it infeasible to offer a Kindle version at a fair price. So, while I don’t fault the authors for this gap, it still resulted in a slightly less convenient experience than getting a Kindle book on-demand.
Second, it’s not clear to me how trustworthy the reviews are. In the conclusion of the book, the authors mention they’ve created a $79 interview-strategy ebook. They offer to give it for free, conditional upon writing an Amazon review.
Specifically, they state: “If you share what you liked about Product Management’s Sacred Seven in an Amazon review, we’ll send you a free copy of this normally-$79 interview strategy ebook.”
I spoke with one of the authors, and they plan to update the language of this offer in the next version of the book to minimize bias in reviews.
I appreciate their responsiveness to my call out. At the same time, when I first purchased the book, I wish I had known that some of the reviews may have been biased.
All in all, the book is useful and informative, and I would recommend it, especially for anyone considering a career in Product Management. For what it’s worth, I’ve been sufficiently impressed by the book that part of my motivation in writing this review is to receive a copy of the authors’ interview e-book.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2020
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Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2020
Sacred Seven, on the other hand, goes out of its way to essentially be the PM Bible, covering all the core subjects left out in Swipe to Unlock (e.g. data science, product design, growth hacking, UX, etc). This book combines actionable strategies and case studies with hints of theory to serve as an applied playbook for all PMs.
As someone who is currently going through the PM recruiting process, I especially appreciated the gray boxes throughout the book with interview tips sprinkled in, such as how companies will often ask you to identify the most important metric for a company like Uber, and most candidates fail to realize that this is a test to see if you can call out that Uber is a two sided marketplace and weigh pros and cons of a driver side topline metric vs. rider side one. There are just so many useful nuggets like that in this book which have already helped me land PM offers from both Paypal and Oracle!
Verified Purchase
Swipe to Unlock is great, but this book is even better
By Ben on August 26, 2020
I read these author's first book a while back based on a friend's recommendation that it was good for product management interview prep. That (Swipe to Unlock) was a good fun read and gave useful insight into how FAANG PMs think about technology and business strategy. However it wasn't written specifically for a PM audience but rather for anyone generally interested in technology.By Ben on August 26, 2020
Sacred Seven, on the other hand, goes out of its way to essentially be the PM Bible, covering all the core subjects left out in Swipe to Unlock (e.g. data science, product design, growth hacking, UX, etc). This book combines actionable strategies and case studies with hints of theory to serve as an applied playbook for all PMs.
As someone who is currently going through the PM recruiting process, I especially appreciated the gray boxes throughout the book with interview tips sprinkled in, such as how companies will often ask you to identify the most important metric for a company like Uber, and most candidates fail to realize that this is a test to see if you can call out that Uber is a two sided marketplace and weigh pros and cons of a driver side topline metric vs. rider side one. There are just so many useful nuggets like that in this book which have already helped me land PM offers from both Paypal and Oracle!
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Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2020
This book felt as if someone took all the key product management insights and tactical strategies from all of those books and probably many more and combined them all into a single resource I expected this book to read similar to Cracking the PM interview or something like that, but the storytelling and applied examples make it fell much more similar to something like Sapiens or Freakonomics. Great read that I recommend to all PMs. I've worked at Microsoft/Amazon for three years and previously read all the books I listed above but still learned a ton of new things.
Verified Purchase
If you are only gonna buy one product book, get this one
By John on August 27, 2020
There are so many books you often hear you should read to hone your skills as a PM. Inspired, Lean Analytics, Predictably Irrational, Zero to One, Hacking Growth, Hooked and The Lean Product Playbook are just a few that comes to mind.By John on August 27, 2020
This book felt as if someone took all the key product management insights and tactical strategies from all of those books and probably many more and combined them all into a single resource I expected this book to read similar to Cracking the PM interview or something like that, but the storytelling and applied examples make it fell much more similar to something like Sapiens or Freakonomics. Great read that I recommend to all PMs. I've worked at Microsoft/Amazon for three years and previously read all the books I listed above but still learned a ton of new things.
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Top reviews from other countries
Tushar Gupta
Such a brilliant Product Management Resource
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2021Verified Purchase
Kieran D
Amazing book giving you an insight to everything you need to be aware of
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2021Verified Purchase
Amazing book giving you an insight to everything you need to be aware of
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2021
PM7 i cant big up enough. Iv been extrememely keen on learning what i can on product management the past while and this book has been my favourite. It touches on everything relevant to the role but also enables you to appreciate other roles within the teams you work with, spot waste, learn more on customer behaviour, understand what questions you need to be asking and the importance of data to pinpoint what to really need to look for to improve your product overall or create new ones.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2021
All that and they share some invaluable insights from the experiences working with the biggest tech companies in the world
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Arvind
Covers all the essential PM areas
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2020Verified Purchase
Liliya Balcheva
Must read for product managers, also good for designers and tech executives.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 29, 2020Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
Practical advice on how to do the job
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2021Verified Purchase
