Lessons in product aha moments from street food vendors
Every Product Manager in big tech knows the theory of aha factor in product. But it’s rarely seen in their product. So much to do all the time. So many meetings. So many reports. Multiple segments of users. Multiple dependencies. Multiple stakeholders. And a feeling of plenty.
This style of product building isn’t bad for all kinds of products. Perhaps suited for building platforms. But innovation is hard to happen in such an environment.
More often than not, when we say aha when seeing a product, it’s minimalist. Opinionated. A bit silly. But that’s the way it is. Innovation is hard to happen in plenty.
Street food vs fine-dine
I’m a fan of Indian street food. The taste you get there in <50 INR can’t be replicated in big chains, fancy diners withs 100s of INR in charges … I often have wondered why?
Yesterday, while cooking at home, I came across a video from Ranveer Brar, where he was asked this question. Why are street foods so yum?
He explained that street food vendors don’t have refrigerators. Don’t have 30 ingredients. Limited menu choices. They have to make do with limited ingredients and focus on max 1–2 items. And he shared, “khana acha toh kam me bhi banta hai. Sab kuch daal ke kuch nahi hota” (food is cooked with select, few ingredients and not by putting everything in it)
The last line struck me as something extensible to startup vs bigtech product debate. Bigtech products somehow aren’t by design suited to create an aha for you.
So next time you’re building something, think of that street vendor in India. Think more of what you can cut. Think more your niche vs blitzkrieg. Think of hustle, constant feedback vs launch and done. Think to survive vs just do your job. Hard to replicate but that’s the way it is :)
Note: Irrespective, you end up paying more to bigtech for a variety of reasons, including them being designed to make fewer mistakes (and by design, less aha) :) So it’s not all sad for them.
I’m thinking about this, as I’m trying to make progress on my side project Archie AI: AI-assisted code understanding solution.
