Beyond the Day Job: How Pet Projects Fuel Growth and Creativity in Product

The main reason I built a career in Product is that I enjoy building and problem-solving. It’s never been about a specific domain, customer segment, or business model. However, as I progressed in my career, I was often pulled into narrower scopes, which made my world smaller and my expertise less transferable.

Don’t get me wrong—domain expertise and industry credibility are crucial for building a successful career in Product, and there's no way around that.

For example, It's nearly impossible to be an effective Product Manager for payment infrastructure without understanding how payment rails work. And it takes countless hours to become an expert in this field.

"While there’s no one-size-fits-all framework, I have a rule that works for me: don’t overthink it before you start"

Pavlo Pedenko, Senior Product Manager

But what if you want to explore something outside the payments universe? What if you’re eager to gain hands-on experience in marketing alongside your day-to-day product role? Or try building a B2C mobile app when all you’ve done so far is backend-as-a-service products? Should you risk your stability and try to change jobs? Probably not.

Staying fresh and creative is a real challenge—one that's easy to overlook until you can no longer ignore it.

What always helped me were my pet projects—initiatives I worked on outside my day job, where I could focus on building without distractions and explore areas of personal interest.

The Act of Building

Let’s face it—many Product Managers have side gigs.

I remember attending an annual Product offsite at Wise, where they hosted a panel featuring Product Managers discussing their side projects and hustles. I was impressed by how open everyone was about their side gigs. It was refreshing to see people not only through the lens of their professional identities but also through their personal passions.

Some had co-founded pottery studios, Amazon drop-shipping businesses, or online advertising platforms that connected small businesses with advertisers.

No wonder. Wise has good PMs and good PMs love to build.

What was interesting, however, was that none of them were building fintech products—they were pursuing their passions beyond their day jobs and usual scopes, all through the simple act of building.

Trying New Things

In 2018, after gaining some product management experience with Setapp, where I helped to build a product team and scale from 0 to $3m ARR, I decided to fulfill a childhood dream and go to China.

My future co-founder and I received a scholarship from the University of Shenzhen, and we decided to build a product for the local market. Neither of us spoke Mandarin nor had any exposure to the Chinese market.

As I mentioned, I was leading products at Setapp, an App Store subscription service for desktop software, which was as far from the Chinese market as you could imagine. Setapp was a geeky desktop subscription product, and I wanted to try building something fun, mass-market, and mobile.

Obviously, I had no idea what problem to solve so I had to start from there. So we began our research.

We discovered the huge market for Chinese hip-hop. As odd as it sounds, we decided to explore this segment and found a group of aspiring hip-hop artists making their first steps in rap. It turned out they shared three common problems:

1. They disliked the way their voices sounded.

2. They had no idea where to find new beats.

3. They didn’t know each other and kept their hobby a secret.

So, we built an app that enhanced their voices, provided new AI-generated beats whenever they launched the app, and created a supportive community. Back then Generative AI was not as hyped as it is today.

Skipping ahead, we failed miserably in China but began growing in the U.S. The app is still on the Google Play Store, with 100k installs and a 4.6-star rating.

Funny enough, Meta launched a very similar app shortly after.

Thanks to that project, I was able to confidently say that I had mobile B2C experience and had worked with markets that many people had limited exposure to.

In the end, both my co-founder and I landed lucrative jobs at Preply, one of the largest online tutoring marketplaces, where I helped build their subscription business. I’m not sure I would have made this transition to mass-market B2C without having Raply under my belt.

Fun fact: While building Raply in China, I met my future manager at Wise, who eventually offered me a job a few years later.

Expanding your network

You know that feeling when you want to talk to someone cool but don't have a reason to? I’ve been there too. Coming from CEE, networking didn’t come naturally to me, and I always struggled to meet new people. It became a personal challenge I had to overcome.

In 2019, I started the Product&Growth Show, a podcast initially aimed at the CEE product and marketing communities. From the beginning, I decided to handle everything myself—finding guests, producing music, and distributing the episodes.

Through this podcast, I connected with nearly 100 people, and our episodes were streamed 300k times. I expanded my network across CEE, which helped me land several exciting consultancy gigs.

Having my own podcast became a fantastic door-opener. Nearly 100 experts in their fields volunteered an hour of their time to me. I continue to leverage these connections while also striving to be helpful in return.

People rarely say no to someone who’s genuinely interested in tapping into their expertise. For example, just last month, I had the privilege of interviewing Sammer Singh from SpeedInvest about network effects for a full hour.

Having a side project pushes you to learn new skills and connect with people outside your usual circles, giving you fresh perspectives. Plus, it expands your network—probably the only asset you’ll always have at your disposal.

Taking it from 0 to 1

Let’s face it — most Product Managers don’t get the 0 to 1 experience. Simply put, companies typically don’t hire PMs until they’ve already established a rough idea of what they’re building. While there’s always plenty to figure out, it’s rare to see the full 0 to 1 process, and it’s an experience that’s hard to replicate unless you’ve lived through it.

Which is a shame. In my opinion, 0 to 1 is the most exciting part of any business.

In 2021, my co-founder and I launched Mathema.me, a STEM tutoring platform that has since reached $430k in monthly sales.

Our first version consisted of a landing page, a third-party CRM, and a Google calendar to manage lessons. For the second version, we hired an engineering agency to help us build a basic booking system. A caveat: we only invested in this after we hit $100k in monthly sales.

Mathema.me first prototype

Today, we have a team of two full-time engineers who manage a system that handles 40k lessons per month. It’s still a bootstrapped business, and we have no plans to change that. However, through this business, I gained firsthand experience speaking with potential investors and raising money.

On top of that, a big part of Mathema.me’s business runs on Wise, a company I worked for, which we use as our payout vendor. Wise helps us to keep our money safe, pay out tutors around the world, and earn interest. This helped me build a lot of empathy toward our business customers and gave me firsthand insight into the issues with Wise's business product. I probably learnt more about the product by using it than by building it. Also, helped me to uncover many nasty bugs and report them to the PMs in charge.

How to get going with your pet-project?

While there’s no one-size-fits-all framework, I have a rule that works for me: don’t overthink it before you start.

As Product Managers, we tend to overanalyze, and "analysis paralysis" has stopped many talented folks from taking the first step. While thorough analysis is crucial when the stakes are high, pet projects usually don’t require in-depth research. Just pick a market you're genuinely interested in. There’s always something to work on if you’re not focused on scale. Passion should come first.

A friend of mine uses a simple trick: he keeps a notebook where he writes down every problem he’d like to solve. When he has time, he reviews it and brainstorms solutions.

What also always works for me is finding someone to share my passion with. I am lucky to have amazing co-founders in all my projects. Product Managers often work in silos, and having a like-minded product partner to build with is a privilege not everyone has. If you're working on something exciting, you may get the opportunity to collaborate with people you’d never have had the chance to work with otherwise.

Last but not least - remember, we’re here to build things, nor make ourselves miserable. So have fun building!