Anuj Rathi

There are only three reasons why things do not happen the way you want them to happen as a leader. You can look at a person, and you would say either that person can't do, which is a capability issue, or they won't do, which is a motivation or an alignment issue, or they were not set up to do.

Most product managers should not even be product managers. They should think a little bit more around whether this is actually the right field for them because I think a lot of people from other areas have entered the field without fully realizing what it takes.

We are in the business of influence. Users are doing something, and now we want them to do something else. Our engineers are doing something, and now we want to influence them into building something fast.

A/B experiments also don't work, and that's a very unique thing about marketplaces. I mean, not work the way that you would expect them to work because there are network effects all over.

You have to think about users on modern internet consumers having three attributes. So they are lazy, they are vain, and they're selfish.

Most neglect it. Well, they get user onboarding is important, but just how important is that is one, and B, the craft of thinking like a user who's lazy, vain, and selfish, and basically, rejecting all your products, but this does not work for this kind of customer.

When you are in the product discovery phase, you would have heard from a lot of folks. Finally, if you show them just one roadmap, it feels like, 'Hey, this person didn't...' They listened to my interesting point which was valuable, but didn't include it.

When you have to make a choice, think more and ship better. Most experiments should be thought experiments.

Show don't tell is essentially a way in where the product manager starts ideating with the entire experience, and they actually create all the collaterals together of a user they need to begin with.

I actually ask my teams to write three press releases, alternative and divergent.

There's a concept of person, not personas. So we'll talk about personas, but we try to go to, 'All right. No. Don't think about agentic user. Let's say Lenny, 30 years old, doing A, B, C things, earning this much.'

I think the first thing is essentially raw sharps, and that can manifest itself into problem identification and problem solving. The second one is what I call drive or grit. Third, which is a little difference, we talked about that, is influence.

OKRs will not work. Why not? So, fundamentally, OKRs are a way to think about objectives and key results, but the fundamental assumption here is that it is solving for a kind of user, and that kind of user, you can divide and conquer. But if it is working for three different kinds of users, then all the goals will all the time be in conflict with each other.