There’s a useful way to understand the difference between a corporate manager and an entrepreneur. Picture a MasterChef kitchen. The manager is told which dish to prepare. There are people everywhere: leadership priorities, team dynamics, cross-functional politics, and the recipe may change three times before it’s plated. The dish does eventually get done, and looking…
There is a particular kind of meeting that should make any product leader nervous: the one where everyone agrees. Anyone who has led a project of moderate complexity knows the exact opposite situation well enough; the loud, confident voices that slow everything down without moving anything forward. Those that offer shallow alternatives with great conviction,…
Every product team has a mental image of their user. The problem is that this image tends to be assembled from existing data; who are currently buying, what they currently do, what they currently say they need. That is a reasonable starting point. However, it becomes a dangerous one the moment the team mistakes it…
After an Uber or Ola ride, the app asks you to rate your driver. Simple enough. But when should that prompt appear? Ask too soon, and users hesitate. Some worry the driver might instantly receive a notification, drawing attention to them and the location they’ve just been dropped at. Ask too late, and memory of…
It’s easy to look at a finished book and forget the chaos it came from. Recently when rummaging through an old box of papers, I found this (top left, circular diagram thing). That was from one evening in early 2018 where I was working on the design thinking structure and flow for Design the Future,…
Over the decades, many business leaders have shifted their mindset, from building companies that are ‘built to last,” as Porras and Collins observed; to obsessing over this quarter, sometimes even this month. The collateral damage? Deep and widespread. Culture suffers when companies cycle through mass hiring and mass firing. CEO tenures focused on short-term metrics…
Startups often struggle to find a healthy balance between becoming and staying relevant, with marketing and sales, and competition and growth. Their efforts and struggle, while not necessarily always logical, is usually understandable. However, one cannot extend a similar courtesy of understanding to large corporate giants in mature sectors who miss the forest for the…
Over the past decade, the business world has had a real attraction to making everything a service. And rightly so. Would you rather struggle to repeatedly sell your product to the same customer? Or would it be better to offer it on a subscription model where you can keep improving it over time, and charge users a regular fee for using it?
However, if you compare the buying good ol’ products whenever you would need them, to subscription based services, a paradox seems to emerge.
What is common between the 2007-08 global financial meltdown and the Covid-19 crisis?
Clue: _ _CK of _ _ _ _ _ITY.
In my book, I briefly discussed the topic of quality in the world of innovation and automation. My view was that through the quality revolution in the US and Japan and then other parts of the world, logically back then, someone visualizing the year 2021 might have assumed a world where everyone has quality integrated…
With the stopping of production of Segways last year, but its more affordable robotic startup Ninebot doing well, one wonders if affordability must be integral to the success of a business depending on the business model and whom it aims to cater to.
Along their entrepreneurial journey, some entrepreneurs constantly think of better and simpler ways to describe their business. This is an evolutionary process, as their business model undergoes refinement. So, when they meet new people or investors, they can often quickly describe what their startup exactly does. Then of course, there are others, who build their…
Image: source This is a heads-up for Tata Sky satellite television provider customers. Here’s something Tata Sky has been doing as standard procedure, that I find questionable. If you’re subscribed to an annual plan, and say you cross your billing deadline by even a day, they automatically switch you to either a 6-month billing cycle, or worse,…
Image: source When starting one’s business, a set of people will advice you to keep a sharp focus when it comes to offerings or purpose. Another group might suggest offering as many products or services as possible, to minimize risk. And both groups could defend their views till the cows come home. However, in most cases, it…
One of the early screening processes to make it to the defense forces, is that of physical fitness. It is one of the more fundamental requirements of the job. Of course, subsequently, those who make the cut are broken down and rebuilt to be stronger, both mentally and physically. In the corporate battlefield, potential candidates are put…