Leading mobile apps at Craftsvilla was my 2nd job in product management. I maintained a learnings doc at the job. Sharing the notes from there with minor edits.

  • Always measure the performance of campaigns.
  • Every action should be measurable. If you are making a product change or implementing a growth idea you should write down the quantitative impact it might have.
  • Always ask for a date for open items. Never leave a meeting without a follow-up mail with action items and a date on deliverables.
  • Do optimization for tablets. Don’t forget a platform just because your users are on Mobile.
  • Analyze traffic from various acquisition channels daily.
  • Optimise push notification opens. Check the open rate for notifications you are sending.
  • Before you make decisions based on some dashboard make sure the data is correct everywhere. I took a long time to realize session data on GA was not right.
  • Be more proactive in putting ideas across. The ‘rate us prompt’ could have been implemented far earlier. Just because you discuss an idea don’t assume it will be implemented.
  • Don’t wait for the next big release to club design fixes. Whenever you find a broken window, fix it.
  • Make small design fixes live as soon as you can.
  • Don’t outsource development.
  • Don’t do big redesigns and rewrites together.
  • Talk to actual customers and not fellow employees to understand customer behavior.
  • Keep asking if the information architecture of every page is right. The first fold of a PDP should have enough information for a user to make the purchase if he wants. Put all critical info at the top. Don’t make the user search for it.
  • Before adding a new process understand its cost and ROI.
  • Always make sure you have 1-1s. Don’t get lazy and skip them. 1-1s are not optional.
  • If you have a major sales campaign coming up don’t make a deployment one day before.
  • Don’t push anything on Prod which has not gone through the entire testing loop.
  • Always provision for important messages on the home page. If you are having a Diwali sale and want to communicate that there might be delays, then you should have had to make an app release. There should be a toggle to turn on these messages.
  • There should be one CTA per product card. Example. Don’t add both View and Share product CTAs coming up prominently on the card.
  • Move to a design system over time. The website should not look drastically different from your app. CTA button colors should not vary drastically across the product.
  • Wrestle with reality. Be optimistic, but know the ground reality. PR is not reality.
  • Never say anything about a person you would not say to them directly.
  • Create a culture where it is OK to make mistakes but unacceptable not to identify, analyze, and learn from them.
  • Always learn from your mistakes. Set up processes to avoid repeated mistakes.
  • Ask whether you have earned the right to have an opinion. Do your homework.
  • Take notes in a meeting and share with all stakeholders. The notes taker can drive the agenda.
  • Have a clear owner for each meeting and send the agenda before the meeting.
  • Find a short-term resolution of the issue. Don’t wait too long to fix a production issue. RCA can happen later. Also, figure out the steps for long-term solutions. Have clear owners for action items.
  • Have morning standups. Late day standups don’t work.
  • Give projects names.
  • Have Friday demos.
  • Always keep an eye out for tactics that have not yet succumbed to the law of shitty click-throughs.
  • Run cheap tests to validate your hypotheses.
  • Always have goals. Where do you want to be after a year?
  • Write documentation.
  • Images are better than words. Showing is better than telling. Working prototypes > Marvel prototypes > Images > Documents > Verbal. Add screenshots to your documents.
  • Capture all important decisions in a doc and make sure all key stakeholders have opted-in.
  • Hire people better than you.
  • If your retention strategy is changing the notice period from 1 to 3 months notice then you might have already failed as a company.
  • Send welcome emails for new recruits. Create a 30 days plan for them.
  • Think JTBD while designing.
  • Do regular research.
  • Every week go through play store reviews to understand the sentiment of customers. Don’t use generic replies for customer complaints. It is the easiest way to lose trust.
  • Optimise your Playstore page to improve top of the funnel acquisition.