As a failed engineer turned entrepreneur, I realize the importance of early feedback and mentorship. Starting a product company in Bangalore, which is filled with many successful entrepreneurs driving service businesses, meant it was hard to find a good product mentor who understood web scale solutions, product market fit and strategy. I did manage to find a handful of folks who helped me through every pivot in my startup and career, but I wish I had sought their help earlier.
I want to pay forward all the great advice, feedback and mentorship that I have received from folks over the years. So, I have decided to set aside time for mentoring folks in product thinking and strategy.
I believe a mistake on my part was not mentoring folks earlier about product thinking. I did have the occasional phone call about PMing, startup ideas and pitches. But, I felt like I didn’t have much to contribute. Now, I’ve gotten over that fear and would love to genuinely help out folks looking for advice.
Who am I? 🧐
I’ve been in a product role since 2011, and as a PM @ Google since 2015. In my time in Google, I have worked across multiple products and PM roles. If a product can go from 1 to 10 in terms of maturity:
- I spent 1.5 years PMing a product that was at 10 which I was expected to take to 11. I didn’t do very well here.
- I spent 2.5 years as a platform and consumer PM building many 0 to 1 experiences. I’m good at this.
- I’m currently helping pivot a billion user product in a completely new direction.
- Prior to Google, I spent 4 years building, running and crashing an enterprise SaaS startup.
- 5 years delivering software working as a full stack engineer, devops engineer & data warehousing analyst.
Who is this for? 👩🎓👨💼👩💻👳
- Aspiring product manager and early career PMs
- Folks looking to break into product management
- Engineers / PMs looking to startup
- Entrepreneurs looking for early feedback on their ideas and seed stage investments.
I’m explicitly calling for people who come from marginalized and disadvantaged communities.
What’s in it for me 😇
- A chance to give back to the community, what I have received in plenty over the years
- A way for me to sharpen my skills and learn more about effective leadership and mentoring.
- Connect with the community of product managers, hackers, entrepreneurs and change makers of tomorrow.
How does it work? 📅📄✉️
- Schedule a 45 minute video session with me. You should find two open slots in a month on a Sunday between 9:00 AM and 9:45 AM PST.
- If you cannot find a slot, please sign up here and I’ll send out an email when I can find time to make new slots.
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Follow instructions while scheduling. Prepare and share your questions, pitch / strategy decks with me at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
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Communicate clearly what you expect from me in our time together.
FAQs
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Will I meet everyone who signs up? If I feel like I have nothing meaningful to contribute, I’ll let you know early and not waste both our time.
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Will I sign an NDA to see your pitch deck? I’m happy to if you feel strongly about it.
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What timezone am I based in? Pacific Standard/Daylight Time (California, USA)
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What can I expect from these sessions? I will mostly help answer your questions and point you to the right resources.
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what can I discuss during these sessions? Anything. You can talk about your product, ideas, startup, path to starting up, career goals, PM advice, etc.
You can find me here: Twitter LinkedIn