Which Of The Following Is Not A Product/service-management Activity

How I became a Product Director

Over the past 5 years I accept worked for various startups, built a few interesting products and switched from a programmer to a product manager. This is likewise my try to summarise my career as it stands now and includes learnings from previous jobs. My only experience till 3rd year of college was a summer internship at IOCL and a failed attempt at starting upwardly. I got into RedBus thank you to something I learnt early in my life: at that place are few people in this world who have the audacity to go after what they really want in life.

A brief* career retrospective

Image source: http://chrislema.com/v-tips-for-product-managers/

This postal service has been in drafts for over a year now. I wrote this equally a response to the countless messages I get on Linkedin/Twitter asking how to move to a production office. Over the past v years I have worked for diverse startups, built a few interesting products and switched from a developer to a product manager. This is too my attempt to summarise my career as it stands now and includes learnings from my previous jobs.

I have worked at:

IOCL (Summer Intern, May 2011 — Jul 2011, three months)
NGOSphere (Endeavour at starting up, Nov 2011 — Jul 2012, ix months)
Redbus (Summertime Intern, May 2012 — Jul 2012, 3 months)
Avaya (Final Semester Intern, Jan 2013 — Jul 2013, 6 months)
KonyLabs (Full time, Aug 2013 — Sept 2013, 2 months)
Kore.ai (Full time, October 2013 — November 2014, 1 year 2 months)
CouponDunia (Total time, December 2014 — December 2015, 1 year 1 calendar month)
Craftsvilla (Total time, January 2016 — Sept 2016, 9 months)
Directi (Total fourth dimension, Since Dec 2016, Current)

IOCL and Avaya

IOCL and Avaya were easy. I but had to fill a grade and allow my college (Bits) and my CGPA (six.0/ten) take care of the rest. Thank you to my CGPA I knew I had no chance of getting internships at meridian tier firms. I tried to learn as much equally I could at both places, and got a few good projects under my belt.

Learnings:

There was no way I could encounter myself doing a regime task. The 3 months at IOCL was enough for me to realise that
I got interested in direction while at IOCL. I took a project related Full Productive Maintenance (TPM)at IOCL and I started a habit of reading as much as I could well-nigh all-time management practices
At Avaya, I learnt how large companies run. I was function of sprints, planning meetings for the outset fourth dimension. I also understood how products go built: client research, prototyping, blastoff releases etc

RedBus

I got into RedBus thank you to something I learnt quite early in my life: there are few people in this globe who have the brazenness to become later on what they really want in life. At $.25, I saw a friend of mine send out close to 200 applications to professors all over the earth to land a summer internship abroad. There were people who had much better CGPA. In that location were people who probably were ameliorate at Informatics than him. Merely none of them had his drive.

My only feel till 3rd year of college was a summer internship at IOCL and a failed attempt at starting up. Inspired by my friend, I decided to send out as many applications as possible, no affair how many rejections I got. Thankfully the first electronic mail itself worked.

Past leadership positions I meant a position at the Student Council equally an elected representative from my hostel and existence a co-founder of NGOSphere (which I volition talk virtually later in this post). I still got an interview. Showing upwardly something is the only matter you lot need to do, even if you lot might affair yous are not in that location yet.

Shankar Prasad, the COO, told me that RedBus was exploring expansion in the North East. They had started operations almost a twelvemonth before, but they had very few tie ups and hence wanted someone to get there. My piece of work was to convince bus operators & travel agencies to partner with RedBus, calibration up RedBus'due south operations and run a few marketing projects. I don't know why they felt that I was the guy who could do that, simply I was nonetheless thankful and jumped at the opportunity.

Learnings:

I realised how much I loved working for a fast paced startup which was in hyper scaling mode. At that place was no bureaucracy. You lot did not have to please your manager and could just go out and do your own stuff
I never felt like a lowly paid intern. I was hustling in the N East, trying to figure out a mode to grow RedBus there. I studied the travel industry in and out. I also wrote a weblog mail service here: How is Redbus.in innovative if information technology's just a normal bus ticket booking site?
In the 3 months I was with Redbus I helped double their partners in the North East. Even so I was looking at unique ways I could be valuable for a corporation. Being from the North East helped. I realized that if everything fails in my life, I could still become a city manager for some startup in Guwahati. I got solid recommendations and learnt a lot, something I could never had done at a big corporation
I Learnt a lot nearly how culture is of import for a startup. At RedBus, Phani (the CEO) used to send Happy Birthday mails to employees. My managing director Subhobrata did his best to permit me have the freedom to do what I wanted. Even if I was just there just for 3 months, I felt like I was part of the company. People were quick to praise your work and brand you feel important

NGOSphere

This was our announcement postal service on Facebook. Nosotros were happy to have our own startup. Nosotros were vain. And naive. But we tried.

During my 2nd year of college I got fascinated with the world of startups. This was the starting time of the startup boom in India. Everywhere I turned, I could see people starting up. Also maybe, I was reading likewise much TechCrunch.

Here was the idea: There were around 2 one thousand thousand NGOs in India in 2011. Our goal was to become at least 1% of them online. Provide them various services: web site development, brochure design, fund raising, branding. Our goal was to start a web blueprint agency and target merely this market.

Learnings:

Finding a datapoint like two million NGOs are in Bharat means nothing. Nosotros were stupid to assume most of them want to come online and the merely thing lacking was a push by u.s.a.
Nearly NGOs in India are only tax avoidance scams. They don't care whether people know well-nigh them or non
Even if yous manage to convince a few of them to piece of work with you, they volition bond at the last minute. The typical excuse would be lack of funds, directors thought otherwise and were no longer interested
Market place validation is really important. Nosotros assumed NGOs would use the make presence to enhance more funding. Nosotros assumed NGOs would be willing to pay us for digital services. Aureate dominion of starting up: Never presume. Talk to potential customers. Meet if they are willing to pay
We were more interested in getting our visiting cards printed, updating our Linkedin bio. I promised never to practise something again in life just considering it was the "cool" thing to do. Information technology was a humbling experience, getting rejected past so many people
Thankfully something good came out of it: I learnt a lot of lessons which helped me do well in the RedBus internship and later motility to a production function. Another co founder started Halaplay and is doing quite well

KonyLabs and Kore.ai

Depending on college placements was the stupidest mistake I made. I was hoping some fast growing startup would come to higher and offer me some Business Development or Marketing position. I was non that neat on moving to a developer part. Coding never excited me in college, and I did not know and then that something like product management existed. I did non fifty-fifty interview for most of the software companies which came in the offset of placement season. Just after almost the entire placements were washed, I realised what a error I had made; with a half-dozen.0 (/10) CGPA I was in deep waters. I had non applied anywhere off campus also. I was running out of options.

So I did what whatsoever sane guy at my state of affairs would do: Read Cormen (textbook on Data Structures) cover to encompass and started sitting for interviews.

I still kept getting rejected (messing up in the terminal rounds of a few companies) and was one of the concluding guys in my Computer science batch to get placed. Information technology was a humbling experience. My father would telephone call me every dark asking when Microsoft/Google is coming and I had to remind him once again and over again that with my CGPA I was not fifty-fifty eligible to sit for their interviews.

I finally got placed in a startup called Kony Labs. I joined their squad which used Kony Studio (their proprietary platform) to build apps for various companies.The advantage of Kony Studio is that it tin can generate builds for multiple platforms from a single JS codebase. I wrote about my interview experiences here: Desire To Work For An Indian Startup? Here's What You Need to Do

I worked at KonyLabs for but 2 months before joining Kore, which spun out from the visitor. It had the aforementioned management team and their goal was to build the next generation workplace collaboration platform. It was the best decision I made. Instead of existence one of the 100s of developers I was not part of a small startup where I could learn faster. I would go on to work on the Android app before moving to the Server team.

Learnings:

Nigh things in life boils down to luck. I could accept remained at Kony and kept working on their proprietary platform. It would non have helped me a lot career wise. But due to some random selection I ended up existence i of the few freshers moved to Kore.ai
Working at Kore was fun mostly, but with periods of extreme frustration. I felt we were moving too boring and needed to ship much faster if nosotros wanted to have any hazard against Slack. Speed is indeed something which can make or pause early startups. We also kept changing our product roadmap and working on the adjacent absurd feature. In that location was no north star to speak of
Worked under an amazing Tech lead. I understood why they say the effective Tech Lead is a 100x engineer. I learnt a lot during my time at Kore. I had no clue about APIs before I joined Kore. I did not know the divergence between SOAP and Remainder properly. One and a half year of writing code helped me learn how to actually roll up my sleeves and build products myself. Information technology also helped me become more emphatic later as a PM, having been a dev myself. I wrote a blogpost on that besides: what separates expert managers from the rest
I realised I could never become a expert enough dev to work at Google or Amazon. Instead of reading tech blogs I spent far more time reading product development blogs. If I could non finish my work, I would just go home and accept a sound sleep, without being up all dark figuring out the fix

CouponDunia

While I was at Kore, I received this time capsule I had set in 2012. This sheathing was from a mediocre college student who wanted his future cocky to answer this simple question: "Did you brand something good out of your life or are you still getting screwed?"

I realised that even though I could go along at Kore, working equally a developer, I did not see myself every bit a coder 10 years down the line. So I thought "why waste product whatsoever more time?"

I told my manager that I was quitting and put in my papers. I had a 2 months detect menstruation and in the worst instance I was willing to go back to being a dev. Or maybe I could just bring together a startup as a Product Management intern? I was willing to take the risk. I had been thinking about the switch for a long time and I knew I would just go on thinking about it and not do anything if I was not pushing myself hard enough and showed enough intent. And what is the best way to show intent than quitting your safe job without a new job offer!

The fourth dimension capsule which changed my life. Literally.

Instead of writing on how I prepared for Product Management interviews in particular I am linking some actually skilful resources hither:

Interviewing for Big Logos with GoogleX former Product Manager

How to Prepare for a Product Managing director Interview past onetime Facebook PM

You can also go through all the Product School videos. Too read Crack the PM Interview book.

I accept too already written on how to wait for startup jobs. I followed the exact same arroyo. Kept pitching to CEOs/Caput of Products on how I can add value. Being a generalist really helped to get a foot in the door. But a lack of prior production feel led to a lot of rejections also. Finally I interviewed with 2 startups- CouponDunia and Zoomcar.

I had connected with Sameer, the CEO of CouponDunia on Angellist and I sent my pitch to him.

The reply to why I wanted to movement to a Product role:

I wrote a long production critique of the app likewise equally the website. I even found broken links. I had seen how people utilise at companies without even using their products. I wanted to testify that I cared well-nigh the visitor. I had invested plenty time to understand the market likewise equally the existing products. All I wanted now was a chance.

Production Critique of the CD app and website

Learnings:

I have already written about my work at CouponDunia. If you lot are interested you can read this: How We Scaled CashBoss To 500K downloads in 5 months and Farewell CouponDunia…
About transitioning to a Product role: xix lessons I learned during my commencement yr equally a Product Managing director

Craftsvilla

I was loving my life at CouponDunia. I had a boss who liked me, who gave me the freedom to practise whatever I wanted. But I also realised that I was getting too comfortable in my life/career. I was no longer learning every bit much. I had scaled CashBoss to 1million installs and profitability but if we were to reach the next level, we would need a far bigger investment in Marketing.

I was besides seriously contemplating switching to one of the "Rocket Ships". People suggest you to spring into one, no thing what role you get. I was helping a few other startups during this time including 1 which eventually got caused by Quikr.

Information technology was during that time Craftsvilla reached out to me. It was supposed to be a random coffee meet with the VP of Production merely things turned out for the practiced and I got a chore offer. The following points made the role really heady:

Craftsvilla was one of the fast growing rocketships yous read on diverse startup blogs. Funded by pinnacle investors information technology had raised a massive round at a valuation of effectually 200 mil and at that place were talks almost a listing on NASDAQ
I of my long term goals then was to move into VC after getting plenty startup experience. I idea this would be a skillful opportunity to piece of work and network with people in the manufacture. Virtually all the VPs at Craftsvilla were ex VCs
Lastly my office: I was beingness offered the risk to head mobile apps which seemed as well good of a role to refuse

I talked about ways to demonstrate value before. Fifty-fifty before I officially joined Craftsvilla, I started working on growth. Thinking about how to brand Craftsvilla the next unicorn was all I could call up of.

Always be ready to contribute and demonstrate value as early on as possible

Learnings:

Learnt how to make decisions with information. Every feature y'all pitch at Craftsvilla had to be backed with metrics and every release supposed to improve on Conversion
Got domain cognition of the east-commerce industry; from logistics to category direction to merchandising
Understood how highly funded VC funded startups work from the inside
By the stop of 9 months I had a sad realisation: Near of the people I enjoyed working with had left due to diverse issues. The Indian startup ecosystem was in turmoil. Every twenty-four hour period you could see startups shutting downward. Raising new rounds was condign harder past the twenty-four hours. And Indian e-commerce sector is nevertheless in its infancy. Customer memory is hard. Every one is just burning money to retain people who wont think twice before shopping at your competitor for a 10% actress discount. Fifty-fifty the market leader Flipkart is still haemorrhage losses
I was also suffering from various health issues later on working non finish for years and needed a interruption. I thought taking a few months off would be skilful

Directi

I spent the next 3 months at abode. For a change I did not have to reply to mails asking why conversion dropped by 20% on a Sunday afternoon. I met quite a few startups (based in Guwahati). It was adept fun but time was running out. I needed to look for a chore once again.

I evaluated my options. I did non want to join another eastward-commerce company unless it was a market place leader. Chat platforms were becoming huge. Lot of interesting companies working in the space. I had read like 100 blogposts on Wechat already.

So I decided to apply to the only two companies in India working on Chat: Hike and Flock. I wrote a 10 pager on how to take Hike to the side by side level and sent it to their Head of Growth. I also dropped a mail to Bhavin, the CEO of Directi.

Fun fact: When I say I hope this somehow lands in your inbox I meant it literally. I unremarkably don't get through the typical HR route and merely reach out to the Hiring manager/Head of Production/ CEO with a value proposition post. And I sure as promise it lands on their Inbox and not the spam folder.

I managed to go into Directi and join their Apps team. I have been working on exactly the same things I mentioned in the postal service. There accept been pros likewise as cons merely there won't exist a retrospective section for Directi for now.

That's all folks!

Why I wrote this?

I know there is no point writing a retrospective for your career when it has not fifty-fifty been 5 years since yous passed out of higher. This might even look narcissistic somehow. But I did cease up doing a lot of things in my life over the last few years which I wanted as a teenager in college. I did not go to any MBA schoolhouse. I worked at various promising startups and gave my best (till I could, and so moved on). I hope this inspires someone who is however at college and wondering whether they can ever observe small level of professional success.

This likewise answers how I got into Production.

Thanks for reading.