Design Grid

Fintech, in a country like India, poses a series of challenges and difficulties - be it penetration across a diverse set of markets, technology accessibility or customer retention. The year 2008 marked the start for one such product in India. It was the year PayTM launched in India as a Payments and DTH Recharge Service. In 2015, they launched their Payments Gateway and then in 2017, they became the first Payments App to cross 100 million downloads in India. For this Season 1 Finale Episode of Design Grid, we couldn’t have thought of inviting a more experienced individual than PayTM’s Head of Product, Rahul Saini.Rahul has been a part of PayTM since its inception and has seen this product go through a multitude of phases to be where it is. But what was the journey like? And how did PayTM master the art of Product Design for 100 million customers across Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities in India? This and more on this episode of Design Grid.Rahul Saini | Chief Design Officer, PayTMhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulsaini Saksham Mendiratta | Co-founder, Lights Out Studio http://linkedin.com/in/saksham-mendiratta https://twitter.com/sakmendiratta Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You can hit us up at podcasts@lightsout.studio if you have any feedback or want to be a part of Design Grid. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

The pandemic put a halt to many things: travel and hospitality being one of the worst-hit. With the pandemic here to stay, comfort and pricing isn’t the deciding factor for travel companies anymore. So how do you design for the new-age travellers? Here’s my conversation with Kapil Verma, Product Head at MakeMyTrip. You can catch Kapil at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/getkapil/ Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You could also tweet Saksham individually on @sakmendiratta. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

Digital payments have dominated the payments market in India: even more during the pandemic. From hawkers and tea-sellers to college students, the digital payment sector is booming massively.  With a consumer base that relies on skepticism, how have digital payment companies managed to gain the trust of consumers through product design?Here’s my conversation with Vishal Gupta, the Head of Product at PhonePe. You can catch Vishal at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalgupta78/ Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You could also tweet Saksham individually on @sakmendiratta. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

Generation Z is a hard nut to crack. They are not a passive herd of consumers but are a complicated bunch of passionate people striving to make drastic changes in the world. They also happen to be the biggest spenders and have revolutionized brand-to-consumer communication.Communicating with the Gen Z Target Group seems like treading on a minefield: only if you don’t listen to this episode. Here’s my conversation with Jake Bjorseth, the founder of Trndsttrs Media, a Gen Z agency that has cracked the code of selling to Gen Z. He’s worked with brands like McDonalds, L’oreal and North Face to help them understand how to connect with this generation. Jake Bjorseth | Co-founder, Trndsttrs Mediahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/trndsttr/ Saksham Mendiratta | Co-founder, Lights Out Studio http://linkedin.com/in/saksham-mendiratta https://twitter.com/sakmendiratta Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You can hit us up at podcasts@lightsout.studio if you have any feedback or want to be a part of Design Grid. Until then, it’s Lights Out.

One of the strongholds of today’s businesses is the plethora of small businesses that exist in the market today. And when a startup like Meesho emerges to empower these entrepreneurs, they are bound to scale up rapidly. Meesho, an India-based social commerce startup smack dab in the middle of hyper growth, happens to be one of the seven Indian startups featured on Y Combinator’s top startups list. How does Meesho make a product for such a culturally nuanced audience like India? This and much more in my conversation with Kirti Avasarala, Chief Product Officer at Meesho. You can catch Kirti at https://in.linkedin.com/in/kirtivarun Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You could also tweet Saksham individually on @sakmendiratta. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

When designing for multicultural audiences like India, cultural nuances need to be incorporated very carefully to build a satisfying product. So how does Dunzo, a hyper-local concierge platform with a proposition unlike anything else, create hyper local products?Here’s my conversation with Anirban Das, the head of Product at Dunzo, one of the few Indian early-age startups that bagged Google’s investment. You can catch Anirban at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anirbandas5Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You could also tweet Saksham individually on @sakmendiratta. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

The most difficult part of building a brand is building communities. These are relationships a marketer can not force their user to have but in these social communities lies the key to developing a long-lasting brand. But it’s the simplest concepts that are easier said than done. That’s why I spoke to somebody who helped build HaikuJam: a community of over one million collaborative writers from around the world. This is my conversation with Neer Sharma, previously co-founder at HaikuJam and Forbes 30 u 30. This one’s for those who believe in exploring the true potential of the internet. Neer Sharma | previously co-founder, HaikuJamhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/neer-sharma-b035a33a/ https://twitter.com/thisisneer?s=20 Subscribe to Neer's newsletter, Patent Drop: https://bit.ly/3o8NzT5 Saksham Mendiratta | Co-founder, Lights Out Studio http://linkedin.com/in/saksham-mendiratta https://twitter.com/sakmendiratta Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You can hit us up at podcasts@lightsout.studio if you have any feedback or want to be a part of Design Grid. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

The pandemic brought very few positives: the unprecedented growth for direct-to-consumer brands is one of them. As more brands try to ace the online channel to make sales, even more struggle to crack the code of DTC marketing. If you are one of them or have any inclination towards powerful business built entirely on the internet, then this episode is the right fit for you. Here’s a conversation with Nik Sharma, the infamous ‘DTC guy’ and CEO of Sharma Brands & Media. With his expertise in boosting every popular DTC brand known to mankind to where they are right now, he reveals the pillars of DTC marketing and much more. 

Have you ever wished you had the ability to hack into an investor's mind? Well, this episode, you are in for a treat. From figuring the right product-market fit for a product to learning about the future of customer-centric startups, we cover all of this in a conversation with Shashank Randev, the founder VC at 100X.VC. An alumnus of IMI, Shashank’s firm promises to invest in 100 startups in just twelve months. It also is the first VC in India to invest in early age startups with India SAFE Notes. Here’s where the idea of launching your startup idea gets demystified. 

Spotify has remained to be one of the most interesting precedents for using customer insights to build better products. When it was launched in 2008, the world could see the first glimpses of a super app coming to life. It chose music: something we have all an unexplainable relationship with and revolutionized it. But how does Spotify exactly ace design humane experiences? How exactly does it understand its users so well? And to answer a bigger burning question: How can designers choose the right work culture?Rakshit Sinha, Senior Product Manager at Spotify speaks about all of this and much more in today’s episode. You can catch Rakshit at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rakshit-sinha-70401949/?originalSubdomain=in Check out what we’re building at Lights Out on https://lightsout.studio/ You could also tweet Saksham individually on @sakmendiratta. Until then, it’s Lights Out. 

Introducing Design Grid - a deep dive into businesses, products and ideas. Saksham Mendiratta talks to some of the most creative people in the world, to gather their unique perspectives, strategies and ideas on what it takes to embed creativity across products and businesses.