A startup I advise helps companies expand globally—incorporating abroad and managing legal & compliance requirements across multiple countries. Their product is solid, especially for parent companies juggling entities worldwide. But to be very honest—cross-border compliance isn’t exactly exciting for most techies and problem-solvers in the startup world. It’s a world of massive
I once advised a startup serving SMBs like salons and parlours. Their original pitch was straightforward: đź’ˇ “We offer marketing services as a product for $200/month, making it affordable for small businesses that can’t pay $500–$1000/month to agencies. We have high margins and strong growth due to our low-cost structure (product first
I was once discussing with a friend – “Let us pick a startup every week and write in public why it won’t succeed. We will be right 9 out of 10 times. Even for Series A, B, or C startups, we can still be right 7 out of 10 times. We might
Every once in a while, a new-age startup disrupts the established giants even though the giant has great management talent. Why does this happen? Often, it’s the “Innovator’s Dilemma” at play. Here’s what trips incumbents: 1. They don’t invest in products outside what core customers want. 2. They shy away from areas
Building something? Here’s why starting with your own story could be a superpower and a blind spot. I recently spoke to a founder who built a recruitment product. While he explained the features, I struggled to understand why he was building it. So, I asked him if there was any personal story
Working in Big Tech and starting your own venture can feel like a natural progression. Here are stories of two friends who started up, only to face surprising blind spots. Story 1: One friend was a top performer at a Big Tech firm, working on moonshot projects. Inspired, he decided to start
Fixed costs hit startups harder than anything else. Full-time engineers and office spaces, for instance – use up cash regardless of their utilization. This downturn is making founders acutely aware of this reality.  Here’s a common scenario I have observed a few times: Founders realize that their idea isn’t gaining traction and
“Indians don’t want to pay for software”. I heard this from a few SaaS entrepreneurs serving the SMB market (especially ones focused on efficiency). They have either shut down or exited the Indian market. They allude to “cultural” reasons (cost-consciousness) as to why their products failed in this market. However, a detailed
[This article is the last part of the PM compensation series. You can read the previous articles here, here and here.] XYZ was a high-growth and successful fintech firm with some 30-odd PMs and 150 engineers. Anand, Bama and Charlie were 3 Product Managers at XYZ Inc. working in different roles within
How should a PM’s performance be evaluated? In a recent post, I argued that one cannot consistently measure the intrinsic dollar value created by a Product Manager. Here are the performance metrics that can be set for different PM roles. The following common set of measures (not in any order of priority)
