Iesh Dixit’s Post

A simple notification boosted our user engagement by 50%. No frills, no bells and whistles — just keen insight into user motivation. Our users break down into two groups: site supervisors and project owners. Supervisors have two key motivations: 1. Recording data to generate reports (because business owners want it). 2. Getting recognition from their boss for career growth. But here’s the rub: Supervisors lack the drive for keeping timely records & sending detailed reports, and owners rarely acknowledge that. We decided to gamify things. We tested a daily lock-in notification to supervisors, alerting them that the report would be sent automatically at 6 PM. And when owners received the report, we prompted them to show appreciation with a simple click. The result: timely records, more reports, more owner appreciation and 1.5x engagement. But most importantly — satisfied customers. One small nudge, massive results. That’s the power of understanding user motivation. #product #userresearch #startups #SaaS

At Powerplay, we DO NOT “prepare” for #meetings. No colorful slides, no tedious documents. People just fire up Tableau/Excel/Mixpanel and share relevant data and insights on the fly! Why? Because if you're on top of your game, you don't need prep! 💼 We have all been in meetings where everyone's scrambling to impress. Or, even worse, to defend. That’s not what meetings are for. Meetings are for making sense of insights. Meetings are for brainstorming, for tapping into our collective intelligence. #productivity #startup

One of my best #product managers said: “You keep giving me such insanely tough projects … I’ve not been able to deliver results for a while.” “It’s like I am destined to fail,” she said, sounding demotivated. I told her: You are talented. That’s why you are on projects with a high degree of ambiguity. Your success is not to move a business goal; it’s to bring certainty. And you’ve been crushing it! In your last project, you brought us a conclusion: X doesn’t work. Now we all won’t waste time on it. Unless we know what doesn’t work, how will we know what does? Every elimination is a win, a lesson learned, a step closer. As Edison famously said, “I didn’t fail 10,000 times — I found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Life as a PM can be tough. Hypothesis after hypothesis can bomb. But if you can forego the quick gratification of tactical wins and embrace failures — you will be unstoppable. #startups #entrepreneurship #productmanagement

I want people in my #startup to fail often. I want them to make mistakes. I want them to have “scar tissue”. Unless you are wounded, unless you fall and get back up and unless you dissect what went wrong… you don’t learn. That’s what “experience” is: you’ve seen what works, what flops and what flat-out explodes. That’s how you develop judgment, self-awareness, a thick skin. Essentially, everything you need to ride the startup rollercoaster flows from scar tissue. That’s why I often tell my team to have a strong bias for action. To “do”, not plan for perfection. After all, learning is 90% action and 10% reflection. #entrepreneurship #culture

“Iesh, if the team or the customer needs me to do accounting, I will do accounting,” Anshul Gupta told me during our early days. Anshul is an architect by training, one of the earliest members of our team. His knowledge of accounting was as profound as mine in marine biology. 🙂 But here’s the thing: he was WILLING to give it a shot. He may not have excelled at it, but he was willing to figure it out. I’ve come to realize that those who truly care about the users and the company don't confine themselves to a single speciality in a #startup. Their concern extends beyond their own roles. They are eager to solve important problems across teams and domains. When I interview candidates and they say, “I will only do XYZ as I specialize in that,” I encourage them to join a big company instead. I am not trying to settle the #specialist vs #generalist debate. All I am saying is: you REALLY can't afford to be a one-trick pony at a startup. You need a generalist mindset to thrive. PS: Anshul heads sales and key accounts management at Powerplay. But you'll still find him working on product, HR, finance issues… you name it. #growthmindset #entrepreneurship #culture

Tightly held goal, loosely held process — the mantra to startup success. Do the opposite and you will drive your startup to the ground. #startups #entrepreneurship

It’s been four years since March 2020, when we saw a nationwide lockdown on account of Covid. That was the last time construction workers — and their large-scale migration — made any kind of news. They had to walk hundreds of KMs to reach their villages, children and belongings in tow. But their plight slipped out of public consciousness in no time. Even now, ~38 fatalities occur in India’s construction sector every day. Falls from heights, hits by moving objects, scaffolding collapses … the list is long. And if they do survive, the average daily wage is less than Rs 400. Exploitation is rampant. Social security is nonexistent. This, when the construction sector contributes more than ~Rs 4 trillion to the GDP. This, when the construction sector employs more than 7 crore people. On Labour Day, we should acknowledge that these labourers are indeed the builders of the nation. Bridges, highways, high-rise apartments, all the infra we take for granted … nothing is possible without them. The onus is on us to make construction safe and dignified for workers.

We just saw a 100% spike in engagement from new subscribers. Not a dime in additional marketing spend. No big features launched. No bells and whistles. Just a small yet powerful change. We simplified the user flow so that construction site owners get to the aha moment faster. We removed all the distractions, all the cognitive overload. We guided their focus to just two steps. Now one glance and Eureka! They can track progress at all their projects. Visibility — their toughest challenge — is Powerplay's core promise. We simply offered it upfront. Takeaway: People often miss the basics in trying to chase aha moments… …when it’s the basics that lead to aha moments. #startups #design #product #userexperience

We call ourselves Slack for construction. Not because it’s a cool moniker. But because Powerplay cracked the CAC puzzle just like Slack.   Slack famously drove bottoms-up adoption from its end-users (read: developers), persuading their companies to buy the product. Similarly, Powerplay targeted construction project managers and site engineers — the real users. Our product not only helped them keep records, but also generated detailed progress reports — automatically. That’s how business owners and decision-makers came to know about us. They were curious — and interested. The biggest conversion obstacle B2B SaaS can face is in delivering proof that the customer’s team will use it. And we proved that before we reached out. The sales cycle got dramatically shorter. CAC came down drastically. Not just that — word of mouth spread among site engineers and project managers, pushing down CAC even further. This is the power of unique insight, when combined with first principles thinking. #CAC #SaaS #startups #marketing #sales 

Everyone says they want to set audacious goals. But at Powerplay - regardless of the outcome, I don’t ask my leads: Why was the goal not achieved? I ask them: What will it take to achieve the goal? Because if you know what it will take, we will make it happen. This approach helps in four ways: It shifts the focus from the past to the future. It sends the message that failure isn’t the end of the road; it’s progress towards success. It helps build organizational resilience as people can look beyond the setbacks. There is never a dip in morale, only renewed vigor to meet the targets. Small changes often have profound effects. #startups #technology #SaaS #leadership