"Lorong Product" Podcast Ep 25 - Building Product Communities: Growing NUS Product Club
by NUS Product Club Admin • 23 June 2026
by NUS Product Club Admin • 23 June 2026
Too busy to watch the full episode? Here's the short version — Harry and Marcus go behind the scenes on three years of building NUS Product Club: the organization's structure, the collaborations, the merch, the mistakes, and why the best thing they built might not be a club at all.
Most season finales bring in a high-profile guest. This one does something rarer: it turns the camera on the people who have been running it all along.
In this special Season 5 finale of "Lorong Product", there's no guest. Instead, co-founder Harry and Vice-President Marcus take stock — reflecting on three years of building NUS Product Club from scratch, the org structure that holds it together, the collaborations with SMU and NTU, a revamped Product Launchpad (PLP), and what it actually feels like to watch something you started take on a life of its own.
It's equal parts retrospective, operations deep-dive, and love letter to everyone who made it possible.
Here's what stood out.
By any conventional measure, Harry had already done his part. He co-founded the club, served as its first president, and graduated. But here he is, three years in, still showing up.
His reasons for staying aren't strategic — they're personal. Photography was something he'd always wanted to explore, and the podcast gave him a reason to finally pick up a camera. Workshops let him try conducting technical sessions as a self-described introvert who doesn't naturally like "yapping non-stop." And watching a new generation of members — particularly Jack, the current president — convinced him the club was in hands worth supporting.
Want to find out more about Jack? Check out Episode 17 here!
"I just wanted to indulge in my newfound hobby like photography and maybe a bit of videography while exploring other ways to expand the club — until I know that it's fully established — while also improving my own soft skills at the same time."
It's a reminder that the best reasons to stay involved in something rarely appear on a CV.
Marcus, meanwhile, joined as a mature student at 24 after three years of work experience and two startups. He became VP almost by accident — Jack and Yi Hao announced they were leaving for NOC Silicon Valley about a month after he joined, and Marcus figured he might as well try for the role.
"I might as well just try."
That's become something of a theme in this club.
For anyone who has ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes, Harry breaks it down clearly. NUS Product Club runs on four main teams, which he splits into two wings.
The administrative wing — publicity and operations — is the back end. Operations handles venue bookings, registration links, and liaising with NUS Student Union for credits.
Publicity creates everything the audience sees: social media content, blog articles, and the podcast itself, which Harry calls operationally the most demanding sub-team due to the time and money involved.
The outreach wing — curriculum and partnerships — is the front end. Curriculum runs workshops (analytics, UI/UX, Figma, system design, resume-building) and the flagship six-week Product Launchpad (PLP) programme.
Sample photo from our UI/UX Figma workshop in AY 24/25 Sem 1. Check the full recap here!
Partnerships handles fireside chats, networking sessions, panel discussions, and securing speakers — and was also responsible for the club's Industrial Attachments (IA) programme, which this cycle connected students with nine companies.
Group photo featuring tHEMEat Company - one of our partner companies in our recent IA programme
One number that surprised even Harry: publicity alone accounts for over 20 members — roughly 40% of a 50-plus person exco.
"I don't think I've seen a student club with so many people doing publicity or marketing outside maybe like photography society — because at the end of the day, they all take photos."
A newer addition is the senior advisor team, quietly launched this academic year on the initiative of Henry, one of the club's longest-serving members. Five alumni — each covering one team — offered mentorship to current exco members. Nearly 20 people signed up, which genuinely caught everyone off guard.
Our Senior Advisors Team in AY25/26 - find out more about them here!
The club's relationship with SMU Product Club goes back to the very beginning — SMU was a direct inspiration for how NUS Product Club was structured. Over time, that admiration turned into collaboration: joint PM Career Series, combined Product Management Experience sessions, and eventually the Product Networking Night, now in its second iteration.
Photo from PM Career Series Part 1 (AY23/24 S1) - our very first event collaboration with SMU Product Club
NTU Product Club, founded by Tasha and Jocelyn, came into the picture more recently. Harry admits he was the one who pushed to include NTU in what was originally a two-university collaboration for the first Product Networking Night — partly to help a newer club build its foundation.
Photo from Product Networking NIght 2025 - check out our full recap here!
"I was the one who drove the decision to invite NTU also, because we wanted to be more inclusive and maybe help NTU lay their foundation somewhat."
Marcus picked up the thread this year, noting that the Microsoft collaboration currently in the works actually originated with NTU, who then referred it to both SMU and NUS. Cross-university reciprocity in practice.
Photo from our Microsoft: Learn, Hack, Fun! event organised with SMU Product Club - check out our full recap here!
The broader point both make: clubs that operate in silos end up competing for the same attention, cannibalising each other. Collaborations compound resources — venues, speakers, catering, reach — in ways no single club can replicate alone.
The most recent iteration of Product Launchpad — the club's flagship six-week programme — was held at PayPal's office, where Harry works. He admits, somewhat sheepishly, that he was initially against it.
Group photo from Product Launchpad (AY25/26 S2) at PayPal Singapore
"I didn't know how troublesome it was to really liaise with the people and align myself. So I was a relatively new employee at PayPal."
But the result was worth it. Working with Sukrit, PayPal's lead PM instructor, Harry, Kai Rong and Yi Ting (Co-Heads of Curriculum) drafted the case study that students tackled over six weeks. What Harry appreciated most about Sukrit's approach was the creative freedom he extended to the curriculum team: he provided the case study and the guidelines, but left the actual teaching content entirely up to the students.
Two things stood out as genuinely new this cycle. Kai Rong and Yi Ting made a concerted push to involve industry professionals in every workshop — not just as guest speakers, but as co-facilitators — which measurably improved sign-up numbers. And for the first time, a faculty professor was brought in to teach within PLP, which Harry sees as a model worth continuing.
Mr Lee Boon Kee as a Guest Instructor for PLP; he is also our Staff Advisor and Senior Lecturer at NUS Computing
"We don't really need to rely so much on our industry partners for content or creative control. We just kind of need the case study they provide, and then in terms of curriculum you can either run it in-house or involve our prof."
The episode includes a rare moment: Harry and Marcus watching clips from Seasons 2, 3, and 4 back to back — and reacting in real time.
Adhiraj's explanation (from Season 4) of the T-shaped PM skillset (deep expertise in one vertical, broad awareness across many) prompts Harry to reflect on how it applies beyond product — to his own path as a data analyst who also writes, photographs, and teaches.
A Season 3 clip featuring Roy about taking on different roles and side quests lands differently now too.
"A lot of insights are very cross-compatible — and it might even arm you to have a different perspective from what convention is," Marcus adds.
And then there's a Season 1 clip of Harry himself, talking about how the club shouldn't get too fixated on membership numbers — as well as a Season 2 clip of Sean, who echoes the same sentiment. Watching it back, Harry is comfortable saying things have landed more or less where he hoped.
"Whatever I mentioned in that clip, I did address it shortly before. I feel that where we're at right now, I think we're in a good pace."
Asked to name the guests who left the deepest impression, both Harry and Marcus go straight to specifics — no hedging.
Harry's pick is Charles from Season 2, a former YouTrip PM who Harry first connected with through a student tech community. What stuck wasn't the credentials but a single piece of advice about understanding your key stakeholders when you first join an organisation — something Harry didn't fully appreciate until he was working full-time himself.
"I never thought how much it really resonated with me until I started working."
Marcus points to a roundtable event rather than a podcast episode: a senior PM from Open Government Products named Jan, who talked about how his work directly improved the services the Singapore government delivers to the public.
"He was able to provide an impact because through his initiative, through the projects he did, he really was able to help people improve the workflow and processes and the services that the government provides."
Other shoutouts include Andrea from Heineken — featuring our only podcast episode ever filmed outside NUS by far — and a startup founder named Jialu from Heymax, who spoke at the recent Product Perspectives event and was notably generous sharing internal processes even with competitors in the room.
The episode includes a walk through the physical artefacts of three years of club-building — certificates, coasters, banners, merch, and cameras that have quietly been present throughout every season of the podcast.
Highlights include: a mock "certificate of attendance" Harry created as a meme to hand out at PLP icebreaker sessions; custom coasters given to PLP participants and Product Perspectives guests; four different banner designs from an internal design competition, only one of which most people have seen; and the club mascot t-shirt — four characters representing each team — whose designer is Jing Xuan and whose names remain officially undecided.
"What's the name of this thing? Honestly, I don't know. I'll just call it mascot."
The episode closes with a game where Marcus and special guest, "Lorong Product" host Chong Rui, tries to guess the price of Harry's camera gear.
The collection ranges from a $375 secondhand Sony NEX-7 bought as a "cheap toy for testing" to a $3,699 Sony A7V body purchased at peak launch price, plus a $3,300 70-200mm lens. All of it has been used, at various points, to film this very podcast — a fitting reminder that a lot of what makes "Lorong Product" look the way it does came out of Harry's own pocket.
Be sure to check out the episode to find out who ultimately won the game!
What makes this season finale unusual isn't the format — it's the honesty. Harry and Marcus aren't performing a highlight reel. They're accounting for what actually happened: the initiatives that worked, the workshops that underdelivered, the plans that required more liaising than expected, the members who dropped off mid-mentorship.
Three years is a long time to stay involved in anything for no official reason. But as Harry puts it, every goal he set when he stayed on — the photography, the workshops, the funding, the mentorship — has now been met. He can leave having done what he came back to do.
For everyone watching who has wondered what it looks like to build something student-run that actually lasts: this episode is the answer.
Click below to watch the Season 5 finale of "Lorong Product".
Enjoyed this? Check out our other episodes for more honest conversations about careers in product, design, and tech.
"Modern slave, magical worker" - or so NUS Product Club Admin himself claims to be. As his name suggests, NUS Product Club Admin assists our Operations and Publicity Teams in handling administrative enquiries from our students regarding our various club activities. In addition, he assists in running our social media channels - including Telegram, Instagram and LinkedIn.