Aswath Krishnan

It's the start of a new year - a wonderful and optimistic time where we start off with a clean slate, lots of hope, goals, and resolutions. The general practice is to set lofty goals to read 25 books, pursue 3 hobbies, travel to 5 places, etc. My story below might make you consider an alternate approach of aiming to do less.  I think I read only one book in 2019. It wasn't even a big book. It was ~100 pages on the Buddhist Eightfold path.  The book had 8 key chapters and each chapter had 4 activities. I was reading this as a part of the program organized by Insights Meditation center. We read one chapter a month, then met for a group session, and practiced one activity per week, before moving to the next chapter.  The group sessions were usually 1-2 hours long. The experts leading the program would give an hour talk explaining the summary and nuances of the topic covered in the chapter. We'd break out into small groups a few times to share our opinions and experiences on ...

December is the reflective time of the year. In December 2020, I spent 3 days in this beautiful cabin, scribbling down many thoughts - old and new - that eventually became  this post on peace and joy . During breaks, I indulged in short walks and drives around the beautiful Olympic National Park, and studied a Buddhist book on the Eightfold path and the Almanac of Naval Ravikant. I have hugely benefited from this "inner work" that's helped me understand my existence and what I want to do with it. That elaborate exercise, weekly check-ins, and the resulting clarity have kept me grounded and led me to make some bold and positive changes over this year.  Inner work sounds like a suspect Indian guru term, but I think it’s quite apt. It is "work" because it takes systematic effort and the subject of the work is largely your mind.  Beliefs, habits, needs, environment, triggers -> Thoughts and actions -> Feelings and outcomes.  We have all developed beliefs, thou...

Passions are activities that bring us joy and can be sustained over a long time. We feel joyful doing these activities because they get us into a "flow state" or "in the zone", where you are fully absorbed, chugging away almost effortlessly. You get there when you achieve a balance between the level of challenge and ability that lets you perform without interruptions and produce desirable results, which in turn motivate you and provide you resources to do more of the activity and improve your ability.  People who have and pursue passions live more fulfilled, exciting, and joyful lives, which is why it's worthwhile to nurture a few different passions. I say nurture and not just "find" because we don't develop passions by default - we aren't born with them and we don't simply find them. I say nurture a few passions and not just one because it's good to diversify for variety and just in case you lose the ability or interest to pursue some ...

It struck me today that there are many similarities between a human body and a company. Similarities and metaphors are useful because you can extrapolate the understanding of one system, usually a simpler or more understood one, to another.  The mind (or conscious brain) is like the CEO and executive team. The brain is like middle management. The organs are like various departments.  The mind, like the CEO, makes infrequent (still multiple times an hour) but consequential judgment decisions, the brain makes more frequent but more habitual calls, and the organs, are like various departments, do routine functions with occasional fire fighting. The vascular and nervous systems help distribute messages and resources.  The mind, like a CEO, is important but not all-powerful. The mind doesn't have visibility or direct control over the organs (like how much insulin the pancreas is secreting). It largely relies on the brain and organs to function independently and reliably on a d...

This is one piece of wisdom that's nearly universally relevant for everything we do - personal or professional - but is so often forgotten and worth repeating often.  Start with Why What's the goal or problem? Why does it matter? Is it actually important? This is the foundational step that determines the success of anything we do but is so often missed or glanced over. We get into execution details before understanding why; we get swayed by what others are saying or doing; we continue doing things out of habit, even though they are ineffective or irrelevant. Projects often become chaotic, fail or lose steam during execution because the why isn't clear or important It's very important to clearly understand, believe in, and align on with stakeholders. One of Amazon's core principles is to "Work Backwards"; i.e. define success and even write up the future press release, and then work backward from that. Clarity on why and where you are going gives you clarity...

Imagine if someone gave you 3 crystal balls and said your life depends on them. If they get dirty or cracked, your life suffers. If they break, your life ends. If they are spotless and well kept, your life will be a joy.  Now imagine how much you'd care for them. You'd keep them in a safe place, polish and shine them, examine them every day for any damage, and never let anything or anyone harm them.  It makes life simple, doesn't it? Just take care of 3 crystal balls and all is good!  I'm now going to give you those 3 crystal balls that determine the quality of your life.  I can hear some of you groan, "Ah not this mind body spirit hocus pocus again!" or "I already knew that. My grandma told me this." To you all, I say, most of the precious life wisdom is actually simple and know for ages (see Lindy effect). We know them, but we simply don't follow them and chase after the latest trend. Repetition and clarity don't spoil the prayer. So let...

I was playing a few games of Codenames with some colleagues. For those who aren't familiar, Codenames is a game where the "spymaster" can give one clue word that can help their "operatives" guess a bunch of team words (say, blue) while avoiding a bunch of opponent team's words (say, red). It's a wonderful team game that is fun and strategic.  I was the spymaster in one of the games, meaning I could see all the team words and the opponent team's words and I had to give clues to my team of 5 to make them guess my team's words. It gave me a unique vantage point to observe team discussions, dynamics, and decision-making while knowing the right answer.  I said "Greece" to hint at "Atlantis" and "State" (not the best clue!). I felt good when a teammate immediately suggested Atlantis and State to the rest of the team. But another teammate more strongly proposed "War" and that Greece is a country and not a state. T...

The majority of us get our news and along with it, our world view, morality, opinions, and daily furies, from scrolling the social feeds across Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Google, and others. Given the amount of exposure, we think media reflects reality. I'm convinced that is absolutely not true.  There were a couple of recent stories that made me realize how lopsided and low-quality social media is.  Recently, Eric Adams got nominated for mayor of New York City. If you are on Twitter, you may have not even heard of him because of his nearly absent social media presence and measly sub-100K following. You'd have assumed that Andrew Yang, who ended up fourth in the election with just a fraction of the votes, is going to be the obvious nominee because of the #yanggang fame with 2M fervent followers.  Another recent study revealed that just 12 people were responsible for the majority of COVID-19 vaccine-related misinformation! If you are looking to get a ba...

The main role of a product manager to identify and prioritize product investments within your area that'd have the most impact on the overall business goals (aka roadmap).  Usually, you don't make just one investment. You make a portfolio of bets. You can place bets across multiple core pillars or themes as I have suggested in a previous post on product strategy .  It's also helpful to assess your portfolio mix across the type of product improvements:  1. Ah, finally improvements (bugs, annoyances)  These are fixes for obvious annoyances or broken parts of the experience. Users know it and product teams usually know it. These experiences can cause casual users to churn immediately and fans to churn eventually.  Regularly identifying and fixing these before they snowball is a good defense and good for building trust, pride, and quality (reduce broken windows!).  2. Yeah, that's better  improvements (iterative improvements) Products aren't perfect out ...

Often times products and features are doomed to fail even before you start working on them because the customer, problem, their evaluation criteria, usefulness and usability of the solution, go-to-market and customer acquisition mechanisms, and business model are not understood or well defined.  This mad lib forces you to research, articulate and iterate on all of those questions before you start implementation.  People like [specific segments, demographics]  Who are faced with [specific problems]   and care about [key criteria] Will use [solution]  To do [steps to use solution]  and it would help them [impact on problem and satisfaction].  They'd discover this solution through [acquisition channels]  And they'd use it whenever [need] Which happens once every [need frequency]  And they'd pay [price, payment or revenue model] As the old adage goes, if you had 1 hour to solve a problem, then spend 40 mins thinking about the problem and 20 ...

I recently had to face some unexpected illnesses and deaths in my family.  Sickness and death are powerful reminders of the impermanence, fragility, and mystery of life - about how little time we all have, how little control we have, how we are a small transient part of a grand timeless machinery, and how little we know.  They are also powerful reminders of the colorfulness and meaning in every individual life, regardless of how transient or small it is in the grand scheme.  We fondly remember the departed's endearing and unique traits. We recall and cherish their remarkable or amusing stories. We feel grateful for their kindness, love, and joy. We celebrate their path and accomplishments. We learn from their wisdom and missteps. We mourn missed interactions, their unfulfilled dreams, the void of their absence, and for those who are close to them.  Death teaches us what we value, gives us the urgency to prioritize meaningful pursuits and interactions, and to live fre...

I'm currently on a staycation at home, with no plans. I used to take vacations only for certain specific or special purposes like traveling to new places or social events, and there was a certain pressure to make the most of them, so this is a change.  Thanks to COVID travel restrictions, aging into my 30s, my philosophy on LYWE and  peace & joy , I have revisited and expanded my definition of vacations to the following:  Spending time on self-care and peace-promoting activities.  Spending time on any joyful activity or hobby. This expanded definition lets me plan and take time off for a lot more things than to just travel - to write on my blog, think, read, just relax and do nothing, sleep in, catch up on chores, enjoy leisurely coffee, walks, hikes, and hangouts, etc. When I travel, my agenda is more relaxed rather than packed and I even take a day off after travel to do the above.  Taking time for yourself and doing less or nothing are vastly underrated....

High customer retention is the holy grail of most businesses. If customers keep coming back to your business, it increases lifetime revenue per customer (LTV) and you earn more per cost and effort of acquisition (CAC).  Customer retention may be hard to execute, but really simple to understand. There are three main factors that impact retention:  Customer retention = Frequency of Need X Mind share X Fulfillment Frequency of Need  Users use products to satisfy their needs. Some needs recur on a daily basis, like the need to eat, sleep, talk to people, hear the news, commute, or shopping. Some needs recur on a monthly or yearly basis, like doctor visits, car maintenance, or vacations. Some needs are episodic and happen a few times per lifetime, like dating, wedding planning, home or car purchase, teeth alignment, or funeral services.  If you are serving a need that's recurring frequently, you have more potential for retaining customers. If it's less frequent, it's like...

I believe that time is all we have and how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Well...until someone recently introduced me to the concept of "energized time".  Let's say you want to create more time for a project. So you reduce family dinner time and sleep time by 30 mins. It works well for a couple of days. But after that initial gain, you start feeling less productive or energized during your project time. I think we all intuitively understand and agree with this.  So it isn't just time that matters. How we feel during that time matters too.  So now I believe that "energized time" is all we have.  Understanding Energized Time Life is a series of activities - things you think and do, and also how, where, and with who.  Your  energy  levels - physical, mental, and emotional -  vary because of the activities. Higher energy levels mean you feel present, lucid, sharp, at ease, happy, and ready to run a mile. There are recharging activities ...

I have changed my jobs several times and I have struggled with the decision every time. Am I doing the right thing? Should I stay or try something else? Am I growing quickly enough? There’s a lot of career advice out there, but they can be incompatible, overwhelming, and unhelpful. So I have simplified it for myself here. As with every life question, the answer starts with the big why. Understand life and decide what you want to do and experience. And then follow it. The best life hack is clarity and intent.    My scorecard and purpose in life  are to experience peace and joy for myself and for others.  Career or profession is “what we do for others”. Career is not a separate or siloed-off section of life - it is embedded and entangled in it, ideally harmoniously.  A career or profession that is harmonious with my life purpose (1) increases peace and joy for others, (2) while doing something that’s joyful and interesting for myself, and also enabling (or at leas...

For the first time ever, I learned the same principle in THREE different contexts on the same day! And it was surprisingly relevant for the mood I have been in over the last couple of weeks. So I'm going to memorialize it here.   In the morning , a friend shared a scene and a quote from the movie Bridge of Spies, where the character is oddly calm when he's on the verge of being sentenced to the death penalty.   “You don’t seem alarmed.” “Would it help?” “Don’t you ever worry?” “Would it help?” “You’re not worried.” Would it help?” At noon , during lunch, my workplace hosted a fireside chat with Lori Gottlieb, author of  "Maybe you should talk to someone ." That was thrilling as I'd read and enjoyed the book just a few months back. She said the person we talk most to in our life is not our spouse, kids, nor parents...it is ourselves! We do a lot of self-talk in our heads, which significantly influences how we feel, act, and think. And unfortunately, we...

It's sometimes easier to think of what will make you fail at something than what will make you succeed. That's why I like the technique of "inversion" - instead of trying to be successful, just avoid the things that cause failure and you will succeed. I also like the practice of doing "pre-mortems" before starting on any project or team - imagine you failed, think of all the reasons why, and then prioritize and mitigate them.  Here are some common failure modes that you can try to avoid when you are pursuing anything - personal, career, business, relationships, etc. 1. No burning curiosity, desire, intent, or conviction . Most hard-to-achieve things take a long time and a ton of effort. So if aren't really emotionally, rationally, and intellectually drawn to a pursuit or excited about the process, just pursue something else you actually are drawn to. Seriously, why pursue things you don't want or need?! 2. Lack of deep understanding (and failure to k...

An ongoing exploration of my goals and purpose. Inspired by the Naval, Buddha, and Seinfeld. Background "How was the first person born? Who will bury the last dead person?" I was six years old, and out of the blue, I had posed child versions of existential questions to my amused and proud mother. I don't remember any answers, and if there was one, it probably went over my little head. I grew up in a middle-class family in Chennai, a bustling metropolis in India. My ambitions were driven by my culture's obsession and a necessity for meritocracy. In my world, academic achievement, prestigious jobs, and wealth were universally celebrated and recognized as marks of success. The lack of those was pitifully shunned or quickly shamed as failures. With strong support, encouragement, and occasional chiding from family, teachers, peers, and scorecards, I pursued that purpose with vigor. The pursuit was an emotional roller coaster. Celebratory milestones and fun activities punct...

This is you.  You are the front part of the brain. When you ask yourself "Who am I?", that's the part of the brain that's speaking. When you are feeling lucid, clear-headed, "conscious" or "present", it is this part at work. What you perceive as life, every moment of your reality, is basically the neurons firing in the pre-frontal cortex. Your self-image, memories, personality, emotions, ambitions, and desires are all formed, stored, and derived from the neural circuitry here.  With regular practice, you will have some degree of control over how these neurons fire and shape the circuitry; a concept scientists refer to as neuroplasticity, and self-help coaches refer to as manifestation, positive thinking, or focusing on your locus of control. That's a big deal because if you can shape your perception, you can shape your life and reality. You can as easily be shaped by many other forces around you, but if you are strong, you can be a gatekeeper a...

Safe writing is clear, easy to read, and conveys the message. Typically, it follows a simple structure like introduction, body, and conclusion, or situation, problem, and solution.  Ninja writing does what safe writing does, but is also more engaging and memorable. It reaches both the heart and the brain. It is fun, playful, surprising, and interesting. While Safe writing is explicit, Ninja writing is a bit more abstract and lets the reader connect the dots.  Safe writing is closer to prose and science; Ninja writing is more poetry and art. Safe writing is more appropriate in serious situations where clarity and efficiency are paramount, like in a medical report or a supervisor's instructions. In most other situations, Ninja writing works better.   Someone wisely said, "If you try Ninja moves when you are not a Ninja, you may chop off your own head." That is a good example of Ninja writing. I remember that after many years and it brings a smile each time. The safe ve...

Why the hell is there a Queen in a democracy? Clearly, a lot of people wonder about that too, even more so than the pain in the back of their body parts. I try to avoid opining on topics I barely know about. But the Oprah, Harry, and Meghan interview is juicy drama and there are a couple of interesting societal and psychological concepts here.  The monarchy has some history to it (duh). I know a bit that I just read on Wikipedia. The very short and probably inaccurate history goes like this. Before the republic, there was a monarchy. The power of monarchy slowly faded, but some king made a deal to keep the titles, palace, and stipend around. A better deal than what the French kings got. It made the entire transition more peaceful and less awkward.  I think the British Monarchy today is like the steak in the movie Matrix.  It is elaborate make-believe and a long-running, high production, global reality show. Who doesn't like to be awed by a royal wedding or fawn over a new...

I'm no branding expert or fanboy. Growing up, I preferred the cheaper no-name alternatives and thought the brand loyalists were suckers for paying a premium. As I have grown older, busier, and slightly wealthier, I have gotten to enjoy and appreciate a few brands for their craft, reliability, and familiarity. Apple, Trader Joe's, Starbucks, Costco, Uniqlo, Amazon are my top ones. I'm also a fan of a few "personal brands" like Elon Musk and Naval Ravikant, for what they represent and do.   As a product professional and an individual creator, I see the immense value and art in building brands.  Here's a very high-level breakdown of brand building.  3 Levels of Brand  Level 1.  Name recognition : People know who you are and roughly what you do. You can earn name recognition if you are around for long enough, have a large enough customer base, and have a memorable name.   Level 2.  Quality & Trust : People love and trust your products, a...

Jeff Bezos' shared this wisdom on focusing on inputs in his 2009 shareholder letter: "Senior leaders that are new to Amazon are often surprised by how little time we spend discussing actual financial results or debating projected financial outputs. To be clear, we take these financial outputs seriously, but we believe that focusing our energy on the controllable inputs to our business is the most effective way to maximize financial outputs over time. " This advice applies to both business and personal life.  Most people are obsessed with rewards and outcomes. They obsess over a higher salary or promotions, an amazing social life, good health, etc. But that's an ineffective approach.  Outcomes & rewards can give you goalposts of what matters to you and can be used as an occasional progress tracker, but they don't help you actually get there.  Outcomes are lagging indicators and consequences of actions. Focusing on outcomes typically makes people unhappy or anxi...

When I started building products, I only cared about "cool ideas". In college, I built a movie player app,  GPSFilm , that'd play scenes of the movie based on where you are (shot as flashback so sequence didn't matter). Later, I built an app, Friend Central, to quiz you on friends through attributes like college, likes, location, etc. I built browser extensions to show your lifetime left and another, Nuggets , to record and remember things you learn based on spaced repetition.  Creating is an incredibly fun and engaging activity. I would spend days and nights working on products, engrossed in a flow state, and excitedly show it off to friends and family. Having end-to-end control, from idea to shipping, gave me a broad scope and satisfaction. It exposed me to way more product development experience and learning than university or in my day job as a software engineer.  However, when I "launched" these products, usually announcing on my FB profile or on online...

As you grow more senior in your career or become an entrepreneur, you transition from functional leadership to business leadership, where you need to deeply understand and execute on the broad business. Reading S-1s is a great way to develop that understanding. Companies reveal significant details of their inner workings, strategies, and financials through their S-1s filings.  Here I'm using Coursera's S-1 to understand their business, and also general business and accounting concepts. Coursera has both consumer and enterprise customers, so their S-1 gives exposure to both those business models.  Coursera's Business Coursera is a two-sided education marketplace. They enable universities to provide and monetize courses and credentials to learners and organizations digitally. For learners, Coursera serves the edtech job to be done of upskilling/promotions, reskilling or earning credentials to get a job, and satiating curiosity and desire to learn. For organizations, they se...

I feel like I have been playing a very long game of tag. I had successfully avoided being tagged for nearly a year. But just when the game is about to end and the winners declared, I got tagged. Ah bummer! I'm talking about the COVID pandemic. I got it in Feb 2021, the 11th(?) month since the official start of the pandemic in the USA.  I'm young and was in good shape when I got it. I'm alive and over the hump now. But the in-between two weeks of COVID was no joke.  "Stay home and protect your grandma", they said. But ironically, we got it from our grandma. To be fair, we weren't airtight otherwise - there were a few other ways and occasions when we could have gotten it. Grandma just happened to be the one. I remember the Sunday morning. We woke up to some loud and frantic conversations from downstairs. I went down to investigate and get my cup of coffee. Grandma, who had stayed at one of our aunts' place, was running a fever. Aunt was also running a fever....

Edtech is an interesting and inspiring space, but very difficult to crack. I say that being familiar with and passionate about the space. I started my career as a teacher, at a new school for entrepreneurs, where our goal was to unbundle a 4 year CS + Business degree into a very practical 1-year entrepreneurship course. Then, a few years down the line, I created a learning app to help people remember what they learn, which led to me joining Quizlet, one of the most popular education apps used by 50M+ students every month and a $1B company, at an early stage.   Founders who want to start an education business are often good students who went to good universities, are really passionate about learning, and want to make education more interesting, exciting, and less broken. That is a wonderful ideal and attitude but often doesn't lead to successful business outcomes. Because for the majority of people, education is much more utilitarian. Education is a means to an end. It is a ne...