Hindsight’s finally 2020.
Happy New Year to all our members. I hope 2021 brings out great product from the members of this community.
2021 had a great start for ProductTank Pune. We conducted our first session of the year and positively surprised ourselves by the extent of our reach. We welcomed joinees from as far as Delhi, Munich and Hong Kong 😍
But first, let’s talk about the new underdog in the tech scene, Signal.
Signal Vs WhatsApp
Throughout the last week, this has been an ongoing debate on most social media platforms (Ironically most of which are owned by Facebook). Signal, the messaging app created by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, has been trending on app stores since the start of the year.
Brian Acton claims he is the David going against the Goliath (WhatsApp) he created.
Is it possible to switch away from WhatsApp?
ProductTank Pune’s WhatsApp groups were also buzzing with fresh takes on this ongoing debate.
A great point made by one of our members, Padmanabh Galgali.
Due to strong network effects, moving from WhatsApp to signal doesn't seem viable as of now due to multiple reasons, one of which is chat backup. Migrating to Telegram, on the other hand, seems possible, just today we shifted one of our groups with ~50 members to Telegram.
Out of office by Product Tank Pune
We had our first event of 2021 - a new experiment of ours that we call “Out-of-Office”.
It was hosted and facilitated by Amit.
P.S: Read till the end to know more about our upcoming events, including the second edition of “Out-of-office”.
One of the many threads that were discussed on the call was
How does a company’s hierarchy change the role of a Product Manager?
We had people on the call who were working for Startups with less than 20 people, Mid-size firms with around 100 people and Giants in the space with somewhere around 1000 employees.
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In startups and mid-size firms, product managers are individual contributors. However, PMs in mid-size firms usually have a team and possibly have underlings.
Yes, Giants do have teams and underlings but a key differentiator between a PM here and a PM in a mid-size firm is, PMs in very large organisations have small areas of influence inside the team.
For example, one of the PMs in IndiaMart would be responsible for managing just the advertisement section within the landing page of the company.
In other words, the product is horizontally divided amongst PMs working in giant spaces. This is a major difference between PMs working in a Giant Corporation and a mid-size firm.
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I would like to include a small analogy that Amit mentioned on call when describing the role of a PM in a startup-
PMs in a startup are pirates. Breaking rules and going to un-charted territories. But their ultimate goal is to grow into a Navy. And that is where the dilemma lies.
Top reasons to buy a Saas application
Our Whatsapp groups are rarely “not-buzzing”.
Amit posted the following results from an interesting survey on our group. To which we got some interesting responses from our community members.
Puneet Saran raised an interesting observation which a lot of us agreed on
Very surprising to see analytics & reporting to be at the bottom. Expected it to be in the top 5 atleast.
Sanjay also shared his point of view on the results of the survey -
As a product owner and based on customer feedbacks more specific to customers in indian geography. It's difficult for customer to believe/gauge product on "Security" parameter. Especially the SME 's globally.
My experience has been product cost with consideration of functionality supporting value prop, drives the buying decision is SAAS product.
It's just not cost.
Yet if we need to rank this data on individual parameters
It could be -
Cost
Functionality with value prop
Ease and Customer exp
Security
Followed by rest 2 and 3 could interchange the spots on the learning curve involved in using the product.
Yet it's interesting data shared , rather than discounting it better approach would to be aware of it and validate it at different junctures😊
Upcoming events from ProductTank Pune
Next month will feature an interesting line-up of events -
Up first - "Roadmapping and Stakeholder Management"
An online event on 31st of January by Movin Jain on Roadmapping. There are many ways to build a roadmap, join this event to learn from one of the bests at the art.
Brief about our speaker:
Movin currently leads the Payments product at PhonePe. He has earlier worked with Meesho, Ola, InMobi and also founded his own startup, galleri5, which is now a profitable company in the social media and marketing space. He went to IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad.
Workshop on prioritisation with Bansi and Rajesh Rane
Prioritisation is the most important tool in any product managers arsenal. Bansi and Rajesh are seasoned PMs who are willing to share their trade secrets. You cannot miss this.
The second edition of “Out of office Hours”
The first event was such a success, we can’t wait for the second edition of “Out-of-office”. We discuss everything under-the-sun in these sessions.
Webinar on key aspects of Product management
Product management as a vertical is still developing in India. We want to help our new community members learn the tricks of the trade.
Subscribe to our meetup page to stay updated about the upcoming events
Webinar on Product-Led Growth
Talking about our awesome community members, Rupal recently gave a webinar on “Product-Led Growth” organised by Product School.
Some key takeaways of the webinar-
Product is so much more than something you sell.
How can you understand the pain points of the customer before proposing the solution?
How to find the perceived value of the product?
Books for Product Managers
Was one of your new year’s resolution to read more books or was it to become a better product manager?
If yes, then you’re in luck.
MindTheProduct has curated a list of the best Product Management Books. You’re welcome :)
Hirings
Looking to move up the ladder? Go through this list of job openings
Thanks for reading,
Team ProductTank Pune.
See you in the next edition :)
Good point on the Signal vs Whatsapp topic Mr. Padmanabh. I reckon the big shift is happening also in the B2B space. The B2B model is relatively new for Whatsapp and they have not monetized it enough in my opinion. To top it by saying that all data will be used for analytics purposes is raising internal security questions for the subscribers. Shifts are beginning to happen. Ex. A major fintech player has asked all conversations to move to Slack. WhatsApp also becomes a competing business for them in the payments industry hence the move is logical.