I tried to ’Connect the dots backwards’ using 'Theory of Relativity’. Crazy story of my life!
Do you remember these lines?
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” — Albert Einstein
I noticed something similar happening to me recently. I completed 1 year at Kleverkid, I still feel like its been a week? So, I started thinking about WHY?
First I would love to share about, how i got introduced to Kleverkid. Wait, let’s make this interesting.
One fine day, I was browsing different profiles of startups at angel.co. I stumbled on this company named Kleverkid, cool name right?.
Yes, I was curious too, not much information on company’s profile page, but this Overview from the CEO of Kleverkid grabbed my attention. I just clicked on ‘I’m Interested’, without any second thoughts. I did not expect this to change my life forever. But, It did. Wanna know how?
Product Manager of a hottest startup in India. Sounds fancy right?
Yeah, I know B)
I’m not going to explain anything technical here. But recently I noticed something happening in my life, and its amazing, something like how they describe in movies.
Every single dot is getting connected in my life. Interested now?
MY TIMELINE
After checking the timeline, now you might be little confused.
Here is the SECRET
Life taught me so many thing at different stages of life. Its a magical feel when everything gets connected at once. Let me first tell about what i did all my life.
FLASH BACK
Age 4 : One night, when my parents were busy giving instructions to my aunt about, how to manage her life at hostel. I switched on my ‘ Ignore mode’, then I got busy with a pencil and paper on a table next to me. I started drawing. My first masterpiece was a Micky Mouse on a bed spread. Scene one done. From that day, my family and teachers tagged me with a word ‘Artist’ — The first dot.
Age 10 : After drawing, I moved one step ahead, I fell in love with colors. I learnt that, I can give more life to my art by adding different colors, shadows and patterns. Painting and Sketching — The second dot.
Age 12 : On a summer holiday, when everybody was busy playing cricket, I noticed those tiny papers flying like birds grabbed my attention — Kites. I just sat all day long to see them fly, I got so excited, I used to beg my neighbors to allow me to hold the thread for sometime and play with it. Then after noticing them for long time, I figure out, how they do it. That’s when I tried to fly my first kite.
I tied one end of the thread to a corner of the kite and threw it down from third floor, holding the thread roll. Nothing happened, my kite was swinging but did not fly.
Then I tried to throw the kite up in the sky and expected them to fly, obviously that was a disaster too. Even my kite used to fly, but in wired fashion and for just few seconds. My interest on flying kites increased, I started spending more time with kites and threads. Later, I learnt how to fly kites. Just flying them did not stop me, I took it to next level. I built different shapes, sizes and also few fancy ones too. I became a expert. That’s when i got to know something, I love to learn new things — The third dot.
Age 15 : As public exams were approaching, I spent most of my time with books. I used to be a book worm. Not just lessons, I learnt something more at this stage. As i started noticing about my love for writing, I wrote hundreds of pages, sometimes just same lessons, again and again, just because i like it. You know something? I used to get extra marks for my handwriting on my test papers. That’s when I understood my love for Typography and Designs. — The forth dot.
After 18 : By this time I reached a new milestone. I went to NITK, Surathkal for my graduation, I was in Chemical Engineering department. No parents around to guide/take care. More than engineering, i learnt many other things in my college days. I had so much free time in that beautiful city, Mangalore. That time I had a Nokia 5233 handset, with 2 MP camera. I started clicking photos, not one or two, I used to click a lot. I fell in love with Photography — The fifth dot.
I also joined a club named Artist’s forum. A club for artists at our college, I was so excited to get introduced to bunch of people like me, we shared our skills, conducted workshops and organised many events. That’s were I learnt how to be a Team player, in return, my seniors taught me how to lead a team. — The sixth dot.
Travelling — Those days, my friends used to allow me to ride the bike, only when the roads are empty. But after joining college, I started travelling to different places. I still can’t forget that crazy long rainy drive from Bangalore to Mangalore (Around 380 KM) by bike with bunch friends, I fell in love with that experience. Now i’m a solo biker, I go on long drive to different States, I’ve covered hundreds and thousands of kilometers till today — The seventh dot.
OK, now am done boasting about myself 😎
Now i will get to the point. I was about to explain you about, how all these got connected.
- Drawing = Patience + Memory.
- Painting = Play with colors + Creativity.
- Flying Kites = learning new things+ Not giving up mentality + Planning
- Calligraphy = Love for design + Typography
- Reading = Desire to know new things.
- Photography = Different Perspective + Time sense
- Team player = Ability to transform yourself to fit in best.
- Leading = Managing people + Getting shit done.
- Travelling = Financial Management + Time Management + Go-getter mentality + Courage + Taking Big Risks.
- Writing = This is my first blog, I’m already liking it, so by now you might know what I will do ☺
Did you notice something here ?
Yeah! Those 10 points i mentioned here, that’s my job description as a Product Manager at Kleverkid. You don’t believe me?
Let me explain how.
Drawing and Sketching: As a product manager, one should be able to visualize everything to understand more in-depth. Not just understanding, you should be in a position to explain complex features clearly to your developers, sometimes everything step by step. This process is not easily done as said. It gets harder to convey everything by e-mails or documents. I do it best, with the help of my sketches.
Painting: My love for colors did not change a bit. It’s still a part of my life. Wondering how? I work on User Interface and User Experience of our product, i get to decide on what should be the color of any button and what image we need to place with that particular background. Not only that, i get to research things like, Why zomato.com is mostly red and Why they use only rectangular green and blue buttons on their website and app. Also interesting things like, why people click on round edged buttons, more than the rectangular buttons.
Flying Kites: Thinking How’s this related? Those days, as i got to know why only few kites had tail and why some don’t. Why few are made of polythene and some are just normal thin papers. I found answers for all my questions, which helped me to make better decisions about kites.
Can you guess why I chose long tailed paper kites on hot summers, but small sized, tailless polythene kites on windy winters?
Similarly, now when i build new features, I consider factors like, long term or short term feature, also situations like, changes in product for all users or selective group of users. I plan every single step of implementation. Surprise! Surprise! I still get to decide everything.
Calligraphy and Design : Researching on different typos, combinations and sometimes create them yourselves if necessary, to use them at different sections of the product is a part of my everyday job.
I see everything so differently. It feels so good to understand why people fall in love with few products and some are ignored/hated. I plan/decide on every aspects like font style, size and alignment of content in the product. It’s not easy but I love it! Check this video if you are interested about Design and Designers.
Photography: Initial days of my college. I started exploring many beautiful places. I don’t wanna miss out any memories. So started clicking pictures. In later stages, I got to know two simple skills necessary for any photographer.
a. Unique perspective : Professional photographers click photos with best lighting and different angles, to get the best snap. Similarly, I build many features by keeping different kind of users in mind, I make sure, that everything we built was beautiful and easy to use.
I also have a special reason to compare my job with photography. No photographer can get the best shot in his/her first try, the same holds good for developing a product too. Photographers edit the photos and manipulate lights to get the best of it, I do the same by iterating my product.
b. Time sense: Time and tide waits for no man. similarly, no users will wait for your loading… loading... They will just quit. It’s a art to build something people love.
Team Player : As a Product Manager, I’m the bridge between Business team (Operations) and Tech team (Developers). Process goes something like this. I receive feature requests from business team, then iterate the request, plan a timeline and ship the products/features on time. This process involves different levels and medium of communications. Its not easy to be a team player in these complex system. But I was one of the best team player at the club, in my college days. See, now you know, how I do it.
Travelling: Everybody loves travelling, but for very few, it becomes a part of life. We are always challenged with limited time for everything we do in life. But still you don’t stop doing what you love. That’s what I did too, I make time to travel. OK, let me explain how this is connected to my job.
Usually experienced travelers are experts in two things.
a. Financial Planning (Budgeting): Travelers love to visit different places to connect their soul with nature. But nothing is free in this world. If you love travelling so much, you just can’t stop because of money. So you plan smart.
Similarly, in my job, i just don’t build anything and everything, which i feel good about. I have to decide on, what to build and what not to. Smart decisions are life savers. I already knew the mantra, after all am a traveler.
b. Time Management: Let’s say, all you got is just 2 days (may be a weekend) and you are too curious about visiting a beautiful place and its 400 km from your location. Would you cancel the plan? You don’t give up right?. Instead you will plan it better to accomplish what you love. That’s what i’m talking about. Every task i work on, has a strict deadline, but i don’t give up. I act smart.
Leader : I’m not yet there to talk about this, At-least I can dedicate this section for two best leaders i know. My CEO — Shabnam Aggarwal and COO — Priyanka Khanna. They’ve built a strong team at Kleverkid and lead us to this stage. I always believed that, there’s a thin line in between, being a friend and a leader. According to me, that’s the toughest skill you can ever learn. We are bunch of weirdos with a specific skill set at office. We don’t miss any chance for partying, they made sure to join us and also help us to reach our dreams.
Aha! Did you notice that, I still do the same things, what i used to do in my childhood but little differently.
We are trying to create the dots, in every kid’s life. So that, one day they will connect them all together for a better life, something like what i’m doing today.
Thanks for converting our mistakes into lessons, pressure into productivity and skills into strengths. You really know how to bring out the best in us.
A small thank you note for Shabnam Aggarwal, Priyanka Khanna and Our crazy people at Kleverkid. You guys helped me to reach where i’m today.
Please don’t settle, find a place where you belong. You will love it.
