Building Great Products : Anand Chandrasekaran @ProductGeeksConf

1. BUILDING
GREAT
PRODUCTS…
(WHY SOME STICK?)
#YahanSeKharido

2. SOME BACKGROUND.
• Snapdeal CPO (The best is yet to come… stay tuned!)
• Bharti Airtel CPO (Wynk, One Touch Internet, My Airtel,
Airtel Money). #7 and #93 on Google Play.
• Yahoo! (Yahoo App., Apple Integrations, Search / Local,
Shopping)
• Co-founded Aeroprise Inc. (acq. BMC Software)
• Investor / Advisor to Angstro (Google), Audeze,
FreightTiger, Instalively, Pluss…

3. WHY ARE WE HERE?
Why Products? – Exercising a different
muscle
Your Favorite Products
Why Products ‘Stick’?- S-U-C-C-E-S
The 10 Principles To Think About
Some Practical Case Studies

4. MY
FAVORITE
PRODUCTS
#YahanSeKharido

5. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE
PRODUCTS?
How did you discover them? Eg. Game of Thrones
How did they make you feel? Eg. low cost airlines, iPhone
Why did you keep coming back? Eg. AmEx

6. WHAT ARE YOUR LEAST FAVORITE
PRODUCTS?
Did the feeling ever change? Eg. calling cards
Was the negative feeling bigger than the positive feeling?
Will ever trust that brand again? (Brand and Culture are really two sides
of the same coin)

7. WHY SOME PRODUCTS STICK?
S-U-C-C-E-S model!
Simple – finding the core of any idea
Unexpected – grab attention by surprising them
Concrete – ensuring the idea can be grasped & recalled
Credible – give an idea believability
Emotional – help people see the importance of an idea
Stories… - empower people to use the idea through a narrative

8. JFK – SUCCES MODEL?
“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before
the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him
safely to earth. No single space project will be more impressive to
mankind or more important for the long term exploration of space.”
- John F. Kennedy, Address to Congress, 1961.

9. WHAT ABT MR.MODI?
“As a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, let’s aim to free India from open
defecation and open drains by creating a ‘Swach Bharat’ before his
150th birthday in 2019 through the construction of over 800 million
toilets and setting up modern sewage systems.”
- Narendra Modi, 2014.

10. WHAT ABOUT WYNK
Why it landed well in India? Will it continue to scale?
Simple – OTT app built by Airtel (advantages in both)
Unexpected – wait… you guys are NOT screwing us?
Concrete – user experience, stability, moods, pricing, no bill shock
Credible – Vodafone Music VS. Wynk by Airtel
Emotional – legacy of music as well as innovation within Bharti
Stories… - piracy is 4x bigger, can you wynk me the song, employee
videos, price of enjoying music etc.

11. 10
PRODUCT
PRINCIPLES
#YahanSeKharido

12. tenets to live by.

13. Build and support products that your
family and friends will enjoy and that
you will be proud to show them.
• Why keep it subjective?
• Pride as a motivator, love as a motivator
• Google Vs. Yahoo

14. Focus on painkillers, rather than
vitamins. Look for “ten figure” ideas
that move the needle.
• Which medicines do you remember to take?
• Stopping a man in the street in Bihar to explain an idea in 30 secs.
• Why 10-figure ideas are better to go after

15. Simple > Pretty. Strive for Simplicity.
Perfect is the enemy of simple.
• What is an ugly product that you love? Why?
• When do you launch? What is a good V1?
• How can we support a product team launching a V1?

16. “When you need to go fast, go alone.
When you need to go far, go together.”
• Collaborating and how to build LT partnerships?
• Internal VS. external partners

17. If you torture data hard enough, it will
tell you whatever you need to hear.
• Better horse buggies vs. automobiles
• How to rely on “signals”
• Analysis VS. Paralysis

18. Trouble our employees, not our users.
• Quality checks, and holding each other accountable.
• Your customers are NOT your QA team (except in rare instances)

19. 404s are your enemy.

20. It takes a hundred NOs to say a single
YES. Don’t be afraid to prioritize on
behalf of users.
• We are a surrogate decision maker for our users
• Apple deciding to take Flash out of iPhone
• Saying NO without making it personal. Clear Reasons.

21. Do not look for the NOs in the
organization.
• Asking questions to which the answer can be NO.
• Advocacy vs. pushing an agenda

22. Solve one problem fully, as opposed to
two problems partially.
• Earning the right to solve bigger problems for users
• PeopleSoft

23. THANK YOU &
QUESTIONS.
#YahanSeKharido