Paul: Shane Brown is a Tokyo-based product manager and designer, as well as the founder of Thinkers Social Club, a space for high quality conversations about life's most universal problems.
Shane and I spoke about how he went from working as a debt collector to product manager in the digital advertising space, how discovering Japan on YouTube led to him moving here, building communities in Tokyo, the zen of coin laundries, and much more.
Hi Shane. Tell us a little about you.
Shane: Hey Paul, thanks for having me on! I’m Shane. I’m 32 now, originally from Los Angeles.
You had some interesting jobs in your early career, including telephone based debt collector. Tell us about that time.
It’s true! At 18, I couldn’t imagine a future for myself. Despite not seeing school as a viable choice, I started my career collecting other people’s student debt. I invite you to imagine a huge field in the midwest. There’s a warehouse of 300 college-age kids all on the phone, competing and ranked by how much $ they bring in. Time between calls was tracked by the second! Honestly, I expected this job to be beyond terrible. I was a quiet, shy kid – highly conflict avoidant. I don’t think I’d ever demanded anything in my life!
So how did it go? Well, I mainly focused on listening to people when they needed help. I didn’t turn people away, even when I wasn’t sure if I could help them. If someone started screaming at me, I let them finish. I actually listened. Then we would pay their bill together. By the time I left, I was topping the leaderboard this way. In retrospect, it was amazing training for life. Through thousands of tense conversations, I learned how to talk to people productively.
That’s a great life skill to develop. You then moved into the digital advertising industry in 2015, initially in the creation of advertising campaigns and then moving into product management, ending up as Head of Product at Brax, a digital advertising platform. Tell us about that.
Chapter 2, Clickbait? Yeah, I was hired by Brax to make ads designed to waste people’s time so that we could show them more ads. Again, I didn’t have the highest hopes, but at least this time maybe my years of sketching in Photoshop would come in handy.
And again, it was life changing. I spent 90% of my work time learning, so that I could do one thing well: sell a story in a single image.
This whole time, I was using our internal software to help me push and manage ads. Fast forward a bit and our main business has become licensing out this software. My role becomes helping our clients run their ads through the software. As those clients had requests, I learned to write spec and make mock ups. Since we didn’t have a proper designer, I started to pick up that responsibility too.
As the team grew from 4 to 6 to 8, we also needed someone to make sure the work was assigned, completed, and publicised… I always saw myself as someone who liked to learn new things, so I actually enjoyed taking on more and more responsibility for this kind of thing. I was proud of the work I was doing.
On to Japan. How did you end up here?
I was 16 when I discovered YouTube; home to endless channels about average people just living somewhere else, even cool places like Japan. I couldn’t really fathom it at the time – the farthest I’d ever been was up north in the same state! Hollywood was a destination people went west for, not a traditional starting point. I certainly didn’t know anyone who’d left, but who knows? Maybe one day.
Two years later, I met Andrea, the girl who I would eventually marry. By chance, she was a Japanese major out in Indiana. And so, debt counseling in Indiana before stopping home for a quick life changing career in advertising.
After that, we came to Japan. My wife landed us in the Kyoto countryside via JET and I followed her.
I continued with my work for a bit, growing my skills and attending events online. But there was always a nagging feeling I was living a double life. In the countryside, we weren’t able to have the kinds of conversations we wanted. It seemed as if our dreams could only be possible in Tokyo. So we took the jump and moved straight into Shibuya. I decided to go back to school, and she transferred out of teaching into enterprise agile consulting.
You also got your bachelor’s degree in computer science recently. Why did you decide to do this? It’s a lot of work for someone mid-career.
That’s fair. My first goal was practical. Some doors are easier to open with a CS degree. But more than that, I always felt like there was more I could do to understand technology.
Sometimes people like to divide product managers into technical/non-technical. I thought it was important to learn the fundamentals so that when I go to frame a problem, I have more tools in my toolkit and can communicate at a deeper level.
It’s also not lost on me that I was the first in my family to graduate college. My mother had always wanted to, but ended up dropping out. Even though they’ve passed away, I still felt like I wanted to make them proud in that way, since it meant something to them. Overall, I’m glad I went for it.
That’s fantastic! You’re very active in the local tech community. You founded and co-organise Thinkers Social Club and you’re an organiser at ProductTank Tokyo. Tell us about these communities.
When I arrived in Tokyo, I went to these events where I would go over the same small talk again and again until I was somehow lonelier than when I started.
Thankfully, I had been to some great events in San Diego. There was this meetup called Thinking While Drinking. In the first 10 minutes, you might not know what someone does for work, but you may have heard a story illustrating what their grandfather meant to them. It was like magic to me, and I missed it. So I took a shot and created the kind of night I would want to have. And it really struck a chord: from the very first night we’ve always struggled with way too much demand. 3 years and 20+ roundtables later, it’s still my favorite project of all time. And I get to run it with Andrea. She’s a professional facilitator by day, and we get to apply our skills to making Thinkers Social Club the best we can. How cool is that?
ProductTank on the other hand is a community for people interested in product management; people who care about problems and imagine ideal solutions. It’s a great group, and I think of it as a place to take care of the people that take care of everyone else. We trade off between casual meets over beers and high quality talks by experts. I’m still finding what value we can bring here, and I’m excited to meet more PdMs.
What does your typical day look like?
Generally I wake up and write down my most important tasks for the day. Right now this is job-search related, but also could involve some projects. After that, I review (or fill) my calendar with daytime co-working sessions and evening events.
In the afternoon, I usually wind down by watching some tutorials and running errands. Evenings are for events or hanging out playing games or watching shows with Andrea. I used to cook more before I moved to an apartment next to a Family Mart.
I know the feeling. I lived across the road from a 7-Eleven for 12 years. Very tempting, especially at the end of a long day…
What are some of your goals for the future? Short-term, long-term, personally and/or professionally?
I have so many goals across different organizations right now.
At Product Tank, we’re trying to grow the maturity of product management profession in Tokyo. I think there’s a long way to go, but there’s also strong demand. We’re trying to offer more worthwhile events and get transparency into what the work looks like here.
For Thinkers Social Club, we’re building out a facilitator training framework and guide to asking great questions.
Personally, I would like to build up a career at a mission driven company and eventually take on freelance work, which I can build into an agency. Beyond that, I’ve already accomplished so much, so I want to keep helping other people with their goals.
Quickfire questions
– If you could go back in time to your arrival in Japan, what’s the most important advice you’d give yourself?
Learn Japanese. Start with Wanikani. It’s fundamentally good software, and it will give you an anchor to learn other things. Beyond that, keep following your interests.
– How do you learn new skills?
This is the least quickfire question I can imagine!
Like any behavior, it’s important to set the environment and context. One of the easiest ways I’ve done this is by getting involved with projects. It’s easy for me to care about what other people also care about. From there, lots of YouTube and playing around. I follow where my attention takes me.
Currently I’m learning Framer to build websites, but I’m also learning about how to use VLMs to scan documents. In my private life, I just adopted a cat, so I’m starting to wonder how to craft an apartment that provides a natural and engaging flow for them supplemented by 3D printing and home automation.
– Tell me a few of your favourite or most recently read books, movies, podcasts, and games.
Sable. It’s a game that touched me so much that I derived my TTRPG from its concept. It’s an indie game about finding yourself in a strange world. As a young person, you wander a desert land, doing tasks and trying on different masks. The game ends when you’ve chosen who you want to be in the world. It’s a gorgeous nonviolent game with a great soundtrack. It’s the only game in recent memory to make me cry.
– What’s your favourite place to visit in Japan?
Oddly enough, I’m not much for travel. But sometimes I like to go to quiet places like a park or laundry mat and just sit for a bit.
This is the first time anyone has answered with “visiting the coin laundry”. I like it!
– What’s the best thing you’ve spent 10,000 JPY on in Japan?
Relatable: Good sleep mask and magnesium threonate. I don’t sleep without these.
Very niche: High quality controllers for playing Beat Saber (a VR rhythm game). I used to perform with a taiko troupe in Kyoto. This helps me tap back into that while staying home.
Finally, do you have any asks for our readers?
I’m currently seeking an English-speaking Product Manager or Product Design role in Tokyo! If you can help, please get in touch!
Also, if you read this far, I would certainly love to chat. Feel free to message me on LinkedIn or drop by Thinkers Social Club. Thank you so much for your time~
Thanks, Shane. Always a pleasure speaking with you!
Looking for a new IT job in Japan? Check out my job board. Hiring? Get in touch and let’s see how I can help.
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