One evening, few products who registered to the Products Anonymous forum met at a local cafe to introduce themselves and share their experiences. They started off in a round robin fashion and we shamelessly listen in…

I died as I arrived as I did not serve any significant purpose for my users. People did not pay for me as they were convinced that I am not good as existing products they were using. Few who dared to risk by buying me but they did not like me. I am result of reactive product manager.

I made good sense to my buyers and they too fell in love with me but none took me home simply because they could not take me home. I did convince them about benefits that I can bring to them and they did agree to most however owning was not so cheap. Their hands did go in their pockets but only few could come out. I wish I could have been better priced but my over confident product manager thought otherwise.

I made success the moment I hit the stores and I was at all the places. I was talk of the town. This was 2 years back, the same people who rushed to shops 2 years back to buy me are the one who hate using me. It is not that I am a bad quality product but like all other products I too need some maintenance which my makers really did not bothered about. My buyers find it hard to repair me or replace my parts, my mechanics are difficult to reach and they simple do not live up to my buyer’s expectations and my product manager believes customer satisfaction is not his responsibility. I am suffering because my product manager never bothered about customer satisfaction.

People liked me and they want me. Few took me home but returned me to the store simply because they find me little too complex to set me up, forget using me. And for those who could configure me correctly found difficult to use me. I know I am a good quality product but at the same time I am difficult to use. My product manager could never appreciate importance of user experience and even though I am efficient I died premature death as I was made me so complex for my users.

I was created so well by makers that I never thought I will spend most of my life in warehouse. Somehow my product manager screwed up big time. He put me in the wrong shelf. He should have put me in the second from right shelf instead he put me in second from left shelf. Pathetic, people who came buying me could not understand my need to be on second from left shelf and those who went to shelf at second from right could never find me. This guy made me nice but could never understand my use. My product manager only had technical sense but marketing sense was missing big time.

I was born with bad luck or shall I say bad timing. The day I hit the shelf I was liked by buyers but most refrained from picking me for simple reason that they knew what my product manager did not knew. There was something new coming in few days and most anticipated that product to be better than me. As a result no one picked me and though I was at par with my competition I did not gain enough word of mouth and eventually lost the batter. My product manager’s ignorance killed me.

All went well for me but I still could not make it big. I was good but business leaders never believed in my potential or success. They always wanted a reason to shut me down and my product manager never bothered to advocate about me to executive team. I died slow with great pain. I could only wish that my product manager should have been stronger in advocating me.

@mathurabhay