 Three minutes over. I promise to give you 12 minutes back of your time Getting time back in today's life is very important. So I'll try to do that Just so that I get to know the audience bit how many people are product managers here What a few who are designers here Quite a few So that's a good mix more digital fraud managers than designers So I'll keep that in mind Okay, so here we go Quickly there is one thing that's very important. I Have never actually come up stage and that presentation maybe once in my life I Met Nareesh and we spent almost a year working together and I keep on saying the race Thanks for all the fish because I think he was the guy who said okay. Why don't you go and present? Big level. Thank you to Nareesh and a giant. I hope you're having a good day My name I'm Sumit I've been making fun things for 17 years and getting paid for it. So I'm very happy I have got no cons Most of my experience in fact all of my experience has been product to business to consumer space I have never worked on B2B. So if some of these things might not directly apply to B2B space I apologize because I just do not know about it So the subject was product design and while I was thinking about this I said if product design is a subject and instead of me focusing on the subject I would like to rather focus on the person Because at the end Subjects don't make people people make something so it's important to know about the person rather than what subject that person does or consumes It has always fascinated me that we are a small IOTA dot in this beautiful world of ours It is a bit philosophical I can know that but what really matters is What are the two most important things in this world and if there's two things, what are those two things? And if I start to think about it It is fundamentally all about Me and the rest of the world And whenever I say this to my team there is a slight undercurrent of arrogance coming out Like who are you? And by this side I don't mean by me by me I mean me as I And this I this small dot is so big because it is built on hope It is built on dreams You have always dreamt of doing something and that is super powerful And that's why that I is super, super, super critical to know about And most of us in this room People outside of this room always have this what I want to give back to this world Whether it's a product, whether it's a feature, whether it's a service There is something that is in your brain saying I want to give this to the world Now all this is good but the biggest problem is does the world want what you want to give to the world That's where the problem is I want to give comic books and nobody wants to read comic books Well I want to do X and people don't want X And there lies the conflict between you and the world So what do we do? We have some dreams We take the dreams, create some ideas Those ideas become some blueprint Then we hire a team We build something, we test something And after doing all this we say okay it's time to now launch our product In my vocabulary there is nothing as launching a product It's all about landing a product And landing a product is this You will face absolute insane amount of friction and drag from this world Everything that you will do it will light up You know what is that burning? That's your VC money burning Because that's what VCs do VCs give you the shield So that you can at the end land yourself and your idea intact on this planet That's what happens What I am doing is I am presenting my thoughts are actually entering your brain just like this You have doubts And my thoughts are entering your brain as you have this friction And the entire job is how to remove drag, how to remove that friction, how to land intact Unfortunately 99 for 9 percent times this is what is left of your idea when it's like that That is unfortunate Like everything is blown apart, kuchnewa, like it's over, thank you Of course there can be tons and tons of money blown and money earned and all that thing can happen But the entire concept was that idea reaching to the world and that rarely happened So what you are going to do is remain So that's the context of my presentation And what you are going to do is spend next 20-25 minutes about disetting these two critical pieces What is I and how I land to the world and the world wants it So let's talk about the I part first I have met only two types of people in this world, creators I am not talking about just general people, people who want to create it The first one is the romantic They are the I feel type And the second one is the classical I know types These are the only two people And of course we can call them product managers and product designers or designers so or But that's the representation of these people Now depending on which side of the world you are You will be judging on is this the good side or the dark side The designer is primarily all about imagination It's a lot about creativity It's inspirational These people always will favor feel to fact They are not governed by law On the other hand the product manager the classical type has an emotional way of looking at things It is all about finding order in chaos It is about finding the unknown and converting into known It is about measuring And these are just two types and of course they use different tools right Have you seen product managers talk about numbers all day long Any have you heard designers talk about flows all day long Now Excel sheet versus Photoshop They have got different tools to operate And they have got different ways to communicate And they talk about different measures of success And they test differently But at the end of the day it does not really matter what is right what is wrong What really matters is these people are trying to use these tools These methods to remove drag to remove friction So that you can start to mold that idea into a shape and form As what we know as will it be a product market fit As you heard that term before that's what it means So I used to work for Zynga Good five six five and a half years I worked for Zynga And for people who know Zynga is a gaming company It was perhaps notoriously known for product management Like everything was a number we used to do product reviews Forty slides there's not even a single text Everything is number and it's a gaming company Now I have worked for Microsoft And this is long back and there was absolutely no numbers And it starts to think that it does not matter whether you are talking about X side or Y side At the end your job is to reduce that drag Your job is to remove that friction And you are going to use whatever tools necessary The tools that you know about or the tools that you do not know about to remove that And if you have this simple idea in your head that there is nothing as a product market And there is nothing as a designer Everybody is about I having a dream and trying to remove this friction So keep these two in your thoughts We will revisit these two after we start to also explore what is the world wants This is all about me and I But there is also a big entity as we call it DAUs MAUs Acquisitions, users, who are they? That's the world So if you want to really start thinking about breaking this world The real way to define this want And we have to really decipher what is want And want is fundamentally a combination of two things There is a need component and then there is a desire component So what is a need component? And it was very unknown I have not done any of this on myself This is just thanks to Google You just keep on surfing, you just keep on finding, you just keep on exploring, you keep on implementing And at some point you start to understand well this doesn't make sense So the person that made the most sense was Dr. Wies Dr. Wies says there are only 16 needs humans have And these are physiological needs As we descended from apes to become homo sapiens, we had the 16 needs These needs are listed on the screen Any product, anything that you are doing or ever done Has to solve for one or more than one of these needs If raiments were making nice clothing That still is It was perhaps for status If you are desperately opening Facebook to see how many likes you have It is about status So if I say raiment and Facebook status update are the same product, would you believe me? They are solving for the same need of humans And it is very important to understand what is that need That my product or my service or my idea is trying to solve Now if you want to look at the desire part The desire part is slightly harder to understand Because you know humans are very There is lot of subjectivity when it comes to what is desire So to understand desire what you will do is we go couple of hundred years back I just please bear with me This is like a bit tangential but just hold on to the horses Do not let your mind run We want to talk about how economies evolved over centuries At some point it was only a commodities economy There was just no concept of a good There was no like basmati rice or jeera rice It was rice And there was coal And then there was milk or whatever else was a commodity And that is it The only need or only desire as we can now start to say Of the user was, is it available? That is the only question we ask Is it available? There is no money, right? It is about the system You have it, you have rice And then if there is a person who is the businessman Who has to do a job, what they have to do? They have to supply That is it It was all about availability and supply And of course the centuries went by Things started to become more complex Currency came in, economy started to mold And then what we know as the entire economy of goods business Right? Now what is goods business? Right? The customer or the need in this case For the customer So the customer saying what is the cost of this good Cost started to become very very important Because now you are saying this rice is 1000 rupees a kilo, this rice is 500 rupees a kilo Cost is important, what is the difference? Right? And cost started to play a very very critical role So what did the person who is supplying it had to do? They had to control the cost They had to standardize things If you have ever heard of supply chain management That is what started to happen Right? If you ask today, like a lot of times we make fun of It is a Chinese product, what does it mean? Somewhere in our brains it is this standard Right? You are trying to marry cost to standard To entire thing that the people have done So that was good business And before we jump in, let us take an example Maybe all these economies are changing But I think all of you will agree that the love of a mother to her child Is not going to change So if it was 300 years ago And it was your daughter's or your son's birthday And you had to make him or her cake You will get flour You will get sugar You will get milk, you will get eggs And you will spend all your time trying to do what? Make the cake Now the world changed It can good business Now what do we do in good business? We go to our shopping And we see there are 20 different cake mixes And we pick up one of those cake mix And now we make a cake Then what was the next step that was in the evolution And it was called the services business Now let me just play around with the cake example here Now what do we do? We just go to just bake and buy a cake And this is what we keep on iterating to ourselves Oh this has become a commodity Camera has become a commodity Well everything is now becoming Technology is becoming a commodity What does it mean? It means it is irrelevant It does not matter It is just like whatever Your brain does not compute it It is given what else do you have And this is what we are going to be Climbing the desire curve And what was the need in services? The customer wanted quality Have you ever got A house vacuum clean Or dry clean or carpet clean Yes What is the first thing that you ask? Quality is not good That is the only question you ask Like why are you going to pay for the services? So it is all about quality And the supplier is non-stop thinking How do I improve my quality? How do I improve my quality? That is the non-stop thinking And India did an amazing job in the service industry Now what becomes important in this modern And if you give some level of customization What happens? Immediately you feel happy So this is what it is evolving Slowly and steadily under our feet And we just do not get to know it Now hold to your horses Of what I believe is the new economy Which is already working under our feet And we do not know about it So what I say is welcome to experience economy What is experience economy? Experience economy is where your customer is looking for authenticity You cannot copy paste an experience You can copy paste anything You cannot copy paste an experience That is not happening because there is authenticity required And what is the job of the supplier? They have to render They have to stage They have to craft that authentic experience Just think about this for a second 100 years ago, 80 years ago Whatever time the movies came out You actually had to pay money upfront to go and watch the movie Why? Because you are going in for an experience You have to go into a theater You have to pay money upfront to watch the theater show Why? You are going in for an experience So if I ask you one question What would you do differently to your product Or to your service to charge the user money upfront Before they see your product That is experience economy That is the essence of experience economy See, commodity is good services This is all external to us as humans It was there Where is experience? It is inside us And that is the problem And that is why there is a surge of designers in the market Do you have a UI designer? Do you have a UX designer? I need a flow designer Where did all these people come from? And we are still getting stuck into this entire world If you just take a step back Understand what are you going to solve for You are trying to solve for experience Now if you really really start to think What will be the pinnacle of experience Because experience is happening inside your brain If I am talking about this session You would be thinking differently about it than him And hence the pinnacle of this industry Is what we call as personalization And now a lot of people have thought Will AR be successful? Will VR be successful? Absolutely, yes There is no reason why it should not be The entire world is transforming to the fact That everything is a commodity now The other day Me and my wife we moved to our new house Pretty far away It is almost next to Tamil Nadu border Pretty far And then we had a slightly bigger drawing room We said let us buy some furniture for our drawing room So we said let us do this Let us download the three top most e-commerce related Furnitures also Urban ladder and pepper fry We got all this And I wanted to experience it And I started to go and browse They are all setting the same thing There is price here, there is price there You cannot hardly make out what color it is God knows what is going to happen Let us go If we get a good deal, we are good Who is going to win? And we keep on getting stuck at the fact of The one who has a good supply will win The one who delivers on time will win Guys, that is forgiven If you are fighting that battle That is the wrong battle to fight That is forgiven If you do not have that, it should not be in business Your service, your delivery On time, these are just given Now people are wanting more What is the experience do I get? And I will tell you the difference Between urban ladder and pepper fry Both delivered Some two days late, some two days on time Whatever Everybody from urban ladder Who knocked at my door says Good morning sir, how are you? Fine, thank you So we have got your delivery Before I bring it inside This is what you had ordered? Yeah This person Even if he is faking it He is making sense to my head And he is delivering me an experience Not only they put all the furniture They took out all the garbage When I thought that would like to have a glass of water They said no, thank you We need to run We have another service to deliver If we are not going to deliver to that person It is not going to happen And that made me holy shit five stars Here, take it I said fuck it, who cares? It does not matter Table can have scratches My experience cannot have scratches So at the end of the day What is the entire essence of what I am trying to present? There are two ways in which You apply yourself The skills that you have learned The tools that you use And the only job is to remove the drag and friction The only two things that you have to deliver To remove the drag You must solve for a need It is a given In my previous example On-time delivery is now a need It is no longer a desire question And the last one is You have to fulfill the desire So make it classical Make it emotional Make it solve for a need And then make it memorable And then make it memorable And guys and girls This is what I think is a proud desire That's it There is nothing more, there is nothing less And you might be like Well, how do I do that? Guess what? Nobody should tell you Because it is your authenticity That you need to bring to the table As soon as I tell you This is how you do it You are going to copy it and you will fail And this should not make you disheartened Because very soon we will start to Reach to that level of technology You might have heard in the keynote session Everything will become a commodity You will be a supplier Somebody will be a consumer It is going to happen non-stop Because the only thing you can deliver Is the authenticity that you That small I, that small dot In this world Can deliver Thank you That's it Fourteen to fifteen minutes For questions and that was the intent And you know most of the meetings That I know Nareesh kept telling me That it is very hard to get the team Going to ask questions This time you are going to try it differently And the bad choice will be Everybody starts from the left Start asking questions, that's a bad one But let's go and do some doing Ask anything that you think That you have in your mind Just go for it because there is nothing Because you are authentic Yeah So I think your question already had A few answers to it So I think you are already doing What you are supposed to do So the thing to understand is You have to break things down Into motivation and skill level You have to understand that There is a basic need And a desire that you need To fill in the position So if I have an open position There is a need component there And then there is a desire component Who does not understand how to open And does averages, means, modes, medium Probably not You will not say No right In the same way Probably you are not going to hire a designer Who has for the first time used a stencil And trying to do Photoshop Probably not So what are you looking for You are looking for core hard skills And it does not matter experience Because in fact in our world today As soon as designer gets experience You go to these colleges And remotor the college the better the college Because more authenticity lies Not corrupted by all these Non-stop Instagrams Right So you need to look for core skills That is your need question So I would say go and talk to HR What are the core needs that I need to solve You probably or somebody else in the organization Need to define that super tight I want to see a portfolio The portfolio needs to have this There is a core need This need is period done We are not going to talk Now once your need is met Then comes the entire You are saying motivation, grooming Direction, thinking But what is the most important thing That you need to do You need to inspire this person As soon as you get into that model Of saying Things are going to start to freeze And this very closely tries Into agile and scrubber right Self unifying team To solve it everybody bringing their Own skills and crafts to the mix And voila you have to So I am not saying this is going to be easy Right It is going to be exceptionally hard I am myself struggling Of how do we expand this Because you always need more and more And more But the idea here is simple That if you are not going to try And if you just give up It is a recipe of filling So you have to just keep at it The entire example that I gave you That you have an idea You are going to land it to the earth I think your problem right now Is not earth, your team only Right your idea needs Is getting all this drag and friction Just to land it in the team So you have to just think How am I going to report that drag Okay do I need to get these people here If you say I have got say $200,000 marketing spend Spend $50,000 getting everybody From each country to India Better money spent Why because you are removing the drag So you have to optimize all the time Of that landing And this happens multiple times right If you are going to even talk to this To a co-founder there is drag This presentation is a drag to you Because my ideas are not getting inside So that is the entire essence That you are trying to do all the time Yes please So these are common questions Everybody has this problem There is no magic solution At the end of the day What you are trying to find is You spoke about a few names right As if designation is your manager You are a technical manager Then there is a designer Then there is a number These are people right Do they all have the same idea That is it, that is your problem You just solve for that drag As soon as they all Actually it is a flip of a switch It suddenly gets connected And what magic is happening That is the problem because the idea is It is not to their fault Somebody if you are in charge You need to say what is this idea What is going to happen What is the need of the user What is the experience you are going to deliver And once you start to answer that well People start to fall and say Because everybody is looking at the same thing If I am going to say Blue sky, rain, green trees I bet the picture that you have in your mind Is different than mine How do you bring that idea to life And there are two techniques And things that you can do Of what is that And the second recommendation I have That that idea should be greater than anybody in the team Because if you become greater than the idea Then you are in a tough spot So my recommendation would be to Just go back to your team members Guys do we have a common idea Of what we are delivering What is it and spend towards We have to just define it Unless a people agree And artificial agreement is also wrong A lot of people say Let's agree and move on That is the worst kind of agreement That you can get into Because they just want to get out of the room It is hard But once you solve for that You have 50-60% So Classically you are right Emotionally you are wrong That is my answer As soon as a team starts to classify Is the first step to failure Because you are putting people in wells and boxes And as soon as you say that This is the first step of creating drag Of creating friction It does not matter who solves for what What is important you need to have a list of What all things you need to solve for And here are the 30 things we need to solve for That is what typically a product backlog looks like And then you say Go team, solve for this And let the team align with their skills to find out who solves for what Now It seems slightly ambiguous But the entire essence is It is a two-way sword As soon as you put people in the buckets You say, yeah, the need was right Desire had a problem But the same human who needs the need and desire That starts to get makia So my recommendation Is To have skilled people to do certain To solve for certain kind of problems Let them all be aware who is more skilled to solve one problem But do not classify the user problem And say you solve this part of the user And you solve this part That is the recommendation Think user first What is the need How do you solve for the need Then once you are solving for the need How do you build and craft an experience So that is desirable also to have that The essence that I am trying to alluding to Which I am not calling out or maybe I should call out If you can do both You are going to be one Really wanted designer in this planet Because that is what team struggles for As soon as you have got two people You have to solve for the collaboration piece And no manager likes that Now as soon as you have got one person You say, oh thank god But these are a rare breed But it is a fine line to balance Every team has to organize themselves But if you are a prod designer If you can go here Put a hat and do pivot tables And come back with CDF graphs And prove what is your total engagement And on the other hand you go And you design this amazing floors You are in for a ride And next 100 years you will not be jobless For sure Because every business is trying to get Into the experience And what the experience will mean For different people The team will also believe in the experience That that is the right experience Not part of evaluating the experience And the customer is going to be Actual minded Challenge with this Easy part of the services The services are measured Experience for you and experience For me is different So how do you identify that 70% of the people would be happy With this experience Okay, so disclaimer up front Your experience has reached Its desire state If people are willing to pay for it That is the message Even the poorest Will be willing to pay If you render them a good experience So if I had to do that I am actually going to get I have this idea And I am going to do some mocks And some floors And get it to that small level of finish Don't make the entire pizza But make a slice But just don't ship the slice Don't just put slice and cheese and ship it Make the entire slice of pizza Put all mushrooms and everything Because that has to be a good slice But you don't need to code it up So you take that idea And you take it to the usability lab You get 20, 30 of your target customers And you make them experience that And then you ask a simple question Are you going to pay 1 rupee for it Just ask 1 rupee Just ask of it Trust me If they don't like the experience They will not even say 1 rupee Why will I give it? It is my money So that is one very good way Of validating Are you delivering experiences And again guys I am not saying that Each one of us Should be right now thinking about experience Maybe many of you Or in your company Are going to mature on this It is happening So it is not a question of whether or not It is a question of when and how Now if you try to build experience Before you have to solve for your needs Then you are in this soup Experience was assuming But you know Like those special effects movies that you see Holy shit this was amazing But movie can't be here That's the problem you are going to face So fly asking for that money 1 rupee Yes please The person paying for a product or a service Is very different from the end user Right So I started this session By saying that I have never worked In a B2B setup in my life So most of these things I am going to say Might not be even relevant And I think that is what you are asking But I still take a stab Because at least I have got a few relatives Who are in B2B business But cost quality Serviceability Customization Basically in the first three eras of economics But I still feel there is an experience That would be happening When you and your team would be going And meeting them And pitching your ideas And convincing them why you are nice And you know probably hanging out with them It is very subtle But most of the times Which is very easy to see through That you do not have authenticity It is very easy to see through What are you saying This is given There is something additional That you can still apply But not in the shape of technology Not in the shape of art or design But in how you communicate How do you partner Because at the end You are not dealing with an enterprise You are still dealing with a human At that moment in time So there will be subtlety there Now I am not sure how critical it may be Maybe it is not Everything boils on to hard cost I am not fairly experienced Or qualified to call that And it starts by coming to the meeting on time Keeping your phone switched off Being attentive Small Just being very humble in my opinion It has helped me Get jobs like you did not At the end of the day We somehow lose this human touch Most of the time Because things just become small It becomes co-orted But I still feel that There is that small edge of one person That you can definitely get Everything else is equal So Just in the essence of time I think this is a great conversation Probably we can hardly know And brainstorm some of those things I would love to be there But the answer is fairly straightforward Do not do that Please Do not burn money I have personally been In every company including mine Have faced this problem So it is not about people It is not about companies It is just that designer type Did you see Luke Skywalker in the wide dress That is the problem of that type And that problem is At the end What is the need that you are trying to solve Online Even a wireframe diagram Can be presented to the user And the user will say I get what is doing That is the first part Now you can make whatever else You point on top of it And make sure that I get part does not get removed And that is it So It is probably training your team Getting into the lab As early as possible Right You need to get it inside the lab As early as possible Even if five people say I do not like it Keep on pushing In a usability lab You need to come out by saying 9 out of 10 say awesome I think usability lab can determine your NPS score Anything below 8, 9, 10 Do not build it Absolutely So the short answer is There is absolutely a method The light is going to cast the shadow And what parts of the body will get And hence what feeling it will generate That is the science That is not making things from air You can totally take a camera Put it here And show an up shot You are going to make anybody look like a badass awesome hero You take the camera up Get it in an angle of 65, 64 degrees And do a long shot You are going to make him feel depressed Those are science And those are things of trade There is no time And now only we are seeing that Well you are talking about that Now other teams who are not in entertainment Is consuming that So I recommend you to read a book called Save the Cat Go and read the book That is the most insane book of What is the formula of making a movie And you will kid you not It is actually a formula It is actually Excel sheet Book It is unbelievable So there is lots of methods And the authenticity part At what point of using the formula It becomes Well this is a copy paste Is no longer authentic Now that is where that tug of war happens But I think that is the 20% of the top Not 80% of the bottom So first of all I would just rephrase it There is no dark side There is just the side And that is just the dream of that person Dark We have actually blacklisted So basically make the green butter Slightly more greener because you can get more CTS on top of it So my recommendation is simple Step one If you are a product manager Or if you are a deserter Keep ego in check You are not greater than the customer At any cost ever in this life Step one Is the hardest one If you get this right Everything has become simple As help from your colleague Or help from the customer By help means usability lab is a help You are seeking help What does help do Help is going to remove the drag and friction All the time As soon as your designer says I want to be working from home Because I want to sit in a corner And come up with the idea No no no no no You can finish your work there Because you need quietness But if you are sitting in a well In youngsters Please invest in youth People like me Are getting very quickly outdated If you invest in me You will only get gyan If you invest in a youth You will get work So that's the difference That's the third one Okay thank you