Rahul Vohra

AI product success is often counter-intuitive; simple features can drive massive engagement while complex ones may lag.

"I think for me the biggest surprise has been how unpredictable the user love has been in terms of what they love and what they don't love... everything I thought would work out well, people use it les..."

Differentiate LLM features by grounding them in user-specific data to provide personalized, high-value outputs.

"Our first AI feature was write with AI, jot down a few words and we'll turn them into a fully written email. We actually match the voice and tone in the emails you've already sent. So unlike Co-pilot,..."

Use the Sean Ellis test to identify 'somewhat disappointed' users whose needs align with your core value proposition to systematically increase PMF.

"The trick here is not to act too much on the feedback that the very disappointed people are giving you, because they already love your product... But to focus on the segment of the somewhat disappoint..."

True virality is driven by unmeasurable word-of-mouth rather than just engineered viral mechanics.

"It is word of mouth. It is the virality you can't measure that isn't a mechanic that isn't in a feature. It is when one user spontaneously tells another user about your product."

Use the Van Westendorp model to find the price point where a product 'starts to feel expensive' to signal high-end positioning.

"We used one of the easiest methods, which is the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity... The price point that supports our best in class, best in category position, is actually the third one. It starts to..."

Bake growth and quality drivers directly into company values to ensure the product is inherently shareable.

"We have, create delight, create something that is so joyful that really truly brings people delight. We have deliver remarkable quality, something that is so striking, so compelling and worthy of atte..."

Founders should delegate operational management to a President or COO to reclaim time for their 'zone of genius.'

"What I did is, I hired a really great president, I went from eight direct reports to two, and the amount of time that I spend on product design, technology and marketing went up from six to 7% to abou..."

The 'Single Decisive Reason' (SDR) framework prevents teams from justifying poor decisions with a stack of weak arguments.

"The idea here is that for important decisions, you should be able to identify one, one reason that on its own supports the decision. It's based on the observation that all too often we rely on a colle..."

Effective positioning requires finding a unique, available attribute that reinforces product strategy and passes the 'cocktail party test.'

"I believed that we needed to occupy a clear position that was unique and which was available and which reinforced our product strategy... In our case the pitches were simple. People would say, 'Dude,..."

Balance roadmap items between 'solution deepening' (retention) and 'market widening' (acquisition) to manage perceived velocity.

"You can classify anything that you build in a company into one of two categories, solution deepening and market widening. Now, solution deepening means making your product better for its existing user..."

The 'launch early' mantra should be ignored for mission-critical products where reliability and polish are essential for user trust.

"How much to spend time ahead of launch really does depend on the markets and the structure, the nature of your business model... That's why when you have mission-critical products like email where you..."

Enterprise sales require addressing the specific security, compliance, and administrative needs of IT stakeholders, not just the end-users.

"Outlook users are also used to certain safeguards, like if you've used Outlook in an enterprise, warnings when a recipient is external to your domain or what Outlook users might know as sensitivity la..."