Ashish Gupta

Everyone talks about products, roadmaps, features, and metrics. But some of the most critical work of a Product Manager happens behind the scenes: * Resolving unspoken conflicts in stakeholder meetings * Spotting potential blockers before they stall a launch * Mentoring team members through tough decisions * Anticipating competitor moves and adjusting strategy proactively * Building processes that quietly make everything run smoother This invisible work doesn’t show up on dashboards or in OKRs but without it, teams misalign, launches falter, and products lose their edge. PMs are part strategist, part diplomat, part mentor; the work beneath the surface is what truly drives success. #ProductManagement #ProductStrategy #Leadership #InvisibleWork #PMLife #StakeholderManagement #BusinessStrategy #Competition #Teamwork #ProductLeadership

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I constantly oscillate between sharing in-progress work and completed work. This means I'm long overdue to share some exciting updates on Wonderment Delivery Promise, our pre-purchase ETAs product. Wonderment now supports Rules for transit estimations and fulfillment estimations to allow you to account for per-product ETA customizations (like embroidery and engraving), warehouse delays, or other events that would impact coming estimates. Here's a quick demo of how you can use them for communicating pre-orders, backorders, and delays: https://lnkd.in/eb88vmcu

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"Shopper trust has become a retailer’s most valuable asset." – Anisa Kumar, CEO of Narvar In today’s volatile economy, vague delivery windows and missed updates don’t just frustrate shoppers. They erode trust, drive up costs, and kill loyalty. In her latest Forbes article, Sharon Edelson breaks down key findings from our 2025 State of Post-Purchase Report. 🔒 66% of shoppers feel anxious after buying 🚫 40% abandon carts due to fear of package theft 📦 74% experienced a late delivery in the past year Article in the comments 👇 #Retail #Forbes #Ecommerce #PostPurchaseExperience #Narvar #CustomerExperience #SupplyChain 

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Today we announced new capabilities for our Shop Direct and Buy for Me experiences on Amazon, enabling now feeds to facilitate external merchants to list reliably their product listings and reach millions of Amazon customers. Excited on this feature, that is a win/win experience for customers, merchants and brands. Excited to be part of such important project.

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30+ teams. One goal. None playing the same game. I recently stepped into a space where more than 30 teams contribute to the same outcome. On paper, we were “aligned.” In reality, each team was chasing a different metric. Then one purchase order caught our eyes. The delivery date was impossible. I pulled the thread with my team and partners and uncovered a breakdown that had been sitting under the surface for a long time, hidden in the noise of day-to-day operations. We are now working through the fix. The challenge is not about blame. It is about making the problem visible, making the first step easy to solve, and linking it to the next step so the system keeps flowing. I start small and go big. I am comfortable not knowing every detail upfront as long as I understand the big picture and build guardrails to keep us on course. You cannot fix a fragmented system overnight. But if you do not connect the pieces early, they will drift apart and take twice as long to bring back together. How do you fix a fragmented system : start small or try to solve it all at once?

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Harsh but the truth. Domain knowledge may help you win in the short term, true product skills help you win in the long-term.

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Hiring the wrong PM hurts more than shipping the wrong feature. Products recover. Teams don’t. Skill vs will - which matters more & when?

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In product management, discussions often revolve around MVPs and feature releases, yet the true distinction lies in our approach to iteration. While some teams halt once a product is launched, exceptional teams delve deeper: 🔍 Evaluating what's effective ⚠️ Identifying areas of improvement 📈 Enhancing based on user feedback Iterative thinking doesn't aim for flawlessness but prioritizes progress, insights, and adjustments. This iterative process is key to transforming good products into exceptional ones. Throughout each phase, user input holds immense value. The question remains: Are we truly attuned to our users' feedback? #ProductManagement #ContinuousImprovement #UserFeedback #ProductCulture #GrowthMindset #Leadership #MVPtoImpact

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Today marks an important milestone. After the warm reception of the hardcover edition of "Way of the Product Management Warrior", the eBook version is now officially available on Amazon. What’s stood out most over the past weeks hasn’t been the sales themselves, but the conversations behind them. Product Managers reaching out to say they were looking for something that explains the fundamentals of the role without reducing it to templates, tools, or theory. The early pre-orders of the eBook made one thing clear: there’s a real demand for clarity around what product management actually requires in practice. This book was written for PMs who: ✅ Want a deeper understanding of strategy, not just execution ✅ Are navigating ambiguity, trade-offs, and stakeholder complexity ✅ Care about outcomes more than output ✅ Want language for the instincts they’ve developed over time The eBook format makes it easier to access, annotate, and revisit those ideas wherever you work. If you’re part of the product management community and have been meaning to explore this perspective, the eBook is now live on Amazon. And if you know a PM who’s early in their journey or quietly questioning how the role really works, feel free to share this with them. The most meaningful feedback so far has come from PMs recognizing their own experiences in the pages. That’s what this book was written for. Get your copy today! US: https://lnkd.in/dxiRYcRi UK: https://lnkd.in/dWMSwES8 DE: https://lnkd.in/dzM7MDhA FR: https://lnkd.in/dabBBDDH ES: https://lnkd.in/dz6jHesm IT: https://lnkd.in/dBr5EW6a NL: https://lnkd.in/dkrhxKmG JP: https://lnkd.in/dKdXQRDZ BR: https://lnkd.in/dsBe98d8 CA: https://lnkd.in/d5j6Ypaj MX: https://lnkd.in/duCcwKcj AU: https://lnkd.in/d5kT4dmu IN: https://lnkd.in/dCrfZjnc #ProductManagement #ProductManager #ProductLeadership #PMCommunity #ProductStrategy #TechCareers #Leadership #CareerGrowth #ProductThinking

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Speed Matters ! With the launch of #PriorityFulfillment and faster speed options, D2C sellers and brands can now deliver their own-website and off-Amazon orders with Prime-like delivery speeds — including #SameDay, #Overnight, and #NextDay delivery ! This means brands can now elevate their end-to-end customer experience with: ✅ #FasterDelivery ✅ #HigherConversion ✅ #StrongerBrandTrust

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Micro-Decisions, Macro Impact – Big wins come from many smart micro-decisions. Prioritize user empathy, clarify ambiguity, and avoid scope creep; every small decision propels the product forward. #DecisionMaking #ExecutionMatters #ProductCulture

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We were losing lakhs a month to returns at Escaro Royale. Fixed it by doing less, not more. The problem: 15% return rate on handmade luxury shoes. Every return = ₹10K-15K back in inventory, plus reverse logistics, QC re-check, customer refund processing. The obvious solution everyone pushed: Better product descriptions. More photos. Size guides. We tried all of it. Return rate stayed the same. Then we noticed the pattern in return reasons: "Leather darker than expected" — 31% "Stitching looked different" — 24% "Shoe felt heavier than I thought" — 19% Not quality issues. Expectation mismatches. Here's what we changed: We stopped trying to show everything perfectly. Added a section: "What to expect with handmade shoes" → Leather color varies by hide → Stitching won't be machine-uniform (that's the craft) → Weight is 340g (heavier than mass-produced because of construction) Basically: here's what makes this different, and why those differences aren't defects. Return rate dropped to less than 10% in 8 weeks. Lakhs in monthly savings. Same product. Same photos. Different framing. The insight: Premium customers don't need perfect information. They need the right expectations. They're not buying mass-produced consistency. They're buying craft. But if they expect mass-market uniformity, they'll return it thinking it's a mistake. We spent time trying to hide variability. Should've been celebrating it upfront.

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FINALLY!! In addition to the push from government, wall street, and customers, there is now a push from employees too!! In a bold move, over 1,000 Amazon (India) employees are raising concerns about the company's rapid AI expansion. They're calling for sustainable practices and ethical guidelines to protect jobs and the environment. (You can read more about their demands here: https://lnkd.in/gxrnRZKs) It's crucial for tech giants to balance innovation with responsibility. As we embrace AI, let's ensure it's a force for good, not a source of harm. What are your thoughts on this?

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🌟Top 3 career defining tips, that helped me 🌟 If I look over the last 15 years of my professional career, 12 of those serving at Amazon, I have been extremely fortunate to get the opportunity to sit with Amazon SVPs in numerous meetings and learn from them fairly early in my career. I got picked up and mentored by VPs, Directors and some of the most impactful leaders in Tech (FAANG) and above all had the privilege to learn from two C-Suite leaders, right at home (my parents). This priviledge makes me most driven to help others however I can and share what I've learnt with anyone, when asked. So, as the year begins, here are some of the most powerful advices I have received that helped me. 1. 🧽Drop your ego, be a sponge 🧽: This advice was shared by my mom. Growing up she always said, 'be a sponge'. Learn by observing others, especially those you envy - because in that moment, they have something you dont, and want. Drop your ego, and be curious to learn what actions they took to set them apart. Befriend them if you can, in turn having more friends :) or even better seek their mentorship (in turn turning your envy into respect). And if you can't do any of those, then simply observe them keenly. Follow their journey, like a fly on the wall. l can tell you, apart from all the skills I've learnt by following this advice (that no book/school teaches you), I most importantly learnt to be empathetic and least judgemental. 2.🎰 Have a poker face🎰 - My father and one of my dear ex-manager taught me the importance of learning body language. After covid hit, I made it a personal goal to learn body language so I could understand what my team needed from me, even when they couldn't say it out load. What started as action I took to become a better people manager, very quickly turned into one of my biggest assets and super power. I most often know when someone is lying, is annoyed/disagree with the suggestion even if they show their agreement, dislike/admire someone...etc. Unknowingly we often wear our emotions on our faces/ body and give away so much information. So, learning to hold a poker face, is one of the strongest skills you can have, especially when you work with cross-functional teams and want to have the power to negotiate or lead large organizations. 3. 🏆You are your only competition🏆- This advice reads obnoxious, but it is one of the wisest advice I have received, and follow. We often always compare our growth with others our age, or those who started with us, those who work with us ... but your growth's true value lies in the journey you took, and what you learnt from it. Look at where you started and how you have evolved, what challenges you faced and how you overcame them.. keep your focus on you and you alone. Compete with yourself everyday. To be better than what you were yesterday. And the rest will simply follow.

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10 Principles of Writing Product Strategy (that helped me across Flipkart, Freshworks, OneDirect & Walmart Creator) 1. Start with problems, not features. 2. Define success upfront. 3. Think in systems, not silos. 4. Dream big, but deliver small. 5. Build to scale early. 6. Prioritize like your life depends on it. 7. Use both data and instinct. 8. Strategy dies in silos. 9. Adapt fast. 10. Tell the story well. Product strategy isn’t a roadmap. It’s clarity, trade-offs, and storytelling. These 10 principles are how I’ve learned to move beyond “shipping features” to “shaping bets.”

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As product organizations wrap-up the quarter and approach year-end, Product Leaders and Managers will start investing significant effort in crafting comprehensive, feature‑driven roadmaps. Yet in today’s hyper‑dynamic digital commerce environment, which is shaped by rapid technological innovation and evolving infrastructure, annual static roadmaps risk becoming obsolete even before they’re executed. The real question is: do once‑a‑year plans truly drive customer acquisition, retention, and sustainable growth? In the following six slides, I outline the core tenets of modern product development, with a focus on agile approaches to product visioning. Made reference to bigbasket, Uber AI Solutions, Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto, Duolingo in my presentation for their breakthrough in creating product categories and customer behaviour. #eCommerce, #ProductDevelopment, #FutureIsAI

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When you join a new org, the hardest part isn’t learning the tools, it’s getting context. As a Product Manager, you need to know: - How the business is performing - profitability, conversions, feedback, NPAs - Which categories are growing and grabbing attention - What customer pain points matter most - How your systems and platforms actually work - Which data science models have been deployed, what’s failed, and what’s working wonders and what ideas are already in motion But in large orgs, this context is scattered - buried in Slack, trapped in Sheets, hidden in Notion, or locked in people’s heads (sometimes those who’ve already left).That’s not a small inefficiency. It’s a multi-million-dollar leak. And that’s exactly what Glean is fixing. Glean just hit $100M+ ARR, 203% YoY growth, and a $7.25B valuation, by solving enterprise knowledge chaos. It connects 30+ tools (Slack, Jira, Salesforce, and more) through an AI-powered enterprise graph, turning scattered data into instant, context-aware answers. It’s not enterprise search. It’s the AI OS for work. The foundation every company will need before Agentic AI can truly scale. Glean’s permission model mirrors org hierarchies, so the right people see the right info. No leaks. No noise. Would you bet on neutral platforms like Glean to outpace Big Tech’s walled gardens? And would you want an AI Office OS as your ever-present second brain for context, collaboration, and clarity? #AI #EnterpriseSearch #Productivity #KnowledgeManagement #Glean #ProductManagement #Leadership

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Product managers are natural problem solvers—but too often, we're stuck waiting. Waiting on dashboards. Waiting on research data. Waiting on someone else to unlock insights. At Sigma, that wait is over. In our own product org, Sigma is the tool that unlocks velocity. It empowers PMs—especially those who don’t code—to move from insight to action independently. Here’s how I use it every day: Self-serve analytics: I can slice and dice adoption data in 30 minutes, not three weeks. Collaborative roadmapping: Input tables give us one source of truth for cross-functional planning. Streamlined user research: I find the right users and organize everything—interviews, notes, insights—directly in Sigma. Custom data apps: From escalations to private beta tracking, we’ve built PM-friendly tools that used to require entire toolchains. Advanced project management: We manage every project—from goal to granularity—in connected Sigma workbooks. We built Sigma to bring warehouse-scale analytics to everyone. And internally, that means PMs don’t just analyze data—they build with it. If you're a product leader who’s tired of blockers and bottlenecks, it’s time to rethink how your team works with data. Because when everyone is a data analyst, product moves faster! Here's how Sigma superpowers project managers  https://lnkd.in/dvu_J43N

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