  

I struggled a lot with this particular deployment, hence adding it here for my own future reference
## Setting up GCP
- Create a GCP instance. I am creating a e2 micro
- Allow HTTPS / HTTP.
- Open SSH
```
sudo passwd root  
# Input your new password  
# Confirm new password  
# Verify password by login  
su root  
# Input your new password
```
- Firewall policies have to be configured (TO be added)
## Installing libaries

### Postgresql
```
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y postgresql postgresql-contrib
```

```
sudo systemctl status postgresql
```

- Login to postgresql
```
sudo -u postgres psql -d financedb
```

```
ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'your-secure-password';
\q
```
### Install Node

- I am installing node v.20.x
```
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs
```

### Nginx
```
sudo apt install -y nginx
```

- You can check Nginx configuration
```
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
```

```
server {
        listen 80 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server;
        root /var/www/html;
        index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
        server_name _;
        location / {
                # First attempt to serve request as file, then
                # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
                try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }
}
```

```
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```

- Verify Nginx
```
sudo nginx -t
```
- Check by going to the public IP OR
```
netstat -tulnp | grep LISTEN
```

### Installing Bun
- First install unzip
```
sudo apt install -y unzip
```

```
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
```

```
source ~/.bashrc
```

### Installing pm2

```
bun install -g pm2
```


## Connecting to Github

```
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your-email@example.com"
```

```
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
```

- Go to [keys](https://github.com/settings/keys) and paste your SSH keys
- Run the following 
```
ssh -T git@github.com
```

```
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y git
```

## Starting the app

### Clone the repo
- Clone your git repository on gcp vm.
```
git clone gitsshurl
```

- cd into your app and edit environment 
```
touch .env && nano .env
```

- Build server files
```
bun run build
```
### Start server
```
pm2 start "bun run start" --name "my-app"
```
- Check if the pm2 is running by 
```
pm2 list
```
- Run this just
```
pm2 save  
pm2 startup
```

### Configure Nginx
- Create a new file
```
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/my-app
```

- Copy something like this
```
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name YOUR_GCP_IP;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;  # Change 3000 if needed
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}

```
- Save and exit (`CTRL + X`, then `Y`, then `Enter`).
- Enable the config and restart nginx
```
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/my-app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t  # Test for syntax errors
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```

- Check if your app is running
```
ss -tlnp | grep node
```

### Domain
- Go to your **domain registrar** (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.) and:
- Add an **A record** pointing your domain to for your IP
    - **Type:** A
    - **Name:** `@` (or `yourdomain.com`) or subdomain
    - **Value:** `GCP_IP`
    - **TTL:** `Auto` or `3600 seconds`
- Check if changes are done by running on your local terminal
```
ping yourdomain.com
```

- Update the domain
```
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/my-app
```

```
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}
```
- Don't add yourdomain.com if you only want to run on a subdomain
- Restart Nginx
```
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```
### HTTPS 
- install certbot
```
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
```

- Then **run Certbot**:

```
sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com
```

- It will ask for an **email** (for renewal reminders).
- Agree to the terms.
- Choose `2: Redirect` to force HTTPS.
- If successful, it will say: `Congratulations! Your certificate has been issued.`
- Ensure Certbot auto-renews your SSL before expiration:
```
sudo systemctl enable certbot.timer
```

- Manually test renewal:
```
sudo certbot renew --dry-run
```
- Verify by going to your site

## Setting up cron

```
crontab -e
```
- Add your cron like this
```
0 * * * * /usr/bin/node /home/path-to-project/app/jobs/cron.js >> /home/user/logs/cron-info.log 2>&1
```
- Restart cron file
```
sudo systemctl restart cron
```
- To check if it is running
```
crontab -l
```
- Check log files
```
cat /home/user/logs/cron-info.log
```

## Debugging

### Check if NGINX is Running

```
sudo systemctl status nginx
```

It should show **"active (running)"**
### Check NGINX Error Logs

```
sudo journalctl -u nginx --no-pager --lines=50
```
### Check Open Ports

```
sudo netstat -tulnp | grep nginx
```
- You should see something listening on **port 80**.
### Verify Your Nginx Config is Enabled

- Make sure your custom config (`my-app`) is **symlinked** in `sites-enabled`:

```
ls -l /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
```

- You should see:
```
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/my-app -> /etc/nginx/sites-available/my-app
```
- If **it’s missing**, create the symlink again:
```
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/finance-app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ 
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```

I struggled a lot with this particular deployment, hence adding it here for my own future reference

Hosting a react-router application on GCP


This was by far my biggest learning till now as a PM at Razorpay. What my leaders sometimes call being "aggressive" or "loud". I think it is about being noticeable but not in a selfish way but noticeable so that you can influence better. 


Being able to influence is what differentiates a great and good PM in my opinion. But to influence well, you need to have 
1. Good communication skills both written and verbal, which honestly is table stakes for a product manager
2. Having strong conviction

The second is the key and it is not easy. At least for me, I realised, I cannot be "loud" or "aggressive" if I do not have enough conviction in what I am building. 

Having strong conviction means doing your homework well. Exploring the market, reading research docs, talking to customers, doing small experiments, having wins under your belt, all help in having conviction. 

Once you have that, convincing and influencing is a lot easier. 

But products fail and you will be proven wrong. Yet, it is better to fail having done all the convincing and after being "loud", rather than being someone who does the small things right silently. 

> Choose being wrong loudly, than being right silently.




Wrong loudly, than being right silently


I've used Fold recently and honestly I was underwhelmed. All it did was allow me to add a tag to my expenses and sometimes, by learning from my transaction history, it could tag the expense automatically. 

## But here is what I wanted
1. Budgets: Tags are good but then what about the next step? I don't know how much I spent on food and drinks this month or more importantly, how much I can spend on food and drinks this month.
2. How have expenses in each of my categories changed over time?
3. Does not track my credit cards or other bank accounts. 
4. A lot of my expenses are done via Splitwise. There is no way I can track them as well here.
5. A lot of my expenses are shared with friends, I don't want to show the entire amount and use up my budget for the month of that category, when I know there is a promise to receive these funds later.

## Here is what I realised
- All modes of making a payment I use send me a transaction receipt ex- credit cards, bank transfers, etc. Well, google pay did not, but jupiter app did. So that became my primary mode of making UPI payments. 
- Splitwise can also notify me via an email whenever an expense is added.
- I used to use a google form + sheets combo when my expenses were smaller in number. I could fill the google form anytime I want to add a new expense. I actually followed this for more than a year. By then I felt I had a good grasp on my expenses and the count of my expenses had gone up so it became to tiresome to actually track these using a google form. 

## Ideas
1. Make simple web-app form that can put data in google sheets.
	1. The advantage over a google form was that I could customise this better
	2. I gave up because it was a marginal bump.
2. Make a simple web-app with a custom back end
	1. Now along with the ease of adding expenses, I can create a dashboard that can be easy for me to access any time. I can customise this however I want
	2. I gave up because it felt like too much effort to learn how to build charts on top of data.
	3. Plus again, google sheets has enough charts and options for me to do my job. 
3. Create a web-app that can read my emails, parse the information and then record the info in an google sheet
	1. I gave this a good weekend, but finding a cost-effective way to read emails was proving to be a challenge
4. Use features available with google mail, zapier and sheets to create a simple tracking software. 
	1. I decided to give this a try.



## Making a no-code app
*Disclaimer: This is not my first rodeo with Zapier or no-code tools in general. I have a pretty good idea on how to use these tools.*

1. Google Mail
	- I can use filters in google mail to find specific transactions and tag them
	- for ex: from:noreply@hdfcbank.com contains: "credit, transaction" can be tagged as "HDFC Credit Card"
2. Zapier
	- Find the emails that are tagged with "HDFC Credit Card" and create a new row in a google sheet
3. Google sheet
	- So I was creating a new row with the following information
		- Date of email - this was my date of transaction
		- Tag - for our example this was "HDFC Credit Card"
		- Subject and Body of email in plain text
	- I copied the plain text email and asked chat GPT to give me a google sheets regex formula to extract the amount and the beneficiary
	- I wrote a switch formula, where if the tag present is "HDFC Credit Card", then use this particular regex and dump the amount and beneficiary to 2 different columns.
	- Repeat for other credit cards, splitwise, UPI app, etc.
4. Making the data useful
	- I tag the transactions manually, which means I just have to select an option from drop-down
	- I also added a "split with" column, which will divide the transaction amount if I was only responsible for a share of the transaction amount
	- I then added pivots and charts to my liking to track
		- My budgets across different categories
		- Amount that I can spend for the rest of the month on a particular category
		- My savings and expense trends across categories across months. 

This was a fun build, been using it for 2 months. Every now and then I need to update it a little but considering it took me one afternoon to build this, I cannot be more happy. 

Sorry fold, time to uninstall you. 



Using google mail, zapier and google sheets

The app I created to track my expenses


I had my review where the clear improvement area that was marked for me was that I should be more strategic. 

First of all, it feels like a gut punch when you get a feedback like that because in my head I kept thinking, so they see me as a mule, who can take the load to a direction pointed to but not choose the direction. Fair enough. I should REALLLY work on this. The problem is - I have no clue whatsoever this "being more strategic" means. But I should, don't want to stay a mule.

Fortunately as I was wrestling with this problem, I found [this blog post](https://manassaloi.com/2020/12/09/how-to-be-strategic.html) from my reading list. Same problems being faced by other PMs gives me solace. 

## I've identified these root causes in my workflow which might cause this
- I genuinely never sit and write down the strategy for my charter 
	- primarily because my charter keeps changing 🥲
	- but also because I "implicitly" know what needs to be done. It probably sounded like a good thing, but is not. Implicit means I might be delusion-ed into thinking that their is a plan while there is not
- I also don't actually work on my craft anymore
	- I've stopped reading blogs or articles or books on product management. Probably because I found the ideas very generic. Sigh. 
	- But maybe because I don't know what I am looking to improve. So this one is on me too. 🙈
- I don't ask questions or more specifically don't question people of authority
	- This is a personality quirk I need to fix.

## How do I act on a this?
1. Create a charter doc, create a north star, plan OKRs. [Basically be better at documentation](https://www.vedantlohbare.com/notes/writing-is-thinking) (In many ways this blog is part of this exercise)
2. Read more books on product management, read on fintech in general also
	- Slightly difficult to achieve. But I have a starting point. 
	- I am part of a few communities, will ask for book recos.
3. F--k--g think like a head of product. What will Manas Saloi do? Although I don't know him, good heuristic to follow. 

- [x] Will check back on an update on this in a couple of weeks' time 📅 2023-12-20 ✅ 2024-07-25






Feedback session, get better with strategy.


I have always wondered this about my job before. Lately, I've started thinking of it in this context.
TLDR; I don't know this yet. Maybe there is none.

### See other functions could probably build a MOAT by doing these -

For Developers - they have their OS contributions, building applications, tests to showcase their technical prowess.
For Designers - they can show their portfolios, case-studies, UIs.
For Marketers - camapaigns to show, numbers that were impacted.
For Sales/Business teams - Their network.

Maybe then as I am looking from this lens, you could argue for a product manager the MOAT will be on the products they've launched and numbers that are impacted.
But that is not holistic. Bad product managers can launch decent products and show numbers - depends on the teams that are around them too.

### Is then a good product manager that critical to launching a good product?

Haha, no.

### Does having a good product manager, help you launch a successful product?

I'd say more often than not.

Maybe then the MOAT can be the number of bad products I launched and what I took from that, to ensure that does not happen again.


I have always wondered this about my job before. Lately, I've started thinking of it in this context.

What is a Product manager's moat?


I know I sound old. Like everyone else, I hate to be old and wise.

Social media meme culture made it "cool" to rant about stuff. Everyone who rants is more instantly more relatable. And I took part in this. I mean I have a tag called ["Rants"](https://www.vedantlohbare.com/tags/rants) bookmarked on my site.

Note: Believe me I'm trying to sound less corny and failing to do with each sentence.

I woke up today dreading to go to work. Working in a startup can be a numbing experience, you experience failure at almost on a daily level. And I've worked in a startup environment for all of my career. This has started to wear me down.
To put things into perspective just six months ago, I would have considered myself the luckiest if I had gotten the job I have today.

There are 100 things to rant about in my life. There may be 1000 to be grateful about. Humans are wired to hate losing more than they love winning. I think this translates in some-form over here too, that's why we like to fixate on the wrong stuff.

Reminder: Believe me I'm trying to sound less corny and failing to do with each sentence.

And Ranting is cool! But I'd rather by happy than be cool.
Being Happy and Grateful is what I'm going to focus on from now on.


I know I sound old. Like everyone else, I hate to be old and wise.

Learning to be gratefull


Start Date: 21/08/2022 \
End Date: 21/08/2022

I wrote a zapier script last week to remind me of my goals every day and it worked only to later find out the script would require a paid subscription. Sigh.

## Goals for this Sprint

### Health

- [ ] Go to cult 10 times (Easiest to do)
- [ ] Eat better food

### Work

- [ ] Think about this - how can I make an out-sized impact in my job

### Side-Projects

- [ ] Get 100 visits to tiny tea kettle page

### Learn + Creativity

- [ ] Read 1 book


Sprint-4


Start Date: 7/08/2022 \
End Date: 21/08/2022

Also, i am trying to experiment should I start the sprints on Sunday (as I've traditionally did) or on some other day. Like Saturday or Wednesday.

## Goals for this Sprint

### Health

- [x] Go to cult 10 times (Easiest to do)
- [x] Eat better food (Partial success)

### Work

- [ ] Think about this - how can I make an out-sized impact in my job (Running all day in office leaves no time to think about this)

### Side-Projects

- [ ] Get 100 visits to tiny tea kettle page (Well this is bombing)

### Learn + Creativity

- [x] Read 1 book (I did not finish the book but I did read a lot. And I'll give myself this win because it was pointed out to me that I tend to be too hard on myself:) )


Sprint-3


Start Date: 17/07/2022 \
End Date: 30/07/2022

There has been quite some gap between my last sprint and this. Hope that this doesn't happen again.\
Also, i am trying to experiment should I start the sprints on Sunday (as I've traditionally did) or on some other day. Like Saturday or Wednesday.

## Goals for this Sprint

### Health

- [ ] To 50 pushups a day - I am in mumbai these two weeks, will get difficult to stay active without going to gym (Could not complete this even once)
- [ ] Eat better food - going out leads to increase in calories (Lol this was a slight failure)
- [ ] Create a better process to stick with these sprints (Need to be better)

### Work

- [x] Finish the PRDs highlighted in the todo list
- [ ] Think about this - how can I make an out-sized impact in my job

### Side-Projects

- [ ] Get 100 visits to tiny tea kettle page (Got 25)
- [ ] Get clients for a cold warehousing project I am working on (Long running project) (Closing this now)

### Learn + Creativity

- Nothing for these two weeks. Reading in mumbai may not be possible


Sprint-2


Start Date: 4/06/2022 \
End Date: 18/06/2022

I have completed quite a few sprints this year, but this is my first public sprint.\
Also, i am trying to experiment should I start the sprints on Sunday (as I've traditionally did) or on some other day. Like Saturday or Wednesday.

## Goals for this Sprint

### Health

- [x] Go to Gym 8 times (recently joined cult so trying to form a habit)

- [x] Eat salads for Dinner at least 10 times (Moved to Bangalore so will have to re-start my dinner-salad eating habit)

### Work

- [x] Finish PRD for [Secret work project]
- [x] Get 3 [Secret work documents] reviewed
- [x] Complete atleast the 8 one-on-ones with people from other division

### Side-Projects

- [ ] Get clients for a cold warehousing project I am working on
- [x] Run google ads for a tea brand I want to launch (Yet to figure out the name + domain 😅)

### Learn + Creativity

- [x] Finish 25% of the book - Heads you win (Started it yesterday)
- [x] Optional - Paint something for the room wall


Sprint-1


The concept of mental models was probably first brought to my attention by Shane Parrish of farnam street.

### Different mental models I subscribe to

- Regret minimization framework
  - Take actions to minimize the regret for future self
- Fear setting by Tim Ferriss
  - This is one of my favorite exercises to do, but not sure if it is a mental model or an actual excercise.
  - Follow the steps mentioned [here](https://tim.blog/2017/05/15/fear-setting/)
- First principles for long term decision making
  - Strip down the problem to the lowest form and strip your mind of all the pre-existing solutions. Handy for product managers but I don't think I'm applying this a lot
- Pareto Principle for medium term decision making
  - The 80/20 rule. Everyone should know this already
- Parkinson's law
  - Work expands to fill the time alloted to it. Often found this to be true. So I try to time box my activities.
- ICE model for short term decision making
  - Impact, complexity and effort
- Two minute rule
  - If an incoming action can be done in two minutes or less, do it right away rather than putting it on a to-do list, because it will take up even more time to organise and review is later
- Always write when making important decisions
  - Mind easily fills the gap in our thoughts when they are well in our minds. If you write it down, you'll be able to identify the gaps in your thoughts much easily
- Reversible or irreversible decisions
  - Bezos introduced this to me as well. If a decision is reversible, we can make it fast and without perfect information. If a decision is irreversible, we had better slow down the decision-making process and ensure that we consider ample information and understand the problem as thoroughly as we can.
- Inversion
  - More of a mental excercise. Imagine you want to achieve the opposite of your goal and then ensure you do not follow those steps. Simple enough, I'll try to practice this more as well.

Additional Reference

1. https://fs.blog/mental-models/
1. https://www.julian.com/blog/mental-model-examples
1. [Super Thinking](https://www.amazon.in/Super-Thinking-Book-Mental-Models/dp/0525533583)


The various mental models I apply or want to apply in my life

My mental models


I have struggling with thoughts of failure lately, and I realised I need to visualise success in a better way in order to achieve it.

So these are the people I find successful and the reasons why

1. Elon Musk

   - Revolutionised space travel, road travel, tunnel travel?, solar energy and is widely regarded as A-Quality shit poster.
   - I don't have ambition to be like Elon, the amount of sacrifice to achieve that is un-imaginable for me.
   - Which is strange I generally regard myself as pretty ambitious human.

2. Manas Saloi

   - Not only is he successful as a product manager, he also writes so well.
   - I like the way he thinks about life and other stuff in general. And he is the main inspiration to start this public journal.
   - To be more like him, I want to write more on product management and life in general.

3. Jon Yongfook

   - Creator of BannerBear.
   - He is earning $30K per month from his side project. I want to do that someday.
   - I want to create a successful side-project that can earn me some side-income without having my time tied to it.

4. Prajakta Koli

   - Has an amazing YouTube channel with at the time of writing had close to 7M subscribers
   - That's a lot.
   - Its funny all of us have a mental [salary scorecard](/notes/salary-scoreboard) and this human here easily earns more than many of the CEOs in the tech industry.
   - I don't think so I want to start a YouTube channel or become an influencer though.
   - Another Youtuber I consider successful is Matt D'Avella.

5. Mithilesh Vazalwar

   - Owns a super successful cafe in my city.
   - Has a YT channel as well. This seems like a common running theme.

6. Arnav Gupta

   - Just look at this [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnavgupta), and tell me you're not impressed.

7. Random people on r/indianfire
   - People who've fired or have captured enough wealth to fire anytime they want.


I have struggling with thoughts of failure lately

Successful people I look up to


It is hard to not be consumed by the tech hiring situation at the moment. People are being paid well, very well indeed.

And yes, it sucks if you are not one of those people.

As much as I tell people I want to optimise for growth in my 20s, it is certainly difficult to not get affected by the "Salary" number.

Especially when I am running out of my 20s. But that's a rant for another time.

I am frustrated. Truly.

A 'friend of a friend' got placed in Amazon at 40LPA! This is how he explained his role to me -

> Oh! We were able to reduce the response time for one API from 5secs to 1 secs.

## I am **not** trying to take the high road here.

I want to do great work and some-times that means working for lower pay.

But to be honest, I envy anyone who is being valued at that kind of number. Which is why it sucks.

But rambling about it makes it easier sometimes. Sometimes.

Someday hopefully, I can look back and say I made more good decisions than bad ones. \
As cliche as it is to quote _Steve Jobs_, I don't think this quote of his quoted enough -

> You can only connect the dots looking backwards.


Tech salaries are hirings dizzying at the moment

Salary score-board


I hope this does not read like a rant. It did start that way but I maybe have it in control now 😅.

I was recently interviewing a few beta users for my side project (More on the
side-project later probably). A couple of the people agreed to test the app
only because they were interested in learning from me what it is to be a
"Product Manager".

I have seen so many people who have not even started their career wanting tips from me on how to enter product management space.

I understand product management can look very cool from the outside. _Maybe I am doing it wrong_ but there is nothing cool about being a product manager. I am not saying that to discourage you from taking this field. But maybe this is my way of saying, walk into product management with your eyes wide open.

When you are a product manager, **you are not da-vinci** - creating cool new inventions/features everyday.

You are more like a operator who is desperately trying to ensure that your ship sails perfectly and that the entire crew knows what their role is, what the rest of the team is doing, what needs to be done, how far we are, are we even in the right direction? Sigh.

You are under a lot of pressure and more often than not, do not have a lot of actual leverage. You are trying to influence without having a lot of power.

That is the role of a product manager.

And if you are anything like me, you will probably also have to face a lot of imposter syndrome.

If you want to read more you can [read this post by Manas Saloi](https://manassaloi.com/2021/02/11/playing-being-PM.html).

Borrowing lines from Manas -

> Being a PM sucks. It is a thankless job.


Why not be a product manager


I like taking notes. But I don't take them as much as I liked. It's like the quote - "Our actual selves are more often than not, a let down from our perfect imaginations." or something like that.

But I do make it a point to take my pen in my hand as I click on the zoom link to join a call. Even if I am not expecting to take any notes.

## How do I take notes from meetings?

- I take note of my action items from the call. As a product manager, you never know from where your new task is going to come. I later move these to todoist (My task manager of choice).

- I like to note down highlights of the meeting too. I don't transcribe these later, but these just help me keep my focus. Else there is always the chance to drift to fantasy lands on online calls.

## Why the inclination to use the traditional (or as some would say archaic) method of taking notes by hand?

I use/have used notetaking apps of all different shapes and sizes. IA writer had the best writing experience. Obsidian was the most free-flowing/non-restrictive. Notion is great for tasks/projects or making plans. Apple notes for basically, short draft notes that need to be easily accessible.
I have used them all. And with the exception of IA writer from the list above, I still use pretty much all of them daily.

But, I also feel ridiculously slow while typing for some reason. That may not be entirely true but I still feel that while taking quick notes there is no substitute for a pen and a notebook.

More Importantly,
I know I have the liberty to take messy notes on paper. Paper allows for that, maybe encourages it too. When I take notes on any app, the app defines my process, which sometimes helps, sometimes hinders.

So, when I am not sure what kind of notes I want to take or even if the note will be useful later on, I tend to skew towards taking notes by hand.


I never start a meeting without a pen in my hand

Meeting notes by hand


We had recently launched our new app and were eager to see it in the wild (in hands of real users). So we decided to conduct usability tests.

Although the initial target was to conduct 50 tests, we halted the experiment after 25. We had started to see a lot of repeated feedback which we realised should be fixed before we conduct more such tests.

Disclaimer - I do not recommend doing this. It was very tiring going through 25+ 1 hour long calls in a 40 hour work week.

### Why 25 tests in one week!?

I have always considered, talking to users as the weakest part of my PM skill set. And I wanted to get better at it. I had not really conducted proper usability tests for a long time and the ones I conducted were too far in between to give us any serious insights.

So, I forced myself to reach out to users and schedule as many calls as possible. That resulted in my calendar being booked from 7:30 on a Saturday morning to even on some occasions 8:30 in the evenings.

### What did I learn from this experience?

1. I achieved what I set out to do. I think I have now built a better muscle for conducting such tests and actually just talking to users.

2. It is difficult to conduct usability tests remotely. We had to ask users to share screen from their phones so that we all could see the screen they are on.

3. Last but actually the primary purpose of conducting these tests, some pretty glaring misses from us on the usability side.

### Tips for me (and possibly the readers) for future usability tests

1. Create a brief email that can be sent to customers beforehand. In this email, send a link of the app and a small description of what is expected out of them for this experiment.

2. _Set the expectations_ on the call too, before you dive into the tests. I used these pointers for my calls

   - This is just the first version of the app so we can change directions easily
   - Don’t hold back while giving us feedback, we would appreciate you being brutally honest
   - I might ask you questions while you are exploring the application, to better understand your point of view

3. Silence is okay. Don’t rush to fill the silence with your words. Let the user break the silence. They’ll do it, don’t worry. If nothing else they ask “So what’s next?”

4. Record sessions. It might not be easy for you to come back and view all the recordings, but I found myself going back to specific sections in an interview. Might be to revalidate a bug or to confirm the answer to a question.

5. One question that always gave me good insights was this - “On a scale of 1 to 5, how helpful did you find this screen?”
   You should not miss the opportunity to ask a follow up question and understand what made them give that rating.

6. Keep your video on. And have a smile on your face. _Basically act human and not like a scientist observing a lab rat._

7. Thank them always.

8. There are no stupid questions. Answer sincerely and note all of them down.

9. Have someone else take notes, but also have a notebook handy to jot down highlights.


We had recently launched our new app and were eager to see it in the wild

Doing 25 usability tests in a week


On my usual workdays, I am generally found jumping on one call having just left the other.

I work as a product manager and we have around 20 devs and 3 designers working with us. So calls tend to fill up any space available in my schedule.

If I say, "I hate calls", that would be an understatement.

I make an effort to make sure everything is written. Sahil Lavigna, the founder of Gumroad, shared an analogy that I loved and want to live by - Using writing as a cache. [^1]

But still, when it comes to resolving edge cases, 5 - 10 min calls work well. Sometimes, a lot of these calls even last less than a complete minute. Ahh. Frustrating. But I have no authority to mandate to stop requesting calls with me. So I begrudgingly accept this fact - that my workday will be bombarded with these super short calls.

Today, a developer (a new addition to the team) asked me doubt on slack, instead of requesting a call. He was precise with his question and even though it might have collectively taken us longer to frame and answer the question, I considered this a net positive interaction.

There was no context switching, I could easily drop back to the work I was doing after answering his query.
I appreciated that, and I let him know.

That was fun. I don’t know if it is just me but -

### I find it difficult sometimes to appreciate people in a workplace for a personal priority.

I hope he felt good after receiving my appreciation. I certainly did.
I hope from next time onwards, I feel less awkward in doing so.

[^1]: This analogy makes a ton of sense if you are a tech person and understand the basic use of cache. I won’t be able to explain the entire analogy here so click on this link and watch for 3 mins - [video](https://youtu.be/grXrGaT7DLw?t=823)


I find it difficult sometimes to appreciate people in a workplace for a personal priority.

Be lose with appreciations


Sorry for the slightly click-bait-y title.

This story started a few months ago with this tweet -
![The question](/blog-images/austens-question.png)

I asked the following question on our Inverted Passion slack group.

[Inverted Passion](https://invertedpassion.com) is a community created by Paras Chopra. The slack channel is usually buzzing with the questions, mentioned in the tweet above. I also like reading the mental models shared by Paras, have been reading them for more than a couple of years I think.

![Paras’s Reply](/blog-images/paras_reply.png)

### Writing is thinking.

This message is my phone wallpaper.

Paras’s message went like a flashbulb in my brain. I knew I think better when I write. But Writing was never a deliberate practice for me to improve my professional skills.

Now, I am trying to start my days with a daily note dump. This is to kick-start the writing process for the day.
I write about my tasks, my motivation levels or some new thing I’ve discovered.

As the day progresses, whenever I have to make a decision, I write.
Whenever I am preparing for a meeting or thinking about a product feature. I try to put it on paper.

Useful app suggestion: [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/) (for unstructured note-taking).


Writing is thinking and I want to journal more

What Paras Chopra taught me


### Update

This excercise failed. I've since moved to [sprints](/sprints) instead of tracking every hour of my calendar

---

I’ve struggled to understand, over the past year, where do I create value?
I’ve started working full-time as a product manager on a project that is very dear to me.
Product managers do that, don’t they?

### We fall in love with our ideas whilst they are in our heads.

We keep a product/feature idea in our head and romanticise the thoughts till it’s time to write the spec document. Then once the spec is written it meets the eyes of people (other than the ones that reside in your head) and that’s when all hell breaks loose.

> Every one has a plan, till they get punched in their face. - Mike Tyson

_Your baby isn’t yours anymore._ I have come to terms with creating a product that has inputs from many stakeholders.

### What should I be optimising for?

But then what is my value to the team.

1. Will I be judged on the merits of my initial spec, which was forced into multiple iterations?
2. Or will I be judged on the success of the app launch, which is dependent on infinite factors, most of which are outside of my control.

I don’t have the answer.
Experienced PMs, like [Lenny](https://twitter.com/ahuja_karan/status/1370181083224961027?s=20) and [Shreyas](https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1276956836856393728?s=20) think a PM’s job it to be an enabler. Which I admit, I had not considered.

_Side-note:_ Please follow [Lenny](https://twitter.com/lennysan) and [Shreyas](https://twitter.com/shreyas?s=20) on Twitter if you haven’t already.

### Is enabling just a fancy word for “Lets get on a call”?

I hate meetings. I still do. I romanticise the idea of deep work. To think deeply of a product and make it the best in the world. Like the architect in [Fountainhead](https://aynrand.org/novels/the-fountainhead/).

But that is a fairy tale. One product manager cannot make an out-of-the-world application.
That requires the full strength of the entire team.

That is why a product manager’s primary role is to be an enabler.
That is how I’ve started to quantify my value to my team.

> “How good have I been in removing the roadblocks for my team?”

To be honest, I am still unsure about how to become a better product manager.

## New things I’m doing

My calendar is now filled with two colours.

1. Purple - Time spent on enabling/removing blockers
2. Orange - Tasks I had planned to create a product.

![Calendar](/blog-images/calendar.png)

### What will I do with the data?

No clue. I am just collecting data at this point. Let’s see how much is purple and how much is orange, and also see how much impact I’ve created.


I’ve struggled to understand, over the past year, where do I create value?

Spending too much time enabling, that’s my role as a PM.


So I watched this video of Ryan Serhant – He said he doesn’t have a yearly resolution but a decade resolution. Another thing that piqued my interest was he said the last 10 years was just his laying foundation phase. THIS IS A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR REAL ESTATE AGENT with TV SHOWS and YT channel famous all over the world and 10 years ago he hadn’t even started in real estate. You have already built it, what is the next thing.  
He is ambitious and proud about his goals which are not limited to the next year but the next decade!Well, Let’s try this –  

## Where was I 10 years ago?
I was preparing for my board exams, thinking of how puberty hit me and well not much, right? I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I probably only read goosebumps by that age. I was good at studies and bad at sports. I was a good student, happy and had lots of friends. Even then I hardly liked to go out with friends – only occasionally.

## What did I do in the past 10 years?  

- I passed my boards and joined an IIT coaching – a big mistake. Then cracked my 12th.  
- Though I’m grown up enough to go to another city for my engineering – another mistake. 
- Moved back to my hometown and joined another engineering college.  
- Spent my first year stupidly wasting. Spent my second year wasting too, and yep fell for a girl in my class – third mistake. You can probably see a pattern here. I also started playing football regularly this time around, starting to lose the pounds I had gained all these years since the decade started.

*Third-year – 2015 already. Half a decade is gone.*  
*I joined Make A Difference- an NGO, I probably speak too much about MAD but that’s probably only because the amount of impact it had on me.*

In 2015, I also made a lot of great friends. I still am talking to one of them as I’m typing this.  
I started teaching as a volunteer in MAD, just barely starting to get out my shell. Started reading books seriously at this point too. Before this period I had hardly read books.

This is when I started to interact with people I had no chance of meeting if it had not been for MAD.

Wow, I just realised, I can probably write the summary of an entire year, in a single line. My whole life can then be written in 100 sentences or less. That is how fleeting life is really. Basically, there is no point in overthinking.

Moving on.  
2016, I moved to a new shelter home in MAD. I joined MBA Coaching classes and I organised an event in the city.  
I met tons of people. Started a blog as well. This blog actually.  
Also continued my reading habits.  
By the year-end, I was also selected for a leadership role in another event called Dream Camp. A role I was grossly unqualified for, which I later realised.

This was like someone holding a mirror to my face. I realised I had too many things to improve on.

2017 was when my college was about to end. I had cracked my CAT satisfactorily and was decided on going to a business school. As things turned out I didn’t get into the top B-schools of the country, but the process of interviews was yet another eye-opener.

My interviews were scheduled in Mumbai, my first solo trip if that counts as one. I also had to read a lot of news, which is when I got acquainted with ideas of politics and GDP and I also had to work on my speaking skills.  
Like I said, even after a decent round of interviews I did not get the college I desired. I still was offered seats in prestigious colleges so there was still some doubt in my mind.  
A friend asked me to come along for a trek in the Himalayas. And I am glad I said yes. I don’t even remember my thought process at that time, but that was definitely one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Once I came back from the trip, I knew I wasn’t going for an MBA this year. So I began my search for a job.  
I joined a company that sold insurance. At that time, I felt that was beneath me so I basically just ghosted them from the second day onwards.  
Later I joined a logistics company and went there for a week. Not seeing how this job can help me, I started to look for a better job.  
Like they say, third time’s the charm. I found Homzhub through LinkedIn, a prop-tech startup. So, I scheduled an interview with the founder of the company. I finished my workday early and met with him at his office. A home really, with two developers sitting at one end figuring some coding stuff I guess. Not ideal start. But after my conversation with Harish, the founder, I knew this was really a no-brainer.

I joined Homzhub in the summer of 2017 and then rest is a bit of long story for this blog. But after MAD, Homzhub was the organisation that has taught me some of the most important things about life.

At the end of 2017, I also appeared for CAT again. I received interview calls from the best B-schools this time. But I decided that my time at Homzhub would teach me a lot more than an MBA education, at least at that point in my life.

In the summer of 2018, I also chose to level up in my MAD journey and decided to apply for a Leadership role. I did get selected and it was one heck of a roller coaster journey.  
I was now making connections with people out of my city and out of my age group. I learned so much from that one single experience, that I will forever be in debt of Make A Difference. At this point, I am sure the people reading this article would feel that I joined MAD purely for selfish reasons, however, at the time I was associated with MAD, all these things I talk about always were considered as a by product, our main focus was always the children whose lives we were trying to affect.

2018 ended with a bang, a holiday trip with my close friends. Unfortunately, I can’t discuss the specifics of the trip here. A year after that trip and even yesterday night I was discussing events from that eventful few days with my friends.

This year, 2019 was a year of moving out of my comfort zone.  
A few highlights from this year –

- I travelled to Delhi for a business meeting
- I became the lead facilitator for Dream Camp – a role of high responsibility and yet another great learning experience
- I started cycling – a sport I would like to continue for a long time
- I took my first steps towards learning to code – something that should have been done a long time ago
- I moved to a more product and marketing related role – leaving operations
- I did Vipassana – ~~more on this too~~
- I took up a side job as a teacher to other CAT students
- I also moved to Pune – if you’ve been reading carefully, I ran away from this city at the start of the decade.
- Made investments in the market
- Bought a MacBook
- Had an operation
- Fell in love.

So a lot happened this year, But I am only getting started.

### What are my goals for this decade then?  
**Ahh. I’ll be 34 then! Shit.**

- I definitely want to start my own company or at least grow Homzhub to a level where it can be considered as a market leader.
- Invest in real estate myself/ or better mediums.
- Build a few good apps – side projects
- Work on improving my mental and emotional self
- Become independent – I mean at 34 obviously.
- Get married, ~~start a family.~~
- Solidify my relationship with my family and all my friends.
- Write a book
- Speak at events – share knowledge/ gain respect
- Own a home/car
- Become a kinder and a more empathetic human being
- Compete in at least one sporting event – cycling or something else
- Follow a better diet
- Post more regularly on the blog
- Become financially independent.

I know this is a very bad list. Bad in the sense not a very well thought off the list.  
But the whole point was to make sure I look at the big picture, see how far I’ve come and how far I have to appetite to go.  
I wouldn’t update this list but at least the exercise is complete. I’ll mark a thing done in my to do.  
On to the next one.