These myths often suggest there’s a single “right way” into product management. The doors can be so intimidating that even those who stray even slightly from the ‘right way’ often feel shut out. I recently spoke to an MBA student at a top Indian B-school, who had a CS degree and experience in UX design. Even with such excellent credentials, she doubted her path to product management simply because she’d stepped away from software development

There’s some truth in each of these myths, but treating them as absolute truths can create either false confidence or unnecessary doubt, depending on which side you’re on. What’s worse is when leaders buy into these myths, they risk becoming exclusionary, discriminatory, and ultimately less effective—both in hiring top talent and in driving impact within their organizations.

But here’s what I’ve learned: there isn’t just one door. No matter your background, personality, or strengths, you can carve your own path and be wildly successful in this role. 

Here are five of the most persistent myths I once believed—and why they don’t define what makes a great product manager.

1. The PM is the CEO of the product

April 2010. As a first-year MBA student at Emory, I was one step away from my dream internship: product management at eBay. I was a bit nervous, but I was ready. Or so I thought. Five minutes into the interview, the hiring manager asked what excited me most about product management. I had a perfect answer prepared for this one: ‘A product manager is the CEO of the product.’ He smiled—a little too politely—and continued the conversation. The conversation did not last long and I walked out of that room knowing that I wasn’t getting the internship, but I wasn’t sure why. 

At the time, I couldn’t understand why the hiring manager wasn’t impressed. The answer was quoted almost verbatim from the most famous essay on the topic those days: “Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager” by  Ben Horowitz.1 It was practically required reading for aspiring PMs like me. Even Marty Cagan doubled down on this idea on his SVPG blog2: ‘The successful product manager sees himself as the CEO of the product.’ Armed with this advice, how could I possibly go wrong?

Fourteen years later, after shipping countless products at companies of all sizes and scales and sitting on the other side of the interview table, I finally understand why my answer didn’t land. A product manager needs the accountability of a CEO but lacks the authority. CEOs can make decisions with a flick of their wrist; product management, on the other hand, is all about influence without authority. It’s not about calling the shots—it’s about aligning teams that they have zero control over to drive outcomes they are held accountable for. That’s the real skill of a PM, and it’s far more nuanced than any ‘CEO of the product’ soundbite.

Not surprisingly, this idea is so catchy it just refuses to die. In a recent survey I conducted, 88% of aspiring product managers still believe it. 

So the next time you hear someone say, ‘The PM is the CEO of the product,’ don’t just smile politely. Ask what they really mean—because that’s where the real learning begins.

2. MBA is needed to be a successful PM

During my software engineering days at Adobe, my tech lead once said, “In the entire history of Adobe, AG is the only one to make it to product management without an MBA.” In retrospect, I doubt the story’s authenticity, but at that time, that was it. One sentence and my career assumptions were set in stone. I became convinced that an MBA wasn’t just helpful—it was essential for a successful PM career. 

That belief led me to overestimate the importance of an MBA during my first few years post-MBA. At Microsoft, I worked with extraordinary non-MBA product professionals whose skills often left me in awe. Yet, I continued to see them as outliers rather than proof that success in product management wasn’t tied to an MBA. It wasn’t until much later in my career that this myth began to crack.

In 2017, as I prepared to return to India after eight years in the US, I interviewed for a role at OYO. The interview loop suggested I would report to the COO, a Harvard MBA—exactly the kind of leader I admired. But when I joined a month later, I was a bit disappointed to know that I’d be reporting to the CTO instead.

That disappointment didn’t last. Over the next two and a half years, the CTO profoundly shaped how I built products, solved problems, and hired exceptional talent. Most importantly, he showed me how to foster a product-focused culture—an invaluable lesson I carried into my role as Chief Product Officer at Dineout. His impact on my career had nothing to do with an MBA.

Since then, many of the best product managers I have worked with, hired, and/or managed didn’t have MBAs, and many did. What set the best ones apart was their ability to think strategically, communicate effectively, and solve problems creatively, not their MBA or lack thereof. 

Don’t get me wrong—I’m still a proud Emory MBA alum and I deeply value the skills and experiences my MBA provided. However, I now view the MBA as one of many paths to success, not a prerequisite.

Still not convinced? In August, Zomato India made headlines by appointing four of their best delivery partners as product managers.

3. You need a degree in Computer Science to be a good product manager:

When I set my sights on product management as my top post-MBA career choice, I was confident I had the perfect resume: an MBA paired with a strong background in software development, complete with an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. In my mind, that combination was the golden ticket.

But then came the MBA internship fair in the Bay Area. As I sat in the waiting area with my single interview invite—yes, the one with eBay—a gentleman from Cornell struck up a conversation. He had three interview invites. Intrigued, I asked about his background. Surely, he must have a Computer Science degree. Nope. Psychology. Maybe he’d attended a coding boot camp? Not even close—he’d spent his career in market research at a non-tech company I had never even heard of. I was aghast. Life felt so unfair.

With a few years of experience building products at companies of all sizes, I now view this very differently. For highly technical products, such as those rooted in machine learning or complex engineering systems, a background in Computer Science or Data Science can certainly be a huge asset. Even for less technical products, basic technical fluency is needed—not just to foster stronger communication and build credibility with engineers but also to make informed decisions. As Ken Norton says, you need to be “technical enough,” and what qualifies as “enough” depends on the product and the company.3

That said, these skills can be learned. And the reverse is equally true: PMs with technical degrees often need to develop skills like customer empathy, storytelling, and clear writing—strengths that come more naturally to those with backgrounds in psychology, humanities, or design. The best PMs I’ve worked with are those who step out of their comfort zones to grow in areas they lack, whether it’s technical fluency for non-techies or customer-centric thinking for techies.

In the survey I mentioned earlier, more than half of aspiring PMs believed a Computer Science degree was a prerequisite. Interestingly, the split was similar between those who had worked with product managers and those who hadn’t. The belief endures, but I hope it won’t for much longer.

The 2010 Amit Bhatnagar would likely find himself in stark disagreement with his more experienced 2024 self. But the reality is clear: a Computer Science degree, like an MBA, is a tool—not a prerequisite.

4. Product Management is not for introverts. 

On my first day at Emory, we took the MBTI test. For the introversion vs. extroversion dimension, I scored a 2/10, almost the farthest end of the spectrum. 

Unlike the previous myths that either excited or made me overconfident for wrong reasons, this one almost scared me away. As an introvert, meeting some PMs who appeared charismatic and outgoing made me wonder: Could someone like me, who thrives on reflection and quiet problem-solving, ever succeed in this role?

This doubt still lingers among aspiring PMs today. In my survey, 40% believed that “Great PMs need to be extroverts.”

Thankfully, this was the first myth to be shattered for me. As I started reading more about the discipline, I discovered that some of the greatest product builders—Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sundar Pichai—have openly shared how their introversion has been an asset, not a hindrance. Even among modern product management thought leaders, Ken Norton, Lenny Rachitsky and Shreyas Doshi identify as introverts.

This is not to say extroverts can’t be good product managers. They bring their own unique strengths to product management. Collaboration with engineers, designers, and stakeholders is essential, and extroversion might come in handy.

But introverts bring unique strengths to the table—active listening, deep thinking, and empathy—that make them exceptional collaborators. These traits allow introverted PMs to tune into their customers’ needs, ask better questions, and make thoughtful decisions.

In hindsight, I realize my initial mistake: many of the PMs I thought were extroverts may not actually have been extroverts. Many simply communicated clearly and confidently, —a skill often mistaken for extroversion. I still make this mistake today. An ex-colleague, who I always assumed to be an extrovert, recently described herself as a “pseudo-extrovert”: an introvert who happens to be an excellent communicator.

And that’s the key: clear, impactful communication matters far more than extroversion. It’s a skill anyone can develop—regardless of personality type.

5. A PM needs to be an Idea Machine 

Early in my career, I believed that generating a wealth of good ideas was a key marker of a great product manager—an endless fountain of creativity that would fuel innovation. 

This belief came to life in one of the most embarassing applications of my career —in hindsight. While applying for a PM internship at a startup named inSparq, I encountered the essay question: “What is Facebook missing that you would like to see?” Determined to stand out, I sent in a laundry list of ideas—personalized recommendations, testimonials, better survey tools, and even an “unsubscribe” button for those endless notification threads. Back then, I thought this brainstorm was guaranteed to get me an interview call. As they say, there are no bad ideas in brainstorming and my ideas were actually good. Looking back at that application, I can’t help but cringe. The ideas were actually pretty decent for somebody with zero product experience, but there was no execution plan, no validation, and no sense of prioritization. Unsurprisingly, I never heard back.

Now, I know better. Ideas are critical—they spark innovation and set the direction for a product. But ideas alone don’t make a product manager. In fact, too many ideas without focus can become a liability.

What truly sets great PMs apart is their ability to prioritize. Sometimes, the hardest part of being a PM is killing good ideas to focus on the great ones. Idea machines often get too attached to everything they generate, while great PMs prioritize ruthlessly to ensure resources are directed toward the most impactful opportunities.

But prioritization is just the starting point. A PM’s true strength lies in execution—turning ideas into reality. This means aligning teams, navigating constraints, and delivering value to users. Even the best ideas are meaningless if they aren't executed well. 

As a hiring manager, I prefer to hire people who excel at both ideation and execution, but if forced to choose, I’ll pick an execution machine over an idea machine every time. Why? Because execution is what transforms ideas into great products.

If I have to advise my younger self, I would give him a pat on the back for the list of ideas and then ask him to re-apply with the whole list of ideas and then pick one big powerful idea to expand on. 

The value of a PM isn’t measured by how many ideas they generate—it’s measured by the impact they create. And that impact always depends on more than just the idea.

Steve Jobs, arguably one of the world’s greatest product managers, is proof that these myths are just that - myths. He didn’t have an MBA. He couldn’t code. He was famously introverted, preferring solitude to boisterous networking events. And while he was brimming with ideas, he believed that the hallmark of great companies was killing good ideas to focus on truly great ones.

Jobs’ success wasn’t about walking through any single door but building his own. He aligned diverse teams, relentlessly prioritized what mattered, and communicated his vision with clarity and impact. If anything, Jobs reminds us that product management isn’t about fitting into a mold. It’s about creating value by drawing on strengths from all walks of life.

Which of these myths have shaped your perspective on product management—whether you’re just starting out, currently navigating the role or building teams? Take a moment to reflect and share your thoughts in the comments. Together, let’s demystify product management and create a more inclusive, impactful profession!

He opened the chapter with “If you want to change the world, don’t ever, ever ring the bell”. My heart sank: I had a feeling about what this chapter was about. 

If you don’t like the pain, then there is an easy way out. All you have to do to quit is ring this bell three times. Ring the bell and you can avoid all this pain. ​​If you quit, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Quitting never makes anything easier. Six months later, some had taken the easy way out. They had quit, and my guess is the instructor was right, they would regret it for the rest of their lives.

As I listened to McRaven, each word felt aimed directly at me, questioning my choice of shutting down my startup AulaCube earlier this year. Was I one of those who had “taken the easy way out”? Was I destined to regret the decision for the rest of my life? A tear silently rolled down my cheek as I finished the chapter. 

While McRaven’s words initially made me feel that quitting was a sign of weakness, further reflection brought a sense of pride in what I had built and clarity in the wisdom of letting go. In a world dominated by success stories shaped by survivorship bias and quiet shutdowns, I realized that the story of an unsuccessful startup needs to be told not with regrets, but with my head held high.

A Dream takes off

In April 2023, I had this crazy idea to build something that would make education in India truly personal, powered by AI. Picture Kashvi, a young girl in grade school with a deep love for math, steered onto a generic engineering path, or Aryan, a gifted artist, struggling to fit into a rigid system that does not even recognize art as a respectable career choice.

AulaCube aimed to change this. Using AI to gather and interpret data on each student’s unique interests and abilities, Our goal was to empower children to explore career paths that truly suited them. This was about creating a personalized educational journey, leveraging AI to transform education from a standardized path into a launchpad for each child’s unique potential.

The next two months everything felt upbeat. A technical cofounder soon joined hands and while the investor outreach did not have the expected results, we kicked off a friends-and-family round with a good response. Soon, we were hiring our first employees so passionate about the mission that almost all of them took salary cuts to join us. Many exploratory conversations with candidates ended with confessions like “I am the Kashvi of your story” or “I personally know at least two Aryans.”

A Million Dreams2 from The Greatest Showman became our company anthem. Often, late at night, I would just put my headphones on, close my eyes, and sing along, imagining AulaCube’s future, a million dreams for the world we're gonna make, a world where every Kashvi and Aryan would find a path that matched their potential.

The Storms Begin

Just when it felt like we were taking off, the first of what would be many storms struck. In July, just two weeks after our first employees joined, my cofounder decided to step away, citing a misalignment with his priorities. While this came as a shock and left me with the weight of handling this all by myself, a new sense of clarity and commitment emerged with time. This was no longer a shared duty—if AulaCube was going to succeed, if Kashvi and Aryan were to experience a world that recognized their unique strengths, it was now my sole responsibility to make it happen. 

Over the next few months, we built and shipped a strong first product, a smart school management system, and received a positive reception from the market. This school management system was meant to be our first step towards transforming Kashvi’s and Aryan’s futures. We secured our first pilots in November and first paid customers in January. 

Yet, despite this sense of progress, the financial reality was closing in faster than expected. The bank balance was depleting fast and by January, we had less than three months of runway left. AulaCube had a good pipeline of customers, but even if we converted half of them, that would not have been sufficient to survive for more than a few more months. Investment was the only viable solution, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Edtech had recently seen a series of high-profile failures in India, and despite confidence in the product and my capabilities, investors were reluctant to take the plunge.

“Radical transparency” was one of AulaCube’s core principles and at every point, every employee knew the company’s financial situation . The initial dream had gradually turned into doubt and then to despair. “Is AulaCube dying?”, they would ask in 1:1 meetings. I would try to inspire them without giving them any false hope, but deep inside, I found myself grappling with the same question. At home, things weren’t much better. My wife, a pillar of support till that point, understandably began to worry, as now we were using our personal savings to pay employees’ salaries.

And then there was Anay, my 9-year-old son, who once asked, “Papa, When AulaCube gets as big as Apple or Microsoft, will you have time to play Chess with me?” 

The questions from my team, the concerns from my wife, and most importantly, Anay’s innocent heart-shattering question made me pause and reflect deeply. Was I on a wild goose chase? After some soul-searching, I reminded myself that giving up was not an option—at least, not yet. 

A Glimmer of Hope

In April 2024, a glimmer of hope appeared: AulaCube was accepted into StartX, a non-profit accelerator for founders from the Stanford ecosystem. StartX’s belief in AulaCube’s global potential was validating: If this idea had been chosen from the best at Stanford, maybe there really was something there, right? I decided to treat this as my Hail Mary—my final, desperate attempt to keep AulaCube alive, even though the odds were stacked against us.

As I prepared for the trip to the U.S., the tension at home was palpable. My wife had some reservations. She saw this trip as throwing good money after bad. I understood her concerns; it wasn’t easy seeing our savings chipped away with each new push. But I couldn’t shake the thought that if I didn’t take this shot, I’d live haunted by the ‘what ifs.’ 

In early June, I was in California to meet my StartX cohort and explore the possibilities there. I also connected with potential investors there. The reception was stronger in the U.S.; many saw potential in the vision. But as promising as these conversations felt, the interest didn’t translate into investment—a harsh reminder of how tough it was to secure funding in a challenging market.

By the third week of June, I could feel the walls closing in. Every day that passed without any step towards securing investment left me with a growing fear that my million dreams were dismantling before my very eyes. On the morning of 25th June, I had the first meeting with the Advisory Board assigned to AulaCube by StartX. As I prepared for the meeting, I found myself at a crossroads, asking the question no founder wants to face: Is it braver to keep going, or is it time to walk away? I prepared the deck to introduce the company and its progress even as doubts about whether this was the last day of AulaCube lingered.

Making the Decision

At the end of the 60-minute meeting, the Advisory Board helped me face what I had known deep down but resisted admitting: it was time to pull the plug.

There is no easy way to put what happened next. I called my wife to let her know of my decision.

“It’s late. Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice filled with concern. It was 1 AM in India.

I tried to speak, but barely any words managed to escape my lips. Finally, between sobs, I managed, “I’ve decided to shut down AulaCube.”

Silence. Then, softly, “Are you sure? Schools are liking the product. You’ve worked so hard. Do you want to give this a few more months?”

Her words struck a chord. For the first time in weeks, I felt that she understood how much AulaCube meant to me—not just as a business, but as a part of who I was. That moment of acknowledgment gave me a strange, fleeting comfort.

“They like it as a school management system,” I replied after a pause, my voice shaking. “But AulaCube was never meant to stop there. Without funding, the dreams we had for Kashvi and Aryan—those dreams will never take flight. And even if we put in our savings to extend the financial runway, I can’t persist. I’m out of emotional runway.”

Another silence. Then, in a voice filled with quiet resolve, she said, “If you’re clear this is the right choice, don’t wait until your flight next week. Come home. You need to be with us.”

Her words grounded me. She was right—I needed to be with my family. AulaCube had been my world, but it was time to let it go.

A few hours later, it was morning in India and it was time to share the difficult decision with my team. I managed to pull myself together and put on a brave face, though, deep down, making the announcement felt like reading my obituary at my own funeral. I mourned not just for AulaCube, but for Kashvis and Aryans to whom I had made promises every day during the journey.

Life After AulaCube

It has been a few months since I made the decision. When I reflect back, I know I could have done a few things differently. I do grieve sometimes about the loss and I cannot listen to “A Million Dreams” without shedding a tear or two: From a symbol of hope, the song has become a representative of heartbreak, a haunting reminder of what might have been, the soundtrack of a vision that couldn’t quite take flight. 

I decided to take some time to rediscover myself and focus on the things that bring me joy. These days, I’ve been advising startups, coaching aspiring product managers, learning Spanish, focusing on my physical and mental health, diving into new technologies, and, most importantly, playing chess with Anay. After an 18-year hiatus, I decided to return to the game, and now Anay and I enter competitive tournaments together—a shared journey that has brought us closer than ever.

If you’re a founder reading this, I can’t tell you exactly when the right time to quit is for you—only you can answer that. For me, it came down to two questions:

1. Have I given it everything I can?

2. Do I still believe in the mission I set out to accomplish?

By the time I made my decision, the answer to the first question was a resounding ‘Yes.’ I had left no stone unturned. But the answer to the second question was harder. While I still believed in the vision, I realized that without the resources to truly scale, I’d be compromising the impact AulaCube was meant to have. And so, my answer was ‘No—not without securing investment.’

Admiral McRaven, you said those who quit will regret it for the rest of their lives. But for me, shutting down AulaCube wasn’t about giving up—it was about recognizing the right time to let go. It wasn’t easy, and it came with many sleepless nights and self-doubt. But sometimes, the true strength lies in knowing when to stop, and quitting is the best choice, and no, I don’t regret my decision. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is ring the bell.

I stared at my Google Meet screen. It was the final round for a senior product leader position on my team, and the candidate was nailing it. The candidate was very well-prepared and confident. He answered every question with confidence, practically ticking all the boxes on my competency checklist:

• Problem Solving ✅

• Structured thinking ✅

• Data & metrics understanding ✅

• Customer Obsession: ✅

• Business Acumen ✅

• Quality of experience: ✅

• Complexity handled in the past: ✅

But despite the flawless performance, something didn’t feel right. There was this… unease.

In the debrief, everyone—from another product leader to the co-founders—raved about him. They were ready to hand me a pen to sign the offer letter. I was almost ready too, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I wasn’t getting the right vibe.

When I dug further with the other product interviewer, he reemphasized the candidate's stellar performance but noted feeling uncomfortable with his apparent smugness. At this point, I decided to conduct an informal background check within my network. Two people who worked with him five years apart gave the same feedback: He acted like the smartest person in the room and didn’t hesitate to let everyone know it!

Effectively, the background check confirmed my vibes, and we passed—dodging not just a bullet, but a missile of trouble!

I wish I could say I trusted my gut after that. But a few months later, I ignored those same instincts—and paid the price

A few months later, I was hiring a content writer, and the recruiter found the perfect candidate. The resume almost mirrored the job description. The portfolio was stellar; her technical blogs were well-researched and crisp and the non-technical pieces were thought-provoking! Her Twitter feed? A completely different story. Her stand on some political policies, especially her intentional jibes at a specific religion left me a bit uneasy.

I don’t usually mix religion & politics with work and since the religion being commented on was her own (same as mine), I opted to keep an open mind and invited her to the interview loop, which she aced!

However, throughout the interview, my inner voice kept screaming, "Trouble ahead. She doesn't sound genuine." But since I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong, I pushed those thoughts aside. I reminded myself that I needed to respect people's right to have different opinions outside of work. We went ahead and rolled out an offer, which she accepted!

What followed was a no-show on joining day, followed by unanswered calls and emails from HR. Then came a report on her Twitter hyperactivity before she resurfaced two days later, citing medical emergencies and Twitter activity as a way to manage stress.

I wasn’t convinced but gave her the benefit of the doubt. She joined the next day, but by the end of day one, she was completely incommunicado again: No show in meetings, no replies on WhatsApp, and no responses to HR's calls.

By the end of it, I was down a team member. On the plus side, I learned about the elusive “absconding employee policy”, something I hadn’t even known existed until it happened.

These experiences led me to post on LinkedIn, where I was surprised by the overwhelming support for trusting vibes.

As an old friend summed it up best:

A vibe or instinct you get after about 30 minutes into the interaction/interview is usually a result of our internal data processing through patterns, experiences, and a healthy dose of bias 😊... it's not a bad thing, that's what makes us perceptive humans.

Another experienced hiring manager shared a personal anecdote:

Never underestimate the vibes we get in our discussions, the soft signals are so important. I was speaking with a candidate, young, sharp, and passionate. He blew me away with his answers to my challenges, but I got a little vibe … something told me it’s great he was damn right, but does he respect others’ viewpoints? 

So I asked, “Tell me something that you later found out to be wrong, or you were wrong.” His answer made my reading of the vibe right: “I have never been wrong, I don’t like when someone challenges me when I know I’m right.” Thank you very much - my decision was made easy!

These messages left me wondering why we do not overtly acknowledge the role of vibes. Why have we made the hiring process objective to the point of being almost mechanical and devoid of any human touch? Hiring decisions at one of the most respected employers on the planet are made by a hiring committee, whose members never met the candidate by reading reports from the interviewers who didn’t talk to each other throughout the process!

Partly, the reason is obvious. Our vibes often stem from unconscious (sometimes even conscious) biases. We all tend to lean towards “people like us”: Being too vibes-dependent may make your hiring process discriminatory without you even realizing it. By making every interviewer in charge of specific competencies and making the hiring process standardized, companies are trying to be more inclusive and focusing on finding the best talent. 

If I had to choose between “vibes” and “competencies”, I would lean towards going ahead with a candidate who aced the interview on every competency. I have heard of entrepreneurs, who hired their first engineer because they liked him based on the resume and a non-technical conversation (and didn’t know how to test them, only to regret it by the time it’s too late! Sometimes, this is the primary reason that the startup fails!1

But does it have to be a binary choice? Why not make a vibe check an integral part of the hiring process? Why not have a debrief including every interviewer and discuss explicitly not just the feedback on competencies, but also how they felt while talking to the candidate? If more than one interviewer did feel a similar negative vibe, probably it would be the time to apply the golden rule of hiring “When in doubt, do not hire!”

It’s not about choosing between vibes and competencies. It’s about knowing when to trust your instincts and when to back them up with data. To paraphrase a famous Russian proverb: Trust your vibes, but verify with evidence.

Before initiating the conversation around user research, let me start by addressing the elephant (or should I say horse :-)) in the room. Any time a conversation on this topic starts, it is very difficult to not come across the legendary quote from Henry Ford on this topic:

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

Usually, the person using this quote would say this with a smug self-assured smile almost authoritatively ending the debate. However, there are at least four problems with this one:

1. Henry Ford never said this! There is literally zero evidence of Henry Ford ever saying this. Most likely, somebody said this in the third person "If Henry Ford had asked people...", and with time the quote changed to a first-person quote.

2. You are assuming on the behalf of the users without any evidence about their intent. Putting yourself in the shoes of the customers is a good start to customer-first thinking, but guessing on behalf of them is not user research and it will often lead you to a misleading conclusion.

3. You are asking the users for a solution. The focus should be on uncovering problems that the users face and sometimes validating solutions you have in mind to solve those, but never on trying to get the solution from them. As Steve Jobs used to say, "It’s not the consumers’ job to figure out what they want."

4. If somebody did try to talk to the users, they would have uncovered problems other than speed. There is substantial evidence of problems other than speed: Stinky dung-covered roads and safety hazards. More details here. With user research or not, cars solved these seemingly unsolvable problems, not just the problem of speed.

Now, let us come to the main point of this post: Where are you or your company when it comes to acceptance of user research and what you can do about this? I call this framework "Seven stages of user-research denial".

Each subsequent stage is at least a bit of an upgrade over the previous one. But stage 1 and stage 2 are probably equally bad in impact and the impacts of stages 4 and 5 can range from very bad results to reasonably acceptable ones and depending on the context, one stage may be worse than the other. So in the block diagram, stages 1 & 2 are at the same level and so are 4 & 5.

Stage 1: User research is a useless bureaucratic formality for large companies. This statement is usually uttered by founders of early-stage companies with relatively less real-world professional experience before their startup. What most of these do not get is that some of these companies have become large and successful primarily because of their relentless focus on the customer from their very early days. They may not have called it "user research" at that time, but there are records of Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple engaging in deep conversations with their customers in their formative years. (If seeing Apple here surprises you, see the article link in stage 2)

Stage 2: Our users love our product and we define what they want. This is only a slight upgrade from stage 1. Companies in stage 2 are not completely dismissive of user research, but they just do not see this as a fit for their companies. They usually have seen some early success in product adoption and/or raising funds and that makes them overconfident in their ability to understand customers' needs.

It is not uncommon for these founders to quote examples of Apple/Steve Jobs to defend their lack of user research. But two things: First, most founders are not Steve Jobs and most companies do not have an Apple-like loyal fanbase. Second, while in my stint at Apple, I did not observe user research first-hand, there is ample evidence that the company has been engaged in this for decades. While I labelled this stage as somewhat of an upgrade over stage 1, the end result is still the same: a complete lack of user research. So stage 2 still stays in the red zone.

Stage 3: User research may be useful but it will slow us down. All right! This is progress! We have started to move towards acceptance! Sometimes, user research will slow you down a bit for sure and therefore, for incremental changes, it is indeed better to try out quick experimentation and let that dictate your decisions instead of primary research.

However, for most medium to large-size products, it is better to invest in at least basic problem validation (and sometimes solution validation) before spending precious dev bandwidth. Keep in mind that even companies with good user research culture and huge dev-bandwidth dedicated to experimental big bets end up killing a good number of their products. (See Google Graveyard for example). With some upfront investment in research, you substantially reduce the chances of your product ending in a graveyard.

Stage 4: I have sufficient secondary research. I can make my decisions based on that. Secondary research is not exactly you talking to the customers, but relying on somebody else who has done the job for you. This is sometimes fantastic and can help you fast-track your decisions. I have personally used this heavily at Microsoft and to a limited extent at Dineout. This is especially helpful in new market entry decisions where you may not have existing customers to talk to and it may require a significant investment to undertake primary research. However, the important thing to keep in mind is that these are not necessarily your customers. Also, you would want to check the neutrality of these studies by looking at the conductor/sponsor of the studies. (There were multiple studies in the 1950s and 1960s on how good smoking is for you. No prizes for guessing who the sponsor companies were for these studies!)

Finally, even for decisions like new market entry, while you may use secondary research to drop the markets you are less interested in, you may want to undertake primary research in the shortlisted markets to be more confident of your decisions before kicking off the dev-efforts.

Stage 5: We don't need external user research. We are all heavy users of the product ourselves: This one is the most frequently-countered resistance when you ask for user-research budgets and as it often happens, there is a Dilbert strip exposing the problems with this approach.

I always tell my mentees never to assume that they are the user especially when they actually are. As an example, PMs at Uber on the driver side of the platform will not assume that they are the users, but the ones on the passenger side may end up assuming that they are. This is because they may be using Uber heavily to commute to work, go grocery shopping, travel inter-city, etc. However, are they really using the product the way end-users are? (No Uber credits, Checking Ola/Lyft fares in parallel, Using medium-range Android phones, etc.). More importantly, the end-users will not have the patience to go through the complete funnel if any step appears off. They will simply drop off the funnel.

However, things are not totally bad with this approach. Talking to internal users, especially the ones who are closer to the customers than you are (sales, customer service agents, etc.), can actually tell you a lot about customers' problems. Some of my early user-behaviour learnings at OYO and Dineout respectively have been through tag-teaming with the sales teams on their customer visits just silently taking notes and listening to call recordings of customer-service agents talking with irate customers. Still, nothing beats the experience of learning directly from the customers and that's why let us move to stage 6.

Stage 6: I am being forced to conduct user research. Okay! I will do some user research. Congrats! If someone (a founder, a recently hired product leader or a UX researcher) is "forcing" you to conduct user research, you have graduated to stage 6. Whether you like it or not, you are finally engaging in talking to your users (and very soon, you will start liking it if you do it right). But be careful, user research for the sake of it can be more harmful than helpful. You may end up using the wrong method leading to poor results. (I have made this mistake myself and ended up making some wrong recommendations.) Knowingly or unknowingly, you may be asking leading questions nudging the users in the direction you want. (Example: "Here is a completely revamped prototype of our improved app. What do you like the most about this?") Hopefully, you can avoid these wrong choices and biases and the "forcer" will be there to guide you or catch you when you go off. At Dineout, this worked wonderfully well for us. Every product manager and every product designer (some of these had zero experience in user research) ranging from Associate PM/designer to the Chief Product Officer (me) had the target number of customer interactions in their OKRs as part of the goal-setting process. In a way, I was forcing my team to talk to more and more customers, but I was also closely involved in a good number of these studies before folks were ready to fly solo. All of us over-achieved the target goals and this resulted in significant improvements in our understanding of our customers and their problems and this reflected in better products that we shipped.

Stage 7: I don't need more user research. I know my users really well. You may notice that this stage is marked in green. That's why I say that stage 7 is more of an acceptance stage than that of denial. The operative phrase here is "more user research". That means the decision-maker (usually a PM, but can also be a business leader) has already conducted a decent amount of research and further research may probably lead to an analysis-paralysis kind of situation.

Primarily, one thing to be watchful of here is that the market realities change frequently and you want to be sure that you have a good handle on the latest status. As an example, your understanding may be based on users in Tier 1 cities of India, but now that you have expanded to Tier 2-3 cities, is your grasp on their needs still accurate? A new competitor is slowly taking the share of the market from you. To understand what the customers like about them, are you ready to wait till it's already too late?

That is why while it is okay not to undertake user research before every project, it is important not to lose the connection with your users.

What are the implications of knowing what stage the company/group is in? Depends on who you are.

• If you are an early career PM applying for product roles, try to get into a company with an existing culture of user research and definitely stay away from companies in the red and orange zones (stages 1-3) if you can. The problem here is not just the lack of user research culture. These companies also tend to have a very heavy overlap with the ones, where product management is purely an execution function, not a strategic one. From stage 4 onwards, there is at least some acceptance of the utility of user research and if you are the one who can take the lead in this, it may fast-track your career in the company. But I repeat it's better to try and ingrain customer-first thinking based on talking to them relatively early in your career. So do try to find companies/managers who are supportive of this approach.

• If you are a product leader with good user-research experience applying for a product leadership role, I would still suggest staying away from companies in the red zone (Stages 1-2). In the last five years since I moved back to India, I have had exploratory calls with decent-size startups, where the founders have uttered variants of stage 1 and stage 2 statements and the hubris told me that I would not enjoy working with them. But from stage 3 onwards, you may want to consider it. Discuss your success stories with user research and also your failures when the product bombed because of a lack of or poorly done user research. See if their eyes sparkle with an aha moment when they hear these. Check if they are open to giving you the autonomy to conduct user research and showcase the results. Maybe you are exactly the change they need to usher in a culture of customer-first thinking! Believe me when I say that transforming cultures is much more fulfilling as a leader than joining a company with the kind of culture you like.

• If you are a founder/business leader for a company in stages 1-2, a blog like this will likely not convince you to change your mind. :-) However, whichever stage you are at, I can tell you the investment will be worth it if you are willing to give this an honest try. If you are an early-stage startup, you may need to don the researcher hat yourself, but usually, it is a good idea to get somebody who has experience doing this, preferably a product manager or a UX Researcher. (A traditional market researcher may do the job too, but they may not have the requisite expertise on the product/UX side of things.) If you need to go solo on this, I highly recommend one of my favourite books: The Mom's Test.

• If you are already a product person (product manager/designer) at a company at one of the early stages, do not just give up on the company if you like your work otherwise. Try to see if there is a possibility to start with small low-cost investments. It may be as simple as calling your existing/ potential customers or shadowing them when they use your product or a substitute, but just talking to the customers is not sufficient. Go beyond the obvious and look for the aha moments. Are they using the product as intended? The feature that the sales team is pushing you for: is a spreadsheet or good old pen & paper a good enough alternative they are using in its absence? Show the company leadership some early wins and non-obvious insights and then gradually move higher up the ladder of customer-first thinking. One of the ways I have found effective in uncovering these aha moments is to do retrospective research on your existing products/features that failed and uncover what made them fail. What if your company is not willing to give you any autonomy to talk to the customers? This excerpt from another of my favourite books Escaping the build trap explains it better than I can:

How to conduct user research more effectively? Who should be primarily responsible for this? Which methods (Generative vs Evaluative, Behavioral vs Attitudinal, Quantitative vs Qualitative, etc.) are right for which situations? All of these are topics for a different blog spanning multiple posts. Stay tuned!

What are the impediments you have seen in adopting a culture of user research in your organization? What has worked for you and what has not? Let me know in the comments section.

At Dineout, we are committed to building a company that not just excels at solving the problems of the customers, but one that our employees are proud of being associated with.

Some time last year, we identified the need of a cultural shift at Dineout: We identified a set of core values that we want to focus on as a company. Over the period of last one year, we made it a very explicit focus for us to see every product, every project and every feature request through the lens of these values. We would challenge each other and even encourage our stakeholders to call us out when we display behaviour that is incongruent with these values. Today, we are publishing these values externally as we want ourselves to be held even more accountable to our culture.

In full transparency, I want to emphasise that these values do NOT exactly describe where we are. Consider these values as part definitional and part aspirational, i.e. this partly defines what we already are and partly what we are working towards being. However, you will see that all values are written in the present tense: “We are this”, “We do that”, etc. This is on purpose: As James Clear says in Atomic Habits, the key to making lasting changes is to focus on identity-based habits and make the desired behaviour change a part of your identity.

So, here are the ten values that define us in no particular order (Well, there is an order, but not in terms of importance. More about that later in this blog.):

1. We Before I

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.- Henry Ford

At Dineout, we put Team before Self. And when we say “team”, we do not just mean the immediate team an individual is on; we are talking about Team Dineout. We are solving some interesting big challenging problems in the field of food-tech and restaurant tech and solving these can not be a one-person-job. We not only respect each others’ opinions; we actively seek them. As a team, we come from diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds and the combined experience and expertise of the team delivers much better results than what any individual can.

A corollary to this is our absolute unwillingness to tolerate brilliant jerks. Any individual who does not espouse “We before I” will be a misfit at Dineout irrespective of how big a rockstar he/she is in individual capacity.

2. Excellence as a habit

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.
- William Durant

Whether it is hiring the right people or the shipping products for our customers, we chase excellence in everything we do. That means that everyone brings their A-game to work every day and holds themselves and others to the highest standards. We ship things that make us proud and we celebrate those wins, but we are never done, because we know we can do even better!

This quest for excellence is different from an unreasonable chase of perfection. That would slow us down and as a growth-stage startup, we can’t afford to do that (See value #5 below). In pursuit of excellence, we strive to do things in the best way possible, learn from mistakes and correct them the next time even if we never get anywhere close to perfection.

3. Learner mindset:

Learn continually — there is always ‘one more thing’ to learn! - Steve Jobs

Yes, we take pride in hiring the best, but at the same time, we know we live in a VUCA world: a world with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. In this world, both as individuals and as an organisation, we need to keep learning and upgrading our skills not just to grow, but to survive! That’s why at Dineout, we believe in cultivating a perpetual student mindset: we encourage everyone to always actively and continually pursue learning opportunities.

Even with a learner mindset and availability of a plethora of trainings from both internal and external sources, sometimes things do get busy as you would expect to be the case with a fast-paced startup. One way this worked well for some members of the product team last year is to actually take a formal learning goal while writing their OKRs. This made them as much accountable for the learning goals as they were for the goals around deliverables. We are using this approach a lot more in the current performance cycle.

4. Owner Mentality: Own outcome, not outputs:

Our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like an owner. - Jeff Bezos

The old African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” can be extended to the corporate world too: It does take the whole organisation to build and grow a company. That’s why, we encourage everyone at Dineout to cultivate an owner mindset instead of a mere executor mindset.

What does having an owner mindset look like in practice? We don’t say “It’s not my job” (even if it isn’t) when we see a problem. We either own the problem or find the right person to solve it. We do not limit ourselves to what we are asked to do. We consistently do what is right for the company. Above all, as owners, we hold ourselves accountable for outcomes, not just outputs.

5. Velocity Over Speed

Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction. - Mahatma Gandhi

A quick refresher of Grade 6 Physics: Speed is the rate at which an object is moving, while Velocity captures both the rate and the direction of movement.

We are a growth stage startup and for us, speed matters a lot. A good solution delivered next week is better than a perfect one three months later. Very often, we may not have all the information required to make a decision, and in cases like this, we ship, we iterate, we learn and then we ship again!

However, here comes the velocity part: going fast in the wrong direction will only take you further from your destination faster. We have some North Star goals and metrics to guide us and we want to move fast in that direction. We welcome and actively encourage pilots, MVPs and even hacks to ship faster as long as they take us a step or two closer to these goals.

Are detours to try out newer ways to get to the destination okay? Read on about that in the next value.

6. Experiment and Innovate

What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world. - Simon Sinek

We are solving some interesting problems for a 2–3 centuries old industry. Some problems have been there for decades and some problems have been introduced with the advent of the digital era. Solving these problems is not easy and any solution, however well researched, is not guaranteed to succeed.

Solving these problems involves coming up with innovative ideas and experimenting with the ones which we really believe in. Some of these experiments may succeed, but a bigger number will likely fail. Instead of fearing these failures, we embrace big bet thinking. We encourage our team members to take a shot at these problems in unique and interesting ways with a belief that even a handful of successes in these bets can have a transformative effect on the industry.

A simplified view of the life cycle of big bets looks something like this: Identify problem, Ideate, Solutionize, Experiment, Fail, Course-correct, Succeed, Repeat! The steps of Failure and Course-correction are, of course, optional. But more often than not, these steps are repeated a few times in the cycle instead of being omitted.

7. Fight for the right:

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We believe in taking a stand for what we believe is the right thing to do. This means speaking up even when it is a bit uncomfortable and even when (and especially when) we may be the only one in the room with a counter-opinion. We use data, logic, customer feedback, competitive benchmarking and even anecdotes to present our point of view firmly, but respectfully and professionally (Remember We-Before-I!).

Keep in mind that we do not let “Fight for the right” get in the way of “Velocity over speed”. We debate logically and fervently, but not endlessly. We are biased towards making decisions and acting fast. Once a decision is made, we commit fully to it as a team.

8. Obsession about the customers

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton

We obsess about our customers and solving problems for them. We do not make assumptions about what problems may be bothering them or what may be good for them. We talk to them. We look at their usage patterns. We shadow them in their routine tasks. We conduct usability studies. Above all, we consider each of us as the representatives of the customers inside the company and take a stand for them in our internal discussions.

Contrary to what some may think, we do not need to choose between doing the right thing for the customers and doing the right thing for the business. In the long term, doing the right thing for the customers is the right thing for the business. Always!

9. Openness & Transparency:

The single most important ingredient in the recipe for success is transparency because transparency builds trust. - Denise M. Morrison

Openness & Transparency to us means being authentic: Sharing things the way they are without obfuscation. When it comes to sharing our values, our decisions and sometimes the reasoning behind those decisions, we err on the side of over-communicating. We practice this value through regular 1:1s, staff-meetings, and frequent org-wide communications. This value is paramount for us because transparency breeds trust and a team with people that trust each other and its leadership can move mountains together.

To some extent, this value can be considered a complimentary value to Fight-for-the-right. Both values do apply to everyone in the company. However, Fight-for-the-right is a more bottom-up value: it empowers everyone in the company to have a voice and stand behind it. In contrast, Openness & Transparency holds the leaders more accountable to be transparent and share their reasoning for their decisions.

We extend this value to not only our current employees, but also prospective ones. In our exploratory interviews, we openly share what we are, what we want to be and what we are not. While this brutally honest disclosure often surprises candidates, this is not really a difficult decision to make: We need people who sign up for our mission fully knowing what works fantastically well at Dineout and what is an area of improvement for us.

10. Data Driven Decisioning:

In God we trust. All others must bring data.- W. Edwards Deming

At Dineout, “data-driven” is not just a buzzword. This is how we make decisions and conduct business. The value may be listed last, but this is definitely not the least important one. In fact, to some extent, this value may be considered the engine that powers many other values. For example: it may be difficult to be customer obsessed if we do not study the data of how their current behaviour is on our platform. Experimentation won’t really lead to successful innovations in absence of data to prove or disprove the hypothesis being tested in the experiment. And of course, how would we fight for the right if there is no data to back up our beliefs.

Does intuition have no place in this data-driven world? What to do when there is no data for the decision we are trying to make?
Intuition often comes from years of experience in a domain or an industry and it won’t be wise to completely ignore it . Very often, intuition is the starting point to form a hypothesis in the decision making process and then we use data to prove or disprove it. And it is possible to be data-driven in approach even when full data is not available, which is usually the case. In these cases, we take assumptions, make guesstimates and visit these later to refine them for the future.

While the above ten values describe the “How” behind Dineout, there is one more thing that I have not touched upon yet: The “Why” behind Dineout. Scroll up to see if you can find this as a pattern that cuts across the ten values or may be see if you can spot it in the image below that captures the ten values together:

Most probably you see it now. Our ten values together spell out: WE LOVE FOOD!

That’s right! We love food, and that is, as the French would say, is our raison d’etre: our reason to be! We love food, We love those who love food, and We love those who serve food! This is why we exist and this is what keeps us going!

If you are as passionate about food as we are and the above 10 values resonate with you, we would love to talk to you. Visit the jobs section of our LinkedIn page for our currently open positions. Even if you do not find a relevant position but are still passionate about our mission, please shoot an email to careers@dineout.co.in.

Thanks to Kritika and Shrikant for the beautiful illustrations capturing our values.

Decoding the Dineout Culture Recipe: 10 values that drive us was originally published in Dineout Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am a foodie and like every true foodie in India, I was a heavy Dineout user well before I joined the company. However, when I first discussed the Chief Product Officer opportunity at Dineout in Jan 2020, I was pleasantly surprised by many things that I did not know about the company. In fact, it was eventually because of many of these things that I decided to take up the opportunity.

About 15 months into the role, I have talked to hundreds of prospective candidates for product management, design, analytics and content writing roles at Dineout and most of these things still surprise Dineout outsiders.

So, what are these things?

#1 GIRF is huuuuuuuuge!!!

This year, the Great Indian Restaurant Festival (GIRF), our annual restaurant fest, marked its 6th consecutive successful year of offering great savings with massive deals. As a foodie, I have always loved GIRF and the huge discounts it brings, but this time as an insider, I was impressed with not just the tech effort it takes to pull it off (read about that here), but also with the real magnitude of how big GIRF really is!

Here are only some of the numbers that partially capture the enormous magnitude of GIRF 2021:

#2 Dineout is India’s Only Full Stack Food Tech Product Company

A Full-stack startup is a company which develops a technology that can provide the end customer with a complete product or service which handles the entire value chain of its activity (iAdvize). To understand how Dineout is a full-stack company, let us first understand what a non-full-stack food tech company will look like.

A B2C food-tech company will typically focus on the foodies: Helping them find a table reservation or getting food delivered to their home. They may still have apps/websites for the restaurateurs to receive orders or set up menus, but these will strictly be supporting apps for the foodie side.

On the other side, a B2B food-tech company will focus on solutions for restaurateurs. It may focus on Point of Sale systems, online ordering products, customer relationship management solutions or a combination of these or similar other offerings.

A full-stack food-tech company does all of these and more! Dineout is that full-stack food tech company in India!

But wait! How did Dineout get there? Read on to the next point!

#3 We have made 5 acquisitions in the last 6 years!

While we have seen massive organic growth in the last few years, we have also been adding strategic capabilities inorganically through acquisitions. In fact, since late 2015, we have almost grown at the rate of one acquisition a year: That is five acquisitions so far!

It was with our very first acquisition of inresto in 2015, that we forayed into the B2B side of things. The snapshot below captures our acquisition-story since then:

With time, the capabilities of Torqus and Binge Digital have been absorbed in the inresto platform, Gourmet Passport has evolved to become the ultimate dining club for foodies in India: Dineout Passport, and SteppinOut has become a separate line of business (events) for us. (More about our events business in point #7)

But what exactly does Dineout B2B (aka inresto) do?

#4 inresto is a one-stop solution for restaurateurs:

Our mantra for the restaurateurs is: “You worry about the food and the restaurant; We will take care of the food-tech and the restaurant-tech”.

Here is what the inresto stack looks like:

Each of these products solves a unique problem and some of our B2B customers choose to go ahead with just one or two of these products. However, the real magic happens when products from the whole product family interact with each other and in some cases with the B2C side of Dineout. Picture this scenario featuring only some of the inresto products:

You have not visited your favourite restaurant for the last four months. Restaurant looks at the Recency-Frequency-Monetization (RFM) module of inresto Campaign and sends you a personalised message with a customised offer. You make a reservation powered by inresto Reserve and reach the restaurant where the valet issues you a digital valet token through inresto Valet on your phone before taking your car. As you walk to the your reserved seat, you proactively place an order through inresto Dinein. After you have enjoyed a scrumptious meal, you get the bill on your phone, which you pay through Dineout Pay (with great savings). As you rate the restaurant 5-star on a survey powered by inresto Feedback, you tap on the “Call car” button on the inresto Valet link. Your car is ready at the restaurant exit before you step out. You drive back home satisfied after a lovely evening.

Impressive, isn’t it? But wait till you hear about who all are using inresto offerings.

#5 You have definitely dined at or ordered from one of our B2B customers:

Unless you are a restaurateur, you may not have heard about inresto before today, but if you are a foodie in India, chances are high that you have been indirectly served by one or more products in the inresto product suite.

From Fine dine restaurants like Copper Chimney and Kylin Experience to Quick-Service ones like Theobroma and Mad Over Donuts, From bars & pubs like Social and Byg Brewski to cafes like Mocha and Coffee Culture, From traditional Indian giants like Bikanerwala and Haldiram’s to global players like Wingstop and Coco Ichibanya, From cloud-kitchen startups like Swiggy’s Bowl Kitchen, Eat.fit and Freshmenu to five star hotels like Marriott, Hyatt, and Radisson: our B2B business counts the Indian restaurant industry’s who’s who among its customers.

Wingstop? Isn’t that the American chain specializing in chicken wings? How are they one of inresto customers? Are they already in India? This is because….

#6 We build in India and ship to the world!

Our B2C product is presently focused on the Indian market, but on the B2B side, we are building a global product. The restaurateur community has somewhat similar problems worldwide. These problems range from increasing dependence on aggregators to having to work with copious amounts of paper in absence of affordable digital solutions to having insufficient technical know-how to utilize technology even if they can afford it. The inresto product suite solves these problems and we do not want to limit our solutions to just Indian restaurateurs.

India is our home market, but in addition, our product is currently being used by restaurateurs in 14 other countries including US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Uganda, Kenya, Singapore, and many more. Global expansion is one of our immediate key priorities and we are targeting presence in at least 40 countries by the end of 2022.

#7 We have been helping India in SteppinOut (responsibly)

We have been partnering with SteppinOut for the past few years and have seen some great engagement with the events we co-organized with them. That gave us sufficient confidence to go deep into the events domain by making SteppinOut a part of Dineout. We acquired them in late 2020 right in the middle of a pandemic when literally no events were happening. But we knew that being a full-stack player in events, i.e. being the organizer as well as the distribution company in events, is a bet for the future.

Since the acquisition and before we hit a pause because of the Covid-19 second wave, we have already conducted numerous events this year while following proper covid protocols, including standup comedy performances, night-markets, food festivals, a virtual concert by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and the biggest of them all: a Lucky Ali Live concert in Bangalore.

Now, with the second wave behind us, we have 100+ exciting events planned for the rest of 2021 again with strict social distancing norms.

#8 We have a unique program for techies interested in pursuing MBA

We have a unique program for engineers who are interested in pursuing full-time MBA programs: Dineout Techpreneurs. This is a one of its kind program that prepares MBA aspirants for their B-school applications and adds a much needed differentiation to their resume with the product management exposure they could receive at Dineout.

Read more about the program here and if this interests you, you can apply here.

#9 We have 4 tech offices in India & we are hiring!

Many people associate Dineout with our headquarters location: Noida and are surprised to hear that we have product, design and engineering teams spread across multiple locations: Noida, Bangalore, Pune and now Gurgaon. For now, we are fully remote collaborating equally well and delivering results. We will continue WFH till it is completely safe to return to the office, but we are all waiting for the post-pandemic world, when we can meet each other in person at one of these locations.

And with everything you read above, you probably won’t be surprised to know that we are hiring across Engineering, Product and Design functions across most of these locations. Visit the jobs section of our LinkedIn page for our currently open positions.

If you do not find a relevant position but are still passionate about our mission, please shoot an email to careers@dineout.co.in. We are always looking for mission-driven individuals who can make a difference.

So these are the nine things which often take people outside the company by surprise when I share them. Which ones surprised you the most? Please let me know in the comments.

Thanks to Shrikant, Safalya, Kritika & Samikshya for the amazing illustrations.

9 things you didn’t know about Dineout was originally published in Dineout Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.