A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek)

0:00 Your name has come up more times than almost any other product person when I ask people for their favorite product leaders in Asia. I created a career growth framework for product managers, which comprises of three things. What you produce. What you bring to the table and what's your operating model. Your advice is earlier in your career focus on just getting stuff out and done. Can you show me your last PRD? Can you show me the last product note that you sent? Can you show me the product strategy talk. You must have that impact through the artifacts that you work on. I'm curious what you found most impedes people's career growth. How you view change, whether you're focusing on things you control, and third is how you see yourself. The moment you are able to correct those stories, you may be back on the back. Today my guest is Vikrama Demon. Vikrama heads all things product that go joke.

0:57 Including product management, design, program management, research and insights. with teams across India, Singapore, and Indonesia. He has previously worked at companies like Directee, Airtel, Make My Trip, and Wiz IQ. And is among the most well known product leaders in Asia. When I ask people who their favorite product leader is in Asia, Vikramma's name has come up almost more than anyone else's.

1:19 We chat about how to move into product management, how to be a great product manager, how product managers often shoot themselves in the foot, and so much more. With that I bring you the Krama Demon after a short word from our sponsors. And if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and it helps the podcast. Tremendously. This episode is brought to you by Wizard. Empowering product leaders to ideate and iterate faster than ever before.

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3:44 Ideo and Orange Theory. Trust Webflow to achieve their most ambitious goals today at webflow.com. Come. Mm. Vikramma, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

4:00 Uh, thank you for inviting me, Lenny. I'm very excited to be here. So as you know and hopefully as listeners know, I'm kind of on this quest to meet the most insightful product leaders from all over the world. And your name has come up more times than almost any other product person. When I ask people for their favorite product leaders in Asia.

4:19 And you're also the third guest from Go Jack, so there's definitely something in the water over there and I wanna Talk about that. Dive right in. You have a very strong reputation for building incredibly strong product talent.

4:34 Also design talent. And also Helping people transition from other roles into product management, which a lot of people listening to this podcast dream to do. So I'm gonna ask a bunch of questions around this area. How does that sound? Uh sounds good.

4:48 Okay. First question is just when you think back to the people that have done best in the product management role And have had a kind of a career a rapid career rise. What

5:00 Are some of the most common traits or behaviors or habits that you find in these people? Over the last uh decade and a half, I've had the opportunity to work with some really strong product managers, learn from strong product managers. And some of them have had rapid career growth. When I was younger. And I was starting off, I used to think it's all about the product. If you got a really cool product to work on, your growth's guaranteed.

5:24 And if you got really a product which no one cares about or a stream which no one cares about, then your growth is going to be slightly slower. But as I started seeing more and more product managers at their craft. I saw that working on a cool product area is

5:41 Not the only thing. In fact, sometimes some product managers would come back and complain that despite their product doing really well, they've not really grown. And while some other product managers who ac whose product didn't have the impact really grew. And as I started looking at it and as I started making notes, as I started talking to other product leaders, what I discovered was

6:04 that the really strong product managers who are also growing in their careers did Some things differently. And based on that I created a career growth framework for product managers, which comprises of three things.

6:19 And I call it three Ws. So What you produce What you bring to the table. And what's your operating model?

6:29 the really strong product managers are good at usually two or three Two of the three. uh tas. The ones who rise And when they are rising, they are

6:40 performing well on all the three. access. So if you w uh would like, let's talk a little bit more about each one of these W. Yeah, I would love to. I love that you You put the word what at the top and that makes it the three Ws, which is which is clever. Because I find even if the acronym is

6:57 Is not a g not like necessary. It's really helpful to help people remember. So I totally respect what you did there. So the three is what you produce, what you bring to the table, and what your operating model is. Is that right? Okay, cool. Yeah. Let's let's talk about these. So What you produce A a lot of people index on the impact.

7:17 While Um and they start thinking about goals, they start thinking about direction and they start thinking about strategy. While when while it is important to know at what stage of the career you are and what kind of a product that you are working on. The very first thing that

7:34 Anyone when you're starting off produces is outputs. Yeah. The output can be launching a product. It can be analyzing and running an experiment. Uh And it could even be uh just being a part of the team and contributing to a go to market strategy. So focus on that output. significantly.

7:54 As you get comfortable with output and you start getting comfortable with working with different stakeholders, You start controlling what outputs are necessary. Which is when you move to the outcomes. Outcomes are product areas, goals. uh that you can own.

8:11 and all collaborate with other stakeholders on And when you start figuring which outcomes are necessary, that is when you move to the leadership and directional uh area. The mistake that I see a lot of product managers make.

8:25 is they start operating in either output or outcomes. And when you are transitioning to outcomes, it's very important that you continue to still hone your craft on outputs. For instance. Do you just give up on the go to market strategy or do you start making product notes which are then picked up by marketing people and are able to be used to create that go to market strategy? You always always have to have the output and outcome.

8:53 Even when you're moving up the Uh huh. Uh. so called career management ladder. So that is very, very critical that as you are producing

9:02 Even when you are at the senior most levels, don't forget your IC rules. Don't forget the IC component and sometimes it is necessary to just pull up your sleeps and go back and keep working on those things. That also gives you a lot of credit with others uh in the team as well. So highlighting one insight here is that a lot of

9:23 advice you hear about how to do well in your career, which you pointed out at the beginning here is It's not just it's not immediately drive impact. That's not necessarily what you need to Upsess over Which is actually what I recommend to people is just like find ways to have impact. So this is really interesting.

9:37 Your advice is earlier in your career, focus on Just getting stuff out and done. Don't so obsess with the impact. Can you talk more about just what When you say output, what does that actually What are you describing there? Is it just ship products and be helpful and Produce something.

9:51 Absolutely. So uh Outbooks is shipping products, but it also comes in smaller uh things. For instance, if you are sourcing content For your home page. What are the different avenues that you can source content from? What is the easiest to source? What is the most difficult to source? Just Ranking it all in that Uh order.

10:14 goes a long way. And one of the product managers actually did that yesterday and I went, Wow, it just made my life uh so much simpler. And we were also able to Not just my life, but so many other people's life so much simpler. And we were able to take that specific output and use it as part of our overall strategy. If that PM would have obsessed about the overall content strategy, overall how we are going to do it versus just how we are going to be sourcing it. they would have indexed on something bigger and maybe would have not even been able to make that impact, but now they were able to

10:47 Show us something which was uh Small part which was an output, but It fell into the overall outcome. The way I would I think about what you're describing, which I

10:56 actually a hundred percent agree with is When you're starting out in your careers, execution is Where you need to deliver. People just want you to get stuff done when you're just starting out. It's not like help us define our strategy and vision for the next three years. It's

11:10 We just have stuff we need done. Can you help us get it done well? Yes. And then Essentially the advice is as you get more senior, you'll have more opportunity to think about strategy and What to build versus just how to build it and actually execute on it.

11:25 Absolutely. So focused on focus on outputs. uh at the start of your careers and don't forget outputs even when you grow in your career. So along those lines just to close the thread on this idea. It's still helpful if you work on something that does have impact that matters.

11:41 Right. Like how important is that? You said that you've seen successful product managers work on things that aren't as impactful. And still do really well, but I guess Would your would your advice be tried a Be in a place that is gonna drive. More impact versus

11:55 It's not actually that important in in the early career. Uh so I'll give you my example. In one of my previous roles, there were two product areas that were important for the organization. My product area ended up being the center and focus of the organization, yet the product manager who was chosen to lead the area when it became big wasn't me. It was someone else. At that time I really felt very bad.

12:20 That okay, why did that happen? But now when I look back, I can see why that happened because that That product manager was so much better at the overall craft of output. yet when they were focusing on outcome were not forgetting the uh output as well. So they were just better at me on launching products, they were better at me on working with design in producing design artwork and they were better at definitely better at than me.

12:46 uh in running the experiments uh as well. I love that. Like, yeah, basically when you're just turning out, just like Execute. Well, execute smoothly. Ship things on time. I'm gonna say a few things, but I'm curious what else comes to mind here of just like what does good output look like? Is it

13:02 Do things that are helpful to your team and manager. Ship things on time, bug free. Have a clean roadmap, everyone's a line behind. I said. Nice deadlines, things like that. I guess what else along those lines should people be like, Okay, here's what I should be doing to have good outputs.

13:16 Uh some of the things that I think uh are useful. So first, what's output? Output is something which is very tangibly defined, which doesn't take too much of your time, effort and energy to visualize and think and strategize. Over and you are able to quickly get moving on. Uh

13:36 go and ask your product leader, go and ask other leaders on what are the areas they are blocked on. Sometimes they will be blocked on, hey, I need to prepare this brief uh for this particular uh summit. I need to prepare this particular slide for a leadership review. I need to prepare a but a review. Uh I need to prepare a review which has to be done with the legal You can volunteer and uh

14:02 uh to definitely own and deliver the first drafts of those even if the final draft is not something that you own. That's a simple example of an output which I feel a lot of people miss because they want to be focusing on the bigger strategic pieces. It's basically be useful. That's the way I always like to talk about this. Just like your job as a PM is be useful. Make your team more effective, help your company be more successful, just find ways to Be useful to everyone around you. Absolutely. And be useful in uh doing the small things which make an impact and also contribute to your learning.

14:37 versus being useful in areas which you think The mini CEO should be working on. Right. There's all this talk about being an empowered product manager, building empowered product teams.

14:49 I think it's an there's an important nuance when you're just starting out. You haven't earned the right to inform strategy and vision, people like why would people follow you at this point? Yeah. We just need to get stuff done. So it that comes over time. Absolutely. And it's not just when you are starting off or when you are young. Even with if you are senior and you're starting off with a new team, even if you're starting with a new company You need to have that mindset, and sometimes you will not know the best.

15:16 And we'll talk more about how to what is your operating model, which is how you work with others. Uh it's a very, very important thing for you to know. That You are

15:28 Uh one part of the bug You're not the entire wheel. yourself and A lot of the folklore around product managers can make you confused, especially when you're starting off. uh in your career.

15:40 I love it. Okay, let's keep going. Number two. Number two is what you bring to the table. Now I think how I describe that is

15:49 What is your impact on impact? So the first axis is impact, but You also need to have an impact on impact. And this is what I had missed a lot in my early career. that you book the coolest product areas, your product area is successful and that automatically guarantees. Young broad.

16:05 It doesn't. you have to also show that yes, you were a youth contributor to having that particular impact. The simplest thing on this is that is your PRD quality good enough? Are you writing the the draft nodes that go and circulate to the care teams to their marketing teams and so on.

16:23 Are you making sure that you are deriving from the strategy that has been shaped, or you're constantly just pushing back? on the uh strategy. Similarly You also how you are drafting the North Stars, how you are working on the experiments, how you're working on the data, how you're working on the metrics, all these things take time, effort, and energy. And I know there is

16:47 Some literature and there are some uh operating models where people are working only at strategy levels while all of these Execution of these uh artifacts is being done by some other people. I don't think especially when you're starting off, that's a very, very good

17:03 Ting. Even when you are mid senior, I don't think that's a very, very good thing. You have to have to be able to produce these artifacts, which are product artifacts. Even if there are People in strategy for getting their artifacts, even if design is coming with coming up with a design brief, you need to have a cohesive product.

17:21 uh strategy of product PRD. And work backwards from PRD and product knows you're set. These things are important to show. You are progressing on four.

17:33 uh pillars which is data and metrics. design and research. Technology skills. and strategy. Product managers.

17:42 Constantly are evaluated on this when you interview, but you also have to demonstrate these on the jobs. And the best way to demonstrate these is through the artifacts. through the notes that you are uh sending. So you must have that impact to impact through the artifacts that you work on. For a lot of product managers, when I ask, hey, I was working on this very impactful area, I'm not able to have the impact on my career. What is missing?

18:10 And when I go and ask Can you show me your last PRD? Can you show me the last product note that you sent? Can you show me the product strategy doc that you have a collaborated on? Can you show me the brief that you sent to the design team on the problems and the uh and the ranking of those problems? usually you'll find something or the other missing. In case In cases that those are there, you will find that the

18:35 uh pre iteration planning, pre-sprint planning are not running properly. You will find that the Jira storyboards are very empty and there's just a title in the subject and nothing gets described. And so on. So you'll miss all these pieces. So these are the things which you bring to the table and it's very, very important that you work on D'

18:56 uh aspects as well. Finally, we have what's your operating model, which I feel is the most important In which you have to have to focus if you are going from mid senior to senior level.

19:09 This is essentially about communication. Collaboration. organizational skills and community skills. And And

19:17 Across product managers, again, because of the folklore of Wini CEO and others, I see that a lot of people get carried away. in the way they operate as product managers with other stakeholders. There are three tenets that I define in working well as a product manager with others. Number one is

19:39 Raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with. bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself. And finally You are in charge. Of getting the decisions made.

19:54 And not making all the decisions yourself. I think as long as You Follow these three tenets. You will

20:03 have a successful relationship with Uh across These three tenants are Easy to say.

20:11 But they become very, very hard to uh embody And display. on a day to day basis. But this is essentially going to be your struggle, no matter at what level of product management you are operating at in your career.

20:26 or within your company. First of all, can you just repeat them?'Cause I think this is real essentially it's kind of like a mantra that PMs can kinda think back to of Am I doing these things? Uh so the three things which are very important for product managers uh to work with others. And other stakeholders are

20:44 raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with. Bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself. And B Able to

20:56 To get decisions made. without having to make all the decisions yourself. I like this list a lot. Reminds me there's this product leader I worked with. Who

21:07 This team kinda got pushed to do a bunch of stupid stuff. And he realized Later that like, hey, I It's it's actually my job to have been To have pushed back on doing this stuff.

21:18 Like he was the head of product for this business unit, and he realized Like oh I see. I've been That's actually what I sh should be doing now, that I'm in this role. And you kind of sometimes forget that one you have that influence and two that

21:31 That's something you should be doing. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's always within uh your control. And it's always with the things that are within your control that you should be controlling rather than focusing on the things that are not within your control and obsessing about those.

21:49 I'm so aligned with the way you think about all these things. Coming back to the second actually just to give people something they can do. With this trait. So the way I think about what you described in correct me if I'm misinterpreting it as there's like a detail orientedness, high qualityness to the way that you should be

22:05 Crafting All the documents. Slash artifacts you're creating you're one pager slash PRDs, your roadmaps, your strategy docs. Just like this should be really high quality.

22:16 So along those lines, what If you're an I C PM trying to get better at this stuff. How have you found is the best way to level up in these things? Is it working with your manager and getting feedback? Is it peers? What helps? Somebody get better at the quality and

22:31 And um Yeah, the quality of these sorts of documents. What you bring to the table is one of the most misunderstood attributes. and aspects of product management. On one end you could get around and say, Here is my VRD.

22:47 Here is my GR board. Here are my stories, here is my pre sprint planning or pre iteration planning document and book. It's not just about the spread and the width of the things that you're doing, but it's also about the depth of those things as well. Some product managers, what they bring to the table is arguments. What they bring to the table are debates. What they bring to the table are pushbacks, while others Are cable to

23:11 Channel is the questions channelise the inputs channelise the direction. And convert that into strategic choices, which can then shape discussions, which can then shape direction. Be the latter and you will rise faster in your career.

23:26 So you kinda have these three buckets of what you produce, what you bring to the table, and your what your operating model is, the three Ws. So I'll let me try to summarize and see what I missed and then and move on. So one is just like focus on executing Putting getting things done that are helpful. to your team, your company, your manager.

23:43 Just and focus on just getting stuff out, not so much and necessarily in strategy. Even when you're a manager and a leader and VP, just like you're still responsible for producing things, not just telling people and being wise. uh two what you bring to the table, kind of my takeaway here is

24:00 Produce high quality Artifacts. and that raise the bar. The way I think about this is as a PM you kind of want to have this aura of I got this. People put something on your plate.

24:11 You wanna feel like When he's got this, I'm not gonna have to worry. It's gonna be forgotten or and I know it's gonna be done well. And then the third piece is this idea of an operating model. Basically just make sure

24:22 Decisions are being made. It's not about you that you're pushing back on bad ideas. Is there anything else I missed before we move on? Uh no, I think the art of pushback is uh another important uh factor because you can Uh, if you're pushing back a lot and the way you're pushing back uh matters a lot as well.

24:44 You know, just don't be someone who's seen as an obstacle and a hindrance and as someone who's just very difficult to work with. but rather see as someone who's able to actually add value to Whatever. the your leader, your stakeholders, your product area. uh demands and you are able to advance the

25:05 product and the direction. and execution forward. Once you do that, I think Keeping that as the intent. And ensuring that your team is getting unblocked and not getting to do a work on anything which is

25:19 uh stupid or is likely to be changed. Uh Then you really got it. Do you have any advice for how to push back? In a way, the way you describe it is not to be difficult to work with.

25:30 Or that's seeking importance. I guess is there like words or phrases or approaches you found are effective? for pushing back against ideas that you disagree with. What I seen that people who do uh pushback very successfully And our

25:44 Still. Considered. not difficult to work with. They are also able to bring The

25:54 Temple of the conversation. to a more logical space from an emotional space. I think that's such a useful skill. And I sometimes am guilty of operating uh on a slightly emotional uh note.

26:08 Which is useful sometimes. You need a war cry, you need uh uh high page, you need uh execution on war footing, all that is fine, but it's only fine in some cases. In other cases it's always very important that you're able to bring it down to the logical space so that A logical Um a little more equal footing of the discussion can happen.

26:32 And A lot of this is something that leaders need to ensure is happening. But Product managers and product leaders who are working with Executives.

26:43 who are able to bring this uh tempo down and bring it to a little more logical space. Will also do far better. uh in their careers and they'll also have a lot more rapid career growth. So let's talk about the flip side of rapid career growth, which is

26:58 Kirger that kind of stalls. And I'm curious what you've found most impedes People's career growth. What the what do PMs do? That shoot themselves in the foot? And kind of slow their career.

27:10 Any pitfalls do you find are important too? Try to watch out for. I think part of it is on uh lot of us in product leadership space, we've not done a very good job in defining Uh rubric.

27:24 growth framework and so on. But even in places where growth frameworks exist. Like Three W. What I've seen

27:32 Is That Three mindset shifts and changes can enable faster growth. But if those those mindset and changes also can hinder your growth.

27:43 I So The first thing is whether you're focusing on things you control or whether you're focusing on things that are beyond your control. Second What's your relationship with change?

27:54 And cook. Is how you see yourself. The third is very, very powerful and we'll talk about that as well. The first is what you control. If you drew an axis of What you control

28:07 And what you cannot control. As you're starting your career. Most of the work that you're doing is in what you control. Right. You're very obsessed with feedback. You're very obsessed with okay, can I do this? Can I do this? Can okay, I'll probably not do this, I'll probably do this, and so on. You're not worrying about

28:24 you know, the overall corporate strategy. You're not uh looking at uh uh you know what the competitors are are doing, what is their market cap and all those things. You're focused a lot on your craft, you're focused on a lot on your output and you're focused on how you are doing. As you start becoming mid senior

28:44 I see The conversation shifts from What can I do? How am I learning? How am I growing? Two

28:52 Fine. is the organization not doing this for me. Why can that stakeholder not change this thing about themselves. Why do I not get to work on projects like this?

29:04 Things which start going outside your control. And It is very, very important that you keep your focus no matter what stage of career you get. into what you can Control.

29:16 And Again. It's Easy. To

29:20 Say that everything in universe should be in your control. It doesn't happen like that. But A large number of things that impact your career are within your control. And Go back to the W

29:32 uh three Ws that we spoke about. What? You work on? What you produce. What do you bring to the table?

29:39 And what's your operating model? And there is Tons to do on data, tons to do on technology, tons to do on communication, collaboration. design and research strategy and community. And

29:51 You can spend years and years and years crafting those things. Focus on those things, growth will. uh happen at every single stage. The second aspect of it is your relationship with change.

30:04 Again. When you are younger, when you're starting off Rate of change is crazy. you are growing almost every six months. You're picking up skills in experimentation. You're picking up skills in how to analyze. You're picking up skills in how to work with different kinds of stakeholders. And since the rate of change

30:21 Of your skills is high, your rate of growth is also high. Again, as you start becoming mid senior I start seeing conversations on Okay, maybe I should not do that. Maybe I should not tape on this.

30:34 product. I don't know what it means for my career. I don't know what it means For my growth and so on. So your rate of change slows down. So it's very important that as you get to mid senior level You are constantly checking on What you can do.

30:51 to keep increasing your rate of change. And one of the simplest things that you can do Is If you think you are Four on data.

31:01 Figure out Who And you may be four on data out of five in data. Within your organization. Start benchmarking yourself with the best in the industry.

31:12 you'll automatically see that your scale Drops. And as your scale drops, you start seeing what you need to improve and do. If you start seeing that on communication and collaboration, you're reaching four out of five within the PMR. Start mapping yourself to other stakeholders and other functions. Again, your score wills.

31:31 fall in your eyes and you will start figuring out what are the things that you can Uh do as well. So keep your focus on rate of Change. and rate of growth will automatically take care of itself.

31:45 Sometimes it also involves changing your team or even changing your company. But those should be the last results. There are significant things that you can do within that as well. One of the final things that I see which limits you, especially as you start growing in your career and you reach mid senior levels is how you see yourself. I see a lot of product man and I've been guilty of that. Like when when I see that, you know, a lot of product managers, that's included me at some stage, uh doing these things.

32:12 People will come back and say, Oh, I am a very high agency PM. Or I'm a very collaborative PM. Earlier on I used to think that okay, I need to give this kind of work. to these product managers. I need to fit them with these kind of team, these kind of work areas, these kind of opportunity. But then I started understanding these things are not just signaling.

32:35 They are also anti signaling. They are like oh I'm high agency. So it's sometimes okay if I'm a little brash. If I Cut corners somewhere.

32:46 If I M come if I c sometimes come across as A little uh rude to some people. And so on.

32:54 Right. Similarly, if I'm seen as a hyper collaborative person, so it's okay if sometimes I'm Not very decisive. If I'm not moving fast. And so on.

33:04 Because I'm this kind of a PI. So it's very important That you Check for what are the stories that you're telling yourself. What because those stories are defining you. At oh

33:17 basic level which is then very hard to correct through frameworks and structures. So Figure out what is the story that you are telling yourself. If you are not able to figure that out. Talk to the people you trust so that they can tell you that as well. And then correct those stories. And the moment you are able to correct those stories, you may be back on the growth path again.

33:39 Wow, there's so much. meat and wisdom in what you just shared. I want to go in so many different directions. Maybe just to follow on his last thread. Did you go through something like that yourself where you have this sense of Yourself that kind of hindered you? Okay. Awesome. You're nodding your head if you're not on YouTube.

33:56 Uh can you share that? Yeah, so um I'll give an example of when I joined Gojek. The very first thing that I learned in my career was sequel and oracle. Oh.

34:07 And I was very proud of the fact that my data skills are awesome. And I know several frameworks and I know several tools and so on. And when I joined Gojek and I saw one of your guests, Crystal. And I saw the work that she was doing and her team was doing and

34:25 I just immediately was like yeah no this is not I'm nowhere. Near. Right.

34:32 And uh Similarly, uh some uh I also thought that my communication skills are really good and my Product strategy skills are big. Oh good. But then I worked with uh people like Dito and people like Sidu.

34:46 who was so good at their craft. That I It challenged me to see that okay, what is it that I am uh missing? What is it that I am doing.

34:57 Wrong and it auto calibrated me. In my eyes on where. It was. But that also created a hunger in me. that this is what I need to fix. And I immediately corrected

35:08 my assessment of myself that I'm not the strongest. product manager on data. I'm not the one who's knows all the strategy pieces or even strategy frameworks or how to bring everything to a strategy point of view. or communicate it. uh from an effective perspective.

35:23 And Then I started framing. I'm still in a learning phase. When I see that I'm not in that phase now.

35:32 I Try and make myself humble by interacting with people who are far smarter than me on different scales. Yeah. Or reading different books. Watching podcasts like yourselves.

35:44 And That keeps you grounded on the fact that okay, you R Always learning. And

35:50 I also found that, you know Seeing yourself as someone who's a learner. Is the is an enabling uh story to tell yourself.

35:58 It may not be the most exciting story, it may not be the most uh memorable story about yourself. But it is definitely one of the enabling stories as well. Similarly, I think one other thing that I used to say about myself was more that I'm very high agency. Uh.

36:16 Бак. As I started working more in Uh South East Asia I learned that mindfulness is also very very very important. Yeah.

36:26 Uh not every uh team not every culture Well uh work with you in a very hyper aggressive Um

36:35 uh style. So you But you still need to get the work done. And I'm still learning on there. And therefore I've started using a word.

36:43 I don't want to be a high agency person, I want to be a mindful agency person. So And you know, so these terms are very important because these are the stories that you keep telling. Yourself. And these also then start shaping your

36:56 uh behavior. I do feel that I have a lot to do. I have a lot to learn. On these skills. But these things definitely keep you grounded and you keep coming back. to the learning phase uh again.

37:09 It's interesting that when you saw Crystal being incredibly good at working with data, you just kind of realized, hey, maybe I'm actually not very good at this. And you're Reaction wasn't God damn it. Um I'm really screwed and this is really depressing me. It's no, instead I'm gonna try to get better at this.

37:25 And that reminds me some of the feedback I get with this podcast is people are like, Man, these people are So Good. I'm never gonna be this good at kind of discourages me from thinking I will ever be super successful in this career.

37:37 Clearly you had You have a different approach. Do you have kind of advice or guidance to folks that are Sometimes discourage seeing people being so incredible. And

37:47 Helping them actually continue to level up in this rate of change you talked about. Versus just like no. Never gonna be that that good. I think I've um

37:56 product managers it becomes difficult because you Uh a lot of your growth is being determined Because of feedback of others. And

38:07 Because product management is so uh ambiguous And still not defined. the stakeholders can also give feedback on variety of dimensions, some of them may not even be important enough to give feedback on, but they are important enough for them.

38:23 And so therefore they give you feedback. And therefore you have to Shape that feedback in But you also have to consider that there are these eight axes that we spoke about, the data axis, the design and research axis. the technology axis, the strategy axis, communication axis, collaboration access, organizational skills axis, and the community axis.

38:44 You need to channelize feedback into okay is this an area that you're targeting for growth or not? And One of the most important things that I learned was that when I joined uh Gojek or even earlier, there would be so many different areas that I needed to improve on and still need to improve on.

39:03 You can't improve on every single area. That's what overwhelms you. You need to pick which is the area which is the maximum leverage. For you? and improve on that particular aspect and then move on to the next area, then move on to the next area, and so on. Obviously, if you are floundering in something, if you're really negative in something, then you fix that first because that will give you the highest leverage. But if you are picking up

39:27 data and design and strategy and technology all at the same time, that's going to overwhelm you. So to kinda summarise the advice there is one Be actually very open to feedback you're getting. It's it's easy to say that. It's hard to actually Listen to people criticizing you and

39:43 Act on it. So I think that's an important takeaway here is just actually Actually

39:49 Feedback is a gift and actually understand that. And try to act on it. Uh I have a great interview with uh Julter, who's a Hemet. Google now. And uh

39:58 He has this awesome quote about how Whenever people give'em hard feedback. It's like internally, he's just like melting, but at externally he's like, Thank you so much for that feedback. I really appreciate it. It's very valuable. And so That's a good way to get people to keep giving you feedback.

40:13 Okay. And then the other piece of advice you just share there is Just pick a focus area. Like'cause hey, you're getting all this feedback. Your strategy isn't amazing, your PRDs aren't great. She's like Find one thing to focus on and Is there like I don't know, do you try to do like some a quarter, some a year? Do you have kind of a

40:28 Long to spend on one thing. So different skills take different time and uh how you are progressing also uh depends a lot as well. For skills which are softer in nature, like communication and collaboration.

40:43 and community. Those are skills that you will work on all your life. You'll never Achieve. Uh anywhere near to a five on five on those.

40:52 Ever There'll always be something that you will miss. There will always be a new context. There'll always be a new set of stakeholders, new company cultures that you have to Adapt to. For others.

41:03 Uh you have to see that what gives you the maximum uh leverage in your career. When you're starting off, my recommendation is that you pick between data and tech one. And definitely one on design and research and strategy. So usually that's the combo that I recommend.

41:20 Might. Advice is if you're coming from design and research background, then you pick data. Or take. If you're coming from a data or tech background, then you pick design and research. And that gives you the uh maximum leverage because that's a skill that you will necessarily not have developed.

41:37 Well years. Once you've demonstrated um uh two of these three between data tech and design and research. then you start focusing on uh strategy. We've had great success at uh GoJ.

41:49 in transitioning a lot of product managers, especially in Indonesia Using this framework. And uh it's produced a lot of uh good product managers for us. Let's actually follow that thread. That's really interesting. And so the

42:03 The approach is You have this access of skill sets. And you pick for this person moving from, say, customer service to product, here's the Two things you need to focus on. Can you yeah, talk more about that? Yeah.

42:15 For instance, we uh recently had uh We but we recently had two PMs, one who came from a growth Background. Exactly, Crystal Stein. and uh one from a research uh background.

42:29 And with both of them we use very different tactics. So we gave one of finding driver redesign. Uh so which was very much a very design focused product. But it also still we still help had them leverage their data skills because we were able to create a PRD with incredible amount of data on exactly what different segments of customers were doing.

42:51 And that then we worked with designers on uh what the designs and the framework for that will be. And even now, Pleny, if you will come and see our finding driver redesign next time you are in Asia. It's a piece of art. You know, and if you would see that that was work done by a product manager who actually came from a growth and data background, that makes it even more Special

43:13 Similarly, the BM who transitioned from research I kept giving feedback on technology and data skills are the ones that we need to check and I need to hear from engineers that yes, they are able to work with uh her uh very strongly. And once she was able to do that, she's recently turned a very uh he did question on one of the features that we were doing.

43:35 Into uh uh full blown solution with designs with Trade offs and everything. and able to now convert it into a our question or leadership on how we should be approaching uh this particular uh product and direction.

43:52 So I think that's uh proven successful um as well. Similarly, there's another person who took Uh who was originally from research and again uh work a lot on our products, including our enterprise product.

44:06 And uh she's doing an amazing job as well. again going through that path of okay, these are the things that you need to Uh leverage. The only watch out is that it doesn't work out always. In some cases Uh some PMs will beat these things up fast.

44:22 And uh it also makes a big difference if you are transitioning when you are slightly younger in your career. If you are Already senior in a function and then you're transitioning. Sometimes it can take a lot of time.

44:34 in transitioning. and picking up those uh skills. But it's definitely doable if you get a very strong product. Lead up. Working with you.

44:44 who's able to shape those skills. Oh for you. And So it's sometimes okay to go a little slow when you're transitioning. So that you're able to go faster later.

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46:13 Head over to coda.io slash lenny to sign up and get$1,000 in credit. That's C O D A dot IO slash Lenny. to sign up and get one thousand dollars in credit. Koda dot Io slash Lenny Something that you mentioned earlier that I wanted to come back to is

46:31 This kind of confusion about what the PM role is. And how that trips people up. in being successful in the role and continuing to thrive in the role. You mentioned this to me offline too, that this is just something you deal with a lot. Just this frustration of like, what the hell is this job? What am I actually responsible for? What am I not?

46:48 What do you find is helpful in helping people work through that, get past that, not make that a big blocker in their career, not knowing exactly what the PM role is. I think we've been uh in technology product for several decades now, but we're still uh figuring out what uh an exact definition of uh product management is and um

47:08 Even the uh even the strongest definitions are slightly Principle and philosophical. In nature. They're not very concrete. And uh

47:18 That also means that every And different technology companies have gone through different journeys and they've defined the roles very, very differently. And even within a very large company you will see that different teams, different divisions. are approaching the roles very, very differently as well.

47:34 And On top of that, what that does is that not only internally the product managers are figuring this out, they're manager, their leaders are figuring these things out for them. But the other stakeholders who have to work with these product managers are also confused and they don't know what to expect. And the number one question I get from

47:55 Stakeholder does it. Is a product manager expected to do this? Because They also don't know okay is this expected from a product manager or not. And my general answer to that is

48:06 If this is something which is blocking the progress on the product, then yes, the product manager should. Work on that. Yeah. And um Uh but that

48:14 Oh. That works. the product managers have had some training. And they have had some training in working with different stakeholders. And they've had something on the job.

48:25 What I've figured out is that There are certain functions and there are certain disciplines Which you can't define. But you can only become better at with practice. Yeah.

48:35 For instance, what what is an actor or what is a dancer, right? So these are things that you will get better at. As you Become uh skill dating. And earlier these things used to be looked at as something which is

48:49 very artistic, only the people who are talented or only Specific kind of people can do it. But now each one of those has become method and frameworks as well. So there are courses on acting, there are courses on dancing and so on. And similarly

49:04 Product management is kind of that space. Oh. As well. So you have to understand there's an art to it and there's a science. Do it.

49:12 You can use the sci to figure out the Uh. So that's the That's the philosophie of it. The second side of it is what we spoke about earlier that instead of

49:23 Figuring out what is product management, figure out what's your contribution, what's your output, and figure out are you contributing on these assets on data on design. on technology and on strategy. And one of my favorite things is that if you created this four circles of strategy.

49:43 of technology, of design. And of theta. And you created a product management circle which Encircles each one of these. So you are the only discipline which is the co collaborator for all of these disciplines and tying all these things out.

49:59 So it's not about you standing alone, it's you always collaborating and pairing with someone else, but you are the only one who's pairing with everyone else. And therefore you have that unique insight which no one else In the beam. will have.

50:14 That role. can be played by someone else. It doesn't necessarily need to be called a product manager. But if you are being called a product manager, you figure out that that's the time piece that you Uh.

50:26 And you are when you are added to the team, you must between the teams overall contribution, overall energy. and overall output up. I'm not.

50:36 Down. I love that. I something I always Tell people it's Like the PM doesn't necess doesn't necessarily have the magical skills other team members Don't have to be able to do it.

50:47 It's that they don't also have another job. Like engineers may Do a great job at being the PM. They just have a also have to build and and and code.

50:57 And they don't have time to do all the things that a PM has to do and a designer is in the same way a researcher or data person. And so Oftentimes that's just like there's this person that has the time to do all these Clue. work things between teams.

51:11 And You know, the great PMs also are very good at these skills that help you do these things. But it doesn't mean other people can't do them. You you see yourself as playing a role. And not your title and not your function.

51:24 And that just clarifies a lot of things for uh people and different people will play different roles and the Uh depending on the kind of a PM you are I Are you in a specific domain? Or you are slightly generalist.

51:38 the role that you will be playing in different teams can be different and the variety of roles that you can play Uh makes you a better all right. I love that. You've mentioned these kind of like four axis attributes of great product managers or all product managers. Let me just let's just spend a little time here.

51:55 So you say basically The things you need to be Doing and good at. Data design slash research technology.

52:03 Strategy. And then you also mentioned collaboration and communication, maybe your Yeah, organizational skills and community. I think those are very, very important because Um

52:15 One One of the things and one of the things which one of the product managers works uh with me continues to say and I really bless on that a lot is Not Product manager is the community enabler in the

52:30 Soon. in the organization. And that community is the software aspect which ties everyone together towards a common mission. of delivering.

52:39 uh an output. And That I think is a very, very important goal in uh in today's context. Uh

52:48 Especially for teams which are becoming more remote or teams where uh people are not colocated or they're distributed. that community aspect becomes a very, very important part that product managers uh need to focus on. and bring and channelise as well. So let's just quickly describe each of these attributes.

53:08 I imagine people might be thinking, Okay, what should I get better at at as as a PM? And this is an awesome list. You know, each company has their own career ladders and attributes and things like that, but a lot of companies don't. So I think for people that are trying to figure out where should I Where do I need to get better? I think this is a really cool list.

53:24 Can you just maybe give just like a sentence explanation of each of these attributes and skills that a PM needs? So each one of those skills, like uh the most growth ladders, what they will do. is they will have say for data, they will have Level one. exhibits these traits, level two exhibits this trait, level three exhibits this trait, level four and level five and so on.

53:45 Like that's uh how they'll describe it. But uh five is absolute ninja level data quality. Like you know, you could probably do a data startup of your own. Like a c crystal, basically. crystal. And level zero is someone who um you know I cannot even basically define uh the basic metrics for this particular product and won't be able to figure out Like what uh

54:09 Is is this particular thing impacting orders or users or revenue? And so you'll really not be able to figure even that piece out. Similarly on design and research it's um uh for product managers we focus a lot more on problems. And are you able to identify problems from a user's perspective? That's at level uh zero. And level five will be somebody who's able to define the user problems, but is also able to tie them to business goals as well.

54:36 So that Makes it. uh the holistic. Uh similarly on technology, it's um uh it's a uh one of the skills which uh is relatively easier to define. uh where you don't have any tech understanding, like if somebody asked you what is HTTP or API or internet, and you'll be like, Okay.

54:54 I don't know what it is. And uh While the on the other end you are able to have deep debates and would probably write uh technology design documents. uh yourself as well.

55:06 I think sometimes people get confused between data science And in different organizations I see data science marketed either in data or in technology. Either is fine as long as you are clear on what your organization's framework. Is Similarly, then there is strategy. Strategy is I think another area in product management, which gets very confusing because there um there is obviously corporate strategy, there is business strategy, there's pricing strategy.

55:30 Strategy everywhere. Product strategy. For me is Where you are able to define That

55:37 Uh. While somebody defines that this is the mountain that you're going to climb. But Okay, how are you going to climb that mountain is basically the product strategy.

55:46 Peace. Yeah, so you are not in charge of okay, are you focused on growth? Are you focused on revenue? Are you focused on profitability? That's someone's uh choice. Are you going to pick this country? Are you gonna pick that country? But once that is picked, what are the user segments that you're going to Yeah.

56:02 focus on what are the needs of those user segments. How are we going to figure out what the right product uh for them will be what is the order in which we are going to work. on that that whole piece of product strategy is uh with the product managers. And again

56:18 In the first case, you are basically going to rely on everyone to tell you do this, do this, do this. in second and in the level five cases you are able to articulate a very coherent product strategy at abroad. Uh. Uh level as well.

56:33 Amazing. Thanks for showing that. I think For people that are trying to craft. Career. ladder for product managers. This could help inform the way they think about this. By the way, when we mention crystal for folks that have no idea what we're talking about.

56:44 She was uh head of really ahead of growth. Yeah. Go Jack back in the day, she was a previous guest on the podcast. I always forget how to pronounce her last name exactly, but I think it's Wajia, Crystal Wajia. Vijaya.

56:56 Vijaya. Okay. Okay. Great. Going in a different direction. We're gonna move to Contrarian corner. I'm curious if there's anything that you believe

57:07 that other people Don't you wouldn't agree with or generally just don't believe. I used to think intent is the most important thing. Right. And Uh when I was starting off, uh that used to be the advice that you know, as long as your intent is right.

57:23 Even if uh some of your words are not landing, even if your some of the comms are not landing, that will uh walk out. What I've seen Uh is that it's not enough.

57:35 Я Y'all behavior. And the way you communicate, the way you collaborate. That Uh

57:42 also has to Uh. communicate and Uh show who you are as well. So intent is not.

57:50 Enough. And um That's a thing which I think uh a lot of people in my age group just don't get. But uh People who are slightly starting off their career, they

58:03 It resonates well. Uh with them. Uh um Second thing I think where I feel that It's very it's become

58:12 I don't know is it contrarian or it's become politically incorrect is that you still need to put in The effort. And Yeah.

58:21 Number of hours is effort. And I think that's one thing which has become very politically incorrect to say uh over the years when I was younger. Uh it was

58:31 It was the norm that yes, you will have to put in the effort, you will have to put in the hours to grow. and improve your skills. And it's not even about your growth as a in the company, it's just your own growth. You have to spend the time, effort, and energy into growing. Um

58:48 I think a lot of that Is getting lost in the debates between complete workaholism and uh just you know being well Not.

59:00 A very serious about your growth. Uh. So I think those are the two that I Find myself. Having to

59:08 Explain myself. Again and again. And why uh I feel this way. I completely agree with that. I find a hugely strong correlation between

59:18 Hours you put into The work you do and success. And I think I think there's been kind of a Return to okay. Working hard is really important. And you shouldn't be afraid of

59:28 uh promoting working really hard. So we've actually gone through everything that I wanted to ask you before we get to our very exciting lightning round. Is there anything else you wanted to share, or is there anything you want to leave listeners with? No, I think it has been uh great uh talking to I hope it was useful to people. I've tried to keep it uh real and uh But

59:51 also in takeaway format uh Um Uh if there are any uh questions that you have that I feel I've not answered, I'm happy to answer them. Okay, amazing. We'll uh we'll have people post in the

1:00:04 comments. If there's anything else they would love to ask you. With that we reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready? Yes. First question.

1:00:15 What are two or three books that you've recommended most to other people? The first book is a book which I feel is not quite enough in product management community. is a book called Small Data by Martin Lindstrop. Uh this is a person who was an advertiser, a marketer. who would go and make campaigns for uh big brands.

1:00:37 In different countries. And so would have usually very short time to get the pulse Of that space. And design a campaign around it. And how

1:00:50 He got insights very quickly. from and what are some of the takeaways that are there for people working in product space, not just product managers, but designers, researchers. uh strategy people, anyone really I

1:01:04 Can't recommend that book more. And I've cited that book a lot, uh, internally. The second book that I um recommend is Adam Grant's original. uh originals. I think it's a very important book. It changed

1:01:20 Uh a lot of things. Uh when uh when I spoke about that I was going through this crisis or Oh I'm behind so many things uh uh after joining Boj. Originals was one book that I read which really, really helped me. uh think about uh my growth and how I see

1:01:37 Uh myself and I And anyone who is stuck or anyone who feels They are superstars, they are the innovators of the century. uh kind of a thing. It's It's a book that gives you a very good

1:01:50 uh reality check. And um The third book that uh I'll recommend is Definitely uh uh Daniel Carnivan's thinking fast and slow.

1:02:01 I think Uh Especially the thinking slow part. uh becomes very, very important uh piece as well. Uh

1:02:10 It's not And the reason why change is hard, the reason why feedback is hard is because we are used to thinking fast. And uh we're not used to thinking slow. While if you'll actually think slow Yeah. actually welcome uh change and growth.

1:02:26 Amazing. That book's come up a bunch actually recently on the podcast and I s and it's always sitting under my laptop. Holding up my laptop for these interviews. Uh so Uh I fully agree. Next question. Do you have a favorite recent movie or T V show that you've really enjoyed?

1:02:41 I haven't seen a lot of uh movies uh uh recently. I think but um While I was on the flight back from Dubai, I saw a miscongenial again. And uh I really, really uh enjoyed it. I thought it's uh

1:03:00 It's a very uh fun uh movie, but um also had a pretty good uh uh message. I know it's uh Probably not the movie which anyone would want to cited, but I think it's um

1:03:14 Sometimes but to just watch uh Uh good entertainment. That's quite the criterion pick. Yeah. Nobody has cited this movie, Miscongeniality. You're this is a first. Uh but I love it. Way out there. I would never would have expected this. In terms of T V shows, I think I um

1:03:31 The show that I really go back to all the time is Shits Creek. I think it's a show which operates at so many different levels. Without taking itself that seriously. And it just lands and uh Uh.

1:03:45 Especially as as a product manager and as a leader who obsesses a lot about diversity. I think it Did a fantastic job in showing uh different sides of motherhood. of uh uh the LGBTQI communities.

1:03:59 And also um Well Teenage goals figuring themselves out as well. I think they It did a fantastic job. Do you have a favorite interview question that you like to ask candidates when you're hiring?

1:04:11 Product Product Manager especially. So it's not Really one Question. But uh what I like to do with them is to brainstorm

1:04:22 Um choices on an actual product and I'll pro typically pick up a product that they will uh that they use most often. And then I will be like, Okay, what if this product were to do this? Then w would do you think it makes sense? Then don't Don't think it makes sense.

1:04:37 What about this? Okay, what would how would it evolve in six months? What would happen in twelve months and so on. I think it's uh It gives you a far better insight into how would it be on We're working with them. Um

1:04:49 Uh. uh on a real case. And and you also keep And what I like about it is that you can keep going back. Uh

1:04:58 And deeper into it. Uh and develop it. Together. So I typically try and pick product that I

1:05:06 Um I will also not have very strong opinions on so that it can become a two way I'm uh conversation. What do you actually look for in an answer that tells you, Oh, okay, this candidate is amazing.

1:05:18 versus flags that are like mm. Maybe not. There are some obvious check marks that are they able to first abstract out and figure out what the overall goals are. For the product out. who the users for that product uh are what the

1:05:32 what are what would they be focusing on uh right now, whether this will align With that. Or not. And then reason backwards that okay, maybe this you know it'd work, but

1:05:44 something on these lines, are you obsessed about this feature or are you obsessed about okay what this enables you to do. So this is what it enables you to do then Do you Are you okay with considering some other options and so on? So I think that's the

1:05:59 uh direction which uh usually uh goes in the right. Oh wait Is there a favorite product you've recently discovered that you really love? So the reason why I've not watched a lot of uh

1:06:11 Uh. drama or T V recently is because I've Discover these short video apps through Instagram. Um

1:06:21 All of these apps did dub. Chinese T V serials. And to English or there will be subtitles in English.

1:06:29 And they are delivered in TikTok style two minute videos. And it's a master stroke in how the series are constructed. The first few episodes, which is like ten episodes, which is about uh ten to fifteen minutes. sets up the story in such a way that you have to unlock the next time. And you and these

1:06:48 Well, videos are quite expensive. They end up One series takes more than the entire cost of monthly cost of Netflix to Of you. And but it's just

1:07:00 Amazing how the whole Product has been how all these products have been put together on unlocking the gamification aspects of it. the storytelling aspects of it, the content cutting part of it. And even the selection uh of the stories uh part of it.

1:07:17 Um What I'm told is that uh since I've Once I've learned about it, I've also been reading about it. There actually Companies which are able to give you Tools.

1:07:29 Or where you can construct this app yourself. And multiple people are two people, three people companies are churning these out and earning a lot of profit. uh from it as well. What is this called for people that want to check this out?

1:07:43 So you can start with Drama Box, you can uh start with short meals and so on. And uh there are multiple of these. And those of you who are very familiar with TikTok, you would have seen that some of these show you the first ten episodes on TikTok and then they take you to their uh app to view the rest. Mm. Wow. I love so many uh unusual Contrary pieces of advice here. I love it. Two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you

1:08:11 often come back to share with friends or family, either in work or in life. For me the most important Uh uh thing has been that I um I started my uh career very late in tech. I was already twenty five.

1:08:27 Uh for the first Several years I worked in a small tier two Town in India. I came to um Daily and only in twenty thirteen.

1:08:38 And uh I joined Gojek in twenty eighteen. I think I've done reasonably well. For myself. So I and

1:08:47 I It's never late to do or what you want to do. And what you want to be. I think that's the thing that I really, really believe in and I also advise.

1:08:59 In especially as the world is aging and a lot of people are Uh thing yeah. Uh Are thinking about it.

1:09:08 I would say that you know It's not too late. Ever. You can be and do what you want. Uh right now.

1:09:16 So good. It's not too late. I really, really like that advice. My uh wife is a inl illustrator designer. She has a book that she put out called Am I Everthinking This? It's in my background somewhere there, and she has a chart.

1:09:28 That communicates that exact message in a really Cute way and we'll try to link to it in the show notes. Final question. You live in Singapore. I know you travel a lot, but if someone were to come to Singapore, is there A food that you think they need to try that's unique. to

1:09:44 Uh Singapore. There are multiple so Singapore is a melting pot of different cultures. Uh there are four official languages. And uh so um and uh The only thing I will advise is depending on your taste buds, whatever you want to do, you should go and visit a hawker center. And uh

1:10:03 It's very uh it's it's an amazing experience in itself. And those of you who've seen crazy rich Asians, the first thing they do when they land in Singapore is go to the hawker center. So it's uh an experience of its kind. And uh if you are looking for a Specific recommendation go to Lopasa.

1:10:21 Uh if you are a fan of Uh. Indian, you'll get that. If you're fan of Malay cuisine, you'll get that if you're fan of Uh Singaporean Chinese, you'll get that. And uh you'll um

1:10:33 So you pick what uh works for you. I love that. The Krama, I feel like we've produced both a lot of output and we're gonna have really great outcomes from our conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Two final questions. Where can folks find you on online if they want to reach out and follow up on any of the stuff we talked about?

1:10:51 And how can listeners be useful to you? Thank you, Lenny. It's been great uh talking to you as well. Hopefully this turns out well. you can reach out to me either on LinkedIn Vic Ramad Heeman. Or uh you can reach out on Twitter. Twitter works um better. And uh

1:11:07 the listeners can be useful to me by uh Wow. Just sharing uh whatever they feel. And I continuously follow a lot of people, a lot of people who are not yet famous, just tell me what your story is. Just tell me what you are working on.

1:11:26 Um As long as you are passionate about it, I will try and find time. Uh, maybe I cannot talk to everyone, but I'll definitely try and find to chat with you. and uh listen out and support or connect you to uh someone Or who can help you?

1:11:42 Uh huh. Who can help support you? It's a very generous offer. I think a lot of people are gonna take you up on that. Vikrama, thank you so much for being here. Uh, thank you so much, Lenny.

1:11:52 Hi everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show.

1:12:13 at Lenny's podcast dot com. See you in the next episode.

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