How do you position your product?
Are you special? Unique? Better than the others? If I were to ask you this question, you would likely say yes; at least to some of those. That is how we are as human beings. 🙂 However, if you are building a b2b product then it’s not so easy to answer them as “yes”. Most products solve a business problem …
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The Transition from Hustle to Structure: Scaling Beyond $1M in Revenue
When I lived in the US they used to say, “Earning your first $1M is the hardest.” That may be true for individuals. However, it isn’t true for startups and product businesses. Getting to your first million in revenue is easier than going from $1M to $10M if you’re a product startup. The early revenue is all about the hustle. …
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What’s your GTM channel of choice?
One of the key choices to make for any #b2B SaaS product to grow is the choice of GTM channel. The choices can be different based on your target segment in terms of geography and size of company, but this but this is a good rule of thumb to follow: – High volume, low touch – email, social media, website, …
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Does putting “lipstick on a pig” make it prettier?
This phrase is what I thought about as I heard something that I have too many times before. In a startup club meeting we were having a discussion around the challenges faced by companies entering the US market. A few founders were talking about how to fix their UI/UX for the US market. I, however, disagree with the very idea …
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“Bees saal pehle ki baat hai”
20 years ago, give or take, I joined a high flying #startup coming out of MIT. Millions were made and lost in a span of few years. All on paper, off course. This was in the late 90s near the peak of the dotcom boom. The company was cool. As a fresh grad in a first job that seemed to …
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Are you ready to start a fire?
One of the toughest balancing acts is something many startup founders pull off on a daily basis. You have to deal with multiple issues, make rapid decisions with limited information and also continue to lead the team. When you are short on resources, you have multiple operational fires to deal with. Often one of the biggest challenges is to make …
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A better reason to say no
Have you ever said “no” to a customer? Have you ever said “no” to your CEO? And survived to tell the tale? It’s always hard to say “no” to someone who apparently has power over you. However it can be made easier, at least for product manager s. All good product managers use a prioritization scheme to decide what goes …
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Great leaders acknowledge failures
Usually when we talk about leadership, we talk about achievements. Great leaders are the ones who take businesses, movements, countries, science to great heights. However, this view is incomplete. Especially in times like these. To me a great leader not only basks in the glory of success but also takes responsibility of failures. Taking responsibility or ownership is not an …
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Going from “hustle” to “structured growth”
Change is hard. Changing your mindset is harder. This is likely one of the hardest things to do for the founders of startups. Your eventual scale and success may depend on this. It’s going from “hustle” to “structured growth” mode. When you are a startup you’ll do whatever it takes to get the product built. You might end up coding, …
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Why are you charging so low?
The incongruency sometimes baffles me. Maybe it comes from a fear that nobody will buy. Maybe it comes from not understanding the impact and value. Maybe the importance is simply not understood or overlooked. More often than not founders of b2b startups price their products too low. If you ask a founder whether they are solving an “important” and “urgent” …
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