Tag: Hot-takes

What Google and Apple Maps can learn from a Burger Chain

As a Product Manager, I always pay attention when customers find alternate (or creative) uses of a product. Recently, I came across a fantastic example that perfectly illustrates this point. A couple of days ago, Category 1 Hurricane Beryl hit the southern coast of Texas, leaving a lot of people stranded without power. Imagine being…

Bulk Efficiency, Exit Perplexity: Reimagining the Costco Checkin and Checkout

As I was making my monthly pilgrimage to Costco this weekend, I couldn’t help but ponder the inefficiencies of: Costco is one of my favorite retailers for providing incredible value per dollar spent. It is famous for not marking its prices above 15% of the cost, whereas other retailers routinely mark up prices by 50-70%….

Google or Guess? Smelling Trademark Infringement

True Story Last evening, I entered a South Bay mall to pick up some items. From a distance, I saw the “G” logo. Being a Google employee, I immediately associated it with the Google logo. My first reaction: “Hmm, didn’t know we have a Google store in this mall, I should check it out!” As…

Packaging: The Untapped Advertising Goldmine!

Packaging is such a neglected area of advertising. Consider this: FedEx and UPS each deliver about 20 million shipments every day. That’s massive reach without any extraordinary effort. Imagine if each of those shipments featured ads. I’d argue that these ads could even enhance the user experience! Personally, I’d rather see an ad for a…

Why Linkedin Should Launch Short form Videos

People balked at my suggestion, when I proposed that LinkedIn should launch a short video format on the app. Back in 2019, I floated the idea of a short video feature on LinkedIn, inspired by TikTok‘s rise. Many feared it would turn LinkedIn into a platform for funny dance videos, diluting its professionalism. But here’s the thing: attention spans…