A review of Silicon Valley Product Group as a product management resource

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. I help people land their dream job through workshops and 1-on-1 mentoring. Check out my review of Silicon Valley Product Group.

What does Silicon Valley Product Group do?
Who is Silicon Valley Product Group for?
What does Silicon Valley Product Group cost?
Ratings and reviews of Silicon Valley Product Group
Alternatives to Silicon Valley Product Group
How does Silicon Valley Product Group compare to Pathrise?

What does Silicon Valley Product Group do?

Silicon Valley Product Group is a product management community that offers workshops to help people launch or accelerate their product careers. In addition to their popular online workshops, they offer in-person training in San Francisco, New York, London, and sometimes other major cities like Dubai.

All of their workshops are led by experienced partners and feature lots of demos and hands-on opportunities for attendees to practice skills in real-time. Their 3 flagship workshops cover product management, product marketing, and product leadership.

Product management workshop

The online product management workshop runs for 5 days. Online attendees meet 4 times on Zoom for 3.5-hour sessions. Alternatively, the in-person version hosts around 75 attendees for 2 full days of learning in San Francisco, New York, London, and occasionally other major cities.

Product leadership and product marketing workshops

Both the online product leadership and product marketing workshops follow a similar schedule, meeting 4 times on Zoom for 2-hour sessions over the course of 4 days. However, only the product leadership workshop includes daily homework, plus office hours with the instructor. The in-person versions of these workshops meet for 1 full day in San Francisco, New York, or London.

All workshops have both a public version open to individuals and a private version that can be customized for specific companies. Moreover, online and in-person options are available for both. They also sell product books designed to complement their flagship product management and product leadership workshops. In addition, Silicon Valley Product Group runs executive briefings, conferences, and speaking engagements with expert product keynote speakers.

1-on-1 coaching is also available separately for current product professionals and teams. Mentors work with heads of product on developing a product vision and written narratives for products, as well as creating staffing plans, establishing relationships with executives & key stakeholders, and much more. They meet with product pros weekly via video call, plus email and phone to fill in the gaps. Coaching is available quarterly or through subscriptions.

Who is Silicon Valley Product Group for?

Current product professionals who want to get their career off the ground could benefit from Silicon Valley Product Group. Moreover, the program is especially helpful for people with full-time jobs who are seeking brief but informative workshops from industry experts. Finally, current product managers could also benefit from networking at their events.

What does Silicon Valley Product Group cost? How much work is involved?

Their flagship product management workshop costs $2,495. Alternatively, tuition for the product leadership workshop is $1,995. While they are not offering product marketing workshops at the moment, they likely run between $1,000 and $2,000+.

Unlike many other product bootcamps and workshops, Silicon Valley Product Group does not require formal admissions. Anyone can sign up for their events. However, their workshops are usually designed for people with at least a little experience working with products. But, their books can help attendees with less experience prepare for the workshops, similar to optional pre-work at popular bootcamps.

Ratings and reviews

While Silicon Valley Product Group is relatively new and does not have many user ratings, so far reviews are mostly positive. Their product management workshop’s companion book holds a 4.4/5 star rating on Amazon, where most readers rave about the mix of practical and mindset content that sets attendees up to succeed at the workshops.

They have also generated a positive buzz on Twitter, with attendees highly recommending the in-person workshops. A San Francisco attendee described the program as supportive with a focus on product innovation. While the attendee did take away new practical skills, they said that the “biggest beneﬁt of this workshop was walking away with a much-improved structure for thinking about product management in theory and practice.” However, while one Twitter attendee was impressed by the PM workshops, he warned that their “public sessions sell out months in advance” and wished they were more available.

Alternatives to Silicon Valley Product Group

If you decide not to book a seat at Silicon Valley Product Group’s events, there are a number of other resources and workshops to help you launch a career as a product manager.

The product management associations Product Gym and Product Talk Academy offer training, job support, and networking opportunities for aspiring product managers. Classes are flexible and include remote options similar to SVPG.
Another large product management community is Mind the Product. In fact, they have 150,000+ active members. Plus, they offer workshops, memberships, and networking for aspiring product managers. Like SVPG, their program is currently virtual and held over Zoom.
Product School also teaches both full-time and part-time product management courses. They provide weekly mentorship and career support similar to SVPG’s coaching options.
Alternatively, students seeking an advanced PM curriculum can check out Product Faculty. This part-time online product management bootcamp includes 1-on-1 career mentoring, a Slack community, plus an advanced product management (APM)(R) certificate.
Likewise, Blackblot and Product Innovation Educators have PM courses for beginners and more advanced folk.
Similarly, Product Hall is a product management bootcamp with live courses and 1-on-1 mentoring opportunities.
The popular tech bootcamp General Assembly offers full-time, part-time, and 1-day courses on a variety of tech topics including product management and digital marketing. Students in the product course learn the fundamentals of product management, working hands-on with in-demand PM tools. Read more about General Assembly in our review.
Similarly, the bootcamp BrainStation has product management tracks. Students participate in hands-on product management assignments and professional development. Their program boats over 1,000 hiring partners including top companies like Google and Facebook.
The Menon Labs fellowship helps people learn the skills to become web developers, data scientists, and product managers.

More alternatives

The bootcamp Product Academia has full-time and part-time PM courses. They focus on helping women launch careers as product managers.
Women, GNC people, and trans people can check out CodeOp, which has courses in web dev, data, and product management.
Similarly, consider One Week PM, which was created by Product Manager HQ. In both programs, students learn product management fundamentals and network with aspiring and current PMs.
You can also consider Linky Product, which has self-paced courses and a bootcamp. Beginners can also check out Dorm, which helps people get into startups.
Aspiring product managers can also check out Thinkful, which teaches a 6 month online, part-time course in product management. This course includes 1-on-1 mentoring.
You can also check out similar online bootcamps like GrowthX Academy and One Month, which offer courses for aspiring product managers, UX designers, growth marketers, sales professionals, and business developers. Likewise, School16 teaches marketing, sales, and product management.
Students on a budget can check out Coursera, an online learning platform that hosts free product management courses taught by professors at accredited universities.
You can also check out Bubble no-code bootcamps to learn how to make products without coding. Learn more about Bubble in our review.
Similarly, students seeking low-cost product learning can also check out Udacity. They offer self-paced courses on product strategy, design, and launch. Students build polished PM projects and work with experienced mentors. Learn more about Udacity in our review.
Finally, edX is an online learning platform that hosts 3,000+ courses from top universities like Harvard and MIT, plus big tech companies like Microsoft. Students can choose to learn the fundamentals of a subject or dive deeper into specific topics, like product management or digital marketing. Learn more about edX in our review.

How does Silicon Valley Product Group compare to Pathrise?

Silicon Valley Product Group’s workshops help people launch or accelerate their product careers. While members learn technical and leadership skills they will use on the job, they do not get help landing a job. On the other hand, Pathrise helps with every phase of the job search, including resume and LinkedIn optimization, portfolio building, technical and behavioral interview skills, and much more.

Our mentors have already helped over 1,000 students and professionals land their dream job in tech. Fellows in our program work 1-on-1 with a mentor to optimize the job search, meaning the curriculum is tailored to fit each fellow and their needs. Like SVPG our program is also flexible, with only 2-4 hours of group sessions per week and 1-on-1 sessions that can be scheduled when convenient.

Pathrise helps students and professionals land their dream tech job through 1-on-1 mentoring. Fellows in our program often see their interview scores double and their application responses triple, landing jobs in just 3-5 months on average. If you are interested in working with any of our mentors to land your dream job faster, join Pathrise.