Karthik Kalyanasundaram

Sunday morning chai reflections ☕️ Been thinking a lot about the shift from SaaS to "services" Do you think being an operationally efficient (e.g. high margin / profitable) recurring Services business would ever be valued higher than a low margin / high burn sometimes recurring SaaS business? The key assumption here is that the "recurring" nature of SaaS is in question, where you still have to earn your renewal every single year. Also AI eating SaaS and putting tech-enabled services at the forefront (read: agents). Curious to hear your thoughts 🧠 #SaaS #Margins #Valuations

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Many times in my PM career, my teams were executing at full capacity, as per the aligned product startegy and also building backwards from customer needs found during user research convos. But the products failed to deliver the impact in first go and required few iterations to hit expected success metrics. Reflecting back, the success was not denied due to execution, but due to lack of understanding of all parameters which lead to success in any complex initiative. Navigating such complex situations requires understanding the issue and then communicating the same with others in team to create a shared understanding of what's wrong. In such cases Dr. Mary Lippitt's Model helps understand what's really happening in an initiative. The model essentially says, there are 5 inputs to manage any complex change and if any of the 5 inputs is missing the team will struggle. Go through the screenshot to identify individual scenarios and the corresponding team reality. Once you understand the parameter absent in your relevant context, fix it proactively to increase your odds of success. From experience, defining right “ Incentives” for teams with conflicting priorities is the toughest and "Vision" and "Skills" are most difficult to change in short term and hence Product Managers typically tweak the other 3 parameters to achieve success. #productmanagement

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Product Market Fit Framework to discover and improve it ----PICS---- P - Persona Who are my users I - Issue Unaddressed issue of their lives C - Capability Promise of my product S - Solution Ability to deliver effective at scale If you're feeling stuck at any level of PMF, take a moment to adjust the PICS framework. A little tweaking can go a long way in helping you find the right groove Deep dive in my newsletter saurabhtandon.substack.com ------------------------------ Discuss careers or startups? https://lnkd.in/dMdwq3Zz #PMF #Product #Startups

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Nephew to my brother: I have a Product Related Question Brother: Ask her (me)..she is a Product Manager... Me: Okk ...tell me Nephew: What is the Product of smallest 1 digit and largest 4 digit number.... Bas yehi hona Baaki tha..... #ProductManagement #humoronly

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Are you pricing your product right? Unsure, you don't wanna miss this post. "You don't just need Product Market fit, you need Product Market Price Fit." is my key learning from a recent session I got an opportunity to attend. The session was Accel in India's (Accel's India Arm) Panel discussion on Pricing Strategy for B2B SaaS Firms in age of GenAI and it was very very insightful. Ever wondered - When and how should one go about Pricing their products? What are different possible pricing models? Should pricing models evolve? What pricing models to be used and when? How to bundle features together for a price point? Don't worry I have got you covered. (short on time? save the post for later) Want to give a huge shoutout to #AccelTeam, Shekhar Kirani, Madhavan Ramanujam, Krish Subramanian (founder of Chargebee) for sharing insights. I am attaching the deck with all the insights from the session, so that everyone could benefit from this. If you are like me, you would also agree that having price validation conversations are tough, while the panel didn’t delve deeper into how, in the book “Monetizing innovation” chapter 4 covers as highlighted by Gautam, I am going to read it for sure and share the insights with you all later. Share your product pricing stories in the comments below and follow me (Vellanki Sriharsha) for more insights. #B2B #Pricing #PMF #SaaS #Startup #GenAI #AI

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It is highly imperative that we address the pain points when delivering feature set. Just loading a product with features(not handling pain point) is an effort down the drain #productmanagment #features #customerpainpoint #userexperience

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Just explored some fascinating insights on driving product adoption! 🎯 Product Adoption: It's all about how many users are grabbing your product out of the total addressable market (TAM) and finding that product-market fit (PMF). Key Paths: Marketing Funnel: A fascinating trek from the moment of discovery to the ultimate purchase. 🛍️ Network Effects: Especially with cross-side effects on 2-sided platforms. 🔄 Why Bother? Boosts revenue, retention , and Net Promoter Score (NPS) . Spurs growth in users, profit, and average revenue per user (ARPU). 📊 Key Metrics to Watch: DAU/WAU/MAU, RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value), retention rates, and referral rates. Adoption Drivers: Accessibility, user insights, compatibility, and trialability. Common Hurdles: Misaligned solutions, unmet needs, pricing issues, and unclear value propositions. Winning Strategies: Leverage social proof, gamification, personalization, and referrals. ✨ An insightful read on the nuances of product adoption!

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In spite of all the crazy abundance of literature on product management and the flood rush of self certified product gurus, all it takes is very basic questions and 99% of PMs cannot answer it. Some examples below - 1. Self certified consumer mobile products guru - ask him/her how do you make sure the app assets (images/icons) look good without any blurriness on all kinds of devices with all kinds of screen resolution? Eg. Android devices with all kinds of screen sizes and densities. 99% of them have never even considered that question. 😅 2. Ask a web apps product guy - What kind of work goes behind the scenes to ensure Multi language support. All they can talk about is translations and when asked how do you ensure translations for static vs dynamic content - 99% haven’t ever considered that question or even hilariously ask what exactly do you mean? Could you pls explain the question 😂 3. Ask a product design question - how would you improve a browser like Google Chrome? A reasonable candidate at best would be able to come up with some reasonable use cases for a regular end user (eg something on tab management, bookmarking etc) ***No one would ever consider other user personas - vectors that actually made Chrome popular to start with. Unclear?*** I am talking about segments such as developer segment - ***how to improve chrome dev tools for web developers Chrome as a marketplace for 3rd party developers - chrome extensions and their discovery. Business users - Chrome as practically an OS for business users.*** Why is this the case? See product management at its core requires true passion for solving problems (staying in problem space) and empathy for users but it also requires an innate drive to always peek behind the scenes. If your curiosity ends at the UI layer, I doubt you care enough about building world class products. Don’t be a wannabe. Follow me for high quality content https://lnkd.in/gHweK_q7 or https://lnkd.in/ggUKftFq My Channel - https://lnkd.in/gs6qnNUJ My Playbook - https://lnkd.in/gHzyN-Xc

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The product lifecycle is like a Bollywood movie: Starts with a bang, full of drama in the middle (bugs!), and ends with everyone wondering if there will be a sequel (new version) or if it's just a one-hit wonder. #productmanagerlife #productmanagement #productmanager #agile #productowner #officehumor #worklifebalance #softwareengineeringhumor #uxhumor #customercentric #productlifecycle #productlaunch #bugs #productdevelopment #newversion #bollywood #softwareengineeringhumor #productmanagerlife

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Who Killed Product Management in India? 🔎 This was the title of of a recent article by Praveen Gopal Krishnan on The Ken, he puts forth some interesting points (link the comments). One key point that stood out was someone saying - 90% of Product Manager roles have become redundant. Engineers, designers, and business professionals can now take on tasks once exclusive to PMs. Harsh? Maybe. True? To some extent. So, what does the future hold for PMs? I believe the future lies in the rise of the Full Stack Product Management and in everyone gaining a strong product sense. Let’s dive into details below. Article Insights: Product Management has shifted from a creative, intuitive role to a bureaucratic, data-driven one. Instead of creating innovative products, PMs are bogged down with frameworks, PRDs, and justifying decisions to stakeholders. AI is also automating many PM tasks, further pushing PMs toward obsolescence. Companies like Airbnb have even removed traditional PM roles, showing how product development can happen without them. Know thy Product: The core issue, in my view, is that we don’t truly understand what their product is. Too often, the "product" is mistaken for the app or the website—the enablers—rather than the value delivered to the customer. -> What’s the Real Product? Flipkart/Amazon: Not the app, but the goods they deliver 📦 Netflix: Not the platform, but the content 🎬 Zomato/Swiggy: It’s the food 🍔 Gmail/WhatsApp: The network effect they create 📱 The actual product is the core value, and whoever is owning it is the one owning the customer too. There are spaces where PMs can own the product, like in B2C tech (Gmail, YouTube) or B2B SaaS Applications; but in industries like e-commerce or D2C, the product isn't the app; it's the actual goods experience or service. Everyone Needs Product Sense: It’s not just PMs who need to get this. Whether you’re in business, ops, engineering, analytics, or business ops, having a product mindset is crucial to understanding the end value delivered to customers. Companies should encourage leaders and ICs alike to gain product exposure. Product sense helps you understand users, business impact, and how to solve real problems. Whats the moat for some wanting to be a PM or who is a PM: Enter the Full Stack Product Manager The future of PMs is Full Stack, blending creativity, data, and technical skills. The Full Stack PM can: Identify customer problems, Conduct discovery, Prototype and build solutions, Collaborate with engineers to build scalable products, Market and sell the product, Iterate based on feedback. AI and no-code tools are enabling this shift, allowing PMs to own the entire product lifecycle. What do you think of this? Share your views in the comments below and follow me (Vellanki Sriharsha) for more such insights. #ProductManagement #FullStackPM #AI #ProductLeadership #FutureOfWork

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Whether or not you can measure the cost of delay, you will still pay the cost of delay. Your best bet to deal with cost of delay is to run your product development org so that the cost of delays in your product value streams are *aligned* to where they need to be in their respective product lifecycle. If a product value stream can continue to increase sales, usage etc and retain customers without incremental output from product and engineering (ie it is a viable *product*) then you don’t need to obsess about the cost of delay. Your value flywheel is turning as it should, and it should insulate your product and engineering functions from the day to day impacts of cost of delay. Product development is not the constraint for these value streams. If you don’t have a viable product value stream on the other hand, and product/engineering are the constraint to growing sales and retaining customers, you need to be very attuned to the cost of delay for those value streams. But in my opinion, you won’t get much mileage out of trying to guess what the cost of delay is on any given thing you try to build with planning and scheduling policies like CD3 etc. here. Focusing on reducing the *number* of non-viable product value streams you are investing in, and reducing flow time across those *value streams* you prioritize to deliver with tight market feedback loops is your best strategy to reducing the impacts of the cost of delay. Design your system to minimize the cost of delay across the board in those non viable product value streams by optimizing end to end flow time and reducing the time it takes to get market feedback on everything you build. The goal should be to get down to the business of making the value flywheel turn (again) for those value streams, when product/engineering is no longer the constraint. #valuestreammanagement #productdevelopment #software #flowengineering #toc

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KANO Framework for prioritization - 2 minute primer for understanding Understanding what truly delights customers versus what merely satisfies them is a crucial aspect of product management. And, this is where the KANO Framework comes in handy. KANO framework helps product managers categorize customer preferences into 5 buckets, which helps PMs prioritize features in a better way. 5 categories of the KANO Framework: 1️⃣ Basic features - These are the essential features that customers expect by default. - Absence of these features could lead to dissatisfaction among customers. Example: Reliable battery life in a smartphone. 2️⃣ Performance features - These features improve satisfaction proportionally to their performance. - More you improve, better the experience will be but not in exponential way. Example: Faster loading speeds on a website. 3️⃣ Excitement features - Features that customers don't expect but delight them when present. - These features could be unique value proposition for companies. - These features provide disproportionate increase in customer delight when offered to customers. Example: Facial recognition in smartphones. 4️⃣ Indifferent features - Features that don't significantly impact customer satisfaction. - Customers don't care about these features. Example: Color options of internal components. 5️⃣ Reverse features - Features that some customers dislike if they are present. - Presence of these features lead to dissatisfaction among customers. Example: Too many notifications from an app. ✅ Pros of the KANO Framework: [1] Clear categorization of features: Helps differentiate between essential and delighting features. [2] Improved customer satisfaction: Focuses on features that can create a competitive advantage and build moat for a company. [3] Prioritization of resources: Helps in efficient allocation of resources to the most impactful features. [4] Improved product planning: Links customer satisfaction directly to product development priorities. ❌ Cons of the KANO Framework: [1] Complexity in implementation: Need to conduct customer surveys and then interpret results to understand their feature expectations. [2] Subjectivity in responses: Customer feedback can be subjective and influenced by various factors, potentially leading to biased or inconsistent results. [3] Evolving customer expectations: What delights customers today may become a basic need tomorrow. Needs to keep revisiting the feature set frequently for reprioritization. [4] Overemphasis on delight: Focusing too much on Excitement features can sometimes lead to neglecting essential Basic and Performance features, which are fundamental for customer satisfaction. Example of the KANO Framework from Smartphone Industry: Basic features - Battery life - Call quality - Responsive touchscreen Excitement features - Facial recognition - Foldable screens - Advanced camera capabilities #ProductManagers #ProductManagement #Frameworks #Jobs

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Converging to a well articulated, measurable and actionable problem statement for a product team to focus on a quarter or two is one of the highest leverage activities for a PM. Easier said than done and separates the best PMs from average ones! #productmanagement #leverage #buildandsolvewhatmatters

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Comic vs. Product Manager: The Indian Thali Edition Comic: "What’s it like being a Product Manager in India?" PM: "It’s like making a thali where one stakeholder wants extra paneer, another hates dal, someone demands biryani on the side, and the budget is for samosas." Comic: "So what do you do?" PM: "Serve poha and call it 'minimalist gourmet'." #ProductManagement #IndianPM #WorkHumor #Jugaad #TechLife #PMChallenges #ThaliOfPriorities #Leadership #Innovation

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The Ken has an empathetic article on the role of PMs in India. Highly recommended weekend read. However, I think the article goes beyond just empathy and romanticizes the role of a PM. For two reasons: 1. PMs must deliver measurable outcomes and healthy ROI. As must sales, finance, and operations folks. It’s foolish to assume that there is space in this hypercompetitive world for romanticizing Jobsian visions of the next iWhatever. 2. Almost all tech product companies in India are a copy of something that has worked in developed markets. The PMs job is to contextualize and optimize it for the Indian customer, regulations, and operating environment. A Product Marketer role, oversold as a Product Manager role. Two things we need to change: (1) Set realistic expectations with new hires. Don’t over-promise the role just to hire a rockstar. She’ll leave in a year’s time, and you’re back to square zero. (2) as PMs be prepared to do the hard grind in the initial years to figure out whether this is really for you. The Ken Praveen Gopal Krishnan Rohin Dharmakumar #productmanagement #productmarketing #expectations #careerchoices #careerpaths #metrics #ROI #stevejobs #reality

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What makes great products great is balance Balance between depth of features and breadth of features Balance between how often their PMs say yes and say no to stakeholders Balance between speed of increments and quality of increments Balance between number of problems they solve and the importance of problems they solve Balance between business needs and user needs Balance between successful and failed feature launches Balance between agility and stubborness Great products are like those Grand Slam winners in tennis who know how to win games by understanding the conditions and balancing their games according to what is required Their greatness is inherent in their ability to balance! #ProductManagement #Balance #Products

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Agile is great! We can change the roadmap as often as the weather in Delhi... which is to say, very frequently and sometimes unexpectedly. #productlifecycle #productlaunch #bugs #productdevelopment #newversion #bollywood #softwareengineeringhumor #productmanagerlife #productmanagerlife #productmanagement #productmanager #agile #productowner #officehumor #worklifebalance #softwareengineeringhumor #uxhumor #customercentric

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Product Management : beyond influencing without authority, to leading without authority. Influencing without authority has long been the name of the game for PMs. As the industry moves (rightly so) towards a world with fewer managers and more individual contributors, ICs must continue to build their muscle on how to lead without authority. What does leading without authority look like for an IC PM? - Don't measure your worth only through execution. Execution is table stakes. Have strong views on the right thing to build, and the right way to build it. - Insert yourself in critical discussions. Ask for facetime with leaders, present your views. Leaders must learn to listen and embrace feedback/inputs from senior ICs. - Ask for help. For e.g. if some complex data pull needs to be done, make a case to the data team and push your request. DIY is ideal but don't be averse to asking for help. - Be vocal about where you see gaps. Sometimes gaps exist because nobody's thinking deeply enough. Thinking is the job of the PM. You should've thought through issues and experiences before it hits your customers. There's unmatched satisfaction in being an IC PM and building as opposed to endless meetings, but we need to give more agency to the IC leaders. This will also need ICs to not distance themselves from leading - leading is part of the job.

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