Blog

Blog

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

Take pride in your product

The question that often stumps people… What does it take to build great products? How come some products are “world class”… And others are just around – good and making money But you would not call them leaders in their space. As a #productmanager, I am tempted to talk of all the science and theory You need to have customer

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Pointers for a new PM role

I was not smart enough, or simply too proud to ask this question when I started. But someone, one of our #productmanagement interns asked this. What do you do when you take up a new #productmanager role? It got me thinking… Here are some pointers: Keep reading and learning how to apply new concepts – Best learning happens when you

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Jargon, jargon, go away!

As techies, many of us love and hate jargon If it’s some term that other people are using then you may find it silly If it’s a term that you are using then it just seems cool Off course terms come and go Hype cycles rise and crash Newly coined terms come into vogue and fade Anyone remember SMAC? What

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Product management is a team sport

I got a lot of things wrong when I became a #productmanager. I was asked to take over a product that was rapidly declining in revenues and relevance. Before that I was an engineering manager who had done well. Like many who are promoted rapidly in a fast growing organization. I was aggressive, sometimes arrogant and sometimes ignorant; taking over

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Building products requires focus

This is a classic trap. For many startups I fell into this a couple of times. Founders study the market. It’s usually filled with solutions. Many solutions. Same or similar problem. There is overlap, but nothing does it alone. Or hardly anyone seems to be. Grand strategy is unveiled. Be the one-stop-shop. Unfortunately, it’s a bad idea. More often than

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The art of negotiation

In business as in life you don’t get what you deserve you get what you negotiate. I read this for the first time several years ago in a book on #negotiation (Later I found out that there is even a book with that as its title). At the time I was seeking a pay raise and promotion after working in

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Giving your product the edge

10 out of 10 tech CEOs and startup founders say this. When asked what do they want to achieve. They want to grow. They want more customers. They want more revenue. If you ask what will it take to achieve that? 8 out of 10 will say: Better GTM. More leads. More sales people. If you are in a commoditized

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The importance of continuous learning

Do you believe that college is useless? That expertise is of no value? That experience is just for old people… Experts, thought leaders and social media teachers are exploding. It’s a common misconception that anything you want to learn, you can learn on YouTube. Tell me the names of people who have built a rocket by watching videos. Done breakthrough

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Accelerate revenue by looking up

As a B2B startup, are you missing out on revenue boosting opportunities? Maybe you feel you can’t go after the big fish? Or does the role you’re selling to not have a high enough budget? Sound familiar? Have you considered targeting C-suite decision makers? Higher roles have access to larger budgets, are keen on embracing the latest technologies… And can

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The advantages of Product-led Growth

Do you remember the first time you used Zoom? Probably a friend or colleague messaged you something like “I’ll send you the link to a Zoom meeting.” That’s how you started using it and before you knew it you had created your own meeting and sent a Zoom link to someone else. This is how Zoom spread like wildfire. Zoom

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Product managers need to know everything

A few days ago, I was talking to a senior product professional. He said something that struck me. It wasn’t the first time I heard this. A product manager is expected to know “everything”. Indeed! It’s often the case. It’s possibly the biggest boon or curse of product management You have to know tech when you talk to engineering You

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Oh those chatbots!

“AI is a menace,” she said. “And a nuisance.” This was a fellow product manager who stunned me with the statement I was about to pounce on that statement Good thing, I didn’t She started explaining… “What is the way most people’s life intersects with AI?” It’s chatbots. Whether you are dealing with your bank, phone company, insurance company, food

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