AMA: Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders, Sreenath Kizhakkedath on Growth Product Management

January 26, 2022 @ 10:00AM PT

What do first time growth product managers get wrong, and how do you recommend avoiding those traps?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

This is a tricky question. Lots of program managers struggle with prioritization and impact analysis. They also struggle to get alignment on the prioritization across among the stakeholders. Some of the best program managers are good at understanding customer cohorts, their behavior on the application, and what they like & dislike. Not understanding customer behavior leads to bad (or gut-based) product decisions. Almost always, it comes down to first principles. Good product managers invest ...Read More

1,570 Views

1 request
What skillsets do you look for in growth product managers?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

Good at data and insights

Ability to identify growth opportunities

Ability to quickly test hypothesis

Ability to hack through and come up with exciting ideas (big & small)

Relentless focus on execution & results

Good at product design and User experience

Strong team player as this is a heavily cross functional role

1,662 Views

1 request
How is the role of product growth manager different from other product managers?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

A traditional product manager is responsible for a specific set of features and functionalities in an application. They focus on building the functionality with great UX. A Growth Product manager looks more end-to-end and identifies opportunities to deliver incremental growth. Let's take an eCommerce website application. A feature product manager might be responsible for the checkout experience. They will be thinking more about building capabilities in checkout (like supporting new payment types ...Read More

2,133 Views

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What KPI's do you share with core product managers? How do you divide responsibilities for these KPI's?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

This depends on the stage of the product. If the product has a solid product-market fit, the KPIs would be around User growth, Engagement, Retention & Revenue. Its always a best practice to have shared KPIs across both roles.

With respect to responsibilities - a core product manager will continue to own the functionality of the product (capabilities, reliability etc). The growth product manager is always thinking of driving awareness, usage and engagement on the product.

1,762 Views

3 requests
How would you define product-led growth?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

Product led growth is evolving as a new principle within many organizations. The concept is to build an amazing user experience that does all the growth. You are not considering user experience and design after building the functionality. It is a key requirement to ship the experience rather than just functionality. This also means that you continuously analyze data on engagement and conversions and constantly make changes to improve all these metrics.

2,265 Views

3 requests
When is the right time to add a growth product manager on the product management team?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

During the initial stages of the product (launch/product-market fit), the product manager is responsible for Growth. If you broadly think about the different product stages - as MVP, then Product-market fit and then scale. I would recommend adding a Growth product manager when you are ready to scale.

2,266 Views

1 request
What metrics do growth product teams look at to define success? Which do you find to be the most important?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

Growth product teams are primarily responsible for incremental revenue in consumer applications. They are also accountable for internal metrics that directly correlate to revenue. Examples would be engagement metrics on a page, conversion metrics, user acquisition, retention metrics etc. It's hard to define the most critical metric. A lot of that depends on what the growth team is responsible for. Incremental revenue is a good metric a growth team should own.

1,770 Views

3 requests
What does the roadmap process look like for growth product teams? And Is it working well?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

The roadmap process is no different from any other product manager. They work closely with marketing, engineering, design, and data science to create the roadmap. There are sprints & prioritization processes for all features. They are focused on continuous experimentation and learning - which is an input into the prioritization process.

1,425 Views

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How do you approach working with cross-functional teams to ensure work is done on the highest impact initiatives?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

Let me answer this more broadly. For any organization, it's important to have alignment across the different functions, including Product Management, Operations, Design, Engineering, and Data Science. You wanted to have a small leadership team that works very closely with shared KPI's and goals. Then the question is more around what projects to work upon to meet the KPIs. This is typically done through a lightweight prioritization framework. There are many industry standards for sprint managemen ...Read More

1,618 Views

3 requests
How do you interact with marketing as a growth product manager? How do you split/share KPI’s?

Sreenath Kizhakkedath

Uber Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders • 4y

Marketing and growth product managers work closely in a collaborative and well-functioning organization. Marketing focuses more on the Go-to-market activities, campaign management, customer journey, acquisition campaigns, etc. Their key metrics are revenue and cost of customer acquisition. The growth product manager shares these KPIs with marketing. The product manager gathers insights from these campaigns and works closely with engineering to build product capabilities that accelerate growth. ...Read More

1,648 Views

3 requests

AMA: Uber Head of Growth Programs, Riders, Sreenath Kizhakkedath on Growth Product Management

View AMA Answers

What do first time growth product managers get wrong, and how do you recommend avoiding those traps?

What skillsets do you look for in growth product managers?

How is the role of product growth manager different from other product managers?

What KPI's do you share with core product managers? How do you divide responsibilities for these KPI's?

How would you define product-led growth?

When is the right time to add a growth product manager on the product management team?

What metrics do growth product teams look at to define success? Which do you find to be the most important?

What does the roadmap process look like for growth product teams? And Is it working well?

How do you approach working with cross-functional teams to ensure work is done on the highest impact initiatives?

How do you interact with marketing as a growth product manager? How do you split/share KPI’s?