Anshul Agrawal

One thing I’ve often noticed while working with marketplace founders is that many growth challenges actually start with the product. In my recent conversation on #OneInABillion, Akhilesh Kumar, founder of Super Aqua, spoke about a phase when nearly 80% of his orders were getting returned. Instead of accepting it as the norm, he went back and reworked the fundamentals by improving packaging, refining the membrane housing, and focusing on the product experience. Over time, the same product that was driving returns started driving growth. Watch the full episode of #OneInABillion: https://lnkd.in/g5ksHEka

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Most Product Managers are "Wikipedia Managers." Dinesh Agarwal, CEO of IndiaMART InterMESH Limited, coined this term recently and it should sting. It describes PMs who believe they understand a market because they've read the PDFs, analyzed the keywords, and stared at the dashboards. He coined "Wikipedia Managers." I call the pattern it creates: Desk-bound Discovery. And in product, I call it a Strategic Liability. In an era of LLMs and synthetic data, the Wikipedia Manager is more dangerous than ever because now they can generate confident-sounding nonsense at scale. Here's what Ground Truth actually looks like, and what no model will ever capture: 1. The Verbal vs. Official Gap Official tile industry documents say "300mm x 300mm." Every contractor on the ground buys in "1 ft x 1 ft." Train your AI on official documentation, and you’ve built a high-fidelity model of a world your customer doesn't actually inhabit. 2. The Unit of Thought vs. The Unit of Sale Steel prices are published per kg. In the Mandis, nobody buys in kg, they buy in tonnes. If your PM is optimizing for "price per kg" behavior, they're solving for the wrong Unit of Economics entirely. 3. The Un-Googlable Cultural Signal National partnership firm density in India: ~10%. In Gujarat: ~22%. You won't find the "why" in a dataset or a Figma prototype. You find it by walking wholesale markets and realizing that in certain regions, Trust is the primary API. The internet has made it dangerously easy to feel informed without being grounded. If your roadmap or your AI model only contains things learned from a screen, you aren't discovering. You're summarizing the past. Real innovation happens when a PM brings back a signal that doesn't just support the data, but contradicts it. Product Leaders: when was the last time a PM on your team brought back a signal the data didn't predict? P.S. This is the Data Moat nobody talks about. You can't scrape ground truth. You have to earn it. #AIProductManagement #ProductDiscovery #GroundTruth #B2BStrategy #IndiaMart #DataMoats

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From Discounts to Differentiation: The 3 Phases of D2C Growth When I look back at the last decade of D2C, I see it as a story told in three chapters — each with its own challenges, opportunities, and playbooks: Phase 1: Tech + Discounts (2012–2018) Back then, building and maintaining a website was a real challenge—fragile systems, frequent downtime during traffic spikes, and very limited tools. At the same time, “discounts” were the strongest lever for growth. Customer acquisition was transactional, with brand trust often taking a backseat to “big sale” banners. Phase 2: Shopify + Instagram (2018–2024) Then the landscape shifted. Shopify lowered the “tech entry barrier”—suddenly anyone could launch a brand without a tech team. Instagram became the new-age storefront: reels, UGC, and influencer-led storytelling fueled organic discovery. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) was still manageable, and creativity beat deep pockets. This phase saw an explosion of brands—hundreds trying to capture consumer attention. Phase 3: Product + Brand + AI (2024 onwards) Now, we stand at the third chapter. Discounts and easy distribution are no longer enough. A truly differentiated product is the ticket to even enter the race. Brands have to solve for trust and preference—that’s what keeps customers coming back when lookalike products are just a click away. And AI adoption has become a game-changer: from cost optimization in operations, to personalizing customer experiences, to supercharging decision-making. The D2C companies that effectively marry product innovation, brand building, and AI will set themselves apart. The journey from “discount-driven transactions” to “trust-driven relationships” tells us one thing: the only constant in D2C is change.

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We (HelloPM) are soon releasing another interesting conversation on the best product cultures with Anuj Rathi sharing learnings from his times at Swiggy . The full episode will be out soon. Here’s a sneak peak. Ankit Shukla Bhavishya Bharadwaj #productmanagement #culture #leadership

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~~The Fantastic World of Product Managers and Where to Find them !~~ A few days back, Ketan Das and I were preparing the product roadmap to achieve some amazing goals. By the end of a fruitful discussion, he told me - he always liked Product Management and if he were not leading the business, he would have loved to be a Product Manager. I told him that by definition, he IS the Product Manager and in my current role I am more of a Product Owner. After all, by definition, a Product Manager drives product development by defining its strategy, roadmap, and features based on customer needs. They balance business, technology, and user experience, coordinate cross-functional teams, and are responsible for the product's success and outcomes. This is what he already is doing. But this conversation raised a larger thought in me: the term "Product Manager" is quite misunderstood. After all every organisation has Product roles, but each role has different responsibilities. If you look around, no 2 Product managers are doing the same job. Although when you research online, every blog or article is hell bent on defining the product roles in rigid definitions. Whereas Product Management is a Spectrum of different Roles, responsibilities and use cases. So I did what I do best, went back on my 11 years of experience working in 5 different domains and creating a spectrum of Product roles and their responsibilities that you can come across. Here's a table of Product roles and their responsibilities depending on what type of organisation you are working in. Your title may differ, but you might find yourself sitting in one of these grids depending on your day-to-day. Or Maybe I am Wrong :) Tell me what you feel about this:-

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Context Engineering!!! Have you heard of it ? Karpathy, Shopify CEO, and Cognition Founder are all talking about it. And it’s not just a buzzword — it’s how production-grade AI actually works. "If prompt engineering is about writing good instructions, context engineering is about giving the AI everything it needs to actually do the job." Context Engineering is the practice of designing systems that supply the AI with the right information at the right time. It’s about making sure the AI has what it needs beyond the prompt, so it can solve real problems. There are 4 ways you can build context-aware AI systems today - Read more here to know about it : https://lnkd.in/gs3XZryM #AI #LLM #ContextEngineering #PromptEngineering #LangChain #CognitionAI

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CityMall operates as a marketplace connecting community leaders (resellers) with local buyers. Leaders receive bulk deliveries from CityMall and distribute them to customers. Its app is available on Google Play and App Store. CityMall is now present in 60+ cities across Delhi NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, and Bihar, and claims a 2x year-on-year growth trajectory in recent years. On the financial front, the company’s operating revenue rose 21.3% to INR 427 Cr in FY24 from INR 352 Cr in FY23, with product sales contributing about 91.7% at INR 391.57 Cr. However, its net loss widened 9.6% to INR 159 Cr in FY24 from INR 145 Cr in the previous year. Angad K. Naisheel Verdhan Rahul Gill

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"Facebook Eyes Indian Startup Little Eye Labs" - that was The Wall Street Journal headline back in late 2013. I was in product engineering services at the time, right when mobile app development was just taking off. Little Eye Labs, started in 2012, had built an application performance monitoring tool for Android apps. Facebook acquired them in 2014 (couple of months after WSJ's report) for a solid 2-digit million USD deal. Their first, and probably only, acquisition of an Indian startup. When we started Finotes, we made it a point to meet Kumar Rangarajan, co-founder of Little Eye Labs. Given that we were building in the mobile observability space, his insights and learnings were incredibly valuable. Recently, after our rebranding, yours truly and Don Peter caught up with him again. This time to walk him through the new capabilities we’ve been building - user journey mapping for bugs, and our MCP interface that enables coding agents to proactively fix critical issues. The one-hour conversation flew by. His perspective on the current market and how Appxiom should position itself in the #AI era was sharp, practical, and deeply insightful. It’s a good reminder. Products aren’t built by internal teams alone. They’re shaped by the ecosystem, and by conversations with people who’ve been there and done that.

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Peeko, a babycare quick-commerce startup, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Several angel investors also joined the round, including Maninder Gulati (former OYO chief strategy officer), Kunal Bahl and Abhishek Goyal (Tracxn cofounders), Nitin Gupta (founder & CEO of Uni), and Arjun Vaidya(cofounder of V3 Ventures). The Bengaluru-based company plans to use the funds to improve its products, expand supply, and grow its team. Chetan Sharma | Abhijit Gairola | Vivek Khetan 🔗 Read full article link in comment #peeko #quickcommerce #funding #seedround #startupnews #businessupdate

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India's AI startup ecosystem is experiencing a groundbreaking transformation, booming with unprecedented growth in funding, innovation, and adoption. This isn't just big news; it's a testament to India's burgeoning tech prowess, fueled by a massive talent pool, increasing digitalization, and robust government backing through initiatives like the National AI Strategy. We're seeing significant advancements across critical sectors like healthcare, fintech, edtech, and enterprise solutions. For professionals, entrepreneurs, and investors, this translates into immense opportunities for career growth, skill development, and impactful contributions on a global stage. While challenges around data privacy and ethical AI persist, the overall trajectory is overwhelmingly positive, positioning India as a key player in the global AI landscape. How can we, as a community, further support this growth and ensure sustainable, responsible innovation? https://lnkd.in/gwAtfw5X #IndiaAI #AIInnovation #StartupEcosystem

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Recko’s $150M Exit to Stripe. I sat down with Co-Founder Saurya Prakash Sinha to unpack the story behind one of India’s biggest B2B SaaS acquisitions — and what it really takes to build for a $100M+ outcome. We dive deep into: 1. Why companies get acquired? 2. How companies are evaluated for Acquisitions? 3. Why $100M+ Acquisitions are rare? 4. How to Build if there's Zero Validation? 5. Why Stripe understood what VC's couldn't 6. How to raise when investors follow success playbooks? 7. How to find the real value your product adds? 8. What to expect when building products in finance? 9. What did Recko solve for Myntra that Big Four couldn’t? Watch the full episode: Youtube: https://lnkd.in/gwW84mur Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gGHMCqV8 Apple: https://lnkd.in/gDSesRm3

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SCOOP: Tiger Global-backed fintech unicorn BharatPe carried out its first secondary transaction since 2021 through wealthtech platform Wylth. As part of the deal, Gujarat-based family offices acquired 2.6% from the 27% common equity pool at the valuation of $2.85 Bn.

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The Ken App Teardown and Redesign Almost a year ago, The Ken published a series of articles critiquing the evolution of Product Management, arguing that the role has devolved into a soulless, bureaucratic function. One standout piece was: "Who Killed the Art of Product Management in India?" The central idea? We've traded the artist in the product manager for the scientist. Intuition is losing ground to analytics. As someone with an engineering background, I didn’t fully agree, but the debate stuck with me. So, I decided to break down The Ken's own mobile app and offer a few redesign suggestions. I love the app. It’s probably my most-used app over the last three months. Its clean, clutter-free design is a rare delight in the Indian app ecosystem. In the spirit of the article, this teardown doesn’t rely on any frameworks or matrices. Just a simple, intuitive UI/UX audit with actionable suggestions. Would love to hear what others think Link to Ken's article - https://lnkd.in/gq69nbBZ

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We attended the exclusive AI mixer hosted by Kalaari Capital in partnership with Atlassian last week and was an insightful experience that went beyond surface-level discussions. The event brought together AI founders, product builders, and engineering leaders who are deeply involved in shaping India's AI innovation landscape. The panel conversation hosted by Sampath from Kalaari with panelists from Google DeepMind India and startup founders from Finance and Healthcare, was particularly revealing, illustrating how frontier AI models are advancing at a breathtaking pace and the strategic imperative for startups to evolve product development and deployment accordingly. From a CTO viewpoint, this session sharpened several key perspectives: The rapid iteration cycles and scale of frontier models impose new demands on infrastructure and AI product design, pushing startups to rethink their engineering approach towards agility and resilience. India’s AI ecosystem gains strength through collaborative conversations that blend startup pragmatism with insights from global AI research leaders, fostering innovation rooted in real-world problems. Building AI-native products requires a layered integration of models with domain knowledge—whether in healthcare, retail, or any other area—to deliver meaningful and scalable solutions. Both Rashmi Sehgal and I genuinely enjoyed the conversations in the room and walked away with a lot to think about. Events like this show India's AI ecosystem is balancing big dreams with real execution.  Thanks to Kalaari Capital and Atlassian for this wonderful event. Sampath P, Simran Khurana, Jayraj Bharat P. #ArtificialIntelligence ##AIProduct #IndiaAI #FutureOfAI #OngroundAI

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Agentic commerce is about to fundamentally disrupt how people discover products. There is an opportunity in data infrastructure to build something absolutely monumental. Investing in Ankur Modi and David Mataciunas to go after this was an easy decision for me, for two reasons: 1. Ankur is one of the most persistent, intense and fast-learning founders I’ve ever worked with 2. Their founder-market fit is unbeatable. Ankur built a commerce platform which IPO’d, he led oversight platforms at Meta, and was part of the commerce experience leadership team at Amazon. David is a NeurIPS-published researcher with experience at IBM and Cohere, whose academic work with MIT is at the bleeding edge of LLM research Ankur and David have built an infra platform that might fundamentally change commerce. In weeks, they've signed brands doing hundreds of $m in GMV. They’ll be talking in more detail about their plans today, at the Entrepreneurs First demo day in SF.

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Title: Beyond the Pitch: A Practical Playbook for Vetting Founding Teams in AI/ML Startups Subtitle: Real-world filters to identify investable founders before the term sheet This is from a real email that I sent to a Venture Capital firm in Mumbai (during my Mentor and Charter Member stint at TiE Mumbai in 2016): -- Dear N, Having reviewed the AI/ML/NLP startup list shared by you, I offer a few founder-evaluation filters grounded in operational experience. Here are some low-friction, high-signal ways to assess cofounder quality for your due diligence: 1. For CEOs (Founding CEOs or Decision-Makers): Ask: How did they handle a personal/professional low point? Look for emotional resilience and team-first mindset. Ask for customer, supplier, professional references and call them. Check for hygiene: Did they formally assign their IP to the company? Sign a founder agreement? High signal: Second-time founders with a history of serving customers, not just pivoting. (Note: Many in deep tech move quickly without real validation—track record matters.) 2. For GTM/Marketing Cofounders: Have an operator/founder dig into their sales process: Where do leads come from? How do they get meetings? What’s their close rate? 3. For Tech Cofounders: Organize a simple hackathon-style challenge: Pick a relevant problem, any language. The output speaks volumes—speed, clarity, structure, problem-solving. Code doesn’t lie. 4. Post-Shortlist Tracking (Pre-Investment): Track founders over 3–6 months on a few key metrics. Most diligence cycles run that long anyway—why not use that time to observe execution? Don't overindex on pitch decks or one-off meetings; some of my worst misses came from being too quick to bet on charisma over substance. I’ve incorporated some of these criteria into a shared founder evaluation sheet, adding two sample startups as templates for how this can work in practice. While the final output I shared with A evolved from our original plan, I believe this adds more value to actual investment decisions. Let’s raise the bar on how we spot—and back—exceptional founders. Best regards, AB --

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Agilitas x Virat Kohli partnership is one of the masterstroke deals I have seen in recent times. Virat invests 40 CR in Agilitas for a 1.94% stake, putting Agilitas’s valuation around 2000 CR. 📈 In turn, Agilitas acquires one8world, making Virat a co-founder and shareholder. They now get two very important growth levers: ⬇️ 1. A powerful manufacturing (via Mochiko Shoes - a 600 CR+ footwear brand that Agilitas acquired in 2008 ), 2. India’s biggest athlete — exclusively aligned. Easily becomes a 4000 CR revenue brand in the next 5 years. Footwear + retail scale requires capital — but this partnership compresses customer acquisition, product cycles, and brand-building like few others. Even Virat said in his podcast with Abhishek Ganguly, the co-founder of Agilitas that, “I didn’t want a brand deal… I wanted to build something that outlives me.” And Abhishek said something even beautiful - “An ambition to build from India but be globally relevant.” This isn’t marketing. This is legacy building with shared skin in the game. And that is how startups work - shared ambition with one goal (to make the company big) and food (read stake) in the table for everyone! A company that can be built in the long term with culture, capital, and conviction aligned. This might be the first time in India, where an athlete joins hands with a sport company to re-imagine and build the sport ecosystem of India - truly revolutionalising the game with a clear vision. 🙌

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Bye bye Whoop 👋 The Google Fitbit wave is about to shake up the India market 🇮🇳 For the longest time, Whoop built a strong niche around serious fitness users but its subscription model made it hard to scale in a price-sensitive market like India. Now enter Google's Fitbit Air. Here’s why this could be a big unlock in India: → No subscription friction Pay once vs recurring fee - that’s a huge behavioural shift for Indian consumers. → Mass affordability + scale Fitbit sits at a far more accessible price point compared to premium wearables. → Better ecosystem connectivity Seamless integration with Android, Google Health, and a broader device ecosystem. → From niche → mainstream What was earlier for elite athletes can now become everyday health tracking. → Data + AI upside With Google’s backend, this could evolve from tracking → actionable health insights. The real play? India isn’t a “premium subscription” market at scale. It’s a value + utility market. And that’s exactly where Fitbit wins. Whoop built aspiration. Google might build adoption. #HealthTech #IndiaMarket #Wearables #Fitbit #Google #Startups #ConsumerTech

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In this week of WoodenScale AI's Founder of the week - We are glad to have Nithya Jagadeeswaran, who is building FinPulz. FinPulz is a modern financial platform designed to help everyday investors make smarter, safer investment decisions through curated financial products, structured learning, and trusted banking partnerships. Founders & investors, if this resonates with what you're building or investing in, feel free to connect with Nithya directly and check out FinPulz

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