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

Learn to be a product manager – A beginner’s guide

Product management is one of the most lucrative professions and is growing rapidly as is the demand for product managers. In fact, product management is expected to reach USD 31.84 billion by 2025. In this article, we will try to explain what product management is. Is it just the process of delivering a product? What else does it include? And

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Cultivating integrative complexity

What do Presidents, Prime Ministers and successful PMs – Product Managers — have in common? Ever wondered how the leader of a country can be fighting off aggression from a neighbour and at the same time be negotiating a trade agreement with that same country? Such leaders usually score high on IC. How does one deal with ambiguous information, conflicting

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Your product needs clear direction

“Founders must be jack of all trades” “In a startup everyone must do everything” Usually true – if you are just getting started. But follow this for too long and it can be really dangerous. Many #startups and early stage products fall in the trap of having one person decide everything. It may work for some things, but the one

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Work hard or smart?

If you read what lot of business gurus and self-help gurus say you will be confused. I sure was. On the one hand people say that you have to work hard -99% perspiration 1% inspiration -Harder I work luckier I get -And more of such “wisdom” On the other hand you will hear: -Work smarter not harder -80/20 rule -And

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What’s the best way to test when hiring new PMs?

Most companies hiring #productmanagers have realized this by now, But it is hard to figure out during the interviews. You need someone with strong research, communication, problem-solving and prioritization skills, Domain knowledge and tech can be taught faster than some of these above, arguably. Ability to empathise with users is another important one. Haven’t found a test for that yet.

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Your product needs to understand what users want

I hate interruptions Especially from my phone Most apps seek to annoy you with notifications Everytime you install a new app You have to be sure to read the prompts carefully And there are intentionally hard to understand Or once you starting seeing the annoying notifications Go to settings and turn those off Most of the apps on your phone

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PMs need to empathize

It’s fashionable among #productmanager groups to complain about “others”. You may have come across social media posts and memes that talk about this. How “they” don’t get #productmanagement. How the CEOs and founders are only interested in making money. How India is not the right place for being a PM. How even successful companies don’t know how to build products.

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The unsung heroes

Sensationalism sells. Making gods out of #founders sells. Showing how #visionaries are changing the world sells. We all have a need to believe in #heroes. And by nature, our heroes need to be larger than life. Well at least in the stories. Some of you may have seen the collage of Forbes covers. One that calls out several people who

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Working when resources are constrained

“Do more with less”. This is a “mantra” you will hear in time of economic uncertainty. It applies to big companies and #startups. Maybe more so with startups, because most are already resource constrained. There are a lot of things that #productmanagers and #founders can do. Arguably the most important thing is to prioritize. This is not just about what

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How to validate a product idea

“Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything.” If you interact with VCs or people who have built product businesses, They will confirm this. Of course, like everything that is catchy, this is only partially true. Biggest problem lies in how people vet and validate their idea. Coming up with ideas could be easy and fun But validating and

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The challenges of consulting product founders

Becoming a #productmanager is hard Building a #startup is harder Being a #consultant helping #founders and #productleaders is one of the hardest things I have had to learn. (And yes, it’s harder than cracking JEE and studying rocket science)! And it’s far from done, still learning every day. For a founder or a PM to be good at their job

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Product management training needs a dose of the real world

Your #productmanagement certification could be worthless. Let me correct that a bit – it has some value, If you are getting your first job in product, If you don’t have real world exposure to building products, If you have never really learnt the theory, Does that mean all training for #productmanager is a waste of time and money? No, not

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