I engage with these 3 broad themes all day long, every day and therefore I have decided I am going to instill some writing discipline and put my thoughts on this blog as frequently as possible. I am a Product Manager for a SaaS product. I manage a team of 40+ people directly and 70+ indirectly. Also, I am always brainstorming on new business ideas, product extensions, and the general state of the startup arena.
Startup ideas, people and product management - these 3 themes fascinate me. I read a lot too, so you will see some of my thoughts on whatever subject I have been reading up on too.
Startup ideas
I keep coming up with ideas all the time, product extensions included (my job rocks! :)). However, as you probably already know, ideas have value only if they are executed correctly - see https://sivers.org/multiply for an excellent summary of why you probably shouldn’t ask for a NDA to discuss your idea! If I had a dollar for every idea that my mind seems to keep churning out, I could safely retire now, I guess. That’s not to be, though.
For all you startup enthusiasts, I recommend “open sourcing” your idea to anyone who listens. It will give you quality feedback that you might not have even thought of.
I will be putting down the ideas that excite me daily and conduct a basic to intermediate level of customer development and analysis on these. My objective is to shortlist one idea out of the many that come to my mind, and do a startup. However, if any idea, and the basic research I will be doing on these, ends up helping someone else, that will be awesome.
People
Mark Zuckerberg did not build Facebook on his own.
Narayana Murthy did not build Infosys on his own.
Bill Gates did not build Microsoft on his own.
Jeff Bezos did not build Amazon on his own.
Larry Page did not build Google on his own.
Kunal Bahl did not build Snapdeal on his own.
Well, you get the picture….you will not get anywhere without a team. And the top-down approach followed by corporates yesterday is already going stale. The one line summary is - you need to keep your people’s personal objectives in sync with the company’s objectives, and enable an environment that is open, transparent and allows individuals to meet their ambitions and learning needs. Of course, there is a lot more to it, but we will get to that later.
Product management
I love what I do. Somehow, right at the time I exited Dexter in 2013, product management started becoming sexy in the press. This image succinctly captures the scope of the product management process and it’s importance in building the superb applications that play such an important role in our life today.
Suddenly it seemed that what I enjoyed doing became a popular vocation, all by itself. I am grateful in the sense that I get to do what I like and I don’t need to “grind” it out.
“The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries has influenced me a lot. Customer development is another big influencing theme. Please read up on Steve Blank’s seminal works in the customer development and product management space if you are a startup enthusiast or just starting out in the area of product management. In fact, I would say this is required reading for all practitioners.
I am going to end here by promising myself to write frequently. I am writing to leave a digital impression of my thoughts online. If it helps a few people, that will be a bonus. Wish me well!