Blog

Blog

Accelerate your business with regular tips and expert guidance on building better products and what pitfalls to avoid.

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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“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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Don’t forget to validate

Everyone knows that most startups fail. Year after year CB Insights survey publishes a survey that does post-mortem analysis on failed startups. For many years in a row now – the top reason is: “No market need.” Bad product, lack of funds, and pricing are in the top 5 but not the top most. This is telling. Many founders get

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Why “must have” and “nice to have” are not enough

Whether you are building a new product or adding to an existing product, figuring out what to build is key task for a #productmanager. #Prioritisation is a must. It directly impacts the success of a product and often the career progression of a #PM. It is hard because ⁃ usually there are so many things to do when the product

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Product managers need to be multilingual

Not too long ago I was talking to one of the best product managers I know. She and I were discussing what it takes to lead cross functional teams. “Product Managers must be multilingual,” she said. It was a “lightbulb” moment. And no, we were not referring to the common meaning of multilingual. Most PMs lead teams made of developers,

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What’s the hardest skill to master as a product manager?

Being a PM is a hard job. You have to know a bit about – tech, business, design, marketing and you have to know your customer and market better than anyone else. You have to be good at communication, negotiation, presentation, simplification, persuasion and arguably the hardest – prioritisation. Prioritisation is hard because there are just too many people pulling

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