Insurjo

Best Lessons from seasoned product leaders to help you grow in product career

***

Copyright © 2021 by The Product Folks

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise
without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or
distribute it by any other means without permission.

First edition

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01
Table of Contents

Foreword 07

Contributors 08

Acknowledgement 09

Product Management 101:The What, The Why, The How 10

About the Product Coach
Who is a Product Manager?
Is the PM really the mini-CEO of the product?
What does the PM really own?
What should a PM do while building a product?
How to say ‘NO’ better?
How does ‘data’ help us in achieving things?
Advice for budding Product Managers?
Core skills that are assessed while hiring an entry-level
PM?
Summary

User Research & Customer discovery: Figuring What to Build 14

About the Product Coach
Why do people buy or use something?
What are the different kinds of discovery scopes of the
products?
Why do we define user persona?
How to define a user persona?
Step 1: Define Persona
Step 2: Define Scenario
Remember

02
Table of Contents
How much time does a PM spend on User Persona?
How to select the right user persona?
What kind of inputs do we need from our users?
What should be considered while conducting User
Interviews?
Why should there be competitor research?
Competitor Analysis Frameworks
Opportunities
Opportunity canvas
Selecting Opportunities
Tips for 0-1 product
Summary

Demystifying Product Metrics 22

About the Product Coach
Why measure anything when we have User Interviews?
What can go wrong?
What is North Star Metrics?
How can we find North Star Metrics?
Metric Types
Counter Metrics
Analysing Product Market Fit
What if north star metrics are improved but other factors
are degraded?
Summary

Rapid Prototyping and Experimentation 29

About the Product Coach
Why Prototyping?
Product Market Fit

02
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Table of Contents
Tools for finding Product Market Fit
Experimentation Process
Summary

Product Scoping and Specs 35

About the Product Coach

How does one arrive at a product roadmap?
What happens after the roadmap is built and a specific
project is prioritised?
What type of documents are written as the starting point as
a PM?
What happens when you get the specs wrong?
History & Relevance of Traditional PRD
Importance of Product Spec Document
Key Parts of a Product Spec Document
Summary

Storytelling & Soft Skills for Product Leaders 40

About the Product Coach

Soft Skills
Mastering Communications- Executive Presentations
Effective Storytelling
Leadership Skills
How to 10x your productivity
Career Planning
Product Strategy
Summary

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 Table of Contents
Retention as the Foundation of Growth 47
About the Product Coach
Why should you care about Retention?
What are the terms used under Retention?
How do you track churn/ lifetime?
Why do you look at cohorts?
Myth
Acquiring New Customers
Growth Loops
Retention Automation
Summary

Product Led Growth 54

About the Product Coach
Product Led Growth
Mindset is everything
What is a growth mindset?
How to have the right mindset/ growth mindset?
Importance of understanding the user
User Psychology
Growth Models
Experimentation
Product Marketing and Communication
Monetization and Growth
Summary

PM Career Growth 61
About the Product Coach
Five lessons to enhance PM Career

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 Table of Contents

One thing that can accelerate your growth

Three best practices in cracking PM Role
Breaking Certain questions canVia The Third Door
Summary

Product Principles and Frameworks 64

About the Product Coach
Problem Solving
Product Management Frameworks
Product Management Frameworks which are used often
Learnings from New Business / New Tech
B2B Growth Phases as the customer grow
Problem Solving Cheatsheet
Summary

Building an MVP and Go to Market 70

About the Product Coach
Why do we build products?
Product Market Fit
Early Adopters
MVP
Reality Checks
How to go about it?
Summary

Conclusion 74

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Foreword
To start, thank you for picking up this piece of art. Yes, art. This isn’t just another ‘product’
book – it’s about the stories, the learnings, and the real-life experiences of some of the
best product managers and founders in our ecosystem. Anyone can toss together a bunch
of lessons. But the nuggets that take product folks deep inside their journey and help them
to understand how to become a better version of themselves are rare. They share lessons
that will engage you and, more importantly, allow you to learn and apply through their
practical insights. It’s a collection of strategies, resources and lots more – it’s highly
recommended that you jump right in!

That being said, this wouldn’t have been possible without the effort of the team – Megha,
Aditya, Shalini, Saurabh, Sajal, Paul and Parth – who have been putting effort into carefully
curating this collection, which is what makes it so special. You can bet that any genuinely
thoughtful book on revision captures my attention. And this is a gem by all means.
Over the last two years, we’ve been trying to get the ecosystem together and build the best
product community in the world. Though our original focus was on offline networking
events, it became apparent over time that there is a real gap in the way the industry
upskills.

Since early 2021, with a fresh perspective on outcomes, we’ve been carefully making the
underlying purpose behind every initiative we launch very clear: to help to democratise
tech learning and enable the bridge of opportunities between the larger community and
the industry. And with the help of tons of folks in the ecosystem – mentors, volunteers,
teammates, industry partners – who’ve helped us at every single step, we’ve been able to
make a tiny, tiny dent – and it’s only a start, I promise. By the community, for the
community

Suhas Motwani

Co-founder , TPF

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 Contribution

We wholeheartedly thank the team that worked on the Insurjo E-book.

Creator: Srishti Gupta

Design: Vaibhav Basantani and Krish Savani
E-book Content Contributor(s): Mrunmai Patil, Srishti Gupta, Vaibhav Basantani
Marketing Contributor(s): Shalini Singh and Parth Batra
Social Content Contributor(s): Amani Chowdhry and Hasmita Kapoor
Operations : Megha Pathak

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 Acknowledgment

We started this community two years back with a simple motive to make the knowledge around
product management more accessible. With time, we have not only grown in size but also in our
motive. We have always strongly believed in working together for the greater good of the
community.

We are thankful to our readers and our community members from across the globe who have
made this possible. Your support and encouragement are the only fuel that keeps us going over
time. At the same time, we believe that every day is day one at The Product Folks, and we have
miles to go together.

Hope you have a good read!

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I N S U R J O

Answering some pathbreaking

questions around PM101
Our Partners:

AMANIAM
R
REESH SUB
GI
n e e r i n g - Zeta
d u c t a n d Engi
VP, Pr o

About the Product Coach

Gireesh Subramaniam
VP, Product and Engineering- Zeta

Gireesh Subramaniam has 12 years of product leadership and entrepreneurial experience

building SaaS products and currently works as a VP of product and engineering at Zeta, a
banking tech organization. Earlier, he helped to build the engineering team from 25 to 60 in one
year and remained the main point of contact for companies like Microsoft, Zynga, and Supercell.
He is an optimist and passionate about building large-scale enterprise SaaS products. He is also
curious about the world around us and always up for interesting conversations.

Who is a Product Manager?

A Product Manager is the one.

Who builds to solve users’pain.
Who builds to create long-lasting user value.
Who builds artifacts that become abilities. For example: In B2B products: The biggest
success will be when the tool becomes known as a skill. Eg, people claiming proficiency in
Excel.

Is the PM really the mini-CEO of the product?

A Product Manager is not a mini-CEO because the CEO owns revenue, hiring, and overall
management, but the Product Manager is the primary builder of the product.

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What does the PM own?

A Product Manager owns growth, constraints (internal or external), team energy. The PM has the
best vantage point, has a sense of purpose, is incredibly democratic, rallies the team, and brings
a sense of clarity.

Win over constraints, fuel growth and create a positive environment for the team; product
management is the art of the possible

What should a PM do while building a product?

Simplify by understanding user's problems.

Put the user first before your product's principles.
Give business context priority over aesthetics.
Understand their customer's needs
What do they need? What will they pay for?
Understand customer win stories or actual pain points.
Pay attention to demos. What do sales have to demo vs hesitate?
Trust your instinct
Being data-informed is more important than perfecting the data.
Form emotional bonds.
Prioritize - Say ‘No’ by default until it is not clear or valuable to you.
Start from NO and move to YES when it is super clear.
Non Opinionated PM is a disaster.
Transition to a PM career?
Assess what are your current strengths
What things do you need to learn?
Don't talk about things you can’t answer.

How to say ‘NO’ better?

Earn the trust and respect with what you build

Listen well.

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 Solve the need without building where possible.
No for Now is the mantra. Be open to changing your mind.
As long as you are an expert on customer, you will earn credibility

How does ‘data’ help us in achieving things?

Data will not tell what exactly the problem is, it can only indicate whether there is a problem or
not.
You can’t keep double guessing.
Lack of clarity damages the speed hence have a bias for action.

Advice for budding Product Managers?

Curiosity and learning are important.

You are the PM of your career.
Learn from the community.
Only pick something you truly enjoy.
Learning is underrated.
Find interesting things to talk about your product.
Put yourself out there.

Core skills which are assessed while hiring an entry level PM?

Problem Solving- Can you articulate problems?

Communication- Are you able to communicate your thoughts?

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Summary

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I N S U R J O

Market research and Customer

Discovery
Our Partners:

PRAKASH
TOSHI
o d u c t s - xto10x
Head, Pr

About the Product Coach

Toshi Prakash
Head, Products- xto10x

Toshi Prakash has been helping companies to grow for years, especially with their cultural
metrics, at xto10x, an Indian-based start-up that provides clear pillars on the way to scale a
company post-product-market fit. Earlier, she was VP of product at Locus. She is considered to
be one of the experts in the market research and customer discovery domains.

Why do people buy or use something?

To get a job (desired task) done.

Invest their time, energy, and money- should be happy
You are not the user.
You are one part of your user segment and one of the pro users who knows everything.
Will it bring value to your business

What are different kinds of discovery scopes of the products?

For each quadrant there are different user personas.

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Why do we define user persona?

To understand user motivation.

To understand the frequency of usage of certain features.
To analyse the expectations out the product.
To know the current struggles of users and discover the potential struggles.
To socialise the segment.

How to define a user persona?

Step 1: Define Persona

Category Details

Header Fictional name, image and quote that summarises what matters
the most to the persona that relates to your product.

Relevant Personal Age, gender, ethnicity, education level, persona group and
Background family status.

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Category Details

Professional Background Income level, job occupation, working hours and experience.

Environments Physical locations, social environments and technological

environments.

Psychographic Attitude, interests, motivation and pain points.

Step 2: Define Scenario

This is an “a day in life” narrative of how a persona interacts with your product.
When, Where, How.
Write from user’s perspective.

Remember

There are multiple personas for multiple scenarios, and every stakeholder should be able to
see the value.
Different age groups and genders should be considered.
Device and Tech should be noted.
Geo-Location and Language are important.
Job functions should be considered.
In the end, consider Paying capacity as a factor.
The user is the same as the buyer should be noted.
The needs should be understood and prioritised.

How to select the right user persona?

For each quadrant there are different user personas.

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What kind of inputs do we need from our users?

Jobs

Customers seek help to get a job done from the product or services. They need to succeed at
getting the job done
There are two kind of Job
Functional - Absolute needs to be fulfilled by the product.
Emotional - Unsaid needs fulfilled by the product. These needs tend to get missed out. The
needs can be of two types:
Personal
Social
Example : In the case of food delivery applications, the functional job of the user is to get the
food and the emotional job includes healthy food choices, and food for multiple people.

Outcomes

People want to get things done in cheaper, faster and better manner
For each job
There is at least one obvious outcome.

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 There are many non obvious outcome which act as a differentiator.

Outcomes have
Unit of measure.
Direction in which the unit should be measured.
Desired Value (does not always need to be maximum).

Constraints

Users might want the following constraints to be resolved:

Physical
Environmental (Ex: High Pressure Environment)
Safety Concerns
Language
Weather
Location
Regulations and Restrictions

What should be considered while conducting User Interviews?

Always talk to the End User instead of any middlemen in between product and customers.
Conduct interviews even if your product is not complete, but just a part of it is ready.
Don’t role-play as one of the users.
Pick enough users; there should be of a variety from different demographics.
Learn inputs from sales and marketing but ultimately talk to users to gather an overall
outlook.
Ask your users to tell stories- you want them to tell the problems not solutions.
Understand environmental constraints.
Lead your users through questions.
Be specific with your questions.
When faced with a problem, try to note what the end users did to solve it at that moment.
Ask about how they felt.
Find out how important the problem is.
Ask what did the family or friends say about the product (the social impact).
Note the level of satisfaction.
Do not reveal evaluation criteria.

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Why should there be competitor research?
To help to understand strength and weaknesses.
To understand the unique value proposition.
To spot trends and new technology.
To update the table stakes.
To keep pricing competent in the market.
To learn from other’s mistakes.

When the market is young, there are few competitors and less players but when the market is
saturation, solutions exist, products are more than just better and cheaper and there is a need to
replace existing competitor (Ex: Superhuman mailing system)

Competitor Analysis Frameworks

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Opportunities
An opportunity is where a job, outcome and constraint are underserved; for example, a user
wants various cuisines even in hard-to-reach places.

Job : Multiple Cuisines

Outcome : Quality Food
Constraint : Remote Location
Opportunity : Multi-cuisine chain in remote tourist places, drone delivery

Selecting Opportunities
Follow DHM (Delighting Customer, Hard to copy ways, In Margin Enhancing) Framework by
Gibson Biddle for selecting opportunities and creating a product which is different

Tips for 0-1 product

Pick up multiple personas.

Find representatives in friends and family.
Put up a website, social and/or Community.
Start with a press release and try to find relevance.
After doing all of the above things, notice if there is any traction.

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Summary

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I N S U R J O

Demystifying
Product Metrics
Our Partners:

AK
MOIN HYAY
AND YOPAD
B
E
PM-STRIP

About the Product Coach

Moinak Bandyopadhyay
PM- Stripe

Moinak Bandyopadhyay is a born storyteller having 10 years of experience in Product Analytics,

AR, VR, Ecommerce. Currently, he is currently working as Product Manager at Stripe and earlier
was a Staff PM for Core Analytics and Machine Learning at Mixpanel. Moinak has studied
Computer Science from Georgia Tech, USA and has always been interested in the technical
domain but more into solving problems which eventually led him towards Product Management.
He gave an analytics angle towards Product Market Fit and focused on north star metrics and
evaluations of metrics through analytics.

Why measure anything when we have User Interviews?

There are certain questions that can only be answered through data, which supports the
answers gathered from user interviews

User Interviews identify:

What the problems are
Why they are problems
Possible solutions for the problem
Analytics helps figure out:
Which problem should be solved first
Whether the possible solution actually solved the problem
User Interviews <-> Analytics

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User Interviews Analytics

Captures what user say Capture what user actually do

Job of PM - Why is there a problem? + Do enough people feel the pain?

Opportunity Assessment - Trust + Influence to make decisions

What can go wrong?

Fixated on metrics that make them look good (vanity metrics) instead of actionable metrics
Multiple Pivots - analysis paralysis
The wrong metrics - misaligned incentives leading to wrong outcomes and suboptional
outcomes

What is North Star Metrics?

Predictive of company’s long term success

Aligns multiple teams
Captures the core value for user

How can we find North Star Metrics?

Primary Value of the Product’s natural usage Metric Types

Product frequency
Core value proposition How frequently do you Options to choose north
Ex: Netflix - Watch expect the users to come strat metric from; the
Time back metric that will address
Dropbox - Uploading Daily - Social Media the full customer lifecycle
and sharing Weekly- SAAS
Monthly - Banking
Annually - Holiday App

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Metric Types

Reach The total number of users using the product in recent times.

Activation A fundamental step that creates the first impression on the

user.
Set Up Moment > Aha Moment > Habit Moment

Active Usage Value moment + natural usage frequency (Gibson Biddle –

proxy metrics)

Engagement Depth (intense usage), breadth (variety of features), frequency

(the number of days) of completing key actions

Retention Extremely important (even at feature level)

What percent of initial user group are still using it
days/weeks/ months later?
Are users returning?

Revenue Amount of money made by the business.

Business Specific Generalised Metrics but supercritical

Data centre burns, Referral rates, NPS, CSAT Survey etc.

Make sure the north star metric is aligned to core value.

For example, north star metric would seem like:
Mixpanel- Percent of users doing segmentation
Airbnb- Nights booked, Quarterly active guests
Identify your core value, natural usage frequency north star metric for each product

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Counter Metrics

Sometimes you are fixated on north star metric and unintentionally end up hurting the user
experience and the business
Figure out what checks do you need to add to avoid such an occurence

Example:
Netflix free trial auto renewal was creating problems for its users. So they could solve this
problem through two ways
By spending 10 million in customer support
By spending 50 million for a new solution like reminder

It was a tough decision between the two but in the second option, they found it better to loose
the margin because the customer delight was most likely to go up in this case

Analysing Product Market Fit

Retention Curves

Are your users building a habit using your product or not?

People are dropping off. That means your product hasn’t hooked user properly

People are still dropping at a lower rate

People have stopped dropping off. Almost 50% of the users got the habit

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 Some people had dropped off but they fixed something, notified user and
usrers returned (network effects) - Found Product Market Fit, because users
stopped dropping off

Sean Ellis Survey

How would you feel if you could no longer use the product?
Very disappointed
Somewhat disappointed
Not disappointed
I no longer use the product

Net Promoters Score

Example

Video Company/ Media Company

Total Signups Drop points.

Activation Sign Up > Watch 3 videos > 30 days- to observe the following
within thai time window:
window

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Activation Current Aggregated view
What the trend is?
What caused users to not activate currently
Why was there a dip?

Active Users Definition on what makes an active users?

What variation of core value proposition?
What percent of weekly active users are power watchers?

Frequency How frequently are they using it?

Depth Intensity- How many minutes of total videos are viewed in 30

days?

Breadth How many feature sets? What different devices?

Paid plan conversion How long should free trial be? How many videos watched to
rate convert?

Retention How many users are returning week after week?

For spikes - What good happened there?
Retention Trend Users coming back after x weeks

Revenue What percent spend how much?

Business Specific How many unique videos

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What if north star metrics are improved but other factors are degraded?

Its good to have counter metrics

The best way to learn from metrics is to ask what is driving them
Potential root cause -> user interviews -> trace back their steps

Your goal as a PM is to make sure discussion happen and you can make them happen through
data

Summary

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I N S U R J O

Rapid Prototyping and

Experimentation
Our Partners:

N BOBBIN
A
NATH
h a rgebe e
c t s , C
VP Produ

About the Product Coach

Nathan Bobbin
VP, Product - Chargebee

Nathan Bobbin is VP of products at Chargebee, the subscription billing and revenue

management platform. He started his product journey 20 years ago with IBM as senior PM; since
then, he has been in the product domain. His experience with various start-ups helps us to
understand the importance of prototyping and experiments.

Why Prototyping?

9 out of 10 startups fail because

There is no such market need (people didnt care about it enough).
They run out of cash.
They have poor marketing.
They are outcomepeted.
Major features are not used by almost 50% target audience , and 66% drastically change the
plan.

Therefore it is always good to prototype before hand and avoid such consequences

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Product Market Fit

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build- the thing customer wants and will
pay for- as quickly as possible

Get punched in the face as quickly as possible and find out what's wrong with the idea.

Tools for finding Product Market Fit

Initially you have a set of untested hypotheses:

Key Partners
Key Activities
Value Proposition
Key Resources
Cost Structure
Channel

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1. Business Canvas Model - Good for new product for new business

2. Value Proposition Canvas -A tool that helps ensure that a product/service is positioned
around what the customer values and needs are.

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3. Riskiest Assumption Canvas

4. Test Hypotheses

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5. Priority Assumptions

MVP allows a team to collect the max amount of validated learning about customers with the
least effort instead of a product with fewer features.

Experimentation Process

A true experiment begins with a clear hypothesis that makes predictions about what is supposed
to happen.

Cost of change increases -> risk and certainty decreases

Experimentation over elaborate Planning

Feedback over Intution
Iterative design over Traditional “big design upfront” development

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 Stop investing if the market doesn’t like it
Don’t try to make a BAD idea work

Summary

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I N S U R J O

Product spec: Designing &

documenting Product solution
Our Partners:

ILAN HARIA
KH
d u c t - R a zorpay
SVP, Pro

About the Product Coach

Khilan Haria
SVP, Product - Razorpay

Khilan Haria is the SVP of Products at Razorpay, one of the popular fintech platforms for
businesses in India. He has worked in various organizations earlier like Yahoo, Treebo & Cisco
and with all his experience, he brings to the table, the appropriate ways to create PRDs / Product
Specs

How does one arrive at a product roadmap?

Solve larger customer’s pain point

Solve sales/ business Needs
Create projects that help to achieve user goals
Solve shiny/interesting tech problems
Request support from the CEO/ Founder / Boss Request

Big Picture - Arriving at Roadmap

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What happens after roadmap is built and a specific project is prioritized?

Project Lifecycle

What type of documents are written as the starting point as a PM?

PRD
Product Spec
Concept Note
6 Pager
PR- FAQ

There are different names but the purpose is similar

What problems we are solving
The solution/ answer for the problem
What it will take to build

What happens when you get the specs wrong?

Unhappy Customers
Rework

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History & Relevance of Traditional PRD

Agile ↔ Waterfall
PRD/MRD is usually the voice of the PM rather than the voice of the customer. Unanswered
questions in traditional PRD include the following:
Why is this product important?
Who are the customers?
How is it going to solve the problem of the customers?
What benefit will the organization get after this product launch?

Importance of Product Spec Document

Helps to build a shared purpose.

Helps to build a common understanding of the problem.
Builds a clear view on the solution and ensures that expectation vs reality are not different.

In summary, a good spec increases probability of success of a given project.

Key Parts of a Product Spec Document

Key Parts Good PM Great PM

What is the problem? 1. Discover Problem 1. Quantify Problem

Deeper understanding of 2. Look at the data 2. Measure and quantify

the problem 3. L1/ L2 Problem 3. L5/ Root Cause

You are NOT YOUR USER 4. Speak to sakes/ Awareness
support team 4. peak to Customer

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Who are you solving the 1. Identify Customers 1. Identify Customer Segment
problem for? 2. Generic Problems 2. Segment Specific Problems
3. Build for everyone/ 3. Narrow down to a segment
none

Why is the problem 1. Define the objective 1. Measurable Success

important? 2. Open-ended Criteria
3. Outcome 2. Time-lined goals
3. Outcome + Output Metrics

How would you solve the 1. Six Page Summary 1. Concise

problem? 2. Need Technical depth 2. Simplified narative

3. Can be read by 3. Understandable by

Engineers everyone

Solution Validation 1. Do it by yourself 1. Involve other experts

2. Assume it will work 2. Speak to customers
3. Assume root cause 3. Discover Root Cause

1. What 1. What, Why, Who

Detailed Product
2. Feature 2. Capability
Requirement
3. Current Scope 3. Future Scope/ Possibilities
4. Architecture first, then 4. Customer-first solution
the solution

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Summary

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I N S U R J O

Storytelling & Soft Skills

for Product Leaders
Our Partners:

VA SINGH
APOOR
u c t s - I n deed
Prod

About the Product Coach

Apoorva Singh
GTM Product Lead- Indeed

Apoorva is the product commercialisation and GTM strategy lead at Indeed, an American
worldwide employment website for job listings. She has always enjoyed working in product
management as it is an intersection between technology and business that drives vision.

Soft Skills

It gives you that edge to differentiate as a product leader

Make the difference between good and great product leaders

Skills Characteristics Example

Hard Skills Transactional Writing user stories

Transferable Building & analyzing data

Measurable Building dashboards,

reports, business cases

About interpersonal Stakeholder

Soft Skills stuff Management

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Soft Skills Subjective Having difficult convos

Context-Dependent Building alignment across

Hard to quantify the team

Business Sense
Strategic Insight

Mastering Communications- Executive Presentations

Know the purpose of your meeting. What you need our that discussion should be your goal.
Figure out what kind of meeting it is.
Follow best practices for executive presentation.

Kind of Meeting What do they require?

Decision Making Options

Stakeholder inputs to those options
Outcome > Decisions Pros & Cons comparison while arriving at a decision
during/ after the meeting

Brainstorming Layout problem statement and the ‘why’?

Structure Discussion
Initial Ideas on the table Be/have a timekeeper
during ideation/early Use a framework
product development Work towards a goal and summarize the next actionable

Resource What do you need?

Business Impact
Need resources to get How actionable connect with company’s goals
things done; need What happens if you don’t get resources?
stakeholder buy-in How you can help?
Handling pushback thoughtfully

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Approval Meeting
Greenlight to get go-
ahead for the plan
Outline the plan & timeline > simple
Clearly articulate roles & responsibilities
Ask questions from audience > Listen & Respond
Ask for the green light
Send a summary email

Update Write an email to all stakeholder

To know the current

status of the plan

Best Practices for Executive Presentations

Qualify Pre- Read Write a good pre-read for all stakeholders

Content Setting Give clear and enough context that sets the stage

Speak to your audience Tailor content- what exactly matters to them

Storytelling Use narrative style that keeps engagement high

Comprehension Use narrative style that keeps engagement high

Transparency Speak honestly and be transparent

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Effective Storytelling

Why is storytelling has importance in a team?

Audience Remember the STORY!

Principles
1. What is the ‘WHY’?
2. The Problem / Conflict
3. The Context/ Plot
4. The Experience
5. The Solution
6. Personal/ Emotional Connections
7. Pacing it well

Leadership Skills

Getting to the “YES”

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How to 10x your productivity

Career Planning

Your career is your Product!

Career Canvas

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Career Roadmap - Checklist/ Milestones

Product Strategy

A high-level plan that describes what the business wants to accomplish with the product and
how it would do so.

Why is it important?
Provides clarity for business/ company
Improves and aligns your team's radical decisions
Help to prioritise product roadmap

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How to break into Product Strategy?

1. Grow vertically in product management (if you are already in the product domain).
2. Find Product strategy roles at other companies like Googe, hypergrowth start-ups and larger
MNCs lie HCL.

Summary

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I N S U R J O

Retention as the
Foundation of Growth
Our Partners:

GATTANI
R
ANKU
ge
k e t i n g - WebEnga
h&M ar
VP Growt

About the Product Coach

Ankur Gattani
VP, Growth & Marketing - WebEngage

Ankur Gattani has dabbled in multiple spaces from mobile product management to venture
development. He is currently leading the growth and marketing at WebEngage, the platform that
provides contextual services and helps you to craft personalized campaigns to engage your
users through push notifications, web notifications, email, and more. He is one of the strongest
storytellers who will captivate your attention and help you to gain knowledge towards retention
as the foundation of growth and the jargon related to growth.

Why should you care about Retention?

Retention overlaps with product:

1. It is about data driven growth which includes lot of workflows, automation, data models,
user insights and similar skill sets.
2. As a PM, you can bake growth pieces into products.
3. It is a great career path.
4. Once you understand funnels, you can use then everywhere.

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47
What are the terms used under Retention?

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Money spent in acquiring new customers.

The spend on paid market efforts/ No. of new customers acquired

Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)

The MRP value of all products you’ve sold.

Doesn’t cover discounts etc.

In the market that doesn’t buy/sell (hold inventory), consider this as a metric scale that can be
far away from revenue, which would be a percentage of GMV.

Contribution Margin (CM)

CM1 = Gross Margin = Sale Price - Cost Price

CM2 = Sale price - cost price - cost of fulfillment

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV/ CLTV)

Summation of CM2= Sum total of CM from a single customer over period of lifetime
Example: Rs 1000- average order value (After Discount)
40% cost of product to seller
25% cost of Delivery
15% Payment Gateway
20% CM= Rs 200

A consumer places 5 such orders in his lifetime CLV= 5 x 200 = Rs 1000

Lifetime = x months or y orders that a consumer place before he churns

Churn= Break up!

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Dynamic Micro Segment

Categorising/segregating customers into micro-segments. Example: “People” who bought their

first pair of shoes.

RFM

Recency Frequency Monetary Value

Time since last purchase Number of purchases The average value of

(high score) purchases

With DMS and RFM → You will get a few heuristics on audience profiles

Month M1 M2 M3 M4

Retention 100% 20% (80% 10% 0

Churned)

Acquisition 10K 10K (New 10K 10K

Customers

Total Users 10K 12K (10+2) 13K 13K

After month M4, there is no growth, hence bucket will never fill.

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How do you track churn/ lifetime?

Using cohorts → a group of people that share a characteristic – often the acquisition
time frame.

Why you look at cohort?

Watching cohort engagements over 6 months period.

Other cohorts lead to the following:

Business Outcomes Implication on Acquisition Implication on Product

Portfolio

Is the average order Acquisition channel

value increasing? wise cohorts Are there ample

Is category decreasing. Are cross sell

prenetration affiliates giving you opportunities to

increasing? poor quality customers expand average

New FB campaign order value > CM >

giving you super high CLV

quality cohort

Myth

Handshake point between acquisition and retention.

A customer saw your ad → clicked → converted → you’re celebrating

80% of them will not repeat (EVER)

Acquiring New Customers

A new customer may or may not be a stranger, but you have seven days to acquire the customer
fully. Either it will build a long-term relationship or churn.
For brands, it gets harder because there are dozens of other brands trying luck and wits.

02
50
Growth Loops

Well thought-out message → High on Relevance = High on Personalisation

Set up your data → capture → organise → leverage
Event Data - User Activities lies a page view, product added in cart etc.
Event Attribute- Page in question, product in question etc.
User Data = User Profile information
The data pieces need to be connected and should speak for/ to each other.

Stage I Stage II Stage III

Before Entry On the site After Order

Ads Clicked Wishlisht addition Call to call centre

Channel of Size checks etc Open to tickets
acquisition etc Emails open etc.

Data should be set up in the early stages of the journey. If you don’t put in the right data
structure, you have to redo this later, which is a lot more work. After the data stack is sorted,
hitting the right channels is next.

Channels
Triggers - Something that initiates an experience
Type of triggers:
User Event Triggers- cart, wishlist, search abandon
Product Event Trigger - back in stock, price drop
Lifecycles Trigger- 7 days, 30 days etc
Channels- email, push notification, InApp WhatsApp, SMS, Fb audience, Google Audience,
IVR
Low relevance, high frequency → SPAM
Low relevance, low frequency → You’ll be forgotten
High relevance, high frequency → You need to find the sweet SPOT
User journeys combine different channels and messages.
One Big Impact = Dozens of growth loop, optimized each step of the way
Condolidated Metric= Uplift in KPI. Example : Cart Recovery
Channel Metrics - Email
Audience size with permission
02
51
 Reachability
Open Rates
Click to operation
Conversion rate
Automated Triggered Based journeys - small tweaks everyday

Retention Automation

Dynamic Micro Segments

Audience will keep entering and exiting this segment.

Therefore if you set daily recurring campaign- It’ll go to new set of users everyday

Personalization easier to handle than segmentation

100s of segments = 100s of messages and campaign to manage

Example : SWIGGY
Personalize notifications/ emails using user preferences, business event, product alter CTA etc.
AMAZON
Personalize home page (WEB) using login details, response rate, past browsing behaviour.

The whole thing comes together by utilising dozens of growth loops with highly personalised
messaging, which keeps the user engaged and converts them, delivering the LTV that you’re
looking for.

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Summary

02
53
I N S U R J O

Product Strategy
Our Partners:

I
NUJ RATH
A

G r o w t h - Swiggy
nue,
SVP Reve

About the Product Coach

Anuj Rathi
SVP Revenue, Growth - Swiggy

Anuj is SVP, Central Revenue and Growth at Swiggy where he leads growth marketing, customer
lifecycle Management, Swiggy One, merchandising, social, design solutions, financial services,
partnerships and Swiggy Labs. With more than 17 years of experience, Anuj brings rich
experience and insights from his stints at marquee Indian e-commerce startups. At Flipkart and
later at Snapdeal, he led the Buyer experience teams which were instrumental in crafting and
deciding how India buys online in web and mobile. Anuj also worked with Walmart Labs as a
Senior Product Manager where he created a truly multichannel experience for their online photo
and pharmacy products.

Product Led Growth

Product plays a key role in all the teams

Mindset is everything

A growth mindset is the most important lever to drive growth

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54
What is a growth mindset?

Mindset that starts with a motivation

Embrace challenges and failures
Treat other’s success as success stories

How to have the right mindset/ growth mindset?

Face challenges → Think about it from first principles → create an idea out of it

Good PM
Gritty, Passionate, Curious
Problem Identification and solving
Growth and Influence

Importance of understanding the user

User Persona
Who is your end user
What are the user pain points

Understanding users more

What are the user’s current belief
Use Cases
ACB - Accepted Customer Belief
DCB- Desired Customer Belief
3D user understanding

When is the user using your product

Dreamer vs Explorer vs Locater

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User Psychology

Users are irrational

Understanding consumer psychology → Drive user actions and forms habits

Ways Description Example

Accomplishment The feeling of overcoming Linkedin Profile

a challenge or
accomplishing something

Ownership and status To make the user feel that Pokemon Go

they own something that
creates status

Scarcity Wanting something which Oneplus Flash Sale

is rare and not available to
me

Social Influence We do things that are Reviews and Ratings

relatable

Unpredictability I don’t know what to Google Search card

expect, I have to find out

Loss Aversion Loosing what you own Cigarette Advertisement

hurts more than what you
gain

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Meaning Make the user feel that Wikipedia, Milap etc.

they are a part of

something

Growth Models

Atomic Growth Model Aggregate Growth Model

Business Model built on user level Business Model doesn’t consider only users,
overall market

Example: Tic Tok Example: Uber

Every company has its own atomic When you think about the user, you need to
growth model think about the driver as well, both the atomic
models may not go together. Therefore, the
business can work properly on the overall
market level.

02
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Experimentation

Obervation from user Insight Hypothesis Experiment

study/ data When user has 1 If user know the Show all inclusive

Ex: 50% of users who item in cart, the total price Upfront charges on product
add 1 item in cart do shock of extra shock decreases display page
not complete order charges on cart and conversion Test with 50% user
lead to this increases using A/B

One obervation can lead to multiple experiments

Prioritise using RICE

where R - Reach , I- Impact, C- Confidence, E- Effort

Experimentation

1. Find the right channels for

communication
Current Accepted
2. Craft the right GTM mailers Desired consumer belief
Belief
with copy, launch etc.
3. Experiment

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Monetization and Growth

Both go hand in hand

Product offering can grow effectively when priced right
Understand consumer willingness to pay
Apply consumer psychology

Pricing Model Characteristics Examples

Subscription Based Consumers pay periodic Netflix, Prime

Model payments for continued service

A steady flow of revenue drives
higher LTV

Dynamic Price Price changes based on factors Uber, Surge

like time of the day, demand and pricing
supply and weather
Optimize growth & economics
influencing demands & supply

Auction & Bidding Pricing based on competition; Google Adwords etc.

Prices consumers finalise the price
Let the market figure out the price

Pay based on the outcome AWS

Pay as you go
Get the max out of consumer
willingness to pay by delivering
value

Tiers of service with a free Linkedin

Freemium
starting tier
Acquires users on the free tier
and then motivates them to
upgrade
02
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Summary

02
60
I N S U R J O

How to crack a PM role

Our Partners:

RAMAN RM
AT
VENK
L e a d e r - Bounce
Product

About the Product Coach

Venkatraman RM
Product Leader- Bounce

Venkatraman has been a product leader with Bounce and Razorpay, and his learning from his
own journey will provide insights on how to crack a PM and what the necessary steps to break
into product management are.

Five lessons to enhance PM Career

Rookie PM Measure Everything

X Assumptions
Speak with your customers
No big bang release

Rookie Manager Hiring great people

Enable and Delegate
Focus on bigger problems worthy of your role

Global PM Live with initial hiccups

Startup and large company experiences

02
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Wartime PM Difference between peacetime & wartime PM

Peacetime PM
3 to 5 year vision
Quaterly roadmaps
Experiment & measure all changes to do
Scrum PRD Design Plan Build Launch

Wartime PM
Today/ Beyond 3 months
This week if not today
Important big moves that can bring disproportionate impact
Mutual trust with all teams

Donning the senior Behavioural skills >>> Any other skill

leadership role
Assertiveness, Influence, Executive presence

One thing that can accelerate your growth

Have a MENTOR along the way (outside organization)

The role of a mentor changes as you grow

Three best practices in cracking PM Role

Making profile relevant

Role Gap Analysis
Skill | Have done that| Known/Seen It
Personalise and Influence
Hunt down internal role

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62
 Breaking Via The Third Door

Getting your foot in the door

Research about company
Prepare something to send (deck, doc, case study)
Publish your work online
Learn how to reach out cold

Being Overprepared
Think through problems before jumping to conclusion
Dont assume, clarify
Use framework
Collaborate better
Focus on strengths
Background research
Be likeable

Summary

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I N S U R J O

PM Principles in
Action
Our Partners:

AVIJIT NANDA

Direct or of PM, MoEng age

About the Product Coach

Avijit Nanda
Director of PM - MoEngage

Avijit Nanda has been in the product domain for 15+ years, working as director of PM at
MoEngage, a customer engagement platform. The factor that motivated him each day was to
know more about his customers and solve new problems sustainably, which could bring some
new potential perspectives into the world. According to him, product frameworks will help us to
put them into action while solving different problems.

Problem Solving

We all know how to solve a problem but our approach is biased by our experiences.

Product Management Frameworks

Business / Strategy Analysis

PEST (Political, Economic, Social & Technological)
Business Model Canvas
SWOT
Porter’s 5 forces
BCG Matrix
Kano (How well needs are met, Satisfaction)

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 Ansoff Matrix
RACI/ DACI
Segmentation : RFM
Northstar
Engagement Analysis
HEART
AARRR
AIDA
AARM
REAN
5 Es
Hook Canvas
Prioritization
MoSCOW
Business Value vs Complexity/ Effort
RICE
Eisenhower Method
Analyze
First Principles
5 Whys
5 Ws & H
SPADE (setting, people, alternatives, decide and explain)
SCAMPER (substitute, combine, adapt, modify/magnify/minify, put to another use,
eliminate, reverse)
Process
Design thinking (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test)
CIRCLES (comprehend, identify customer, report customer needs, cut through
prioritization, list solutions, evaluate trade-offs, summarise recommendations )
Double Diamond (discover, define, develop, deliver)
DMAIC (define, measure, analyse, improve, control )
Agile (Scrum, SAFe, Kanban )
ShapeUp
MVP
GIST (goal, ideas, steps, tasks)
Optimal product-process-framework

Other Principles
Dunning Kruger Effect
02
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 4 Ps (product, place, price, promotio )
Crossing the chasm
Toyota’s way - 14 principles

Product Management Frameworks which are used often

Ideation → White Boarding/mind maps

Macro View → Business Canvas Model / SWOT
Solutioning → Design thinking
Quick Priority → Value/cost, RICE
Delivery → Agile (Scrum)

Learnings from New Business / New Tech

Tech
1. People love new tech
2. Customer value creation by unlearning
traditional ways + identifying new
opportunities
3. Challenges for building good data/
annotations
4. How your business and tech decouples- be
nimble
5. Ensure tech’s value realisation & usage
6. Solve one primary use case well
Marketplace
1. While repivoting business, focus on channel,
delivery, customer value, incremented
offerings, competition- tech will be solved
2. Look for indirect competition
3. Customer trust and confidence
4. Partners to scale
5. Find ways to build Network Effect
6. Data & Data Derivations are pivotal
7. Each customer needs equal care
[PLAYBOOK]
8. Focus on usage/ value than just sales
numbers

B2B Growth Phases as the customer grow

First 10 Customers
Find one good customer
Be open to change
Hack and agility
Validation
Evaluate PMF Opportunities

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 Focus on one Core Problem & solve it better than the rest
PMs- Problem Solvers (Generalists) - 0 to 3
Long Term Roadmap 10 - 30%

10 - 100 Customers
Process Baselining
Partner Synergies
Customer success focus
Referencability
Start thinking “self - serve” if not already
2+ Differentiators
PMs - Process Specific - 3 to10
Long Term Roadmap 30 - 60%

100+ Customers
Repivot/ Refocus
Multigeo / Multi- Ind
UX Revamp
Defining & leading Industry
Be closer to customer
Playbooks/ SOPs
Good Data is Pivotal
Upsell vs New Revenue
PMs- Specialised PMs (10+)
Long term Roadmap (60% +)

Problem Solving Cheatsheet

Problem Solving Framework

Understand and define → Solution and validate → Plan and prioritise → Build, launch and iterate

Process:
Understand & review problems
Identify top variables
Weigh variables Communicate at all times ( This is
Assumptions & constraints what we miss usually)
Break it down & prioritise
Validate Solution

02
67
 Plan Timelines
BVR (Big Visual Information
Right Size MVP
Radiators)
Define Success Metrics
Iterate

Problem Analysis : Variables (Cheatsheet)

Balanced Roadmaps

Metric Movers
Sustenance
Big Bets
Quickiness
Delighters
Qualified Experiments
Tech Backlog
Direct Requests

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PM Framework

Innovation Communication Execution

What did you help Empathy Bias for action

identify, solve create? Clarity Drive and Passion
Value of it to the org Stakeholder and Timelines
Risk taking and Customer Management Ownership
management thereof Quality of work

Summary

69
I N S U R J O

New Product Launches

/ Releases & GTM
A
TAV
Our Partners:
IV A S
NGI SR
SHIV
A
s , S w iggy
ve i
nitiat
New I

About the Product Coach

Shivangi Srivastava
New Initiatives- Swiggy

Shivangi Srivastava is working on new initiatives at Swiggy. Earlier, she was VP of products at
Khatabook and a cofounder of Tazzobikes. She loves building new things and her entrepreneurial
experience will help us to understand the topic of product go-market strategies, best practices
and common pitfalls.

Why do we build products?

To solve a real problem

To delight users
To realise a big vision and change the world
To make a lot of money

Product Market Fit

Product market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market
Great team → lousy market → market and vice versa

Great team meets ↔ great market ↔ something special happens

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Early Adopters

These are people who are tech enthusiasts and visionaries who have access to technology and
are willing to try new things.

MVP

Minimum viable product is a launchable version of the product that supports minimal yet must-
have features (which define its value proposition).

MVP’s intent is to
Enable faster time to market
Attract early adopters
Achieve PMF from early on

Real MVP is the one where value is maximised

Reality Checks

There should be a commitment to iteration

Elements of the MVP you launch will have more gravity than you think
MVP assumption: Visionary early adopters can fill in the gaps on missing features if
the product solves a real problem
Lots of people are not able to make it to the chasm stage

02
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 Whatever has been made so far is liked by the people; it should not just be
functional, it should be functional, usable and desirable
The true competition is to offer a better experience on our product

How to go about it?

Selecting the right problem, identifying the user and key value proposition

Study the market, assess the competition, identify the risks

Identify risks and know what we are working towards?
What are the things that can affect my chances of success?
Will hitting PMF successfully mitigate the risk in question?
Four Big Risks
Value Risk
Usability Risks
Feasibility Risks
Business Viability Risks

Pick the right things to build

Function > Usable > Desirable

Prototype it

02
72
 Don’t just build for users, build with them
Have the same group of people, become friends with them and keep going back to them
Show them prototypes, take feedback, iterate and repeat
Early adopters and promoters

Build a good product

Take to market the right way

Summary

02
73
 The Way Forward

We have always believed that it's always day one for the product community. There are a lot of
amazing products to be built and shipped. We hope this book inspires you to build your own
product and helps you to be a great PM. We can't wait to hear your story someday.

We will appreciate your reviews of this e-book so that we can improve our work next time. Share
it away on the socials with the hashtag #InsurjoEbook

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