Product management,
for the India context.

Live now

Indian case studies, published

Long-form analyses of the product decisions behind India's biggest companies. These also live in the main library.

Design

Cred · 2018

How Cred Built India's Most Designed Fintech

Kunal Shah turned credit card bill payments into a status product. Cred rejected two-thirds of users, spent obscenely on design and brand, and built India's most-watched premium fintech. The monetization story finally started cohering in 2024-26.

$6.4B peak valuation, held flat through 2024 raise. 13M+ members. Cred Cash, Cred Money, Cred Garage layering monetization on top of the original brand asset.

designfintechexclusivity

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Strategy

Razorpay · 2014

How Razorpay Pivoted from Payment Gateway to Banking Empire

Two IIT Roorkee graduates built India's Stripe in 2014, then made the harder bet: turn a single product into an entire neo-banking infrastructure stack for Indian businesses. Now reverse-flipping back to India for an IPO.

$7.5B valuation. $150B+ annual payment volume. Eight acquisitions integrated into a single platform. Reverse-flipped from Delaware to India in 2025 ahead of IPO prep.

fintechplatformB2B

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Strategy

Zerodha · 2010

How Zerodha Built India's Largest Broker Without Raising a Single Rupee

The Kamath brothers refused venture capital, refused advertising, and built the cheapest brokerage in India. Fifteen years later, Zerodha is bigger than every VC-funded broker combined and one of India's most profitable startups, period.

FY24: ₹8,320 crore revenue, ₹4,700 crore profit. ~1.6M+ active users. $7-8B+ implied valuation. Still zero external funding.

fintechbootstrappingtrust

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Failure

Byju's · 2011

How BYJU'S Lost $20 Billion in Two Years

BYJU'S became India's most valuable startup at $22B by aggressively acquiring twelve companies and selling expensive contracts to anxious parents. Then the music stopped, and almost everything that could break, did. By 2026, the company is in NCLT proceedings and effectively dismantled.

Peak $22B valuation collapsed to effectively zero. Insolvency proceedings initiated 2024. Aakash separated. Acquired assets sold off or written down to nothing. One of the largest valuation destructions in startup history.

edtechM&Agrowth

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Strategy

Paytm · 2010

Paytm's Super-App Bet: From Collapse to Comeback

Paytm rode demonetization to 200M users overnight, then tried to become India's WeChat — and almost broke. The IPO collapsed 75%, the bank got shut down, and the super-app thesis became a cautionary tale. Then it came back.

$20B IPO valuation crashed under $5B in 2024 after the RBI shut down Paytm Payments Bank. Recovered substantially by 2025-26 as a focused payments and lending business — back to EBITDA positive.

super-apppaymentsregulatory

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In the works

7 more deep dives ahead

Long-form analyses of the product decisions behind India's biggest companies — what worked, what broke, what every PM here should learn from them. Published one per week.

Have a request for a case study not on this list? Reach out.

Read these first

Global case studies most relevant for Indian PMs

The product playbooks behind these companies are the closest analogues to what's being built in India today. Stripe is Razorpay's reference. Slack is the workplace SaaS template. Notion is what every productivity startup gets benchmarked against.

Product

Slack · 2013

Slack's Pivot from Gaming to Messaging

Slack started as an internal tool built while making a game called Glitch. When the game failed, the team pivoted to the tool — and changed workplace communication forever.

Acquired by Salesforce for $27.7B in 2021.

pivotB2BSaaS

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Product

Airbnb · 2008

Airbnb's Near-Death and Cereal Box Survival

Airbnb was rejected by 7 investors, nearly bankrupt, and sold themed cereal boxes to survive. Their focus on host experience and photography quality changed everything.

IPO valued at $47B in 2020. Over 4M hosts globally.

marketplacetrustgrowth

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Product

Spotify · 2008

How Spotify Won the Music Streaming War

Spotify's freemium model, personalization algorithms (Discover Weekly), and creator tools outmaneuvered Apple Music despite launching later.

600M+ MAU, 240M+ paid subscribers as of 2024.

freemiumpersonalizationaudio

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Product

Notion · 2018

Notion's All-in-One Workspace Bet

Notion almost shut down in 2015. The team moved to Kyoto, cut costs, and rebuilt from scratch — emerging with a product that collapsed note-taking, wikis, and project management into one.

Valued at $10B. Used by 30M+ people.

productivityPLGworkspace

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Strategy

Stripe · 2010

Stripe's Developer-First GTM Strategy

Stripe targeted developers with 7-line integration code instead of pitching CFOs. Developers adopted it bottom-up, then pushed it to their companies. Classic developer-led growth.

Valued at $65B. Processes hundreds of billions in payments annually.

developerbottom-upfintech

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Strategy

Canva · 2013

Canva's Freemium Design Democracy

Canva democratized design by making professional templates free. They targeted non-designers — a segment Adobe completely ignored. The freemium model converted millions to paid.

Valued at $26B. 170M+ monthly active users.

freemiumdesigndemocratization

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Why NorthStar

Most PM resources are written for the US. This one's for here.