Who Is Responsible For Managing Products And Services?

A brief* career retrospective

Epitome source: http://chrislema.com/5-tips-for-product-managers/

This post has been in drafts for over a year now. I wrote this every bit a response to the countless letters I become on Linkedin/Twitter asking how to move to a production role. Over the past 5 years I accept worked for diverse startups, built a few interesting products and switched from a developer to a product director. This is also my attempt to summarise my career as it stands now and includes learnings from my previous jobs.

I have worked at:

IOCL (Summer Intern, May 2011 — Jul 2011, 3 months)
NGOSphere (Attempt at starting up, Nov 2011 — Jul 2012, 9 months)
Redbus (Summer Intern, May 2012 — Jul 2012, three months)
Avaya (Last Semester Intern, Jan 2013 — Jul 2013, six months)
KonyLabs (Full time, Aug 2013 — Sept 2013, two months)
Kore.ai (Total time, Oct 2013 — Nov 2014, 1 twelvemonth 2 months)
CouponDunia (Total time, Dec 2014 — Dec 2015, ane twelvemonth 1 month)
Craftsvilla (Full time, Jan 2016 — Sept 2016, 9 months)
Directi (Full fourth dimension, Since Dec 2016, Current)

IOCL and Avaya

IOCL and Avaya were easy. I just had to fill a grade and let my college (BITS) and my CGPA (vi.0/x) take care of the remainder. Thanks to my CGPA I knew I had no gamble of getting internships at height tier firms. I tried to larn as much as I could at both places, and got a few good projects under my belt.

Learnings:

There was no mode I could run across myself doing a government job. The 3 months at IOCL was enough for me to realise that
I got interested in direction while at IOCL. I took a projection related Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)at IOCL and I started a habit of reading equally much equally I could about best management practices
At Avaya, I learnt how big companies run. I was part of sprints, planning meetings for the starting time time. I likewise understood how products get congenital: customer research, prototyping, blastoff releases etc

RedBus

I got into RedBus thanks to something I learnt quite early on in my life: there are few people in this world who have the audacity to go after what they really want in life. At $.25, I saw a friend of mine send out close to 200 applications to professors all over the world to land a summer internship abroad. There were people who had much better CGPA. There were people who probably were meliorate at Estimator Science than him. Merely none of them had his bulldoze.

My only feel till 3rd year of higher was a summertime internship at IOCL and a failed endeavor at starting upwardly. Inspired by my friend, I decided to ship out as many applications as possible, no matter how many rejections I got. Thankfully the starting time email itself worked.

By leadership positions I meant a position at the Educatee Quango as an elected representative from my hostel and being a co-founder of NGOSphere (which I will talk about afterward in this mail service). I nevertheless got an interview. Showing up something is the merely matter you need to do, even if yous might thing y'all are not there still.

Shankar Prasad, the COO, told me that RedBus was exploring expansion in the North Eastward. They had started operations most a year before, but they had very few tie ups and hence wanted someone to get there. My work was to convince bus operators & travel agencies to partner with RedBus, calibration upward RedBus's operations and run a few marketing projects. I don't know why they felt that I was the guy who could do that, but I was still thankful and jumped at the opportunity.

Learnings:

I realised how much I loved working for a fast paced startup which was in hyper scaling mode. There was no bureaucracy. Yous did not accept to please your manager and could just go out and do your own stuff
I never felt like a lowly paid intern. I was hustling in the North Eastward, trying to figure out a manner to abound RedBus there. I studied the travel industry in and out. I as well wrote a blog post here: How is Redbus.in innovative if information technology's just a normal bus ticket booking site?
In the 3 months I was with Redbus I helped double their partners in the Due north Eastward. Even so I was looking at unique ways I could be valuable for a corporation. Being from the North East helped. I realized that if everything fails in my life, I could still become a city director for some startup in Guwahati. I got solid recommendations and learnt a lot, something I could never had washed at a big corporation
I Learnt a lot most how civilization is important for a startup. At RedBus, Phani (the CEO) used to ship Happy Altogether mails to employees. My director Subhobrata did his best to allow me have the freedom to do what I wanted. Even if I was just there just for iii months, I felt similar I was part of the company. People were quick to praise your work and brand you feel of import

NGOSphere

This was our annunciation postal service on Facebook. We were happy to accept our ain startup. Nosotros were vain. And naive. But we tried.

During my 2d twelvemonth of college I got fascinated with the world of startups. This was the showtime of the startup nail in India. Everywhere I turned, I could meet people starting up. Likewise possibly, I was reading too much TechCrunch.

Hither was the idea: There were around two 1000000 NGOs in India in 2011. Our goal was to get at least 1% of them online. Provide them various services: web site evolution, brochure design, fund raising, branding. Our goal was to start a web design agency and target merely this market.

Learnings:

Finding a datapoint like 2 1000000 NGOs are in Bharat means cipher. We were stupid to assume most of them want to come online and the only affair lacking was a push by u.s.a.
Most NGOs in Bharat are but revenue enhancement abstention scams. They don't intendance whether people know about them or not
Even if you manage to convince a few of them to work with you, they will bail at the last infinitesimal. The typical excuse would be lack of funds, directors thought otherwise and were no longer interested
Market validation is really important. We assumed NGOs would use the brand presence to enhance more funding. We assumed NGOs would exist willing to pay us for digital services. Gilded rule of starting up: Never assume. Talk to potential customers. Meet if they are willing to pay
We were more than interested in getting our visiting cards printed, updating our Linkedin bio. I promised never to practise something over again in life only because it was the "cool" thing to do. It was a humbling experience, getting rejected by so many people
Thankfully something good came out of it: I learnt a lot of lessons which helped me do well in the RedBus internship and later on move to a production role. Another co founder started Halaplay and is doing quite well

KonyLabs and Kore.ai

Depending on college placements was the stupidest mistake I made. I was hoping some fast growing startup would come up to higher and offer me some Business Development or Marketing position. I was not that nifty on moving to a programmer function. Coding never excited me in college, and I did non know then that something similar product direction existed. I did not fifty-fifty interview for most of the software companies which came in the beginning of placement season. Only after near the entire placements were done, I realised what a error I had made; with a half dozen.0 (/10) CGPA I was in deep waters. I had not applied anywhere off campus too. I was running out of options.

So I did what any sane guy at my situation would do: Read Cormen (textbook on Information Structures) cover to embrace and started sitting for interviews.

I still kept getting rejected (messing upward in the final rounds of a few companies) and was one of the final guys in my Informatics batch to get placed. It was a humbling experience. My father would call me every dark request when Microsoft/Google is coming and I had to remind him again and over again that with my CGPA I was non fifty-fifty eligible to sit down for their interviews.

I finally got placed in a startup chosen Kony Labs. I joined their team which used Kony Studio (their proprietary platform) to build apps for diverse companies.The advantage of Kony Studio is that information technology can generate builds for multiple platforms from a unmarried JS codebase. I wrote well-nigh my interview experiences hither: Want To Work For An Indian Startup? Here'south What You Need to Do

I worked at KonyLabs for just 2 months before joining Kore, which spun out from the company. Information technology had the same management team and their goal was to build the side by side generation workplace collaboration platform. It was the best decision I fabricated. Instead of being one of the 100s of developers I was not role of a small startup where I could learn faster. I would proceed to work on the Android app before moving to the Server team.

Learnings:

Most things in life boils down to luck. I could have remained at Kony and kept working on their proprietary platform. It would not accept helped me a lot career wise. But due to some random selection I ended up beingness one of the few freshers moved to Kore.ai
Working at Kore was fun mostly, but with periods of extreme frustration. I felt we were moving too slow and needed to ship much faster if we wanted to take whatever adventure against Slack. Speed is indeed something which can make or break early startups. We also kept irresolute our product roadmap and working on the side by side absurd characteristic. In that location was no n star to speak of
Worked under an amazing Tech lead. I understood why they say the constructive Tech Pb is a 100x engineer. I learnt a lot during my fourth dimension at Kore. I had no clue well-nigh APIs before I joined Kore. I did not know the difference between Lather and Balance properly. 1 and a half year of writing code helped me learn how to actually roll up my sleeves and build products myself. It too helped me become more emphatic later every bit a PM, having been a dev myself. I wrote a blogpost on that as well: what separates good managers from the rest
I realised I could never become a good enough dev to work at Google or Amazon. Instead of reading tech blogs I spent far more than fourth dimension reading production development blogs. If I could not terminate my work, I would just go home and accept a audio slumber, without existence upwards all dark figuring out the prepare

CouponDunia

While I was at Kore, I received this time capsule I had prepare in 2012. This capsule was from a mediocre higher student who wanted his future cocky to respond this simple question: "Did you make something skillful out of your life or are yous still getting screwed?"

I realised that even though I could continue at Kore, working as a developer, I did not see myself as a coder x years down the line. And then I idea "why waste whatever more time?"

I told my manager that I was quitting and put in my papers. I had a two months notice period and in the worst case I was willing to go dorsum to beingness a dev. Or maybe I could just join a startup as a Production Direction intern? I was willing to take the take chances. I had been thinking about the switch for a long time and I knew I would just continue thinking about information technology and not exercise annihilation if I was not pushing myself hard plenty and showed enough intent. And what is the best way to testify intent than quitting your safe chore without a new task offer!

The fourth dimension sheathing which changed my life. Literally.

Instead of writing on how I prepared for Product Management interviews in particular I am linking some actually skilful resources here:

Interviewing for Big Logos with GoogleX quondam Product Manager

How to Ready for a Production Director Interview by erstwhile Facebook PM

Yous can also go through all the Product Schoolhouse videos. Also read Crack the PM Interview volume.

I have also already written on how to await for startup jobs. I followed the verbal same arroyo. Kept pitching to CEOs/Head of Products on how I can add value. Being a generalist really helped to get a foot in the door. Simply a lack of prior production experience led to a lot of rejections besides. Finally I interviewed with 2 startups- CouponDunia and Zoomcar.

I had connected with Sameer, the CEO of CouponDunia on Angellist and I sent my pitch to him.

CouponDunia pitch

The answer to why I wanted to move to a Product role:

Why Production manager?

I wrote a long product critique of the app as well as the website. I even plant broken links. I had seen how people apply at companies without even using their products. I wanted to show that I cared about the company. I had invested enough time to understand the market as well every bit the existing products. All I wanted now was a chance.

Product Critique of the CD app and website

More ideas to grow the usage

Learnings:

I have already written about my piece of work at CouponDunia. If you lot are interested you can read this: How We Scaled CashBoss To 500K downloads in v months and Farewell CouponDunia…
Well-nigh transitioning to a Production role: nineteen lessons I learned during my first year as a Product Manager

Craftsvilla

I was loving my life at CouponDunia. I had a boss who liked me, who gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. Merely I also realised that I was getting likewise comfortable in my life/career. I was no longer learning as much. I had scaled CashBoss to 1million installs and profitability simply if we were to reach the next level, we would need a far bigger investment in Marketing.

I was also seriously contemplating switching to ane of the "Rocket Ships". People suggest you to jump into i, no thing what role you get. I was helping a few other startups during this time including ane which eventually got acquired by Quikr.

It was during that time Craftsvilla reached out to me. It was supposed to be a random coffee meet with the VP of Product simply things turned out for the good and I got a job offering. The following points made the role really exciting:

Craftsvilla was one of the fast growing rocketships you read on various startup blogs. Funded by tiptop investors information technology had raised a massive round at a valuation of around 200 mil and there were talks most a list on NASDAQ
One of my long term goals then was to move into VC afterward getting enough startup experience. I thought this would be a good opportunity to piece of work and network with people in the industry. Nigh all the VPs at Craftsvilla were ex VCs
Lastly my role: I was existence offered the chance to caput mobile apps which seemed likewise good of a role to pass up

I talked about ways to demonstrate value before. Even earlier I officially joined Craftsvilla, I started working on growth. Thinking about how to make Craftsvilla the adjacent unicorn was all I could remember of.

Always exist ready to contribute and demonstrate value as early on every bit possible

Learnings:

Learnt how to make decisions with information. Every feature yous pitch at Craftsvilla had to be backed with metrics and every release supposed to improve on Conversion
Got domain cognition of the due east-commerce manufacture; from logistics to category management to merchandising
Understood how highly funded VC funded startups piece of work from the within
By the end of ix months I had a sad realisation: Almost of the people I enjoyed working with had left due to various issues. The Indian startup ecosystem was in turmoil. Every twenty-four hour period you could encounter startups shutting downwards. Raising new rounds was becoming harder by the day. And Indian e-commerce sector is yet in its infancy. Customer memory is hard. Every one is just burning money to retain people who wont think twice before shopping at your competitor for a 10% extra disbelieve. Fifty-fifty the market leader Flipkart is still bleeding losses
I was also suffering from various health problems after working non stop for years and needed a interruption. I idea taking a few months off would be good

Directi

I spent the next 3 months at home. For a change I did not accept to respond to mails asking why conversion dropped by 20% on a Sun afternoon. I met quite a few startups (based in Guwahati). Information technology was expert fun but time was running out. I needed to expect for a job again.

I evaluated my options. I did not want to bring together another e-commerce company unless information technology was a market leader. Chat platforms were becoming huge. Lot of interesting companies working in the space. I had read like 100 blogposts on Wechat already.

So I decided to apply to the only 2 companies in Bharat working on Chat: Hike and Flock. I wrote a ten pager on how to take Hike to the adjacent level and sent information technology to their Head of Growth. I also dropped a mail to Bhavin, the CEO of Directi.

Fun fact: When I say I hope this somehow lands in your inbox I meant information technology literally. I normally don't go through the typical Hour road and just reach out to the Hiring director/Caput of Production/ CEO with a value proposition postal service. And I certain as hope it lands on their Inbox and not the spam folder.

start part of the mail service/pitch

a bunch of production ideas

invoking wechat spirit

Always explain the 'why'

I managed to get into Directi and bring together their Apps team. I take been working on exactly the same things I mentioned in the mail. At that place have been pros equally well as cons merely in that location won't be a retrospective section for Directi for at present.

That's all folks!

Why I wrote this?

I know there is no point writing a retrospective for your career when information technology has not even been five years since you passed out of college. This might even look narcissistic somehow. But I did finish up doing a lot of things in my life over the last few years which I wanted equally a teenager in higher. I did not go to whatsoever MBA school. I worked at various promising startups and gave my best (till I could, and then moved on). I hope this inspires someone who is still at higher and wondering whether they can ever observe minor level of professional success.

This likewise answers how I got into Product.

Thanks for reading.