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Building a product feature without knowing what the customers need ….

Talk to anyone in the senior management including the CEO, CTO, Sales head, Engineering head , & everyone else and they’ll define the problem statement, create the requirements, propose a solution, design and detail out implementation specifics and even create a multi-phase release plan in less than an hour. All of this gets done for a product feature that the customers themselves are not even sure whether they need it or how they are gonna use it ?

#CoffeeBudget - A Secret Weapon in the Arsenal of Product Managers and Entrepreneurs

Alright! First of all, the term Coffee Budget is not a standard term. I coined this term in context of Entrepreneurship and Product Management. In my entrepreneurial journey of 5 years or so, I have met hundreds of people that include other fellow entrepreneurs at similar level as mine, the beginners, founders of successful startups, Angel investors, VCs of almost all shapes, sizes and stages, advisors, mentors, corporate big wigs or senior management officials, govt.

Can MBA really get you an entry into the world of product management ?

So, you are a tech professional (software engineer or anyone from tech industry). You have written code, managed teams and got promoted as the number of years kept adding up in your professional life. But now, after many years of experience, you believe that you should make a transition to something better.

Why is Hiring and Firing done wrongly in India

Hiring is an integral part of any company. Be it a startup or a large MNC, both cannot survive without hiring and the opposite of it, Firing. But the HR managers struggle to get the right candidate to fill in positions. You would have heard it many times that any decent position hiring takes at least 100 people to be interviewed to hire one right person and firing is much more painful.

Why is Sales so tough and why salespersons deserve utmost respect ?

Every day, some one is trying to sell you something. Most of the time, you’ll simply say no to the salesperson. You’ll still get a call again and you shout on the phone before disconnecting. And many times, you’ll blacklist the number. This is a fact which makes sales being one of the toughest profession.

Do Product Managers really talk or think about Agile ?

Okay. Disclaimers first : I believe agile is a good philosophy and provide a good method for development / execution. But I don’t practice it anymore … I am a Product Manager for the past few years. Before turning into an Entrepreneur, I worked in a multi national firm which tried all its might to implement agile in various forms spending millions of dollars on training and implementation.

Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey. But how lonely it is ?

Exactly the way many entrepreneurs sit in their room and spend the night…. If you are planning to take the leap of faith, then you would have heard this line from many entrepreneurs and if you are an entrepreneur (whether failed or successful), you would have been through this or may be still go through this everyday.

A day in life of a Product Manager …

This is inspired from real life. This post is not about being inspirational or talk about the pros and cons of being a product manager. It is all about doing what one always wants to do in life. Everyone plays an important role in success of a company. Be it a CEO , COO, sales, marketing, programmers, testers, Dev Ops, admins, HR, finance, support or a lesser known mortal called Product Manager, everyone is so integral for a company to be successful.

It’s okay if you are not an entrepreneur and work for large corporate…

With all the buzz around startups and entrepreneurship, I just thought about people who are employee and work for small and large companies and are not entrepreneur. What about them ? Just because entrepreneurship is getting limelight and lot a coverage in print and electronic media, does it make them the super mortals ?