Understated Hyperbole
The single biggest mistake every first-time manager makes in tech companies (especially product, design and engg) is in believing that they no longer have to contribute as ICs (individual contributors). It doesn’t matter where you are on the spectrum of company size – a handful of people fighting for survival and trying to launch a…
Kapi Pe Charcha #005 – Venture Highway “What do users care about? What do they need?” In our previous posts, we talked about speaking to users and validating our ideas (https://lnkd.in/dHdft3x7 and https://lnkd.in/dc2vVnBk). The Hierarchy of User Needs by Aarron Walter is a model that explains the needs users have when using products or services. This hierarchy…
Kapi Pe Charcha #004 – Venture Highway “Do I need to set up a team, raise money and build a fully functional product to validate my ideas?” Building a product is costly. One can spend months setting up a team, raising money and creating a product that has a high chance of failure. One needs…
Kapi Pe Charcha #003 – Venture Highway “Would I need to speak to people/ users/ customers?” In our last two posts, we have discussed ways of coming up with new ideas and then creating a shortlist out of them: 1. https://lnkd.in/gXHstMvM2. https://lnkd.in/gngtAunA A skill that will help you throughout your entrepreneurial journey is user research. It’s a…
Kapi Pe Charcha #002 – Venture Highway “OK – so I have a set of ideas now. How do I check if they are any good?” In our last post, we came up with a set of methods to help us constantly come up with new ideas. We weren’t worried about originality, quality, feasibility or the…
Kapi Pe Charcha #001 – Venture Highway I am often asked: “How do I constantly come up with new ideas?” While coming up with ideas, do not worry about their originality, quality, feasibility or the opportunity size that they represent. Forget all that. Focus on idea generation. Keep reminding yourself – there are no bad…
A playbook has three attributes: (1) it gives you plays that can be reliably repeated, (2) these plays can be taught to others, and (3) one can look back and check whether the plays were used properly. In the context of product building, there are multiple playbooks: how to hire, how to build an organization,…
Everything I have learnt about being an effective product manager condensed into a short video.
Product roadmaps typically need to have three important categories of initiatives: Work that helps to Keep the Lights On (KTLO) – tech debt, keeping existing features and functionalities up and running, fixing bugs, etc fall under this category. This is the bread and butter part of your roadmap. Short term investments – incremental improvements in…
Late last year, I had recorded a podcast with Vani Kola of Kalaari Capital. We discussed many different topics – what make a good PM, decision-making frameworks, the Indian gaming market and much much more. The episode is now out. Enjoy!
The MVP is dead. The Minimum Viable Product philosophy has become corrupted. We have misunderstood its intent and diluted its core elements over the years. What we are left with is a superficial term, often thrown around in conversations around product building, with little to no understanding of the underlying principles. Sometimes the way to…
To say that I have followed an unconventional path to becoming a product manager is a little bit of an understatement. Engineering → Writing → Game Design → General Management → Product Management So one of the most frequent questions I get asked is: “how do I transition to a product management role?”. And while…