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BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter

Identifying a Baby founder

I work as a Product manager at a series A well funded startup. This company is run by a solo founder/CEO.

This is a wannabe tech and product startup that does not care about their product at all. The internal review meetings get 5 minutes on product and 55 minutes on business and operations on a good day!

All they care about is how to run operations and tech just works on automation instead of building the product for the end user. Every OKR cycle runs for two months where OKRs are set for product but we end up building internal tools because things get "re-prioritised" and operations "can not miss targets".

The worst part is that the strategy changes every 2 months and every week, the CEO keeps adding new "wants". Almost like a baby seeing shiny new toys. At this stage, the product has become a mess with no identity at all!

This baby always says "But is that even do-able" acts critical and tries to seem smart in front of their employees while lying to the investors and board every other week that we are a tech and product company.

I don't know if this happens at other startups in India.

Would love to hear what y'all have experienced.

11mo ago
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions
Round 1 by Grapevine
GigglyWaffle
GigglyWaffle
Stealth11mo

You sound like a tech bro, who thinks that only tech runs the world. Huge companies like Tata, reliance etc are built on solid operations and business insights.

Tech is enabler, if the founder is smart with business and operations, most likely he will make a good business, and unless you start valuing things beyond tech also, you will keep hopping jobs and cribbing why people don’t value you.

FloatingPancake
FloatingPancake
Student11mo

I don't think OP is frustrated because tech is getting ignored. They seem frustrated because things are way too chaotic for people to follow along. And also because the founder is not giving off the impression of knowing where to take the company.

Do you think that a company should not have a roadmap?

BubblyNoodle
BubblyNoodle
Nike11mo

Welcome to startup. This is an immature rant. For a good many years survival is key since product market fit is not very easy to achieve.

QuirkyBoba
QuirkyBoba
Stealth11mo

Happens at our company as well. Series C funded

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

Wow! This sucks.
Is it the case in other companies in India as well?

CosmicDumpling
CosmicDumpling
Stealth11mo

Shame the startup?

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

What do you mean?

BouncyNarwhal
BouncyNarwhal
Sprinklr11mo

Name and shame

SwirlyNoodle
SwirlyNoodle
Student11mo

Same story everywhere. Founders hire bunch of ji saab ji kind of people give them 5x of money they deserve and then burden them to build the product. These people have no life no self respect, they all become paaltu kutte of the founders. Founders just cook some story to be pitched to VCs, very few of them actually cares about the company. This is where the culture gets compromised.
My Takeaway: if you are working for there firms, keep emotions and attachment aside, ask for huge increments/bonuses since these firms run on VC money so they don’t mind giving huge salaries in initial years. Take it with a pinch of salt as you might have to resign any day bcz of the politics/ incompetent management. Enjoy the breeze till it last.

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

They are stingy with bonuses as well.
The culture is bad and they are, like every other company out there, taking advantage of the market situation at the moment

ZippyBoba
ZippyBoba
Stealth11mo

Is the company hitting it's metrics?

Maybe it's not a pure tech company and more of an heavy ops, semi-tech business? (Like many other companies are?)

Ex. Nobroker, D2C, Quick Commerce, etc...

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

It is hitting 60% of it's metrics. And yes, it is not a pure tech company. L

ZippyBoba
ZippyBoba
Stealth11mo

Probably why young founders need support from strong operators/domain experts, early on... Can help steer/demarcate discussions/business.

BubblyUnicorn
BubblyUnicorn
Stealth11mo

It keep happening in our company too YC funded series B

SparklyQuokka
SparklyQuokka
Student11mo

You need to step up and convince them about the importance of product. What I see is a leadership opportunity, if you have the skills, grab it.

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

I've tried. And will continue to!! Fingers crossed

SparklyQuokka
SparklyQuokka
Student11mo

All the best

FluffyBanana
FluffyBanana
Tekion11mo

I had a similar experience working for a Series A startup. I think having good leadership matters a lot and also their experience. Also I feel like this happens when the founders are more obsessed about getting funding, making money etc. from their product rather than actually being obsessed about building a good product.

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

+1 Banking on a new product leader we've recently hired.
Unfortunately, their word is also going unnoticed in the leadership

PerkyLlama
PerkyLlama
Invideo11mo

This is unfortunately the norm. Good product cultures are an exception.

BubblyDonut
BubblyDonut
Porter11mo

Unfortunate! Any startups in India with a good product culture that you know of?

JazzyBurrito
JazzyBurrito
Oracle11mo

Well almost 99% Indian startups never achieve PMF. So it's all about enjoying VC money, experimenting and satisfying the ego of the founder

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