Episode 31: Shravan Tickoo- How to build and scale products for Unicorn
About Shravan Tickoo:
My next guest on The One Percent Project is Shravan Tickoo. Shravan is a principal PM at BYJU'S-world’s most valued EdTech startup. Shravan kicked off his career as an entrepreneur by building an app while in college that went viral, and he landed up selling in 2012. Since then, he has worked across industries with India’s leading tech unicorns such as Flipkart, Blackbuck, Time Group and Edureka. He is also a product mentor, influencer and angel investor.
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In this conversation he talks about:
Why is it essential to think about product and product management in terms of first principles?
How to create product defensibility through positioning?
Why is engagement a critical aspect of product assessment and how to measure it?
How is a product different from a service?
Key Take-Aways:
First principle thinking is about how you break down complex non-deterministic structures into deterministic structures that don't change with time.
Engagement doesn't necessarily mean anybody coming into your product and doing anything. It is about doing the intended activity that you want the user to do because you believe that it is going to add the maximum value to the user.
Product positioning is more critical for your success compared to the uniqueness of the idea.
Product management is the art of problem-solving at scale.
Accessibility differentiates good product managers from excellent ones.
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Transcript:
*The transcripts are not 100% accurate.
Pritish: Welcome, Shravaan to the 1% project. It's a pleasure. Tell us about yourself and tell us how did your product management opportunity and career start?
Shravan: I'm pretty sure it has been a very serendipitous journey. I was from the stereotype way that I teach, I got those in the given saying, that is how it is going to happen. They pushed me towards it, and I got through to it. So, in the first year only, I realized that this is not something I want to do my job like the engineering part of it, I don't recommend it, obviously, everybody should study in their engineering colleges. But the thing was, that was very clear to me was that I am not this guy who would work in a non-curious environment, which doesn't excite my curiosity as a person. So, in the second year, born and brought up in Jammu, very curious guy, majority of the time, people, my parents are always concerned about the fact that he reads anything but academics. Like he's reading Egyptian mythology in a class, what is he doing is reading music. He's reading literature, reading philosophy, nothing related to his school Academy books and they always thought he is carrying a gallon cover, what will he do eventually in life. So, what happened, as I grew up my parents, they also, had this thing that they met their friends, and they got to know about this thing called it and everybody told them as you what really happened is me alongside with two of my computer science students, we used to come from rookie to Delhi and a lot of time, we used to go out, have fun, probably go to parties and stuff like that and a lot of times, police used to catch us up and we used to get watch alarms rather than what it used to happen that way. We figured out that is there a way to solve this problem in some way.
So, that we can figure out that there is a policeman standing somewhere and we will be able to intimate our friends that don't go from that route. So, we built this application, and it was very new back then and my friends always wanted to do code. They were computer science grads. So, we built these ways for cops, which were an interesting concept that if you see a cop somewhere, you pinpoint the location, and it will tell you that there is a cop, don't go from that particular route. So, we started this application, build this application and what really happened was, we put it across and never thinking about this, that this is something that's going to blow up and we always thought it's going to be around 200 300 people who are going to use it all over friends, what really happens, fast forward three months and I check out the Google Play Store analytics dashboard. I see there are over 300,000 downloads for that application with no marketing and I was like, what is happening? This is the problem that I am facing. But somewhere in some corner of the world. This is again, something that people are facing, and they're using this application. So, send out an email asking Google that, what is happening, can you give me some insight about what's happening.
So, they told me that there are people in Arizona, as well as in Chicago, who are downloading this application out of nowhere and this was very interesting to me. After that, what happens after two odd months, there's this large enterprise firm, which reaches out reaches out to us and says, we want to buy your application. Initially, I thought is it like a Nigerian scam or something, which is happening with me. But then again, we sold that application for some money, which is like 30 $40,000 and for a college student, that was huge amount of money back then I'm talking about is on 12. So, that is when I realized that if I can solve problems, and get paid for it, there's nothing beautiful in life than that and this is something that I wanted. In my fourth year, one of my seniors, he effectively gave me this book called inspired by Marty Kagan and I started reading it and he realized that he product management, this seems very similar to what I did. Like, you build features for users, you drive value towards it. So, at least if this is something I don't want to repeat the same mistake that I did in 12th class going into a branch, which I'm not curious about. So, why don't I do something which is very similar to it. So, that is when my journey I thought I want to do this without knowing anything about it.
So, finally what happened? I got placed in Flipkart, and Flipkart, I spent I was more in analytics. But then I used to spend a lot of time with product folks and my boss was always asking, why are you spending So, much time with them? What is with you? and I told him that I'm really curious about how they build features for millions of users. How do they derive value? How do they do recommendations? And that is when I realized, oh, this is the field. This is exactly what I want to do and moving from Flipkart, I moved to another company, which is blackbuck was something like Uber for trucks. I joined there as their third pm as their data pm building the pricing model, building analytics models for them, and effectively started realizing that product management is not really how people define it, define it as an intersection of design, tech and business. That's just an aspect of it. But I think the fundamental root cause is how do you solve problems in a scalable way, which can be effectively vertically deep, in which the same value is ascribed to the user, even if there are hundreds of millions of users using the platform or 100 users using the platform.
So, spend any over there, then moved across two times internet in Delhi. That was my first b2c job, where I actually saw consumer product management, which was very interesting to me, because I'd come from a data background, and then spent over a year there built models on how owners effectively want to sell their houses, and the last three years have been in pretty much in education and that is how thing that I fell in love with, because coming from a background where education was definitely given priority to, but because of the turmoil that happened, we could not kind of assert towards how the community has to evolve. So, I spent two years in America, which is an upscaling startup, started there as a senior PM, effectively ended up leading their business, growing their business. Understanding how the upskilling segment ships in India, and the last one year has been in baijiu, as a principal pm taking care of their synchronous learning platform, which is their life platform for kids. How do we do live classes at scale, and this is in an industry, which is rapidly growing the supplementary education industry, which is doing like 100% year on year. So, that has been quite a curious journey around over the last six years. But yeah, the fundamental of that is that being a very curious guy, solving interesting problems is something that makes you a great player and I think that was something that I was really passionate about
Pritish: How much of you cracking it at a national level has been a part of your curiousness as well as your reading?
Shravan: That's a very interesting question, actually. So, I think it's the other way around. I was always curious as an individual, which effectively helped me understand the passion towards solving problems, which was where I think mathematics has been the language of it, which coincidentally was something that was very important in cracking the exam and there was always this feeling that you should love the process more than the outcome somehow, which comes from religion. Also, to a certain extent, Lord Krishna speaks about the same garden crow fall Kitchen de Nakuru. So, that was there that I always loved mathematics, and how it helps simplify how you look at the world, the beauty of it, and that kind of helped me understand concepts that have far more deeper level, which helped me crack it. But one thing that really helped shape my experience in it, and I think that that has been a very major impetus on how I've skated my career, is that one major learning was that you're as good as your peer group. That is something that I learned in it, that's insanely amazing for me. Because whenever you are in the set of people, and they are talented, and you keep learning from them, there's always constructive criticism, and you try to solve towards the problem and smart people, you always look up to them, you try to think that what is the next value that I can add in the conversation, it's not going to be a very few times conversation that you're having with them.
So, it improves you as a thinker. So, it widens your horizon of how you look at the world, can you create an impact, like for a lot of people, which I've seen, the only aim in life is to get a certain salary, and then make effective some wealth for themselves. But I think being an IT being with people who have done enormously tremendous number of things in their life, where I feel that I've not done even 1% of that. So, it always gave me that horizon. That dude, this is not what's like What's life, you have to create an impact at scale and one learning that I had from it that was very, very essential for me was that the only way you live 1000 years is when you create impact and impact is defined as if you have some place in people's hearts, that is something that came very strongly to me, because when I did my small startup or whatever you want to call it a project, it helped people and I could see that people remember me for that array.
Shawn is that guy who solved that particular problem, basically, the two important points that I took away from my college, which were very important to me were that you're as good as your peer group and second thing is that because of this peer group, your horizon of thinking kind of widens, which effectively enabled my curiosity, even more to understand and figure out ways how to move towards that. So, it has a very, what I would say, not like a primary kind of a structure in which you would say Kalmycks really helped me shaped as an individual. But I think the entire also, experience is pretty phenomenal and that's why I feel great universities like Harvard, Stanford, or any of the great universities in the world, they're really doing a fantastic job and I would always say nothing can replace it. education as a concept is never going to be completely online or offline, it's always going to be blended.
Pritish: Tell us about your concept of collective consigns.
Shravan: It is again, a very interesting way of looking at things. So, what I always thought is I was very curious, always trying to understand how to decipher the world and what really happened at that point of time was, I always wanted to understand what the truth in life is, because the reality and truth are different things. Reality is how people perceive that's a very different way of looking at it. Truth is absolute, right? It's doesn't change, like light, travels at a speed of three and do tend to tend to our Atreus think about eight meters per second, that is an absolute truth. It doesn't change. So, I was wanting to figure out that what is the truth in life? What can I effectively do to effectively figure out is there something that doesn't change with time, which stays at as it as it is? So, initially, in my career, I thought maybe leveling up is one way like if I earn a certain amount of money, I'll be happy. I'll be very happy but what happened growing with a lot of people understanding about it.
After doing whatever little amount of success that I had, I realized nothing changed. I'm still the same, I'm not feeling very happy from inside. So, that moment, I could just figure out that now material, things are not going to make me happy. That's for sure. Because the amount of wealth that accumulated, my lifestyle is not going to change, even if I earn 100x of that. So, I thought, why don't I move to a more fundamental concept, where people effectively are not able to experience it, and I could be able to experience it in some way. I mean by that is something spiritual, because another thing that I fundamentally feel is there are two concepts, which is a belief system and second is a reality structure, the only thing that brings them together is something called experiential learning and experiential learning is very critical for any belief system to become a reality structure like people who believe in religion, for example, if you believe that there is a God, initially, it's a belief structure. But if you experienced him in some way, like you feel that, oh, I prayed to God, and it helped somebody come back from a poor health, you start believing that he actually exists.
So, I went back to my roots being an avid reader of comparative religion and I realized that this interesting thing that Lord Krishna keeps speaking about, which is Dharma, where does it originate from, and he keeps speaking that Dharma comes from compassion, or Karuna. That's how you put it in Hindi, right? So, what do you mean by Karuna is that Karuna is that when you start thinking collectively and think outward, as an ecosystem, the ecosystem at a very fundamental consciousness level is the same? The difference between petition shovel is only biological difference, fundamentally, at a consciousness level, you and me the same and if I start helping the ecosystem that way, with being grateful about it, that whatever, the ecosystem is going to help you back, because now it's not a transaction, if the conversation that we're having, if there was a transactional value assigned to it, like $500, for example, then you would have lost context of this conversation and I would have to, but this conversation is towards something that is very fundamental, like giving value giving knowledge, which kind of makes people slightly better in life.
So, then I create some place in your heart, this, is that how the conversation happens. So, I thought, okay, it's a belief system, why don't I try to implement it, do something around it. So, that is when my journey of moving into thinking into this concept of collective consciousness started coming catapulting towards LinkedIn, because I thought, the way that I look at product management is problem solving. But that is not actually what's happening. So, I don't like to give this information, just helping people. Let's see how it works. It was an experiment as a product manager, and he started doing it taking out time to help people without any agenda without doing anything and overtime, the returns were phenomenal. Like, I could never imagine the fact that people coming back to me and saying that we want you to give a lecture at the premier institutes in India, we want you to consult a startup and I was like, Dude, what is happening?
I started off with this journey of helping people without any agenda and the returns that I'm getting back are hundreds of even today, if I'm having a conversation with you, it probably happened because of that only. So, that is when I started believing that this fundamental construct of collective consciousness makes sense, makes a lot of sense and that is why I tell this fundamental thought process of collective consciousness helps you improve a better thinker in life and if you if 100 people good thinkers think about a problem, that innovation is going to happen a lot more faster than one struggle thinking about it and that is why. So, profoundly believe in it and say that this is what the concept is that you give out without any agenda, just believing and loving the process, and keep everything surrender to the universe, or surrender to that aspect of creating connections.
Pritish: Double click on the first principal thing.
Shravan: Sure. So, I think how I look at problems in life problems are twofold. Some are deterministic problems, and some are non-deterministic problems are or you can quantify them as some are reversible problems, and some are irreversible problems, right? Now, if you think it life, it's sort of game of chess where the outcome is fixed. Now, what happens in whenever you move towards a statement where the outcome is fixed, if you keep doing the process again, and again, you effectively improve with it, that has a transactional value. So, the as the transactional value is raised to power x, your efficiency kind of improves. But life is not like that. Life has So, many variables. So, that So, what really happens at that point of time, if you don't do the experiment, what I mean by that is, let's assume you think of a tech startup starting in 2015 and starting in 2020, in 2015, with the same amount of material, the same talent, the same, everything, the same strategy, and same in 2020, the outcomes will be very different. Because time itself is a variable. Time has changed.
So, it's a non-deterministic problem. Now, in order to solve in order to solve any problem, you really need to have predictability and predictability can only come when you fundamentally pick out those elements in those problems, which don't change with time. That is something like fundamental user behavior towards somebody has to eat food to stay alive. That's a very fundamental principle, but you have to bring water, good water to keep healthy. Now, these problems which are non-deterministic in nature, the only way to make them somehow predictable in life, you have to go down towards the fundamental elements of life, what is that one behavior that stays the same that anybody would need value and value can be defined in terms of happiness quotient, So, if somebody feels happy by your product, it is going to work agnostic of the fact whether it's in 2010, or 2020, or 2030. That is the first principle that comes out of that learning and if you keep these first principles in building products or systems for that matter, that is going to help you build a very scalable system, because it is not going to change, it is only going to compound if you improve efficiency, efficiency effectively compounds into the value of the product.
So, efficiency is the first principle is a fundamental principle, the more efficient the car is, the better its performances. So, as a PM, because majority of the problems are non-deterministic, and we are looking, taking visionary backs of how the future has to pan out, we have to backtrack and look at problems that okay, even if after 10 years, internet goes far more deeper in the country, what is not going to change, what is not going to change and those questions we keep asking in every experiment that we do and we figure out some learnings, it can be different problems, it can be like one of the problems that I figured out in by Jews is that education depends a lot on content and teacher. But more than that, it really depends on the kind of engagement that you bring. Because that ignites Curio and that is not going to change. Because when guru coils were there, it was the same thing and once we are moving towards cohort-based courses, it's the same thing. That's the cycle. So, that is a fundamental correlation, and that the gurukul economy is now coming as a CVC economy, which is going to blow up. So, that's the first principle that stayed the same.
So, first principal thinking is about how do you break down complex nondeterministic structures into smaller structures, which are very fundamental and don't change, and then try to compound solutions from there, build solutions from there and once you have built a solution for it, then you try to vertically scale it, okay? This solution makes sense for 10,000 people, if I have to keep this value intact as x, what is the next thing, what is the next variable that I will add to it So, that the value remains the same? One, one of the very simplistic and crisp examples of this is Amazon. When Amazon was used by a million users, they personalization was as good as it is today and a billion users use it when Pritish goes to Amazon, he doesn't necessarily care that a billion use it, he wants his particular products, his recommendations to be nice to him only, it doesn't matter to him that how many people are using it So, that user value vertically is the same, but the scalability quotient has grown by 100x 500x 1,000x. That is why it's a great product. So, that is what according to me is first principle thinking that how do you break down nondeterministic problems into deterministic structures, which don't change with time and then you build a solution on top of it.
Pritish: So, how do you do that?
Shravan: So, I think one of the very fundamental ways how we look at engagement, is that whether your hypothesis is true or not,
Pritish: How Amazon does or how baijiu does any high growth stage startup does the engagement or the quality of that experience the same even when they are going from one 2 million and from one to a billion?
Shravan: So, before you even start building a product, you have a fundamental construct or a hypothesis that this is something that will add a lot of value. Due to the current experience of the user, So, whenever you want to design a product, you don't people say that you define a 10x experience. But 10x experience compared there has to be a benchmark to it. Like, for example, I give you a very simple example arctic is previous benchmark was somebody going to a train station and actually booking a ticket. Now, even though iritic is not the best experience in the world, but in comparison to the previous experience, where you had to stay for hours in line and get a ticket, it's like 100x. Better that's the reason people use iritic is far more than going to train stations, you build a hypothesis, and you say, Okay, this is the cohort that where I want to add value, let me take the best representative sample of it, build a small PLC around it, and then try to put it across and try to get the feedback and then you scale out in that manner that okay, if you're getting a very good feedback, that is when you define an MVP, a minimum viable product, that my MVP basically means that 70% of my users are giving me the same amount of feedback, the intended feedback that I want, the focus is on intended engagement is doesn't necessarily mean somebody coming in your product and doing any activity.
It's about doing the same pertaining activity that you wanted him to do, because you believe that one singular activity or two singular activities are going to add value to his life, which can be probably doubt resolution in a class for buy juice, or probably recommending the next product by Amazon, or it can be probably buying the next car by car, it can be as simple as that and once you do that PLC, then you try to scale it to 10,000 users from your current base to 5x that base and see that whether the same feedback retains or not, if it doesn't retain, then you see that there might be different cohorts of people who have different expectations, and then you tweak your product based on that feedback and it's a iterative process, you keep doing , it's more like a differential that is integrated, like you do, this kind of compounds towards x. That's why I keep saying that great products are not built in a binary manner. They're always compounding experiments and a product managers should understand the value of compounding very profoundly, because generally, whenever we look at outcomes will occur short term outcomes, which may seem tangible in the short term.
But once the effect of compounding takes place, then you create a differentiated product. So, once you try to scale you do small experiments, keep doing those dx s makes tweaks make tweaks, keeping the hypothesis impact, that is where you have to be very fundamentally principled, and you reach to a point where something has scaled from x and because you have done those niche of experiments, nobody can even replicate your product, that is also, the defensibility that you build with those experiments. So, it doesn't I don't believe in this construct that you need to have a different idea. I believe that the idea can be the same. But it's how you position that idea to the consumer, that can also, build a very strong defensible product.
Pritish: How do you define a product?
Shravan: Product? Fundamentally, what does it mean a product is was to [Inaudible 23:08] in Hindi, it's called was to know why do you call something of us to write because it has some intrinsic value, which can be transformed into something value for somebody else like stone can be transformed in a building? So, that is what fundamentally is that value, that intrinsic value? What is the difference between a project and a product? How do you define that? So, the definition over there becomes is that something is a product when it starts creating value for not a small set of people, but rather a large set of people? Where there's it is that concurrent value gets multiplied with the network effect, if somebody is getting, why do you use swingy? Like you, somebody had that value, and then somebody recommended that value, and it kind of multiplies with that network effect and the product is something which doesn't lose its intrinsic value with scale and that is how fundamentally a product is defined as according to me, that is how I take care of it.
Now, there is one more very interesting niche to it. A great part about building a great product is that scalability is always taken into account. What is the difference between a service and a product, there is a fundamental difference there a service is effectively dependent on intrinsic value of the entire chain? Anything breaks from that chain, the service goes for a toss the value goes for a toss, but even product it is the culmination of service in that particular abstract like a chair has its intrinsic value whether you keep it in Kashmir or you keep it in Hong Kong are you keep it in Jammu the intrinsic value is not lost. But on the contrary, if you look at services, like selling food, if the person is not available, you would never be able to sell it across So, product doesn't lose it intrinsic value when you try to scale it across, that is also, another thing, which kind of separates the line between it. So, these are the two things.
One, a product has core intrinsic value, something that has fundamental value, which can be transformed into value, and it is strong, it has a strong network effect, which grows with it.
The second thing is, it doesn't lose its value at scale, it always binds that intrinsic value in itself. It's not like a supply chain or something like a chain in which something is moved out, the value is lost. According to me, these two aspects, how I define products.
Pritish: So, what I understand is, you give two great examples. One is the chair such as intrinsic value is wherever you keep it, Jammu Kashmir, Hong Kong, New Zealand, wherever it is, you can still sit on it, and still use it for comfort. But I think you talked about food and if we see it as the service, if the same person is not providing it and not using the same ingredients from that same region, So, that food will keep evolving and keep changing. So, the body poori that you get in Jammu Kashmir, the same guy, even if they tried to build it using the local products in Hong Kong, the same thing? I think probably that is a distinction between how a service is different from what is product management
Shravan: So, for me, I see a lot of people have this notion that product management is an amalgamation of tech design and business, you design metrics, you design scalable tech systems, you this and that you do stakeholder management. But I think if you look very fundamentally and take a step back, these are like parts of your body. It's not your body. So, if I have to define British, I don't say the head of sovereign is sovereign. It's the entire body that struggle, or I say the hand of 77. So, all these elements are aspects of product management. But fundamentally, Product Management is the science or the art, whatever you want to call it, because sometimes it's more artsy, because you take bets also, it is the construct of problem solving, which basically helps you build systems at scale, which provide value to you, but systems at scale. Now, I always keep talking about two things here. One is problem solving. If every problem solver is a product manager, then why are these two different words, then I should go to Halwayi and say you're a product manager do your giving me time. But that's not the case. The fundamental construct here is that a problem solver is a problem solver. But a product manager or product management is the Art of Problem Solving at scale, these two words, make it different, make it very functionally different.
Now, somebody who is a pm or somebody who is into product management, is that person not only solves that problem, but also, looks at the aspect that when it scales, the value remains the same. That's what I've talked about earlier and that is that art, it is not like Haldiraam, for example, is a great product management example, I people don't think of it, but it is actually there. Because they've built such an amazing supply chain. That is the product they were solving for. Similarly, big basket is an amazing product. People typically think of UI UX as product, like gear, whatever product building, you great UI and UX, that is product management or building tech, but it is about what problem they were solving big basket was problem solving the problem of getting groceries at affordable cost, and in the quickest possible time and a solid using to building a great supply chain product. So, they don't necessarily focus on the UI UX discovery is not the problem. It's the delivery, that's the problem. So, any problem which you can functionally solve at scale, using whatever different fields using tech or operations or some other business sense and it provides the same tangible value, even if you scale it 100x or 500x. That is solution is a product management solution.
That solution effectively adds value to the user’s life. Because if you're only solving for 100 users, it's not creating impact at scale and product managers are all about impact at scale, like how do you effectively build those systems? So, the art of product management is again repeating the same thing, it is how do you distinguish between typical problem solving and problem solving at scale, but keeping the ethos of problem solving at the core? So, that is how I define product,
Pritish: Then who should consider being a product manager?
Shravan: Okay, got it. So, I think I have to take a step back here and tell you that first of all, how do you identify problems? Let's because I talked about product management is problem solving at scale. Now, the fundamental question here is the first principal question as we put it, is, how do you identify problems and then from there, we'll figure out that who should work who is effectively rightly suited to become a pm. problem solving. always comes from this aspect, which is compassion. I talked about that right? What do you mean by compassion, compassion basically means like when you look outward and see there is something that you can improve, to build value into the lives of users? That's why observation is a very strong skill set that I keep speaking about. pm should have. Now, once that happens, said, there's a certain problem that is happening to me and to a lot of people, you see that if this one problem is solved, and typically these are emotional problems, if you see majority of the great startups have come from personal experiences, like depended, in Zomato, he had this personal experience of going to Domino's, and couldn't get the right pizza and probably took a lot of time, then you figured out by the what the hell, I just want to start something on his own.
So, when you start looking at personalized experiences, you figure out that, okay, if I solved this problem in some way, it would have added value to my life, and to people around me. Now, that compassion transforms into passion. That is how I define it. Compassion transforms into passion and bases on the passion. Now, because you have looked outward, you're not looking for a solution for yourself. You're looking for a solution at scale now, and that ignites curiosity in it. Because whenever you try to say, Okay, this is something I will do, then you'll figure out this will not work for 5000 people, how do I do this? So, then you start thinking about something else, and you will keep pushing your curiosity quotient, again and again that how do I effectively improve it and you become curious by it.
So, that's the first thing that I tell people that product managers should be very curious, extremely curious. Anything you should not take at face value. Confirmation bias is the biggest killer of product managers. Just because 100 people say it Janis’s rumor is in the givens, it doesn't mean it happens that way. So, be very curious.
The second and the most important bit about if you really want to be accurate PM, or a problem solver, is you have to be very accessible, very accessible, which is very counterintuitive, because most VMs are very like time boxed in terms of the time and they don't give time to people.
But unfortunately, I'll tell you why that makes sense. Because I told you majority of the problems are non-deterministic problems, the best way to effectively come to a more confined and a more curated experiment is when you have a large influx of data that can only happen through conversations, books, podcasts are way of increasing your information, but the fastest way to improve your consumption of information is through conversations and secondly, those conversations have to be very true conversations, authentic conversations and that is why accessibility and humility comes very core to it. Because probably I'm talking to a friend, he would tell me what is exactly happening in his life. But if I talk to him, I'm your boss, or I'm somebody a big shot, it's not going to tell you, he will only tell you that amount of information which is comfortable with. So, that comfort level brings that empathy. So, that's the second part. Once you're very accessible, you have a large influx of intent. That kind of helps you get that variable sorted. If you're just reading by yourself, you're getting five variables. But if I'm talking to 500 people, I get 50 variables and then I just have to curate from those set of variables that what makes sense. So, the second most important is accessibility.
One is curiosity.
Second is accessibility.
The third and most important question here is something that is very fundamental is how do you improve your thinking and constraints?
Right? constraint thinking is very critical. Another very deep example of this, I would want to tell you is that if you talk to someone and you say, Shawn, why don't you tell me your journey of the last five years? I can write a 5000-word essay for it. Right. But my point is, if I tell you this, if the same problem statement is rephrased in this way, can you do it in 50 words? Now, what do I have to do about that, I have to cut all the clutter and put it in the best possible 50 best suits So, that it doesn't lose its essentials, and comes to the user in the best possible way. In the way I wanted to explain in the fall time for 5000 words, why this is important. Because once you're building products at scale, majority of the consumers you don't know. So, all of these consumers have this fund of instant gratification, even the first 30 seconds, they're not able to understand what value are giving, you're going to lose interest in go.
So, that sense of privatization is also, extremely critical and that has to come in the articulation privatization doesn't necessarily mean feature privatization, it has to come in articulation, it has to it is it has to come in information architecture, how do you present your information? So, that is the third skill, you should have a very unique sense of privatization, very unique sense of privatization and the best way, like one of the questions that I'm very interestingly, I asked him pm interviews is, dude, can you write a PRD for me? and the person says, Okay, fair enough. But then I said their constraint is that you're writing 100 words. That's it. That's how you're going to put it across. So, then you see that how the person does actually we've all been done constrained and the fourth and most important aspect is you should be very fundamental accessible to feedback. If you're in not accessible to feedback, you're doing something wrong. Because feedback is something that effectively tells you the opinions of people how they think about the world.
Now, the problem is, if you've already created an opinion, then you've already created an outcome. That this is my opinion, this is how the business will run. But that doesn't necessarily happen. So, once a peon is fundamentally accessible to a large amount of feedback, he can actually come back from the feedback, take out the objectivity from it, remove the confirmation bias and put it back in the experiment. So, curiosity leads you to some sort of ingestion of data, which kind of helps you figure out that all the variables, then that is something then comes the position, and then the feedback. If all of these four things are then a person, he by design is a great problem solver and nothing can stop him to become a B, nothing instrument, rest of the pieces, which are the skills like learning design, etc, ABCD. Those are like nuances; you learn them anyhow. So, I think that's how I define product management and grippy. So, you have worked
Pritish: So, you have worked for a number of high growth startups. Now, you will provide us which is probably world's number one most valued a tech company. So, when you join a new business, or a startup or a new project, how are your first 90 days?
Shravan: So, I think the first 90 days, at least in a very fundamental, which is a very strategic or a vision driven role, which is as wide as product management. Because as product managers, I've always spoken about this very interesting fund that product managers are not indispensable, like tech or sales. If your tech stops, start stops working tomorrow, your business effectively stops. But product managers, if you as a pm are tomorrow, if your entire function goes away, nothing really happens. like there might be a little bit up and down. But what is the role of a pm? Initially, he's very dispensable and how does he become from dispensable to indispensable and then indispensable to dispensable again, I just speak about it, I just speak about it.
So, the fund is that initially, the dispensability indispensability comes in insights, you as a PM, go deep within the data or within the water, whatever the vision of the company is, in the first 90 days spend a lot of time with the consumer, trying to understand how effectively are you solving problems, and then try to figure out certain small experiments, at least in the first 30 45 days, which you can run through which are not big enough, which can effectively derail the business, but also, efficient enough to build trust in your stakeholders in your decision making process. So, once you have certain wins under your portfolio, people will start trusting your judgment, like you, as a pm are able to make a bet, which makes sense. Second, and that's the first thing. So, have like in the first 30 45 days have certain wins under your portfolio, that is very important.
Because it helps you build that amount of trust, that you go to engineering and say I want to build this and start trusting this is something that has add added value. The second thing that has to be very critical for someone in a in an organization is majority of the people spend a lot of time in learning new skill sets, which I think is absolutely detrimental for you as a pm. I'll tell you why. Because skill sets are outcomes, the fundamental thought processes, how close are you to the consumer? Do you understand the problem? Well, learning tech to build a scalable system only makes sense when you know you're solving the right problem. Right, then it makes sense. So, a PMS to spend. I typically tell ABMs on our PMS that spend your first 4550 days just talking to the consumer, just talking, listen to him get a groove of him, after 50 days, if I asked you who's your persona, that should be on top of your head, like this is who I'm building for and that should be so absolutely Pitch Perfect and clear in your mind that whenever you think of any new experiment, the persona comes to your head and says, oh, this is where I'm building for and then your experiments will be very well.
So, that is the second thing that I tell him one time to make small experiments and drive wins, which kind of builds trust. Trust is a very strong function. I think it is the economy of how you build as great leaders. The second thing is spend a lot of time with consumers and the third thing is always have this humility, in which that if you drive success, put your stakeholders point of it success is always collective and as failures you come across and say that, okay, this is a decision that I made and that is something that I've learned from Simon Sinek who does this amazing book that is written called leaders eat last. So, that is something that clearly builds that amount of admiration in your team, and why I speak of the word called admiration and not respect because you respect everyone but what you don't admire everyone, there's a difference there. So, admiration only comes when you can ignite that passion to do good in your team also, So, that if you call him at two o'clock at night and say, dude, I want this fixed, he knows that if Shawn is calling me, it is genuinely important and it is something that that adds value. So, that is the third part that you should fundamentally always in successes, keep it as a collective success and while if you're in failure, you will become the shield of the team and talk about it. Okay, I take responsibility for it, we have done something but we'll improve and last and the foremost part that I always keep talking about that, in general about this is that once you are in an indispensable stage, you move from dispensable to indispensable because now you have built trust, and that economy, you start grooming new leaders, you start grooming new people and once you start grooming people, you put them into key positions, the positions that you were driving, and then you put yourself to the bank gear and again become dispensable. Because then you have leverage.
Now, if I know there's a great pm was sitting at the same, who is driving the same product, which I was driving like a year back, or probably two months back or something like that, then you effectively move towards that aspect. When you become dispensable again, and then you have horizontal leverage, then you can think at other products. So, at least in the first 90 days, the two things I would tell is drive some wins, build trust, and always think of collective success as a metric, and be very close to a consumer and then overall in your journey as a product leader. Also, try to groom leaders. That's one more responsibility as a product leader that effectively should have.
Pritish: We talked about unicorns and high growth startups. Yeah, and you have worked with a number of established and amazing founders. So, my question is, a successful founder or entrepreneur is more of a product guy, a marketer or a communication PR guy?
Shravan: Again, very interesting question. hope I don't get sued for this. Saying that out, but then again. So, I think the funk functional question is how you define success, right a success for any entrepreneur, if he's really a visionary entrepreneur, and he wants his business to stay alive for 100 years, or 200 years, it is in terms of the end value to the consumer. Now, it really depends on a lot of factors, that what you want to build, let me give a very simple example of this. In India, majority of the companies don't have any preceding product to look at what I mean by that is like taxi services or transportation as an industry was never disrupted before Ola, or this came into it, and it was very fragmented. So, the previous experience of the consumer was pretty bad, pretty bad and once Ola came into the picture, might not be the greatest product, but the efficiency level improved by 10x, and it might have a very strong operational component to it. But for the end user, it was a 10x better experience. So, even the combination of ops and product worked here. But on the contrary, if you go to the US or go to Singapore, for that matter, they have a great transportation system.
So, for them, the value has to come in different ways. It has to be probably optimization of the time or value of the time, can they effectively use a product in which they can better utilize their time monetize their time, it doesn't necessarily have to be the transport itself there, it has to be more like a product lead kind of structure that you might have to build and then the third aspect is where you said that the brand and PR, it also, makes sense to a certain level, I'll tell you why. Because education as a concept, if it has to get democratized, it has to drive a large reach and for driving that large reach, it is effectively important that everybody understands the essence of the pyramid of communication that you're putting across. So, a great entrepreneur also, has that skill set. If you look at Elon Musk's amazing marketers, they knew how to market products and that was a core skill set that they have all of these three skill sets have some real intrinsic value to it.
They should not be vanity metrics, whatever you're communicating, whether it's an offer with the box, whether it's tech, whether it's marketing, it has to come together and deliver the final intended value that you are responsible for giving to the user and you're promising to the user. So, a great entrepreneur is for me an amalgamation of all of this. He effectively adapts over time. I've seen I give you a very good example of Initially, as a product. I think it has been pretty operational. It was a content and ops company. But over time, he realized that the only way to become a better company is if we invest more focus on product So, he has been very curious about investing. lot of money in product building great products and I think that was different stages. But eventually, as an entrepreneur, the biggest capability that you should have been what the same pm should have is the adaptability to change to drive more value, you should have that a broad, adaptable sense and you have to add on different roles at different times. So, there's no like, simple answer to that.
Pritish: Thanks, Shravan. It was a pleasure having you on The One Percent Project.
Shravan: It was very lovely talking to you. Thanks. Thanks a lot for having me. Thank you.