From Intern to Technical Product Manager

Hi, I am Manuel, and I am happy to share my «PriceHubble-Story». I started as an Intern and am now working in the Product Team as a Technical Product Manager.

How it started

I first got in touch with PriceHubble during the literature review for my bachelors thesis in 2018. I was writing about new technologies in the real estate transaction process and bumped into a video from our Co-Founder Markus Stadler. In this video, he was explaining that PriceHubble is offering a high end valuation model to value properties which even integrates factors like comments from Tripadvisor or Airbnb. As this was something I had not read about before I reached out to him and asked for a free Demo Account in return for an analysis of their service.

After some time and a bit of back and forth I was happy to be in possession of PriceHubble Login Credentials and we had a deal - so I could use the PriceHubble Property Advisor for the first time.

The internship

After having seen and tested the product, which I found really cool, I was curious and was wondering what it would be like to work in a startup like PriceHubble as they seemed like a nice team. Hence, after I had finished my thesis I sent the results to Markus and mentioned that if they were looking for an intern at some point I would be very happy to join. Luckily, he took this hint and so I started interning in January 2019 as part of the Corporate Communication team, focusing on data analytics to create studies for clients and newspapers.

I really enjoyed my time in the Zurich office. PriceHubble fulfilled quite some stereotypes about startups like having an office with bean bags, a fridge with cold beer and Ping Pong or yoga sessions in the evening. I really liked the vibes and the mentality of getting things done so when I got the offer to stay as a working student, it was an easy decision for me!

Continuing as a working student from home before it became mainstream

As I had to return to my university in Karlsruhe, where I was enrolled for my masters, I was allowed to work remotely. About every six weeks, I was traveling to Zurich to meet the people in person, the remaining time, I worked from my student flat room in Karlsruhe. Today, I sometimes joke that this was basically pioneer work, as I was working fully remote before it became mainstream due to Covid in 2020.

During my time as a working student, I was focusing on analytical topics and was also involved in the foundation of our Research and Analytics (R&A) Team. Even as a working student, I could already pitch and implement my visions and ideas for that team to shape the scope and mission of it.

PriceHubble data meets academic research

One and half years passed by quickly and in December 2020 I had to decide what I wanted to do for my masters thesis. As data analytics became my passion I decided to look for a thesis in this field. Of course, I thought about a project directly with PriceHubble, but at the same time, I also wanted to see a different university as I had not studied abroad yet. Surely, there was the option to combine all of that, external university, PriceHubble project and master thesis at the same time, but having three stakeholders for a master thesis is for sure something most students (including myself) try to avoid.

However, I found an interesting project about the prediction of urban inequality using Point-of-Interest data at ETH Zurich. For me, this was a lucky coincidence as A) the topic is actually interesting for PriceHubble and they have relevant data and B) the location of Zurich would allow me to come to the office in person since I was still able to work part-time. I shared the project scope with PriceHubble and quickly managed to find a consensus that PriceHubble should support me on this project, which allowed me to work with PriceHubbles data pool for my thesis without any further involvement from the PriceHubble side.

Full-time Lead Research Analyst

As the months passed by I also started thinking about what would happen after my master thesis so I asked Nima, the Head of the R&A Team, (my boss back then) if he would be interested in making me an offer. I was expecting to get a proposal for a job scope and a contract to which I can say «yes» or «no». However, to my surprise, he came back asking me what I actually wanted to do and so I ended up shaping a new role for myself. It was great to have the opportunity to bring in ideas of what could be part of my daily work. After some iterations we ended up with a job scope for a «Lead Research Analyst» which I happily accepted.

From Research to Product after 4 months only

I started my full-time role in December 2021 (unfortunately remotely due to Covid), crunching data for the Communication and Business Teams to create studies for public media. In parallel, I was also given the mandate to do some product development for our Property Tracker, a low-code based product which I was already supporting during my time as a working student.

In January 2022, I went for my first ever business to our Berlin office, to introduce the new product to the German sales team. This time was quite intense as I had to align the research and analytics task with the product development but I liked the challenge of managing both at the same time. However, the business demand kept increasing and it became more and more clear that we need a full-fledged product solution for our property tracker.

Mid of March 2022 our CEO Julien approached me and asked whether I could imagine a transition to the product team to lead the productisation efforts for our Property Tracker.

To be honest, this hit me a bit by surprise as by then I was only working full-time for less than four months. I really liked the research role I had and the cooperation with Communication and Business but at the same time the challenge of moving into product was tempting. Nevertheless I took this opportunity and I decided to move into product as a Technical Product Manager.

Product is my new home

After the first three months I can now say that this was a great decision, even though I also sometimes miss the analytics work of the R&A Team. A lot of things in product development are still new to me and I am learning a lot. At the same time, I was also able to challenge a couple of processes and issues to bring in some fresh ideas.

Looking back at my journey at PriceHubble it is great to see how much is possible in this company if you are proactive and push for new ideas and concepts. Having had four different roles in three years makes me really looking forward to what is next on this exciting journey.