Foundations of Product Management: Build Products for India

Product management is an iterative, evolving role shaped by technology. Learn how to solve user problems and meaningfully drive the business forward as a product manager.

Debunks the myth that PMs are the chief executive officer of the product. Shows PMs lack hiring power or control over other teams, yet own product outcomes.

Debunk the myth that product management equals chasing Steve Jobs-style experimentation. Recognize that in large companies, ideas are handed down, while in startups the founder directs the vision.

Debunk the myth that product managers must code, as a survey in India shows only 26% have engineering backgrounds and collaboration with engineers remains essential.

Define your business goal first. Apply a three-part problem solving framework: discovery (problem space), delivery (solution space), and measuring impact to verify the right problem and solution.

Learn to diagnose the real problem before proposing solutions, using root-cause analysis to guide product decisions and avoid revenue-cannibalizing quick fixes, illustrated with a Swiggy scenario.

Product managers drive growth by focusing on problem discovery and moving customers through a seven-step funnel—awareness, acquisition, activation, engagement, revenue-generating actions, retention, and referral—while aligning strategy with market changes.

Meet Smalt, an interactive centerpiece that combines a mood light, Bluetooth speaker, and smart salt dispenser, controllable by smartphone and Alexa, with sodium tracking and portable design.

Identify the real problem before creating solutions to avoid costly failures, as shown by NASA's space pen vs pencils, misfit French trains, and Juicero.

Identify the right problems by tracking data trends, gathering customer feedback, and comparing competitive benchmarks to improve cart page payments from add to cart at Swiggy.

Define a clearly stated goal as a key metric and align the organization around that kpi, using metrics like daily active users, churn, customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and revenue.

Block time with your manager to ask three questions about the metric you should own, whether it’s tracked, and if it’s shared with other teams, to solve the right problems.

Explore the growth funnel from acquisition to retention to monetization, with metrics like new signups, daily and monthly active users, and revenue per user.

Identify the output metric to break down by setting acquisition, retention, and monetization goals; decompose into new users, active users, and total revenue across channels.

Learn to break acquisition, retention, and monetization into actionable input and output metrics for Spotify, including signups by channel, activation steps, and churn-driven revenue modeling.

Great PMs obsess over metrics by defining a goal metric, measuring outcomes over output, and tracking progress quarter over quarter to drive engagement and impact.

Track post launch success by measuring feature adoption, stickiness, and revenue to ensure lasting value. Set time frames by user engagement and relate results to the product funnel.

Measure both goal and input metrics to drive the average order value and other outcomes, then instrument events across the user journey to analyze actions and inform product decisions.

Focus on alternatives, not competitors, and learn how to compare retention metrics across products like Swiggy Instacart to identify competition.

Focus on alternatives and the customer’s problem, not competitors and benefits, not features. Interview 8–12 customers to uncover user goals, triggers, and how they solve the problem, including non-buyers.

Identify user goals and jobs to be done to map alternatives to Swiggy Instamart, like local kirana stores, and work toward improving fruit and vegetable freshness to boost retention.

Use competitive intelligence to understand user needs, not copying rivals; learn from alternative sets and analyze successful and failed features, like referrals from Airbnb, to build trust and present rewards.

Learn how scarcity and exclusivity in Cred Mint build trust and signal creditworthiness, guiding selective inviting and a careful view of how user needs shape features and competitive research.

Master competitive research using public tools to analyze how rivals launch products, evolve messaging, and optimize features, with a Swiggy–Zomato case using Wayback Machine, SimilarWeb, blogs, and Facebook Ads Library.

Identify and understand your user segments through targeted research, using buyer personas or ideal customer profiles to grasp what users care about and solve their real problems, and drive revenue.

Use customer interviews to identify jobs to be done, uncover pains and gains, and build segments around how customers complete tasks, face frustrations, and seek gains.

Use pork mapping to translate interviews into user cards, then group them into 2 to 4 segments by common pains, gains, and jobs to be done, prioritizing top segments.

Learn to conduct user research as a tool for falsification, not validation, by confronting biases, embracing curiosity, and adopting a diver mindset over digging.

Analyze how Walmart's closed-question survey reduced inventory by 15% and triggered a $1.8 billion sales loss, highlighting the risk of not adopting an open-ended question to solicit customer input.

Define the business decision and research question, then carry out preparation, research, and synthesis to generate insights from qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys for stakeholders.

Begin every product decision with a clear business objective, align research to that decision, and involve stakeholders to avoid wasted data and wrong methods.

Define goals and input metrics, translate them into a business question, craft a hypothesis from existing data, and frame a learning-focused research question about grocery purchasing decisions.

Draft a rough discussion guide to translate business questions into research questions, then conduct interviews by easing into conversation, asking open, problem-focused questions, and recording for transcription.

Learn to measure audiences at scale with surveys that reveal demographics, segments, behaviors, usage patterns, and satisfaction to uncover new features and areas for improvement, while avoiding sampling errors.

Experience the power of experiencing your own product by immersing leadership in driver challenges at Uber, fixing signup, pay visibility, and map usability to boost loyalty and market share.

Bridge research data to decisions through synthesis: summarize conversations, identify themes, and communicate findings to stakeholders, mapping customer pains, gains, and jobs to be done with the value proposition framework.

Product managers solve problems by discovering opportunities, delivering solutions, and measuring impact, prioritizing what matters through data, user research, and jobs to be done insights.

Inventory customer pains, gains, and jobs to be done to map the opportunity space, then use the opportunity solution tree to prioritize opportunities that drive the desired outcome.

Map the customer’s current experience to identify opportunities, using a scoped user experience map tied to a specific outcome, and visualize with nodes and links.

Group opportunities, map the opportunity space as a tree of parent-child and sibling relationships, and use an opportunity solution tree with a prioritization framework to ship value iteratively.

Prioritize opportunities, not solutions, via the opportunity tree and stakeholder input; assess sizing and factors, align with mission, and choose the right problems to solve.

Partner with stakeholders as co-pilots, sharing goals, listening for alignment, and informing decisions to align priorities and build trusted partnerships rather than managing requests.

Apply the ROI framework—awareness, alignment, and inclusion—to map stakeholders around the product manager within concentric circles and clarify roles, authority, and accountability.

Identify product management blockers such as unclear problem discovery and scope creep, then align stakeholders and use the opportunity solution tree as the single source of truth.

Establish structured stakeholder alignment with purposeful synchronous meetings and organized asynchronous channels, guided by agendas, advance prep, and the ai framework for dedicated channels and updates.

Learn to influence colleagues as a PM by defining the problem, presenting data via the opportunity solution tree, and aligning stakeholders through a single plan.

Develop effective communication by reframing requests as 'not yet,' explain current priorities, ask targeted questions, quantify impact, and align asks with team goals to drive focused product decisions.

Develop 3–5 creative ideas to solve opportunity by revisiting discovery notes, analyzing average order value levers, and drawing inspiration from customers and analogues; use brainwriting and evaluation to map solutions.

Group ideation shortlists 3–5 ideas and uses story mapping to align end users and actors, define steps, and assess time and technology constraints before voting for the winning idea.

Compare prioritization methods such as impact and effort, Rice with reach and confidence, Moscow, and the Kano model to decide must-have features for India.

Use breadboarding to sketch key components of an idea with no visual design, mapping places, affordances, and connections to explore auto pay flows in an invoicing tool.

Learn Figma's collaboration-centric design workflow for product managers to visualize solutions, create low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes, and convert pen-and-paper sketches into digital product designs.

Master foundations of product management by understanding wireframes, prototypes, and fidelity to communicate a product’s basic structure; learn why low-fidelity wireframes guide designers, convey function, and save time.