Rough Notes

If you start with a blank canvas, it's quite tricky to get the defaults right while building apps. Previously I used to prompt the LLMs like a rookie by saying "fix this, add this, build this", and so on. Realised that the app is only as good as our ability to carefully prompt them. I came across Harper Reed's blog talking about his own LLM-aided coding workflow, I felt like sharing something...

A memory I’ve been longing to create virtually — is this experience of inviting your guests home, and showing them your bookshelf. The guest then comes across a book of common interest and we end up sprawling other adjacent topics while I try my best to connect them with the books on my bookshelf. After moving across a couple of continents, and work locations, the longing for recreating this...

I was listening to a talk by Debbie Mcmahon from Financial Times recently at Productcon recently and I was surprised by the fact that even in journalism we're seeing tailwind trends more and more computational skills required — genAI is now used to spot stories, and to spin up newsworthy headlines and narratives around these stories. They are now, 'computational journalists'...who are equipped...

My attempt towards discovering epistemology, as a philosophy discipline initially started with a benign question — How do I know with certainty what I believe is true? In this attempt, I had to meander around various schools of thought that discussed this topic in depth — from dogmatism, skepticism, empiricism, relativism and finally, critical rationalism. I wanted to know the truth about truth,...

I got this opportunity to attend ProductCon at London this year. Here are some notes from "the bleeding edge of product management" as described by the panelists and experts. Here are some personal notes from this event: - We're in the AI goldrush era, and the best way to look at this might be too go broad, instead of going narrow. This goes against the grain, and is counterintuitive with all the...

When you land on a site, you are treated with various hyperlinks. Based on the UX choices you make, you might end up preferring one over the other. You might get the job done, and head back to your earlier Chrome tab. Nothing out of the ordinary. It's an internet search as usual. But what about those pages which have no visible links on the site you just searched. It’s hidden in plain sight, but...

Analysing codebase and understanding the patterns followed at a top level has become surprisingly easier nowadays with the help of tools such as Gemini (for larger context windows), Gitingest (to convert codebases to simpler markdown), and Mermaid.js (for visualising mermaid diagrams). This is how I would approach understanding a fresh new codebase in order to take a cursory look: Use Gitingest...

My last year's resolution was to learn how to build on Rails. I taught myself the basics by following some courses, but nothing really stuck with me. I wasn’t building apps; I was getting into a tutorial rut. I needed a better way to learn, akin to being pushed into the river with a swimming instructor. So, I discovered the Founder/Hacker course, which provided more tactical insights into the...

I used to run my blog on Ghost CMS hosted on a Digital Ocean droplet for $20/mo. Now I do all that for $0/mo using AstroJS, Cloudflare pages hosting. I didn't make any major tradeoffs, I just ditched the old way of relying on third party services to serve my software needs. And I fancied the idea of building my own site from scratch by just vibe-coding all the way — By just talking out loud to...

We lack frequent usage of the 'future past tense' in modern discourse. When I was recently writing some new year resolutions, I noticed the use of 'I can', and 'I will', and found myself questioning the format, especially when I see that I'm good at making promises, but was very bad at keeping them (atleast the new year resolutions). When we write "I achieved..." instead of "I will achieve..", we...

Let's say you have to make slides for tomorrow's big meeting. Your boss wants five strategy points on one slide. You know that's too much to be put on one slide, but it's being insisted. "This gives a complete picture of our strategy". "We can't split it up." You think there is another way. You spread these points across five clean slides, one point per slide, and you still receive a pushback....

Imagine having an idea in the shower and testing it before breakfast. That's our reality now. AI lets you prototype at the speed of thought. I use Claude Projects and Cursor to build what I call disposable apps - quick prototypes that prove a point. The magic? No sunk costs. I can write 5,000 lines of code in ten minutes, test it, and throw it away if it doesn't work. This freedom to experiment...

Let's take a clear pond flourishing with various aquatic plants — water lilies, duckweeds, water milfoils, you name it. The variety of these plants provide a delicate balance, feeding the pond with nutrients, and this very natural filtration system. The algae still tries to outcompete the aquatic plants, but these plants still have an edge (at least for now). The microbial balance ensures the...

As a disclaimer, I would like to mention that I have a very shabby process of getting things done. There could be a golden standard out there worth emulating; but nevertheless, this (rather easy) system works for me, and I continue to follow this— 1. Most of the work in completing the to-dos lies in preparing my own mindset. I have a standard 9-to-5 job, and this works the best for me to plan...

In the world of nutrition research, contradictory findings are as common as fad diets. One day, a study proclaims the benefits of a low-carb diet for weight loss. The next, another study champions a plant-based diet for overall health. This constant flip-flopping of dietary advice leaves most of us feeling like we're stuck in a nutritional ping-pong match. The root of this problem lies in the...

Showing proof-of-work as a designer is quite simple. You made an app, you communicated the output product and exhibit how the product evolved over time ranging from the paper napkin sketch, low fidelity, high fidelity prototypes and finally a fully fledged product. The iterations need not just be tangible, but can be verbal too. Similarly, for an engineer the proof of work is also quite solid....

I've been hiring people (and conducting more thorough reference checks) more recently now, and I've learned something important: most reference checks are useless. They're like those mandatory training videos you have to watch at big companies. Everyone goes through the motions, but nobody really learns anything. But it doesn't have to be this way. Reference checks can be incredibly valuable if...

In the book Inspired, Marty Cagan talks about dividing one's day-to-day tasks into three major buckets: people, process and product. I'd experimented with categorising my tasks into similar such buckets based on the framework by Shreyas Doshi: To make this possible within my workflow, I started colour-coding my calendar for weekly time-management. High leverage tasks are indicated with red color...

I decided to revive a long-lost interest and try my hand at cartooning. But it was an unlikely dream, given my complete lack of artistic talent and the rarity of success stories in that business. So I decided to try something called affirmations, which I will describe in more detail later in the book. I bought some art supplies, practiced drawing every morning before work, and wrote my...

While designing health campaigns for Noora Health's work in Indonesia and Bangladesh, I was overseeing the health communications strategy for pregnant and newly-delivered mothers. There were messages in a specific format that needed to be rewritten in a more easy to digest Whatsapp format appealing to the people of Bangladesh. My usual default response to such tasks would be to open a tab on...

This is a list inspired by Kepano in his blog: 1. What would you do if you had 6 months to live? 2. What would you do if you had a billion dollars? 3. What advice would you give yourself 10 years ago? 4. What do you hope will be the same 10 years from now? 5. What do you hope will be different 10 years from now? 6. What is your idea of perfect happiness? 7. When and where were you happiest? 8....

Brad Adkins, a fellow Indiehacker wears the same Mornino wool t-shirt every day. He has three pairs of shorts, one pair of sandals, and one pair of shoes. Other than that, it's just a jacket and some workout gear. He doesn't like wasting energy thinking about what to wear, and he says it's one of his biggest money-savers. "Capsule wardrobing" is where you have as few items of clothing as you can,...

Have you head of the Eudaimonia machine? Imagine a one-story, narrow structure, a straightforward rectangle divided into five rooms, in succession. There's no quick escape route here. This design insists that as you move through, you're plunging deeper into the world of intense productivity. You start in the gallery, the first room as you enter from the street. Inside, you'll find examples of...

Take a small block of paragraph and sprinkle 8-10 hyperlinks in it— Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec tristique elit sit amet diam fringilla posuere sodales a leo. Cras auctor efficitur purus in suscipit. Sed ornare lectus at nisl dictum semper. Donec efficitur lorem in nisi dapibus condimentum. Ut ex tortor, aliquam at facilisis vitae, porttitor maximus sapien. Duis...

Product roasts are the best way to enhance one's sensibility around building better products. It's called a "roast" because it often involves a no-holds-barred, brutally honest critique of the product's features, design, user experience, and overall value proposition. In the spirit of 'everything is a remix', I've liberally forked, remixed and adapted a set of questions from industry leaders like...

I recently transitioned from leading a product team in a region to a more centralised role overseeing products across multiple geographies. As part of that transition, I needed to onboard the new product lead of that region, ensuring they were fully briefed While a virtual onboarding could have covered the basic documents and data points, I knew an in-person handoff was crucial. Slide decks can...

I stayed in a tribal village in India for a year teaching children leadership skills through design thinking. Here's a story behind my non-profit initiative and how we've impacted 1200+ children from 3 rural areas (also a short segway in which I was chased by a man-eating tiger) Can children invent for social good? How might we enable children to be at the frontiers of social innovation? We...

If you think most product managers spend time in meetings, you're mistaken. The larger chunk of a PM's time is spent in preparation for those meetings - having the "meetings before the meeting", "the meeting", and the "meetings after the meeting." Image courtesy: Marketoonist.com In fact, for most one-way door decisions (decisions that are big and hard to reverse), the pre-meeting phase is quite...

Intended audience: For leaders interviewing candidates for product or other tech leadership roles A group of men eating ice cream during peak London summer started drowning in large numbers. As there was a huge number of men eating ice cream who drowned, it was concluded that eating ice cream led to drowning 🤷🏼‍♀️ This did sound absurd to the researchers investigating this curious case of the...

Intended Audience—Indie no-code developers, digital marketers and other non-tech professionals working in tech I made a resolution for 2024 to learn Ruby on Rails, a controversial web development framework famous for maximising developer productivity. In the business of building and growing products, I wanted to be a self-taught developer Sketch inspired by Henrik Kniberg's presentation on...

What's the hardest conflict you've ever encountered at your work? It's hard to avoid conflicts, but there are various ways in which we could mitigate conflict as much as possible. As a product person, apart from keeping the team running, working with stakeholders, shipping successful products, you're also tasked with resolving conflicts. As Feynman once said, 'Imagine how much harder physics...

Take Marc Lou, a familiar figure within the Twitter Indiehacking circle. He's garnered attention for openly sharing his journey as a product builder. This transparency has piqued interest in his projects well before their launch, as followers have grown to appreciate his distinctive approach. A notable instance of this was the excitement around his AI logo generator, which swiftly climbed to the...

From the place I come from, in Kerala, a baby is not given a name until he/she is 28 days old. And for marginalised castes/communities, the naming ceremony is delayed to 90 days. I never really questioned as to why this was the case. I let it become a ritual system until I overheard a conversation between some of our family members. This was mainly because the chances of a baby surviving was very...

Putting the user first has always been the golden rule in design. It’s so common that nobody really questions it anymore. We’re told, ‘The user knows best. Listen to them.’ I’ve had my skepticism about the framing of the term — user-centered design. I’ve kept myself from voicing this apprehension, afraid of being dismissed as an outright blasphemy in the design circles. However, having shifted...

Jakob Nielsen's heuristics are probably the most-used usability heuristics for the design of interfaces. If you go to their website, you might encounter these dry prescriptive statements as shown in the image. Recently came across this blog by Michael Prestonise and loved the way he had repurposed the old wine in a new bottle. It converted a boring user manual into an engaging flashcard format...

Startups are interesting even if most startups fail. I've found Patrick Collinson's argument to be the most convincing: "Part of the reason startups resonate with people is because the outcome is not guaranteed. If it were guaranteed, it would be boring… Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really...

What is an insight? An insight for Elon was: "The most entertaining outcome was the most likely'. His tweet suggests that he believes in taking risks and embracing the unknown, rather than playing it safe. For Maya Angelou, the renowned poet and civil rights activist, it was: "People will forget what you said, but people will never forget how you made them feel". A perspective on the impact of...

We might have to rethink on the definition of the 'Minimum Viable Prototype'. Especially since the bar for what's viable keeps rising up, with the likes of Gumroad, etc being built in a weekend. Notion, Figma, Airtable, Superhuman and Discord with their extremly high quality user experience has led to a highly devoted user base among tech Twitter. It would be foolish to think of the MVP of Notion...

Initially popularised by McKinsey consultants to draft internal reports, this became quite widespread as a global standard for business writing. Start with the main statement, draw some conclusions and provide some data/facts and figures for further understanding. This could be a simple way in which most Slack updates could be arranged as the format prevents us from becoming too verbose. Not just...

When it comes to task management, a fundamental principle stands tall: explain the reason before the details of what and how. By letting others know the why behind a task, it facilitates faster completion. Recently, I had a pressing deadline for an urgent activity that needed immediate attention. I had to convince my designer teammate to create a quick mockup in less than a day, even though he...

‘’What might seem to be merely the initial step — deciding what to work on — is in a sense the key to the whole game’’ — Paul Graham A good start when it comes to product building is half the work done. While running the Build program as a Program Director, a four-week program for folks to go from a fleeting idea to a full-fledged product, we ran it in a building cycle that went from (a)...

Imagine you're about to make a decision that could profoundly impact your health, potentially for years to come. You're not choosing a new diet or exercise routine - you're selecting a personal doctor. It sounds simple, right? After all, they're all qualified professionals. But here's the catch: this choice might be one of the riskiest decisions you'll ever make. Peter Attia, the longevity expert...

When I first started doing design observations, there was ABSOLUTELY no structure. I just went ahead to observe the surroundings and talking to as many people as I can. Although I did get some insights from this process, I realised that there could be a better way. There are three major steps you could follow. Step 1 — Noting down the key assumptions concerning the user. Listing them down...

As designers, we’re always asked to vouch for the user’s needs above anything else. But if the company takes a hit, all of our efforts might end in vain. To solve this dilemma, this note from Dan Winer comes in handy— Designers, don’t forget: You were hired to build a business. Show your value using the benefits over features method: Don’t talk about the “quality” of your design. Talk about its...

I’ve found this exercise very valuable when it comes to mapping both the frontstage and backstage of any product/service. It’s a terrible tool to communicate what the product/service looks like. If you squint your eye and look at it, you might see an array of sticky notes and flowcharts lined up. However, it’s the best way to understand the front stage, the backstage, or even the backstage behind...

As a product manager who also pitches in as a service designer at Noora Health, i sometimes do wonder how I could use most of the design methods I'm applying at my day job for myself. Let's take the methodology of Service Design Blueprinting for example. It involves outlining the front stage and back stage elements of all the actors involved in a system to make it lead to the intended action. For...

Some principles which I follow while doing user-centered design: 1. Involving users early in the product development process makes products intuitive and fosters loyalty. It is essential to zoom out and follow a constant process of hypothesis testing, MVP development, review, and refinement. Preparation of research requires a clear goal and involvement of the research team. 2. Utilize both...

Think about the past year, 2021 for a second. 2021 felt like five years packed into one. — Joe Biden becomes the President of United States. — SpaceX launches an All-Civilian Flight. — Tokyo Olympics happens. — Kabul falls to Taliban. — Historic breakthroughs (Alphafold/Quantum Supremacy etc) — Pandemic is not done yet (far from it) — Rise of NFTs, DAOs etc Against this backdrop, I was tempted to...

I, like several hundreds or even thousands of other school students, freshly passed out of 12th grade decided to pursue an engineering degree, just like almost every other person in town. You might call it as the law of precedents. Your neighbour (sharma ji ka beta of course) would have done an engineering degree. Your social circles, and their relatives are full of engineers, so you...

The Lead By Design program started about 5 months back in Auroville, Pondicherry for a group of 11 students from two different communities, the edayanchavadi and kottakarai village communities. It was in the initial phase difficult to get these communities together, especially the parents to allow their children to learn with each other owing to their varied social backgrounds. There were certain...