10X Growth Strategies

The book Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities for leading your fellow employees, customers, investors…etc. It is not easy, but it’s easier than you imagine.  In today’s episode, Arthi Vijayaraghavan, VP of Products at OJO had the chance to talk to Nidhi Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder of SheTO.org.  Nidhi is committed to addressing the vast gender gap in engineering and spends all her time furthering this cause and that is the motivation behind starting the “Tribe” of SheTO.org. Tune in to listen to an engaging discussion on forming and growing tribes. Lot of anecdotes from her journey, aha moments and learnings from the book.    

In the book “Built To Sell” author John Warrillow provides specific steps to entrepreneurs to build a valuable company which is sellable. Warrillow shows exactly what it takes to create a solid business that can thrive long into the future. In this episode our host Preethy Padmanabhan discusses the book “Built to sell” with our guest Catherine Montgomery. She is the founder and CEO of Better Together, a communications agency that galvanizes positive change for purpose-driven organizations through creative strategies, messaging, and branding. She focuses on social impact businesses, where being upfront about your values is essential. Tune in to listen to great takeaways and key insights from our guest Catherine and the book.

The book “The Power Law” is an astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture capital firms. How their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy.  In today’s episode, Arthi Vijayaraghavan, VP of Products at OJO had the chance to talk to Ashmeet Sidana, Chief Engineer at Engineering Capital, a VC firm investing in startups founded on the basis of technical insight. Tune in to listen to an engaging discussion on VC investing, journey of the firms, the evolution of the industry. Lot of insights shared from Ashmeet’s personal journey, firms he has mentored and managed over the years.

In this episode our host Preethy Padmanabhan discusses the classic management book “The Goal” with Andy MacMillan, CEO of UserTesting. Andy shares valuable insights on how to apply concepts from the book to a modern SaaS business. Check out the podcast to gain time tested knowledge on how to effectively identify and reduce bottlenecks in your business and successfully achieve your goal. "The Goal" is a management-oriented novel written by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, published in 1984. The story follows Alex Rogo, a plant manager who faces numerous challenges at his struggling manufacturing company. Faced with the threat of closure, Alex embarks on a journey of discovery guided by a mentor named Jonah, who introduces him to the Theory of Constraints (TOC). Through various real-world scenarios and insights, Alex learns to identify and prioritize bottlenecks in his production process, leading to improved efficiency and profitability. By focusing on the core principles of TOC, Alex successfully transforms his factory and gains valuable lessons applicable to other areas of business and life.

How do you turn around a failing project, team, or even an organization? That is the main focus of the book Turnaround. Arthi Vijayaraghavan, VP of Products at Ojo had pleasure of hosting the author of the book Lisa Gable in our podcast today. Lisa Gable is a former U.S. ambassador, United Nations delegate, and CEO of several organizations. She has orchestrated the successful turnarounds of a number of private and public entities across a number of industry sectors.  Change is the only thing that is constant and in the current climate you might find yourself in a scenario to “Turnaround” your team, company. Tune in to listen to understand the methodology along with great anecdotes from the author.

In this episode our host Preethy Padmanabhan has a thought-provoking conversation with Kay Sarathy, SVP Insurance Applications, Berkley Technology Services about the book Subtract:The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz. Kay Sarathy shares her experiences deploying some of the techniques from the book in the digital transformation journey she is leading.  In the book Subtract, the author draws our attention to the hard truth that biological, cultural, and economic forces around us encourage us to do more, not less. Our failure to subtract is a root cause for our cluttered calendars, closets, and inboxes. Klotz’s pioneering research shows us what is true whether we’re building Lego models, cities, grilled-cheese sandwiches, or strategic plans: Our minds tend to add before taking away, and this is holding us back.

The book Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind. System 1 of our mind is fast, intuitive and emotional. System 2 is slower, more deliberative and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything can be understood by knowing how the two systems shape our judgements and decisions.  In today’s episode, Arthi Vijayaraghavan, VP of Products at OJO had the chance to talk to VT Bharadwaj, a General Partner at A91 Partners. He is a very well known investor in the Indian Startup ecosystem. It was a very valuable discussion around how he used learnings from the book on decision making, intuitions and judgements.  Tune in to understand decision making, judgements from an investor and learn from it.

When we try new, innovative things we are going to fail. If we put ourselves out there and love with our whole hearts, we are going to get hurt. In the book “Rising Strong”, author Brené Brown says that when we own our story and feel through these experiences of failure, we then write our own brave endings. Truth is falling hurts,  and the dare is to keep being brave, face our emotions and feel our way back up. In this episode, our host Preethy Padmanabhan had the pleasure of speaking with Amritha Prasad, VP of Product Design and Research at Calm on their experiences in Rising Strong from failure. Tune in to hear insightful and wholehearted stories of courage, compassion and connection.

Networks and network effects are fascinating in this era and their economic value is augmented by technology. Andrew Chen who led the “Rider Growth” program at Uber has a fascinating insider view on companies who have leveraged network effects in recent years. The book “The Cold Start Problem” provides an in depth view of how to understand and build networks, the various items which are at play in a marketplace design and the process of building economic value from these networks. In today’s episode, Arthi Vijayaraghavan, VP of Products at OJO had the chance to talk with Bobby Burns, VP of Product and Engineering at Indeed.com. Bobby and Arthi explored different aspects of networks, marketplaces, interesting problems and products built to manage networks. He shared various anecdotes from his own product journey and how he leveraged ideas from this book to build and scale networks. Tune in to understand networks, network effects, marketplace design and scaling.

In this episode, our host Preethy Padmanabhan had a thought provoking discussion with Prith Banerjee about his book “Innovation Factory”. Prith is Chief Technology Officer at ANSYS, a leader in engineering simulation. He has a rich career journey as a successful serial entrepreneur, senior executive in large companies. Prior to working in the industry he held distinguished roles in academia. He was listed as FastCompany top 100 business leader in 2009 and has won several awards from IEEE, ASEE and NSF. In "Innovation Factory: Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Innovation," Prith explores the key factors that contribute to building and sustaining a successful innovation ecosystem within a company. Drawing on his experience as the former CTO of HP, Banerjee provides a roadmap for leaders seeking to foster innovation in their organizations. He stresses the importance of a clear innovation strategy, a supportive culture, effective talent management, and collaboration with external partners. He also examines the role of technology in driving innovation, highlighting the potential of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things. Overall, Innovation Factory offers a comprehensive guide to building a culture of innovation that can drive sustained growth and success.