Building Products for Multiple User Types with Aniket Naravanekar, Chief Product Officer at Cheq

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience.

In this episode, Tolik is joined by Aniket Naravanekar, Chief Product Officer at CHEQ, a social payment platform that connects consumers to food and beverage businesses. Aniket is a computer science engineer who has transitioned to product management. He shares insight on the pros and cons of having an engineering background in a product management role and details on the product at CHEQ.

Topics we discuss:

Leveraging customer data and feedback to address user pain points
The role of a CPO in organizational growth and hiring
Learning to co-create with customers

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

Leveraging Customer Data and Feedback to Address User Pain Points

Aniket recommends a multi-faceted approach when seeking customer feedback for a more holistic view of the problems. It is important to have multiple channels to gather feedback, including direct one-on-one conversations with the customers. It’s important to ask qualitative questions like why you chose this product and how we can improve it. This feedback loop is supported by feedback loops from sales and customer service teams. Ask customers to rate your product to get an idea of where you stand. Then convert this raw data into insights and new product development goals.

“Ask your customers to rate you on a given scale to get an idea of overall user satisfaction levels”

The Role of a CPO in Organizational Growth and Recruitment

From a growth perspective, a CPO can always look at creating additional revenue streams by either modifying an existing product or designing and creating a new one to fulfill the additional needs of existing customers and attract new customers. Product development in both cases stems from customer feedback and the ability to identify unmet needs in that feedback. The scene then shifts to hiring the right talent to deliver the updated or new product.

“While creating new revenue streams, we have an internal discussion to define the framework and then focus on developing the product”.

Learning to Co-create with Customers

We all learn from our mistakes, and Anikiet recounts the time when he started creating a product based on his understanding of user pain points. Long story short, after devoting substantial time and resources to the development, the product did not meet the customer's expectations. The fault lay in not acquiring a deep understanding of what the customer really wanted. Aniket’s learning from the project was to always interact closely with the customer at the discovery stage before transitioning to product development.

“The best thing you can do is to co-create with your customers by putting them front-and-center and giving them a seat at your table”.

Guest at a Glance:

Aniket Naravanekar has a Master's degree in computer science and has spent four years in an engineering role and eight years in product management at companies like Microsoft and RingCentral.

Aniket on LinkedIn

CHEQ on LinkedIn

Hosts at a Glance:

Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian.

Connect with Dima on LinkedIn

Fireart Studio Website

Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage.

Connect with Tolik on LinkedIn

Fireart Studio Website