Time to share a career update.

I joined PayU three years ago. It has been an amazing ride since then. While I came from an e-commerce background, it was only over these three years I discovered that Payments is such a different domain to work for.

Read on...

Well, it's time to say good-bye and move on to solve different kind of payment problems @ Amazon Pay.

To share with all of you on what it meant to work with PayU, I have summarized my 36 learnings over these 36 months. I hope you will find them a valuable read.

Starting with..

PAYMENTS ECOSYSTEM

1. It's still early stages for payments in India. Today, foundational levers are more important than a minor lead against a competitor. We are building the history we will feel proud of after 10 years.

2. India's payment ecosystem will take up a very different shape than that of China's. Look at china for user behavior but not for replicating the ecosystem.

3. There are equal amount high leverage problems to be solved in core payments as well as different experience layers above core payments. Successful PAs / PSPs can't just focus on one of it.

4. E-commerce product is about building seamless workflows and user journeys. Payments product is a lot more about deep integration into the external ecosystem.

5. Leveraging and integrating ecosystem infrastructure makes payment a complex and interesting problem to solve.

6. Robust API platform, once established, will go a long way to act as a moat for the organization.

Now lets move on learnings in PRODUCT MANAGEMENT:

7. Regulations 101 is a very important knowledge to acquire in payments product management

8. In the early stage of a product, solve for PMF and not efficiency. I once did a mistake of solving for the latter and wish I knew this nugget earlier.

9. Getting to know about your own bias and assumptions is one of the most important skills for successful product management

10. Keeping aside all kinds of conflicts, as a PM you should always want your Sales / Marketing / Business to succeed.

11. Whenever there is a choice for portfolios, choose "Depth" over "Breadth". Depth exposes you to subject matter expertise. And breadth to more stakeholders.

12. Prioritization frameworks are fine. However, the crux of great prioritization is customer empathy, many discussions with stakeholders, knowing key metrics and alignment with the overarching goals.

13. You build great leverage for the organization when you are able to connect different products within your org to solve a real customer problem. Hence never be territorial.

14. Focusing forward stream (read vision) & backward stream (read reflection) is more important than upstream (read managers) & downstream mgmt (read teams).

15. Experiment with product career in early years with different domains and types of users for whom you build products.

16. Ownership is the single biggest trait in the early stage of a PM career that can stand you out from the rest.

Now on ACCELRATING LEARNING

17. Invest 5-10% of your time in learning the domain extremely well. It a great lever to contribute towards innovation.

18. Learning domain from experts is more nuanced than learning from any other source.

19. Chase people who can be great mentors. Mentors can open your horizon which no one else can.

20. You can grow skills by both deliberate as well as on-the-job learning. Latter is more valuable and makes you unique.

21. Reflections can multiple your learning. Take out time to reflect on projects you worked upon for the last one month or a quarter or a year.

Now moving on to HIRING

22. Prefer hiring people who will complement your skill sets, and less of supplementing.

23. Investment in time to find a great hire pays back in the long run.

24. Always be open to re-hire people, if they were able to increase the bar of your team.

25. When hiring, focus on great candidate experience is very important to build strong brand positioning in the community

Now on SAILING THROUGH ORGS

26. Grass on the other side always looks greener. Equally applicable to teams, products and organizations.

27. Beyond a level in this journey of career growth, it is your own responsibility to identify the most important problems the organization is focusing upon. And make a space for yourself in that.

28. Whenever you feel helpless, ask for help. Always.

On RELATIONSHIPS

29. At the end of day, it's all about people and relationships you build. Nothing else matters in retrospect.

30. Everyone is too busy and entangled in their own professional and personal lives. Hence shed off opinions on how others are thinking about you.

31. If you make someone in the org like you, the first step is to build a genuine likeability within yourself for that person.

32. The world is a mirror of your own perceptions. Whenever there is a conflict, learn about your perceptions first.

On MANAGING TEAMS

33. Transparency and integrity are what people appreciate the most in the long run. Equally applicable for your manager and the team.

34. When there is no new surprise for your team member in the appraisal discussion, you have done your job well as a manager.

35. Maintain a strong balance of upstream and downstream management. Golden mean is the key.

36. All conversations start with trust first and not other way around

If you are still reading, I hope you enjoyed these nuggets.