Mayuresh Oke

This time, every year, I sense a certain kind of intensity building up within GreyOrange. It's a strange mix of anxiety, excitement and anticipation as we oversee the latest robotics technologies from across the Globe tested at their absolute peak capacities across some of the largest retailers of the world. All orchestrated by the same software platform: GreyMatter. Handling live operations for these giants, who've literally handed over the keys to us, through the critical peak season can be absolutely nerve-racking. And yet, year after year, these are the moments that give us some of our most cherishable memories. A sneak peak below from what happened last year, which already feels 'ancient' given the pace at which the technology has evolved over the last 12 months! #GreyOrange #PeakSeason

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Last week was an incredibly busy week for us in Google APAC! From great activations in Japan, awesome partnerships in Southeast Asia - we now move to India where we had our #GoogleforIndia event! I found it really motivating to see how much partnerships and localised product development lay behind what we shared on stage. Here are my top three highlights: Breaking down information barriers:  Gemini Live and AI Overviews in Google Search are expanding to more Indian languages. Google Lens can now help you search with live video (this is really cool, and you can try out in English too, but you need to be part of the Search Labs’ “AI Overviews and more” experiment). Powerful Maps features are also making journeys more insightful, visual, and safer. Prioritising Online Safety:  Building on our commitment to user safety, we are establishing a new Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC) in India in 2025. India GSEC will tackle online threats by combining the expertise of our safety engineers, local policy experts, and government partners to focus on combating threats like scams and fraud, bolster security for businesses and government, and advance research in online safety. Expanding Financial inclusion: Google Pay partnered with Aditya Birla Finance Limited and Muthoot Finance Ltd. - India to expand access to credit in India. Work like this is incredibly important. In a country as large and diverse as #India, the progress we make on solving local challenges, also helps make #technology more accessible to people worldwide. Here’s everything we announced at the event: https://lnkd.in/gb3S79nJ

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Product Operations as a dedicated function has been gaining traction across various industries over the past 5 years. But how does Product Ops impact an organization? Based on my experience and in discussing this with Product and Ops teams over the years here is a quick take on the value add: 1. **Scaling Efficiency**: Product Ops streamlines processes and aligns teams for efficient scaling. 🚀 2. **Cross-Functional Bridge**: It facilitates collaboration across engineering, product, marketing, customer success, and more. 🤝 3. **Data-Driven Decisions**: Product Ops empowers data-based prioritization. 📊 4. **Seamless Lifecycle**: It ensures a seamless product development cycle. 🔄 5. **Complexity Management**: Product ops tackles organizational complexity. 🧩 Every company is different and not every Product Ops team will have oversight of all five bullets above. But in general the function serves as a connector of teams and an efficiency optimizer. More thoughts coming on Ops and how we augment teams and ultimately the end product. #productoperations

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I recently had the privilege of representing Microsoft Shopping at Rakuten Optimism 2024 and came away with a lot of positive outcomes. To me, conferences are a lot about creating meaningful connections and learning. It was great to connect with our brands, agencies, partners and other publishers and learn from their journey on building value in the affiliate marketing ecosystem. Here are the 3 things I learned that I want to share 1)     Don’t treat what others have tried and failed as mistake – instead you can still attempt to do it using what they learned 2)     You learn a lot from those who compete in the same space. See how you can leverage each other for the greater good of the ecosystem 3)     When you are doing something right, everyone notices it and will come and tell you that

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Had the best time talking to Revathi Pillai about product and engineering roadmaps, the pitfalls women need to avoid when pursuing leadership roles, and a bunch more! Check out the link down below:

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You’re back—great news! This is the second post in a four-part ridealong series as Storyblocks updates our Vision - sharing resources and learning. 1️⃣ Do You Need to Create a Vision? ✅ 2️⃣ Open with Empathy: Ground Yourself in the Customer 🎯 3️⃣ Anatomy of a Vision: Choose Your Framework 4️⃣ Bring it On Home: Start with the Long Letter The first step is often the hardest. At Storyblocks, we started by immersing ourselves in our customers and distilling what we heard into 3-5 key themes around which we would craft our vision. To tease out those themes, we wrote down a few questions that we wanted to answer: * What do we do better than everyone else? How have we uniquely improved our customers’ lives? * What does “even better” look like for our customers and where do we need to invest to extend our differentiation? * Looking forward, what are the major unmet needs that, if solved, would create even more loyalty? * What customer stories can we share to bring these findings to life? There are countless techniques for conducting customer research and building your intuition, but we found three particularly helpful. We’ll link Resources at the bottom of the post to give more detail about applying each technique to your business. 📊 Product Market Fit (PMF) Surveys: PMF has long been one of the most written topics, but also the most difficult to measure…until Sean Ellis developed a simple survey that offered a strong leading indicator. PMF is often thought of exclusively in the context of early-stage start-ups, but you can use the same technique to tease out what “even better” looks like if you’re a more mature company with established PMF. 🐶 🐱 Dogfooding & Catfooding: Dogfooding is using your product to complete everyday tasks that a customer would pursue. It isn’t testing but actually going through the process from start to finish until you’ve reached your objective. Catfooding is doing the same but with your competitors’ products. 🎙️ Qualitative Customer Interviews: Nothing beats hearing from your customers in their own words. We conducted a series of interviews to help us tease out the key customer themes related to the questions above. 📖 Resources (PMF) How Superhuman used PMF surveys to uncover customer needs. https://lnkd.in/eCZfau_N (PMF) Must read/listen for any subscription business from Lenny Rachitsky's Podcast. https://lnkd.in/ewDxs_cT (UX) Uncovering Compelling Insights by Steve Portigal. https://lnkd.in/e62yrhr9 (UX) Mixed-Methods Podcast: Podcast & blog “for UX researches, by UX researchers.” https://lnkd.in/evQEkg8Q (Dogfooding) If anyone is interested in the template we used for our internal workshops, please DM me. (For Fun) Origins of the term "dogfooding." https://lnkd.in/e7EhwAev

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If you doubted the rise of India as a powerhouse, Pine Labs, a significant fintech player, is now relocating its headquarters from Singapore to India following approval from a Singapore court. This strategic shift mirrors other successful Indian startups like PhonePe, Razorpay, and Groww, embracing the trend of ‘reverse flipping’. The move signifies growing confidence in the Indian market and its potential. Key factors enabling this move include: - Favorable economic policies - Growing domestic market - Increasing investor confidence - Greater certainty of an exit at a higher valuation - Ease of accessing capital - Regulatory changes - Maturing capital markets - Cost-effective listing process All great signs for India! #India #Fintech #PineLabs #Startups #BusinessGrowth

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As usage based pricing models become more widespread across various IaaS & SaaS applications, traditional (commit based) forecasting is no longer sufficient. In this blog post, I talk about what is consumption forecasting, and what are some of the challenges with consumption forecasting!

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Excited to share the launch of our Annual report Rise of Cloud AI in India 2024!! Trend 1:  India SaaS will transition to #IndAI SaaS Trend 2: The line between software and services is blurring with the rise of #AIEnabled services #IndiaSaaS #IndiaServices Trend 3: #Cybersecurity is gaining prominence in India’s technology growth journey Trend 4: A wealthier nation will be catalyzed by software #wealthTech Trend 5: Industrial SaaS will start scaling as Industry 4.0 matures and Industry 5.0 arrives #IndustrialSaaS Software built from India continues to be world class and we are optimistic that #IndiaSaaS ecosystem will breach $50B in ARR by 2030! 🚀 🚀 https://lnkd.in/gcdcQVkG Bessemer Venture Partners Anant Vidur Puri Divyam Sharma Vatsalya Tandon Veer Gupta Kshiteej Prasad

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in this clip from my discussion with Neha Mittal (former growth leader at Twitter) we talk about how AI is emerging as an asset for growth teams one key angle Neha highlights is content is no longer a bottleneck - content generation is easier and content relevance is higher

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The common trait between start-up founders and product managers is that both are driving the agenda of customer success forward across so many stakeholders and teams. This unique position means balancing multiple perspectives – often with a bit of tension – to ensure the customer’s needs remain front and center. At Amazon, we recognize that some friction between teams is actually productive. Think of it like the strings on a bridge: a bridge remains strong only if the strings have just the right tension. If they’re too loose, the bridge wobbles; if they’re too tight, it risks snapping. Similarly, a bit of push and pull between teams can lead to sharper decisions and raise the bar. One of the ways Amazon embraces this healthy tension is through the “Hotly Debated Topic FAQ.” Rather than letting debates stay in side conversations, this FAQ process brings key discussions to the forefront. Teams document points of contention, laying out context, pros and cons, and even arguments challenging the dominant perspective. This creates a living resource that aligns everyone on critical decisions, ultimately helping product managers and founders maintain a clear focus on the customer. For startups, adopting a similar FAQ can be a powerful way to bring clarity and alignment, especially when it comes to critical customer-centric decisions. By encouraging structured debate, you ensure that every decision is rigorously considered and built on diverse insights. As you push the customer’s agenda forward, how does your team handle debates and disagreements? Could a structured FAQ help your organization stay aligned? #StartupCulture #ProductManagement #Founders #CustomerFocus #TeamAlignment #HealthyDebate #DecisionMaking

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The conversations at Saastr last year predicted how the GTM tech market unfolded over the next year. Saastr is a microcosm of people who live in the future and are on the cutting edge. Back then, the excitement was around using AI to automate high volume emails, by taking a page from the pioneers of this approach at Brex, Rippling, and Ramp. It wasn't obvious, but the trend was there if you paid close attention. In retrospect, it took me another 3 to 6 months to realize it, just as the first "AI SDRs" started to become mainstream. This year, I came prepared. I had 50+ conversations with cutting-edge startups and GTM leaders about the future of sales. The takeaway: the market overshot on the promise of AI SDRs. Now, the puck shifted to better targeting using AI, and copilots as the frame of reference for high-quality automation. My sense is we'll see this become mainstream over the next year, as each sales tech vendor launches their interpretation. IMO, I'm not sold on the idea of a copilots long-term. It feels like a crutch for the market to get comfortable with agents taking actions on their behalf. Just like lane assist vs. full self driving, I suspect we'll get back to end-to-end outbound automation. This time, it'll be with better targeting and a deep appreciation of the nuance necessary for thoughtful outbound. Anyone else at Saastr (or otherwise) have thoughts?

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Like to order deliveries from the comfort of your own home? Zepto's recent $665 million funding will now allow the company to set up even more store across India to serve you better. Read all about it only in my new article at Entrepreneur India. . . . Follow and connect for more industry news and updates . . . #News #Update #Zepto #Funding #Investment #EntrepreneurIndia #AdityaPranMahanta https://lnkd.in/gYvATrUE

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It’s difficult to believe that Swami Sivasubramanian and I have been working together for nearly two decades. I often tell the story that when he joined as a graduate intern, he had two simple tasks: Develop the basis for Amazon.com's data strategy and invent a key/value datastore that would meet the ultra-scale needs of Amazon.com. Easy stuff, right? It was a pleasure to share the stage with Swami at VivaTech, reflecting on our intersecting careers driven by an unwavering focus on addressing real customer needs through innovation. We pioneered AWS's pay-as-you-go model to transforming experiences with AI and machine learning. While generative AI is an exciting new frontier, at Amazon we have been leveraging what I like to call 'good old-fashioned AI' for years to build delightful customer experiences. From personalized recommendations and fighting fraud, to using predictive analytics to forecast demand and manage warehouse inventory. At Amazon, our focus remains on addressing real customer needs, not chasing trends. As Swami and I have shared, we will continue building on that foundation, integrating new technologies where they can truly add value for our customers. This will foster a culture that empowers talented individuals to thrive and push the boundaries of what's possible. I encourage you to watch our conversation to learn more. Now, Go Build!

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Year 1981. Alfred Paul Ries (and Jack Trout) published the seminal book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind," which revolutionized marketing strategy. Since then, generations of marketers have embraced its principles, especially in competitive, fast-evolving sectors like high-tech. The book's core message is that effective positioning transcends product features and taps into emotional and aspirational values that create lasting connections with customers. A powerful idea is at the heart of Ries' strategy: You must own an "attribute" in the customer's mind. Examples: When we think of cars and "safety," we think of Volvo. When we think of devices and "cool," who else can you think of besides Apple? In the 80s and 90s, when people thought of IT hardware/software and "trust," it was IBM. These companies didn't just sell products—they claimed a unique mental space, cementing attributes in the public consciousness. If you are in the high-tech space (assuming all of you are), you want to attend this TED-style talk on the Power of Product Positioning by Chandar Pattabhiram, Chief GTM Officer, Workato! And, of course, there are so many keynote conversations, lightning talks, panels, and fireside chats from global experts. Get your tickets at iitbayconf.org! #BusinessGrowth #LearnAndGrow IIT Bay Area Alumni Association - Nidhi Kannoujia, Arnab Debnath, Ashis Khan, Praveen Vayalamkuzhi, PhD, FRSA, Swapnil Sinvhal, Lochan Alagh, Rao Charagondla (CNR), Anshu Agarwal, Ishita Sharan, Hrishikesh Sathawane, Surbhi Kaul, Dipty Desai, Ph.D., Bidyut Parruck, Paula Patel

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60,000 calls a day, all handled by AI! India based #Meesho , valued at 4.9 Biillion, with 160M customers; “We get a ton of customer support calls,” said Sanjeev Barnwal. Their AI #voicebot design had to overcome low-end phones and tons of background noise, and multi-language issues. https://lnkd.in/gkUs6Pw2

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🌟In this candid interview, Mr. Vinod Singh, Co-founder and CTO at Concirrus and former Amazon employee, opens up about the work culture at Amazon. From high-pressure environments to valuable life lessons, this conversation is a must-watch for anyone navigating the corporate world. 🔍 Key Insights: - Amazon's Pulse: Discover what makes Amazon's work culture unique. - Pressure Points: Vinod shares how work pressure impacted his life in the long run. - Lessons Learned: Valuable takeaways for professionals striving for success. Don't miss this eye-opening discussion! 🚀🎙️ #AmazonWorkCulture #LifeLessons #CorporateInsights #ConcirrusCTO

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Entrepreneurship Teaches Resilience and Problem-Solving I’ll never forget the days, my early days at Intelliplanner that took me deep into India’s heartlands, where the real grit of the country thrives. One moment, I’d be presenting to skeptical mine managers, convincing them of a GPS-enabled logistics solution; the next, I’d be hopping onto a dusty jeep to see operations firsthand. And nights? They were for coding, often by dim lights, surrounded by nothing but quiet fields and the occasional chai stop. These weren’t just workdays—they were life lessons. Resilience, adaptability, and ingenuity.

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Interesting read

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