Understand people who are not buying yet
⏱ Untimed topicRathi asks PMs to understand category consumers who have not bought the product, as well as existing users. That helps explain the message that earns attention and when to introduce more features. A new user should not need to discover every useful part without help.
Think beyond the feature specification
⏱ Untimed topicHe describes PM work as influence inside the company and with users. Shipping requires engineering, leadership and launch partners; adoption requires customers to see a reason to change behavior. A full-stack view includes how the product reaches people and succeeds after launch.
Work backwards from the whole launch system
⏱ Untimed topicFor Rathi, the future press release includes a date, value proposition and the reactions sought from customers and business partners. Work backwards from the machinery needed to deliver that outcome. A customer benefit alone is not enough if the teams and operating pieces cannot make it real.
Write three genuinely different options
⏱ Untimed topicHe asks teams to write three alternative press releases, not variations of the same answer. Different segments, pricing or product approaches make tradeoffs visible. Fully thinking through the options also shows colleagues where their suggestions were considered and why an option was rejected.
Use the FAQ to expose dependencies
⏱ Untimed topicRathi describes compliance sign-offs in a financial product and linked participants in a marketplace. Questions should bring those constraints into the proposal before execution. His company examples are his account; an FAQ is a way to surface review needs, not evidence that a launch is compliant.
Make resource allocation a strategy discussion
⏱ Untimed topicHe distinguishes foundations, regular improvement, larger bets and changes in direction. How much effort belongs in each is a leadership choice rather than only a PM's backlog ranking. Ask leadership to make the tradeoff explicit before teams try to satisfy every priority at once.
Commit to a coherent marketplace choice
⏱ Untimed topicOnce alternatives are explored and a direction agreed, Rathi expects people to champion it rather than repeatedly reopen the same debate. In three-sided marketplaces, a fee or earnings change affects the other participants too. He favors a shared strategic story over isolated goals, based on his experience rather than a rule that OKRs never work.
