Product Leaders to Watch: Three Product Leaders on B2B Tech

Transcript

Neha Shah

Hello, I am Neha Shah, a product manager, an entrepreneur who has built and launched products in the b2b tech space for over 10 years. I am currently the founder of Kutumb Village, a kid wellness focus product company. Today, I get to bring you a special product talk mini series called product leaders to watch. As part of this podcast series, I will be introducing the 13 members of the awards advisory board. 

The awards Advisory Board is an independent panel of product leaders who will choose the winners at our next product awards. The conversations will be focused on seven different product verticals, from FinTech to the internet of things. And we will be hearing, as you guess from some of the product leaders in those spaces. 

And now, I am excited to introduce you to our first guest today. Today we’re joined by Alex Westner, CEO of Xander. He is an audio technologist, entrepreneur and expert in product strategy. He has been a product leader for over two decades in a number of industries from consumer electronics, tech and financial services. And currently Xander he is focused on developing augmented listening products to help people with hearing loss. Alex, so great to have you on the podcast.

Alex Westner

Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is always fun to talk about product.

Neha

Definitely. And just you know, looking at your profile, and just you know, understanding what you’re doing, or your team is doing at sander. I mean, this gets into another aspect of product that I’m very passionate about. which is accessibility and thinking about how we can build products that really expand the reach. we can and we can bring the difference we can make with technology. So super excited to have you. 

Alex

Excellent, thank you. 

Neha

So just to get started, I mean, I talked about this already. But you’ve been doing product for a long time. And some I’d say it’s before product management was even officially a designated thing. I see you nodding so tell me a bit more about how you got started in product.

Alex

Yeah. So it is kind of an interesting story. So my background was engineering. I had a electrical engineering degree. I went to the MIT Media Lab to study audio and acoustics. Then I started working. I also started a band at the time. so I was running a band, okay, and working with a small company. And running a band is like 90% business and 10% music. It’s not really as fun as it may seem.

Neha

Tell us more about that.

Alex

Well, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s mostly its marketing. it’s positioning your band, because you’re competing against hundreds of other local bands, right? So how do you actually stand out? How do you have an audience? You have customers and you are trying to think about, you know, creating an appeal. It’s expensive to run a band, so can you fund it? Can you make some money back? Like how do you track that money? How do you pick which opportunities to go for? It’s really, it’s kind of interesting. Yeah, so yeah. My day job, though, was at a small company doing programming. I was also applying some of that business knowledge I was picking up to this small company. 

And at my first annual review, my boss said, Well, Alex, you’re not actually a very good programmer. So I love all the business stuff you’re doing for me. Can you keep doing that? I said, Yeah, of course, I would love to do that. then I had to figure out what the title of that, like, I don’t even know what that job is. And to your point, this is, you know, around the year 2000. What I learned was that what I was doing was this sort of emerging role of a product manager. So that was my first product management gig. 

Neha

Really? Wow. So if I, if I were to summarize everything you shared. you basically are telling us that you had three different jobs you somehow did at the same time, back in the early 2000s. you were a musician, you were kind of this program or any we’re also doing this business strategy work for you in your daytime job. So just all generally all the balls in the air. Oh, and I have to ask, also, for our listeners, what kind of band? What kind of music are we talking?

Alex

Oh, the band who is kind of electro punk. it’s a lot of electronic music. But it was very performative and keytars and, and singing, and it was pretty sloppy, which was sort of the punk aspect. At the time, there was a lot of electronic music that was very programmatic, and you push a button on a laptop, and then you just, you know, watch it play. we didn’t do any of that. So we had no, no loops, no programs, we were just playing everything live. And playing electronic music live is a bit messy. so we kind of leaned into that.

Neha

Yeah. And it just makes me also think about how the software in that space is also really involved. I’m imagining since when you were in the band, and just given, you know, given your experience, working in the broader audio technology space. and must be excited to see kind of the, you know, the opportunities out there. But I guess, at least in my other question, right. So in all the work you’ve done, what is I guess. what is one of your proudest achievements that you feel like was when you were like, Hey, I’m, I’m a product leader. And this is what I created something that I’m super proud of. 

Alex

I think the biggest achievement was, I was at a company called isotope. I was a product lead for a team that was making a software tool for audio post production. It’s called RX, it’s become the industry standard in that field for cleaning up audio. It’s kind of known as the Photoshop for sound. Audio, but it was used so heavily on reality TV, to clean up dialogue, we wonder, well, for example, like a show, like the Deadliest Catch at the time. where people are fishing, and you’ve got the ocean sounds and engine sounds and these little boats. and the fishermen are talking but it’s hard to hear because the environment is so loud. 

And it’s not like you’re in a nice sound studio, where you can go back and record like, whatever your record is. And so audio professionals at the time were using these forensics tools to try to get the dialogue clear. And so that was an opportunity for our company to really jump in and make an interesting solution that was really targeted towards that. Those situations like in reality TV or documentaries, where you just have to have the audio that’s there, and you have no choice. And so the team won an engineering Emmy Award for that product. because it was become so used and beloved by the community that we got an acknowledgment for that. I think that was a very proud moment and unexpected to get such a high acknowledgement.

Neha

Yeah. And I must say. I think on a day to day basis, especially most of us were so steeped into technology, and kind of our everyday consumer lives. This is also a consumer focused experience. But it’s, it’s something that, you know, I guess I do in my day to day because I don’t work in this field. It’s not something that I think about, but it’s definitely a big part of, you know, to your point. like you’re working with these, these TV shows, and other, you know, other companies and businesses that are producing media. and this is such an essential part of their customer experience.

Thinking about going to this entire nature of innovations and thinking about the product award season. You’re focused on the b2b tech industry. So we kind of already talked about this a bit, but how do you define this b2b tech space? And where does the work you are doing, you already shared some stories about how the work you’re doing fits into this vertical.

Alex

So I got so far as the verticals within this awards season here at products that count. I was drawn to the b2b tech vertical, because of my experience as a startup founder with sander, where I am a customer of a lot of business products to help me run the business. I’ve become especially obsessed with this concept of maybe call it software and a service where there are, you know. I might consume a software platform for tools that helped me run the business. And now the software providers are also providing subject matter experts to go with the software. 

As a small business owner with a lean team and no money. it’s really appealing to be able to add on a real person on a team to help me do the job that I hired the software to do. Now you’re actually kind of hiring the software and the person to do that to do that job. I’m finding that really interesting and compelling. And it’s just given me a lot of ideas. I’m seeing great opportunities for more companies to experiment with this model.

Neha

And do you think that’s evolved? You know, I mean, going back to when you were first, you know. taking on roles where you had to look at vendors and assess vendors for your businesses, right? Do you think that is a new experience, that of the software and a service? Where you have not only the software, but also access to experts who can guide you better? Is this a new development or something that you feel like has slowly become more and more predominant?

Alex

You know, I first started thinking about this in my role at Fidelity labs. So at Fidelity, we’re building software solutions for financial advisors to do sustainable investing with their clients. And what we’ve learned is that it’s really complicated to do the software. We can make the software experience great. We can provide them with tools to analyze investments and portfolios and make reports for their clients. But still, it’s such a different kind of mindset and behavior change for a traditional financial advisor to start thinking about sustainable investing. It’s much more than just the software. 

And so we had been thinking a lot about well, how can we? How can we go beyond just a software tool? Like what? How would that even work for us to offer more, you know, get into offering actual advice with the software. So that’s where we started. That’s where I personally started thinking about this. And then in parallel, started to actually sign up for services like that as the customer. So like, you know, as a founder, we use QuickBooks for accounting, which is industry standard. 

But then, as the company got a little more complicated, I needed help with bookkeeping. 

Well, there’s an interesting new start, an early stage company called Pilate. They will do bookkeeping for you on top of QuickBooks, but they basically have a team of people that are actually doing the bookkeeping, and it sort of is automated. Some of it is self service, I get a portal through them. But also I have real people that are doing this bookkeeping. and there’s similar services for like, something for all product managers is modeling, financial modeling. So as you’re trying to predict, you know, how is this product going to do? What are the drivers? And what are the inputs? what are our revenue streams and playing around with financial modeling and spreadsheets is fine. but there’s this other company called forecaster. 

They have a whole dedicated tool just to do financial modeling. And with additional monthly fees. You can add an analyst to help you really think about these problems, or even a fractional CFO, if you get to that stage. So I’m just finding that it’s really fascinating when you have these software tools that are supposed to be self service and automated. But there’s some acknowledgement along the way, that’s saying, hey, the tools are great, but maybe they’re not always enough, maybe we need to do more. And hey, we can actually supplement that with people with real subject matter experts, and how do we work that into the existing subscription model? 

Neha

That’s fascinating. So that definitely is and I think that gets to the other part of thinking about our product awards. And, just thinking about all the nominations, we received 1000s. I think over 3000 nominations were received last year. And you know, as a member of our awards advisory board, you know. you are one of the people who kind of gets to decide, you know, what, what product and it makes the cut. and it seems like you kind of already have this, this model in mind about like, Hey, this is what makes a great product. But if I were to just for the sake of our listeners. if you know you already shared a lot of really good points about that service relate that service or your customer oriented experience. 

But if you were to sum it down to say, three main points like, Hey, this is the criteria. this is kind of the big thing I’m looking for, as an advisory board member, what would what would those be?

Alex

Three things to summarize. I am looking at the service side, I think we do. We are maybe at a peak of digital, digitizing everything. And everything is an app and a mobile app and an experience. I think there’s a compelling reason for companies to start getting even better at the Human Service, the human side of, of providing the solution and also supporting it. So I would look for some innovative and effective ways that companies are actually supplementing the digital product with a human touch? I think that’s really how companies are going to start to stand out, and not just relying on AI for personalization. but actually relying on human intelligence for personalization. And that’s really interesting. That’s one area. 

But then how do you integrate, I think, too, is how do you integrate that kind of service into the solution? So it’s not like an afterthought? Or it’s not, I’m stuck, I have to contact support for help. How do you really integrate that service that supports the whole product experience?

So it’s not two disparate ways that I’m interacting with a company, it’s actually how a customer feels like, Oh, this is my customer experience, either using the product that I’m talking to somebody. but it feels more coherent, and it feels more, more integrated. Because as a business customer, as a b2b customer, like I, I kind of do want to partner, I want to have a relationship, right? I just don’t, I’m not just hiring tech. I’m really hiring a partner sometimes to help me build my business. Right. That was two. I don’t know if I have a third.

Neha

Okay. I mean, sometimes I think it’s those, you know. The top two also makes a cut. This was this, I think we’ve given us a lot to think about, you know, anyone. any of our listeners who are budding product managers, or even budding entrepreneurs. There’s a lot that you packed into our conversation. So thank you so much for joining us. Again, thank you for being part of our awards advisory board. Really great speaking with you.

Alex

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I’m excited to learn more about what’s out there. And I love this topic. It’s fascinating to me. So lots to learn. 

***

Neha

Today, we’re joined by Ganesh Rajan, product leader and executive. He was previously vice president of product line management at A10 Networks. He comes with deep experience in this space, having worked at and found in various b2b SaaS companies can ah, really excited to have you on this podcast series. Welcome.

Ganesh Rajan

Thank you. Thanks for the kind introduction. And I look forward to having a conversation on this

with you.

Neha 

Absolutely. So you’re one of our advisors, award advisory board members. And what we’re going to try and do is kind of tell your story. So just to get started, how did you get started in product?

Ganesh

I had a career that started with engineering and technology development, all the way from school. And then there was a transition towards product management, I would say about 15 years ago, and I worked with established companies as well as early stage startups. And in a couple of cases, I was one of the co-founders. you know, started being part of teams that, you know, worked on enhancing existing, or the capabilities in existing products. That’s what you begin with. But pretty soon you take initiative, and then you move on to the second week. I could do something on day one. And I’ve been in situations where I’ve been designing products and then taking them from zero to one. So background, right? 

I’ve been working, I’ve worked on products for television and for digital communications. For both of which are leveraged, I have a background in digital signal processing. And that actually came in pretty handy for these kinds of situations where this DSP was pretty new at those particular points, and it wasn’t generically available as it is available today. And so that came in pretty handy for digital television. 

I saw the transition from analog television to digital television. It was an exciting era where there was a lot of discussion on how we bring what is digital television? I mean, actually, I would let me rephrase it, because more of breaking high definition television, right. And so the high definition television was still going to be analog until a company called general instrument and its partners came and said. No, you could do all of it digitally, and I was right in the middle of that. 

So I’ve worked on advanced set top boxes for Digital Television. 

In which we leveraged the ISO IEC, MPEG two and MPEG four standards for video speech and audio communications, right. And, you know, we use it as a general instrument as well as a couple of subsequent startups. So all the streaming stuff that you saw on television, you know, everything, if it came off those technologies we built those days today. So you know. YouTube, interesting name distinct, all of those came from those technologies that we built on this. So I led a lot of teams working on multimedia, and software and system software for DSPS and 401, KS. I’ve worked on a reconfigurable computing architecture where you could actually change the architecture, depending on what you wanted to do, right? Whether you’re running encoders, decoders or combinations there also. So I’ve been done. 

So for the last 15 or so years, I’ve been mostly in product management, as far as you gain more experience. You, at least in my case, I was more interested in what the customer wants to see than what the user wants to see? What should the product be, rather than, you know, being technology driven. it is more user driven, experience driven.

So I think I’ve taken those roles more. And I’ve seen networking. And I’ve always seen networking and video collaboration management systems. It was interesting. I mean, Cisco had the telepresence come out of their labs, and they want to do a big job of the motor. It’s almost like you were here, right? I mean, the whole notion was a high definition screen, and you were right across the screen. And it was almost as if me how you and I were just right across from each other.

Neha

For some of our listeners who may not be as technology savvy, but are definitely consumers of video today. I mean, you’re talking about a time when it’s like that the experience was completely different.

Ganesh

Because it’s talking about pre-Zoom days when Zoom is ubiquitous. Now we are, we are on a zoom equivalent today. But this was before zoom for executives, you know, there was a lot of traveling back and forth. And the idea was, hey, if I could give you an experience where we thought you were right across the table from each other. but we were actually over a video like, write and write with very little, very little, very little latency.

Neha

Yeah, I mean, that’s what we saw on TV as well, right? Like, I’m thinking of all these, like TV shows and Hollywood scenes where, I mean, generally, they’re showing villains I would show on the TV. But I mean, it was something that was so out of this world, like, oh, either you’re a millionaire who has this, or you’re some kind of extra tech savvy person. But now everyone has a device like this in our home. 

Ganesh

Exactly, exactly. But the idea there was, it’s pretty easy to think about it. But you have to build a management, how do you make sure that it always works? How do you make sure the quality is good, right? And so we built the entire system to make it easy for them. But then once it became in a special room, when the intent was, hey, I want it on my desktop, I don’t want to walk through a room that can have video on my desk. And so we said we built desktop video. So video collaboration became a huge thing. 

And I was part of a group that designed the whole system and made it possible for all the enterprises. I mean, the fortune, hundreds of the Fortune 500 deployed it because it gives them that flexibility. We could not collaborate, face to face without. and I can put a face to a name and I could collaborate on that. So definitely, yeah, yeah. So I’ve worked on those kinds of products. 

And most recently, they turned and since you provided that introduction to detail, my appeal and team has a responsibility for all the core product lines of application delivery controllers. Carrier Grade NATs and firewalls and our security portfolio, right, which was led by our DDoS detection and mitigation systems. And we catered to enterprises and service providers worldwide. 

Neha

So you were focused really on the service. There was obviously the product but like a big part of it is also the services part of the SaaS world.

Ganesh

Right. So it’s not just SaaS in this particular case at 800. Dawson, necessarily SaaS was actually an app. We were applying to those. But the management could have been satisfied. So in a certain sense, visual infrastructure. Also these things weren’t there. Were on prem or on the cloud. And if you were going to be in a hybrid cloud situation, winter was how do I go from one place? From my on prem to the cloud, in a very secure manner? Right. I think security is big today. And yeah, nobody really cares about it unless there’s a breach, right? But everybody assumes that is the invisible thing as the invisible thing. Like you just kind of zoom in there. But like when it’s not there, like Oh, my God, everything’s falling apart.

Right? And then so the intent is, how do you build it in already without having to be asked about it? 

How do you ensure that it’s regulations? Because regulations are always like, I mean, it’s, you know, like those are compliance rather than actually proactive security.

Ganesh

Exactly. And I think bolting security on later is adding more layers on a layer cake and some topics eventually, right. So now I’m working with the team. Yeah, I’m bringing on a lot. I am now working with an interesting team. which is building a framework for bringing visibility and responsibility in the development and deployment of AI ML and businesses. So that’s what I’m so my, my product background goes all the way from, oh, it goes on to x or world.

Neha

And that’s, that’s really, I mean, and that’s why it’s so exciting to have you be one of our product leaders and, and be on the awards advisory board. Because we are looking for folks who can really paint a picture. not only of where things are right now, but also where they’re going. So thinking, you know, you’re on the b2b tech industry panel. So let’s just start very simply, like how do you define this b2b tech world? You know, from your perspective?

Ganesh

Yeah, so let me say, so we are in the midst of another digital transformation today, right. So there are a lot more businesses that are being more data driven. And they want to leverage technologies of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Now that’s a buzzword, I would say AI/ML is a nice buzzword. But there is an end, we could gloss over it. 

But there is a definite interest of understanding how this could help me get that extra edge, right? Whether it’s to deliver personalized or other differentiating services to my user, my end customer, whether it’s internal external? Or can I streamline my operations, because the other piece is making money, or saving money or doing both? Right. And so I think you might say, machine learning and AI has been around for a very long time. I know, you could actually trace back AI ML to 260s. 

But over the last few years, it has become very practical to build and deploy systems. it requires a change of thinking, right? And people have now realized the power of data, right? So a lot of data driven culture now. Which means there’s a lot of data gathering, which sort of leads to a lot of big data, right? I mean, so you can run together. And there were some forward looking companies in there who led the curve. And you know, there’s one company with the starting of the letter G. that pioneered the whole notion of Big Data crank, you know, it wasn’t a big deal, then. But it wasn’t that long back. Right. 

But if you think about it, the ad companies were doing that they were gathering data, in their own way to sort of make sure that the ads were getting more targeted. 

But they weren’t very personalized that way. So the personalization, support came a little bit there was there was some notion of big data. And now, with AI and ML going mainstream, why is it going mainstream? First of all this open source stuff, I mean, there has been a lot of stuff that has been put in the open source to the right. So there’s that access to increased computational capabilities. In the past, we didn’t have that, essentially, your desktop machines. And you could only do so much on that. But now, you’re pretty much you could just be your pain power, you could harness compute capabilities to Wazoo up to today.

It’s increased. I mean, you can’t see the kind of compute power that some of these companies have. It’s, it’s immense, right. and they’re building more and more chips to drive these kinds of computational capability. Right. Now, there’s more increased education, and more hands-on experience, more college courses. At the same time, the people coming out are well versed in some of these technologies. Now also, there’s more power to the developers, there is more hands-on experience. And the developers have more power to say, Hey. I know these technologies, why aren’t we using this in this company? So now? 

You don’t always have to write code from scratch. 

I don’t have to say, you know, open Maine, right, man and write code. Yes, there are guys who still want to do that, who could write that. But a lot of guys will start putting systems together and say I know the stuff. I know how it works. I think I know how it works. And something happened, right. And so then there’s a part of the developers within the company in New consumption models. like in the past, you essentially handed an appliance today. the guy says, No, I want to try it. If I don’t like it, I might pay for what I want. 

So all of these are driving these trends now for big data, AI and ML as driving these things. Now, there are a whole host of companies that are innovating and developing products to enable other businesses, manage data, use data, deploy ml capabilities, deliver insights, and potential difference, and the differentiation is becoming that much more important. So there’s a lot of innovation. So that’s an exciting piece of it.

There is also more awareness today. I mean, if you look at it, it’s not just at the company level, but in general, there’s more awareness of data, right? I mean, you and I, and even a person will speak As an opinion, hey, what kind of personalized data has been collected on me? Right? It was a factor, right? So there’s a notion of responsible AI, the notion of ethical AI, the notion of Explainable AI, and importantly, the notion of secure AI. Right, it’s all in the forefront. There are groups and companies that were involved in this enterprise. And so it’s an exciting unit.

Neha

Yeah, so you’re saying, like, with the b2b tech industry, right? like, basically, just these trends, and these changes that you described. I mean, that’s just making it like it’s growing faster than before. And so like, the challenges are also taking on a different stage. that from like, what it might have been, like, you know, two decades ago. 

So I guess, you know, as a member of the awards advisory board that you’re going to be looking at all our nominations that we receive with the product awards. And last year, we got over 3000 nominations. So you know, as someone who has built and managed and. And essentially, like, watched products kind of evolve over the last few years. when you’re looking at the nominations received, what are you? How are you? What is your criteria for evaluating a great b2b product?

Ganesh

Yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s a good one. There are plenty of good products there. They solve a set of customer problems or user problems. Probably easy to use. But um, so today, I think we have a more discerning user who says, hey. it’s got to be easy for me to use it. And it’s sort of differentiable from its competition, and whether it has a feature or two, but it’s not. But it’s good enough. or a good product is good enough that it helps the user accomplish what they need to do. And the user continuously will interact with it, and generally have a good experience. So that’s okay, but nothing extraordinary. And there could be other products like that, right.

But in comparison, a great product provides some things that amaze the user. But it has that initial, whether you say 5% or 10%, etc, right? It has that it’s built with the users or product or your workflow in mind fits into that easily. And I can give you an example today, for example, JIRA or Atlassian. Kind of tools. Yes. Which becomes a part of over to I mean, everybody uses it, right? It’s there. Now, if you say I’d take it off, and you lose spreadsheets, the guy goes, Are you nuts, right? is easy to use, and everybody thinks about it now. 

But now, if you think about it, it has a very seamless experience for our users to use, and everybody and it’s no extra work, right? 

It doesn’t add to a bump in the road, right? Just because there is this great product, I have to bend over backwards to use it all the time. Maybe a little bit. But once you use it, then it’s seamless. I think that’s important. It anticipates the user’s needs. And it’s adaptable. so used to it like video collaboration, legal collaboration tools, for example, today, right? I mean, first of all, it may just be an audio video, but now you had presentations that you could have notes, you could have whiteboards. And so as it keeps coming, you’re adapting to it. So the product that it was that you started with, changed as it went on. So you said okay, that was a great product. Sorry, that’s it, hey, there’s new features being added. But you can say, okay, it’s all the same thing. 

YouTube, for example, was a great product, but you’d say okay, for great for watching video. Particularly, it became educational, I could take notes. I could do all of that. So I think I think it distinguishes it. And so it’s, it’s great UX, the experience, user experience has to be great. But I think the key thing that distinguishes it is that the users of this product become the promoters. 

You want to go and say, Hey, guys, this is a great product. 

I want to share with my colleagues saying you want to use it, and I want to use it in my professional or personal life, but they become your salespeople. How do you convert those guys? I think that’s the new push product lead growth? How do I get the developers who take it to become my champions in the company, rather than in the past? The CIO or the CTO? You got to buy this stuff and give me the developers and say you push it up. And the developer becomes your biggest champion there rather than you? Exactly. You have to market it. 

So I think those are the kinds of things the team does, is it transformational? Right. Is it transformational after the developer says, I’ll take it on. I love it. I’m going to push for you. Right. So I think that’s short tips that I want to say, oh, that could be a great one. The other key piece that I would say is it could be a start off as a great. Are you able to finish it? I think that’s the key part. There are plenty of great products that began but never saw the light of day for some reason or the other.

Neha

Those are really good points. for all the nominations were all the folks who are listening and even folks who are building products right now. Because we have I mean, you mentioned prod like growth, like were a big advocate of the products up that count community of product led growth. I think you’ve shared a lot of really, really great gems. So thank you. Thank you so much, Ganesh. I feel like I learned a lot about just the evolution experience. So very excited to see how this product award season going. And thank you again, for being our advisory board member and for being on the podcast today. 

Ganesh

Well, thank you very much. And thank you for the mic. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, as well as some of my things.

Neha

My pleasure, thank you. Thank you again, thank you.

***

Neha

Today, we’re joined by Nand Shivkumar, who was the Vice President of Product Development at four to four. He has over two decades of experience in the b2b space, having built his career at Oracle and other large tech companies. He also has experience in the b2c edtech space, because he started his own edtech company to learn skills. Very excited to have Nand join us in today’s episode. Welcome to the podcast.

Nand Shivkumar

Thanks very much, Neha. I’m really happy to be part of this podcast and to be part of the AAB award group.

Neha

Absolutely. I think just you know, I’m hoping to talk more about this as we carry on a conversation. but you have such a diverse set of experiences, from b2c to b2b. I know your focus is gonna be b2b, but definitely want to start by asking you, you know, how. how did you start working in product? What made you interested?

Nand

So I’ve been a product person at heart. For most of my career, although I’ve been an engineer, I’ve been trained to be an engineer, started being a developer with Oracle. But as I had once in my career, I’ve seen that and I was very drawn towards, you know, shaping the product for, to helping the customer have a great experience. And then over, as my career expanded, I’ve kind of ventured into a lot of places which need not have fallen into my core competencies. You know, done a lot of product management duties, and found myself wearing that hat many times. As I advanced in my career, I had the product management portfolio as part of my group as well.

Neha

Yeah, I think that’s very interesting. because, you know, you mentioned your core competencies. but one of the things about being a product manager working in product is constantly learning and constantly, like you said, like, understanding the customer’s problems. So from your experience, right, like, what was that aha moment. when you were like, wow, like, I really enjoy, you know, wearing that product hat. whenever it’s, it’s something that comes your way.

Nand

So what started off as far as I can remember is, you know. We always had challenges in finding product managers to fill in on the requirements and stuff. as, you know, the team needs weren’t met, I found myself wanting to help and define the requirements more clearly. That’s kind of how I started into product management. Then I started being more involved in working with customers understanding their requirements. you know, making solutions that were better fit, instead of just looking at what was said on record. There are a lot of requirements that are not set. you got to kind of use all of those in to define the product.

Neha

And what do you think, is your secret sauce to being able to do that? Because that is a number one challenge for most of our product people, right, like, listening to what’s not being said? So, I mean, do you think you had an edge? You know, coming from an engineering background and working with maybe more technical products? Do you think that kind of gave you an edge and understanding? Here’s what else we could do?

Nand

I think so. Because when you talk to customers, they talk about what they see what they need. but in terms of delivering, there’s a lot of things that go into, you know, making sure that the requirements are met, and there are many ways to meet those requirements. And to understand what you know, sometimes you don’t want to take the, you know, the high ground. and say, Hey, I’m gonna take x months to build something. Whereas you can give your customer something cheaply and have them try out and iterate. So having understanding the knowledge and the technology behind helps a lot.

Neha

Yeah, and I think you raise a good point, right? Because it’s all about that. It’s all about that experimentation mindset. It’s all about being so focused on the problem that you’re not, you know. you don’t limit yourself with only one solution, only one type of solution. 

Nand

And a lot of times these requirements evolve as customers see some parts of the requirements. and they see what it is. They’re, they kind of say, hey, you know what, maybe I want it this way. And whereas in the first iteration, they might have gone a different way. So as they see things, they can say, You know what, I like it this way, let’s, let’s go more into this or, you know, let’s expand into these, and, you know, work towards kind of a slightly different solution, but addressing the general problem that they have.

Neha

Exactly. And then, you know, speaking of problems, right. As I mentioned in the introduction, as part of the product awards season, on our awards advisory board, you’re focused on the b2b tech industry. And what I thought was fascinating is, you haven’t just worked in b2b kind of bring this broader perspective from other sectors. So I’m just going to ask you, right, so like. When you’re thinking about the b2b tech, vertical, like, how do you define it? What do you think is different? And what has changed really, since your first, you know, your first role, or first job in b2b Tech?

Nand

Ah, a lot. I mean, b2b has seen so much action, that it’s hard to even, you know, define everything. kind of falls within, you know, within that space, you know. like how in, you know, different industries, you know, offer a solution to their customers, and how they, then they take those requirements into their vendors as changed a lot, right. Like, you know, everyone wants things yesterday, right. 

But to make that happen, there’s a lot that goes on in the background, right? How do the different solutions integrate? How do you let this information flow, right? I place an order as a b2c customer, I place an order, but then that order may have multiple parts. you got to go to your vendors, that’s b2b there, right? And you got to make sure that when they come back with their fulfillment dates, that’s passed on back to the customer. So there’s a lot of I mean, b2b and b2c kind of start to work so seamlessly in so many different ways. So, these are some, you know, very tangible requirements that we face day to day.

Neha

So it sounds like you’re saying like, there’s almost like this hybridization like a merging. So would you say there’s still clear lines between like, where you see b2b tech going versus b2c Tech?

Nand

As far as the technology, I think a lot of it will be kind of used in both ways. Some of the b2c technologies kind of make their way to b2b and vice versa. Like a lot of the fulfillment like you know, you could have, like, you know, when you make an offer. again, I’ll go back to my, you know, the human customer makes an order. And then you either do it on Amazon, but it’s not Amazon. There’s another company that’s fulfilling it, and then they’re using ups or USPS to ship it. So they got to work. All of these are kind of connected together. And a lot of these technologies are shared between, you know, all. 

So for example, the mobile part may be just the b2c. there may not be a mobile part as part of the b2b lot of interconnected technologies, and then how they use all these data over time. to kind of say, hey, what, how many orders are we seeing per month? Do we have the capability to kind of keep growing? What do I need to do to keep the order flow? I missed seeing certain months to be high orders, what do I need to do to scale? So they’re using those kinds of data not only for themselves. but for their suppliers, and so on and so forth. So some of these are specific for b2b and some of these technologies are used specifically in b2c, but then a lot of it is shared in both spaces.

Neha

That’s a really good point. And I love that you brought up the data point as well. Because I think when you’re thinking about trends, that’s a big trend you’re seeing everywhere. For you know, I think what used to be primarily just b2c, maybe I think now that’s really big on the b2b side. So yeah, so I think just thinking again, to the product award season, you know, we are expecting many, many nominations. I think last year, we had about 3000, I think it’s going to be even more this year. So when you are, I mean, you’re clearly involved in building great products. but you know, what is your definition of a great product in the b2b space?

Nand

A great product, regardless of what space it is, is one that a user can associate immediately. And you know, you don’t need to read, you know, a volume of instruction to know what this is about and how it will solve the problems.

Neha

Those manuals are so fun to read.

Nand

Yeah, vacation reads. Yeah, absolutely. And then how it entices the users to keep using them on and on. Right and how easy it is to onboard. how easy it is to expand, and how they you know, it becomes a habit. When a product becomes a habit. It’s a great product.

Neha

Right. Love it. Yeah. And I think when you’re. when you make that comp even with a comment about that user centricity. That is, that is something that, like to your point, it doesn’t matter almost what sector it’s in. it’s just something we’re overall looking for, in a product that solves problems.

Nand

Right, right. How quickly did users go on to like, using something like an iPhone? Or an Uber? Right? It just became part of their habit. Hey, Uber, today, you know that it’s a verb, when it becomes I know, this has been repeated many times. when a product becomes a verb, then you know that it’s it.

Neha

Well, I then to that point, right, because I’m thinking of like Xerox became a word of mouth, Hoover’s becoming a word. So from, you know, from, I guess, coming back to another, this same question I asked earlier, but from that angle. when do you think it’s also changed in terms of what makes a great product? from like, you know, 20 years ago to like, what we consider now from Xerox. but Xerox was first invented to you know, that, I mean, Uber is now old to have you think about it.

Nand

I think I mean, products are products. I mean, the user requirements are ever evolving. So if a company is to evolve, they gotta keep in time with the changes. products have timelines, right? Like what you said, Xerox, there is very little use of Xerox. So the use of that specific space has come down. So the products have a lifetime, but a company can keep reinventing and coming up with different ways to solve their users’ needs.

Neha

I love it. I mean, that’s totally what we were looking for when we’re thinking of innovation. And really, you know, changing how our lives are.

Nand

And that’s where great product managers are made, right? They don’t stop at one thing, they don’t stop at, hey, I’ve done this. I have my name to claim, and then I’m going to rest on it, right? They keep evolving. Like, you know, Steve Jobs is a great example. He didn’t stop. One thing he didn’t stop at was the iPod, right? What just imagine if he had, right, I’m just going to make a great music product. Right? He kept evolving and he’s brought that culture into Apple, right? Like they’re looking for new ways. Right now. It’s more of you know, optimizing and creating the environment around. But they did a string of products. And they kept innovating and never stopping.

Neha

I think that’s a great way too. Great note to wrap this up on, you know, innovate and don’t stop. Thank you so much, Nand, for being on our advisory board. And for yeah, good luck to all the folks out there who are gonna be participating in the product awards.

Nand

Thank you very much, Neha.

Neha

Great speaking with you.