Drive from Bangalore to Rajasthan and the learnings
In Dec 2019, I took an adventurous 10 days to ride from Bangalore to Rajasthan and back. About 5000 KM on Indian roads. Driving from Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad, Mount Abu, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Khuri, Jaipur, Vadodara, Mumbai, Hubli, and back to Bangalore. An amazing and memorable trip with my family to cherish for a lifetime!
It was not just a drive but a huge learning experience. You get time to think, clear your mind, talk a lot with your family, connect well, relax, experience, and bring a fresh perspective to life. Here are some key learnings that I take away from my adventure and map to my product journey.
Don’t bother if someone is racing through.
It only matters what you achieved in the long run. Short acceleration and taking a huge risk will frustrate you & your team.
Building a Product is a long journey.
You need to set yourself for a long way to go and stay focused on your vision. Indulging into short-term tactics may lose time and not yield anything sizable in the long run. Being in the driver’s seat you need to be prepared and have a long-term mindset.
You’re going to miss some turns and get back to it soon. It does not matter in the long run.
I drove 5000 KM of the unknown road to me. Maps were there to guide every turn; however, I did miss a few and had to take a U-turn to be back on track. As a human, we do make mistakes and need to give sufficient room to make one. As far as you digest this fact and stay focus a long way, you will not get frustrated. Staying cool on a long way is important to avoid any risks on the road.
You need to have strong mental stability for a long drive.
Huge mental stability is required for a long road. I drove almost 10 hours each day. You can’t get distracted, annoyed by bad roads or traffic or bad drivers on the road. You know reaching the destination safely is the most important thing and a few minutes delay does not matter. You have the responsibility of your life and your family’s life at hand as you drive. The same applies to building products – Strong mental stability is critical when building the product with your entire team.
The landscape changes drastically as you drive or build products.
Going from Bangalore to Rajasthan and driving through 4 states, we saw wonderful landscapes. We stopped and enjoyed them for a moment and got back to our journey. As you build products over the years, you will see many landscape changes – technology, people, political, and many more. Be watchful of each and keep your eyes and ears open for it. You may need to stop by, have a look and, at times, change the roadmap too.
Planning & teamwork is the key.
I took a month to prepare for it. Plan for each stops, research how people do it, start/stop time, the sequence of milestones, the optimal path to follow, spend more time, place to visit, budget, and more. I got my wife and daughter looped in the planning phase to get a nod or correct it. A great team effort that came out really well. The same applies to building a product. A great plan, along with your team working closely together, will help you in a long way.
Keeping a tab on fuel is critical.
How long you can fly or drive depends directly on the fuel quantity. As a startup, you generally have very little run-way/fuel. In a corporate world, it might be the patience level of your management. You need to keep a tab closely before your product gets stranded mid-way.
A regular health check of your vehicle is a must for the long run.
Tech-debt, Architecture overhaul, mounting bugs, team spirit, and many more health check factors need to be reviewed periodically to keep the product healthy. Anything going wrong, in the long run, will take a toll. Take care of your product the way you take care of your car.
The road is not going to be smooth.
There will be roadblocks, potholes, misleading & missing signboards, rain, night, and unexpected breakdowns. As far as you have clarity on product vision, you know all these roadblocks are temporary, and you should work around them.
Enjoy the journey as you take on the adventure.
Landscapes will change, the culture will change, food will change, people will change, and so also the roadmap. You need to enjoy the journey and keep learning new things on your way.
Mangesh is Product Leader
Full Bio here – https://mangesh.bhamre.in
