Mastering Product Management with Shravan Tickoo - Week 0
About session/course
Summary
What does it take to level up as a Product Manager?
The 1% operator mindset
The system
Product Sense + PM Basics
Anecdotes
Life lessons
People and resources to get inspiration
My Question to Sharavan (and his reply!)
Takeaways
About course and session
Mastering Product Management is the third cohort from Rethink Systems founded by Shravan Tickoo and Attharv Sardesai
This cohort brings together 80 learners with an average experience of 8-15 years from various walks of life. Today’s session aimed to set the right expectations and mindset for the next 7 weeks.
Session Summary
In today’s session, Sharavan walks us through the true essence of product management, and how most product managers operate depending on the stage and maturity of the product. He cites anecdotes from personal and professional experience that help us understand how systems operate and what role PMs play in making a difference. Thus defining the operator and operator mindset.
What does it take to level up as a Product Manager?
Becoming a PM or APM is one thing, but understanding the system in which a PM has to operate changes the ball game altogether. The PM is an operator that stands between what a product is today and its vision in x years. The long-term vision can only be achieved if numerous short-term plans are iterated and executed over x years by constantly accounting for user feedback and customer needs.
I will be putting together all the new concepts that I have learned today in the following sections -
The 1% operator mindset
Be firm but flexible
~ Peter Drucker
Who is a good operator? Someone who gets fulfillment from his work i.e. they have work-life harmony. They love what they end up doing, thus being in the flow.
The flow
The flow is a state where you get so engrossed in work that outside factors cannot affect you. This state is realized when you start enjoying the level of challenge a problem presents that are currently solving using your skill sets. When you start taking pride in the time you spend working, you will always be in a flow state.
The Butterfly Effect
This hypothetically correlates with a butterfly flapping its wings leading to a typhoon. In theory, it suggests that in a given complex system even a minor isolated event has the potential of changing the entire system.
The System
A system is a collection of nodes that have relationships between them in order to achieve a common goal. Each node has unique relations with other nodes. A single relation might affect other nodes and their respective relations.
Example: A supply chain involved in appliance production, from producers of raw metal and plastic to transporters who help in shipping these to factories where appliances are built, to people who supply packaging and branding materials, to suppliers that take the finished products to the retail market, everybody is a node.
Linear System: A system where the rules are predefined and fixed and the outcome is predictable. Example: a game of chess.
Complex System: A system where the rules are ever-changing and the outcome can never be predicted. Example: A game of chess with an additional rule - one rule will be changed periodically.
Product Sense + PM Basics
Who is a PM?
A PM is a great communicator and researcher who empathizes with people not only in the customer segment he/she is currently tackling but also with his/her colleagues and peers.
They are paid for the insights per minute they have gathered while discovering the system where the problem exists where insights != observations.
Discovery is paramount
For solving a problem - knowing what affects the condition where the problem occurs is essential.
Common Mistakes of a PM
Overestimate growth in the short term and underestimate growth in the long term
Depending on learning concepts to become a better product manager
Possess scarcity mindset
Survive in unknown unknowns i.e. they do not evaluate if the situation can become problematic and how
Gets easily entrapped within thesis of reductionism - ends up creating direct inference with one wrongful isolated event to reduce a person’s intentions towards him/her as bad.
What is an ambiguous system?
An ambiguous system occurs when the problem, the approach, and the solution - all are unclear. In this case, a PM’s responsibility is to structure a less ambiguous scenario in the complex system, discover the right variables involved, and make choices that result in an outcome that is a function of these variables.
For example: “Make me a tea” is a fairly simple problem to solve but instead if the scenario is defined as follows, it becomes ambiguous.
“Build me an application that serves 10 million cups of tea in an hour concurrently with high quality.” Here, the variables will be demand, supply, market size and share, and operations. These have to be well thought out as even if one of them is missed, it will break or change its performance.
Role of PM vs Ambiguity
Ideal qualities of a PM
Constantly learns, puts learnings into practice, and seeks feedback
Knows how to give (and take) criticism
Takes iteration - launch - feedback - iteration loop seriously
Is an empath, generally a person who makes everyone feel comfortable to have a conversation with
Focuses on finding known unknowns i.e. discovering what all variables are affecting or will affect a system
Consistently puts in efforts every day to better their skills
They don’t gate-keep their learning but rather pass it on to others
They go beyond first-order thinking to find better insights and not just observation
Anecdotes
Sharvan and his cousin at a Zara store in the US
Sharavan went to a Zara store with his sister as she wanted to buy a dress. She liked $700 dress but upon asking if she’d like to buy it or not she refused. Sharavan’s reasoning for her decision was in line with her not being okay with her brother spending such a big amount on one dress.
She found another dress but again she did not want to buy it. This dress cost $350.
Then, a sales attendant came and asked her to try a dress that would complement her body type. And she agreed to buy it. This dress was for $1000.
Shravan’s assumptions about his sister’s decision were wrong. She was unable to make a choice because she was unsure if the dress would look good on her or not because of its price.
EdTech downfall in India
The education market is a $8 trillion market which is approximately 2.5 times India’s GDP. 50% of this is unorganized.
In India from 2015-2020 EdTech was on boom. There was massive funding and aggressive marketing followed, they had been focusing on acquiring students from the age group 12-18 who wanted to appear for competitive exams. But most of them failed. Why did that happen?
The obvious reason is, with online classes, the teaching ecosystem became one way. The teacher keeps on putting concepts and notes out, and might occasionally look at comments but that’s not equivalent to the traditional controlled environment of a physical class. There is no individual attention to a student’s progress.
But that’s not all. The major chunk of learners on these EdTech platforms were enrolled in coaching classes for competitive exams such as JEE and NEET. In traditional settings, these coaching classes are expensive and groups enroll students based on their capabilities so that batches are competitive with like-minded learners. On one hand, this coaching became accessible to a wider audience but on the other hand, the competitive environment almost diminished. In traditional classes, the students knew what it takes to clear JEE, they were mentally prepared to put in effort. On EdTech platforms, this wasn’t the case. Students wanted to appear for JEE as they wanted to excel at life but neither they were aware not were mentally prepared to put in effort to clear the exams. Therefore, EdTech platforms were acquiring lots of users but they retained were not enough to sustain their business models.
Uber replicating the US model in India - it failed!
When Uber arrived in India, they replicated their US model. This model did not have major security features. This might be because their 911 response is prompt.
After a few months, a few cases occurred where drivers assaulted passengers. This number grew rapidly in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. This forced them to rethink their policies and soon they rolled out SOS features.
While bringing their business model to Indian markets, Uber failed to account for differences in the demographics of consumers and their mindsets.
Life lessons
A good operator isn’t only defined by their professional capabilities but also abides by ethics and virtues in their personal life. They understand the principles of learning, the importance of humility, and that the concept of privilege is not learned, it is experienced. The basic thing that you start from, say a 10-LPA job will never make you respect 10 Lakhs rupees unless you started from a low-paying job, had difficulty navigating with less money, and now know the privilege of getting 10 Lakhs.
They also understand that education needs to be internalized and not crammed with jargon to flaunt in professional settings
The Abundance Mindset
There is enough for everyone. The results you await while making a change in life are directly proportional to your choices and actions.
Importance of Context over Content
No matter how much knowledge, frameworks, or jargon you have learned. While solving a problem you need to grasp the group reality of how things work. The various perspectives on a problem at that a person brings to the table make a difference. What was the thought process behind it, and how did you reach that narrative matters?
Example: Tesla has all of their patents open source. They don’t bother about their work getting replicated. They bother to show the amount of effort it took to get there. Their discipline of execution is what makes them different and unique.
Power of Attitude of Gratitude
Being kind, humble, generous, and committed to everyone without being transactional will always reap compounding growth in life.
The ability to Unlearn
With experience, we keep gaining knowledge which forms the basis of our assumptions. These assumptions might make us overlook reality. Therefore while looking at a problem, we need to be open to discovering details and facts that do not align with our assumptions.
How to overcome imposter syndrome?
Imposter syndrome occurs when a person is not confident enough in their skillset. The only way to become confident to by putting your work out, getting feedback, and building proof points for yourself that support + applaud the work that you do.
This might not always be true. Feedback at times can be critical or constructive too. This is where the scope of growth is defined. Rather than being fearful of such feedback, one has to seek this from time to time to get over imposter syndrome.
People and resources to get inspired
Peter Drucker - renowned VC who invested in companies such as CISCO
Donald T. Valentine - Founder of Sequoia Capital
Steve Jobs and Jensen Huang - are great storytellers
Louis C Lin - author of “Decode and Conquer”
My Question to Sharavan (and his reply!)
Question
When the EdTech sector had its glory days, it had enough funding and valuation to hire the best product people, and yet these people made the mistake of wrongly identifying the factors involved in user segmentation and missed a major one - the backgrounds, the knowledge with which they have enrolled. What can we do as early stage PMs to not make such mistakes?
Answer
We are assuming they hired the best people. They might be best at their craft and skills but were they empathetic enough to understand the grass-root problems and solve for it? No.
Takeaways
This session has so many thought-provoking concepts that have given me another perspective to look at a system and its problem. I had been in “Open loop thinking” throughout my career as a PM but now I see a problem as a particular scenario in a bigger and complex system. The goal from now on will be to not just be in a solution domain but instead to the anatomy of the current system that consists of this problem.
Sharavan is an amazing teacher and storyteller. He supported all concepts with examples and anecdotes that will stay with us and remind us about the first principles of product management.
As a Product Manager with ~2 years of experience, this session was like a reflection of the current PM stage vs the ideal one. Life lessons were the cherry on top that helped to see the discrepancies we exhibit when trying to be a good person vs being one.
To many more such sessions 🥂