-: So my name is Nick Nobbe
and I work in product development,
specifically with building products.
So residential roofing products,
so from cradle to grave.
We go out in the field,
get the ideas from our customers
and then turn those into product concepts
and go through the development process,
and eventually launch them.
Everybody who owns a home,
they have to ventilate their roof somehow.
So we did one project that I worked on
was we went out in the field
and we're working with the contractors,
roofing contractors, and we're figuring,
watching kinda what they do
and how they ventilate roofs.
And we watch the products that they're using
and kinda analyze what features they have,
and really kinda figure out what are they missing
and what problems are they having.
So then we took that and then kinda went into our lab,
figured out how can we do this in a better way,
and so we came up with our own version of a ridge vent
that goes up on the top of your roof,
and it's just a better way to ventilate
from what options were out there.
So then we developed that.
Worked with manufacturing partners
to figure out how to make it
and now we're selling it
and contractors are using it in lieu of
whatever they were using before.
So as a product manager, that's kinda my role
is to really kinda carry the ball.
A lot of times I'll be working with a manufacturer,
I will be working with an engineer,
or I'll be working with our marketing team
to figure out how to market it.
Or I'll be working with our accounting group
to figure out do the numbers and dollars make sense on this.
So I'm kinda the one who kinda shepherds
the project along from start to finish.
I might not have technical expertise
in one specific area, but I'm kinda the one
who coordinates everyone and makes sure
that the project keeps moving forward,
that we're asking the right questions,
and that really at the end of the day
that we're keeping all of our customer feedback in mind.
So a lotta times we have no idea
what we're even looking for.
We'll just go out and just say, hey,
we just want to see you do your job,
when I'm talking about the roof,
and we just wanna get out there
and just see what you do
and see what's slowing them down.
You'd be surprised how easy sometimes it is
to figure out when you watch somebody do their job,
to figure out the inefficiencies.
So that's another way we do it.
And then we go to a lot of industry trade shows too
and you're always kinda seeing
what are your competitors doing.
Monitoring, okay, well this new product just came out
and depending on if multiple companies come out with it,
maybe there's a reason why they're doing that.
So kinda always monitoring the market as well.