Aswath Krishnan

Most of us worry often and a lot. We worry about things that happened in the past. We worry about mistakes we made (or think we made). We worry about what others think of us. We worry about our future. We worry about our close ones or society at large. Worrying sucks. It takes us away from the present and makes us unhappy. It makes us overthink and assume the worst. Worrying itself doesn't solve problems. It can instigate actions or change future behaviors that can. So why not just focus on the action and behaviors, and skip the worrying? Catch yourself worrying and examine why. Write down your worries and follow ups to get them out of your mind. Only care about a few important things and be carefree about everything else. Remind yourself you can't change the past or anything that you don't have control over.  Tell yourself that you are human, you aren't perfect and you make mistakes. You can only learn, grow and do better next time. Be more thoughtful about the things ...

Many years ago, I was trying to pick between a couple of jobs. This was my first job change and I was very confused and anxious. So I asked a few friends for their advice.  Most friends jumped to tell me to pick Job A or B because they have heard such and such about Company A or something bad about Company B etc. They didn't even ask me about the roles or offer package.  One friend, on the other hand, just asked me questions - what's different between the roles, the companies, the pros/cons that I see, what I value in my career and in my next job etc. Whenever I didn't have a clear answer, he asked more questions to help me clarify or shared some opinions. He succinctly and clearly summarized and played back my answers. He later checked in with me as well to see how I was leaning and why. He refused to give me an answer on A vs B, even when I asked for it, because he felt that it was my decision to make and his opinion may not fit my situation or goals.  The first flavor ...

As consumers and business managers, we often confuse price, cost and value.  Price is what customers pay for a product or service.  Cost is what it costs to make or offer.  Value, the most abstract of the three, is what customers "get out of it".  Value is a harder concept because it is subjective for every customer depending on their life, needs, moods and perceptions. An avid art collector may significantly value owning an original Picasso, whereas for it may not mean anything for a regular person. Value also changes over time as the customer and environment changes.  As consumers, deciding if a product or service is worth $X is a hard question because we need to compare a tangible price to an abstract and unquantifiable "value". So we tend to make mistakes - like passing up on a good purchase because they seem cheap to make (food at a restaurant) or because the value is hard to quantify (hiring a career coach for $100/hour), or by purchasing cheap but wo...

Dos Equis beer's Most interesting man persona Let’s start off with a quick exercise: try answering the following questions. What should be the key features of a food ordering app? List the qualities of an excellent restaurant waiter. Unless you are a gifted product guru, you found it easier to answer the second question and that answer, also, is likely the better one. To build a great product, you first need a clear picture of what your product should be; what it should look and feel like, what is the user experience, what are the features and workflows. This isn’t an easy process, these aren’t easy questions. Intrinsically, products are alien to us; humans aren’t. We can’t spec out great products as easily or correctly as we can characterize ideal people. Possibly a result of spending countless more hours interacting with people and tying those experiences to underlying human characteristics.

I have been helping my dad with his new venture, Bridge with Kista , that aims to help Bridge players improve their game with deliberate practice - by playing tournaments and then hearing my dad's expert analysis and feedback of the boards they played. We have been able to get this going remarkably quickly - from idea to 150 weekly paying users in just 3 weeks.  The joy of working on any new venture is the energy, creativity and speed of execution. It is also a critical phase where your decisions and approach can make or break the product or your enthusiasm for the venture.  Here's my framework for developing and evolving early stage products.  4 phases of early stage products Product Evolution Customer base Evolution