"BYOP" - Build Your Own Product.

In July of 2022, I had decided of stepping into the game of content creation - to give away my weekends for writing, editing, producing and sacrifice my post work weekdays for following up on the social media tractions.

2 months before quitting KPIT , I had one aim in mind. To either break into Product Management or land a dynamic and responsibly sound role into a product based startup. Meanwhile I had already started preparing for everything that this role needs one to be skilled with - system design, decision making, design thinking, product thinking/sense etcetera, etcetera.

You know when they say, "when you really want something in life (desperately), you tell it to the universe, you put it out. It eventually and magically makes stuff fall into place. It lines up everything that you want to achieve, slowly and steadily." Well they aren't completely wrong about it - at least for an "aspiring product manager"

If one is "aspiring" to be a product manager and puts it out on the pretty little description boxes below their LinkedIn name tag, the universe "slowly and steadily" lines up heaps of product management gyaan in their timeline.

"How to break into Product Management?", "How to cold mail", "What are guesstimates, design questions?", "Please enroll into my course ($799) only", "How can a babysitter transition into Product Management" so on and so fourth!

Amidst all the chaos and brain paralysis all the content shared on LinkedIn around Product Management gave me, one of the best advice that I received and I am sure a lot of other Product Aspirants are receiving is to "Build your own product" - it could be an easiest way for you to end up handling bigger and better challenges on a full time role.

Unlike most others, I took that advice. I researched the best product ideas, introspected what are the basic problems that one needs to solve, what is really in my capacity to end up solving those problems, do I have the required capital, am I skilled enough for building something tech based or rather am I equipped with the tools to build something?

Before ending up building something hard and fast, I prepared a list of stuff that I would do.

1. Not to spend even a penny off of my wallet - enough of paid certificates, courses, cohorts and fellowships.
2. Follow the first rule and do whatever you wish to.

The idea of BYOP (build your own product) shouldn't necessarily involve a practical product, neither a hardware solution or a SaaS tool. It could be a blog, a newsletter, a No Code based solution, or even a PODCAST.

Now you know where the newsletter is going! Aren't you guys the smartest bunch?

Since I had decided of not spending even a penny on building anything new, I decided of giving PODCAST a shot and that's when The Unpredictably Rational (TUR) began. As much as Dan Ariely inspires me with his experiments and ideas around Behavioral Economics / Science, his book, The Predictably Irrational intrigued me about everything that goes inside a human brain while taking minimal to critical decisions in life.

The podcast The Unpredictably Rational (TUR) was an irrational decision but a rational attempt at creating my own product. I took my decision through the 5 stages of Design Thinking -

• Empathize - I shared a survey form and asked my audience, friends, colleagues about the types of podcast they listen, how often they listen to and which one's are their favorites.
• Define - I identified my core persona - my core audience. Aspiring product managers, knowledge seekers and skill developers. What was the one issue they faced? To acquire the ground level understanding of this role. What really happens in Product companies, while hiring and while on the job.
• Ideate - What could be the possible ways of solving this for my audience? It could be by talking and interacting with industry leaders, experts and gather the knowhows of real industry level responsibilities.
• Prototype - What could be the scaled down but easy to discover version of the product? A talk show, a forum, a platform of discussions, A PODCAST!
• Test - It's been more than 7 months I have been testing out the solution. Inviting and connecting with hundreds of Product leaders and industry experts to understand about the role and make it available on my platform for folks to consume and derive actionable insights from.

Next steps? I created the page for the idea to check for conversions, I utilized freely available video editing software to edit the clips, I contacted experts and leaders from the industry to get on the pod and discuss their ideas and experiences, I wrote the narrative for the content and I produced the 0 to 1 of everything for the podcast!

Was this the right solution? - Maybe. It was right for the constraints and limitations I was into. It was right for the audience I had gathered. It was right for the situation I was into (learning about the role).

What have I personally gained? - Well, I believe social capital and your network are the real currency you gain over social platforms and I got it more than enough. Connected with 3.5k individuals in 5 months, made friends in the leadership roles and made my presence in the industry with just a connection request and share this on my feed feature.

I may not be an expert in BYOP, nor I am a successful testimonial of this practice, but I can assure you, getting started without worrying about "if you are eligible, if you have enough capital, will you be able to make time" - is the only approach to build something and I hope you take this bet.

Take a bet on yourself and your abilities, you shall eventually figure out the rest. Amen!!