“A lot of village life seems to be about carrying sticks” — Observed by my Kiwi friend on his first trip to a village in South India.

This is a story about village life…
Of sugarcane, paddy fields and coconut trees
Bullock carts, bullocks on carts
Tamil music on Kannada soil
Rivers, bridges over rivers
Making wishes and throwing coins into rivers under bridges
Of cycles, cycles carrying sticks, more sticks and less people
The smell of sugarcane in the air

Eucalyptus trees, eucalyptus tinged breeze…
Open window car breeze
I can’t open my eyes kinda breeze
Keep-your-mouth-open-till-your-tongue-dries breeze
Breeze that knots up your hair
Breeze for the sake of…

If you can measure it, you can change it.

In my previous post, I introduced Meetr — an app I built as part of the CodePath Android bootcamp to make group scheduling easy and applied Stanford d.school’s Design Thinking framework.

Below I will apply Dave McClure’s AARRR Startup Metrics model to describe Meetr’s product marketing efforts. The 5 steps are: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, & Revenue.

I learnt these concepts at Product School and during my M.S. Software Management program at CMU Silicon Valley.

Applying the AARRR model to Meetr.

Acquisition — How users will find Meetr

1. Facebook ads (Because two thirds of online adults claim to be Facebook users)
2. Tumblr Ads (Because 13% of Internet users between the ages of 18–29 use Tumblr.) …

A human-centered, prototype-driven process for innovation that can be applied to product, service, and business design.

Design Thinking is a simple framework to use while iterating through the product development lifecycle.

To illustrate how simple it is to use this framework for your next project, I’ll apply Standford d.school’s design thinking approach to Meetr — an app I built as part of the CodePath Android bootcamp. I’ll also apply the concepts I learnt in my M.S. Software Management program at CMU Silicon Valley and at Product School.

The Problem

Planning an event with friends is a chaotic experience. There are usually several email threads and messages going back and forth to try and figure out where and when to meet. Everyone is spammed by emails and messages as they try to work out the logistics. …

Over prepare, then go with the flow — Regina Brett

I put this checklist together at Product School for Meetr, a group scheduling app I built at an android bootcamp. Large parts of this checklist were put together from this very comprehensive answer on Quora and this post on Kissmetrics.

Before launch

Competitive Analysis and Positioning

• Look at competing apps on app store to see what the target audience is looking at. Note the categories they are listed under, the list of features, and reviews.
• Determine the Unique Selling Proposition of app and then work on positioning based on target audience.

Design, Assets and…

Personas are a great way to capture everything you’ve learnt about your user. They represent the user types that will use your product. The key is to weave together a relatable story about who this person is and what their needs are. A persona helps you build empathy for your user. Having a persona to refer to while building your product serves as a reminder to always put the user needs first. At Product School, I learnt that you begin by making a persona that represents your largest user type, and focus on building a product for them. A persona usually has the following:

• Demographic information
• Characteristics
• Needs in the user’s voice
• A quote in the user’s voice
• Photo and name you can relate to

Originally published at medhaghatikesh.com.

I put together an image to capture a day in the life of a Product Manager from the lessons I learnt at Product School. A kick ass Product Manager would swear by these concepts.

Compiled from lessons taught at Product School by Hamid Schricker and Ken Norton’s tips on working with engineers.

I am a hustler. I will get shit done. I will ship. I will find a way — no ifs, no buts. I will prioritize ruthlessly. I will fail fast and learn fast. I have razor sharp focus. No excuses.

I will speak clearly and concisely. I will adapt to my audience. I won’t be afraid to say NO. I will find my voice. I will speak with presence. I will get out and talk to the people I’m building products for.

I will treat whatever I touch as a product. …

I’ve been wearing the Moto 360 I received at Google I/O for a couple of weeks now, and a lot of people have been asking me whether I like it. The truth is, I haven’t made up my mind yet, and it’s not that easy to do so either. While there are some instances where I’ve been pleasantly surprised by new kid on the block that’s found its home on my wrist, there are times when I’ve been plain annoyed by it. Anyway, here are my top 10 first impressions about the Moto 360:

1. The Moto 360 is like a glorified notification filter, but it does its job well. I now don’t have to open my phone to clear those unwanted notifications — I can just dismiss them from my wrist and never see them again. I could be doing this while I’m walking, while standing on the train, while at my desk. It reduces the need to reach out for my phone every time an attention craving notification comes through. Someone commenting on someone’s post that I liked on Facebook, someone following me on Twitter, someone sending me a friend request on LinkedIn, a recurring meeting invite for a meeting that never happens but someone forgot to delete, are all filtered on my wrist and I only need to attend to the really important ones on my phone. Initally, I would get the same notifications on my Mac, my phone, and my watch, tripling the annoyance factor. But having diverted all notifications to the watch, I now have the satisfaction of swiping away the needy, flow disrupting, self-centered notifications for good. …