Being scrappy and resourceful as a product manager - Avadhoot Bhambare, Womply

Product Innovation Series with Aram Melkoumov

Tune in to learn how to differentiate your product even if you offer something similar to your competitors, why you should integrate user feedback at the very beginning of the development process, and learn about specific situations where seeking customer feedback would do more harm than good.

About Avadhoot

Avadhoot Bhambare is a product executive. In 2020, he left his role as Lead Product Manager at PayPal to join Womply as the Director of Product Management. Being resourceful when things hit a tough spot, he tackles problems at their root - or how he puts it “I always look at any problem by solving it structurally”. Sometimes, he bites off more than he can chew by being scrappy and being quick to say that he can do it - but, with a long career working with Olympus, Citi, Cisco, Paypal, and Womply it seems to have worked out quite well for him.

SHOW NOTES:

0:00 | Introduction to Avadhoot Bhambare
00:52 | Nickel and dime pricing quarrels: pricing a harddrive
03:14 | Creating synergy between UX designers and product managers
05:38 | Aligning teams and skillsets at Womply
08:36 | Differentiating your product offering in the b2b market
10:22 | 3 things you can do when you don’t have enough capital to create your own infrastructure
13:50 | Acquiring the skill of thinking from the customer’s perspective OR What product managers usually forget
17:53 | Bringing user feedback into the development process immediately
19:37 | How to get user feedback before investing money in production
21:20 | Difficulties with Olympus: a funny story on language barriers in Tokyo
24:35 | What should project managers start doing tomorrow?
25:08 | Aspects of product development that money cannot fix
25:48 | Should you ask your users what they want you to build? OR Special use cases where user feedback is NOT useful.
27:04 | When should you fix a product problem with money?
27:41 | Believing that you can do it, against all odds
29:09 | Why you should focus on building relationships in your company

QUOTES:

“There will always be your competition who will be giving a similar offering and all. I think what differentiates you is how you treat your customers.” [09:33]

“Understand more about their users. Involve all the stakeholders like specifically the designers who people bring in along with your core engineers. And always think about what can go wrong.” [24:44]

“Ownership or the loyalty between the team is something you cannot get on any budget.” [25:22]
“Particularly in a corporate career, you have to work with a lot of people. The more friends, the more acquaintances you have in different parts of the ecosystem, it helps you to accelerate your work. I would focus on that.” [29:47]

Connect with Our Guest

Follow Avadhoot Bhambare:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avadhootbhambare/
Womply: https://www.womply.com/