Getting Started

Introduction

This might be the tenth , or so, attempt - and more in countless wishes and dreams-  for me to actually create a blog of my own, and post something meaningful. Previously, the idea was always tempting to do, but never actually conceptualized more than building the blog website itself, and has always revolved around having something meaningful to say in tech or fitness, or having a journal of sorts to my life, and at the same time I wanted to introduce an original concept to it like one of these YouTube shows…and if you know me this is a trigger to my procrastination (which I am a master of!), as usually when I am doing the drafting or the research I find that I would have done something that another person communicated before and its just a different angle to the story; hence no need to actually talk about it, or what I need to say is not over 200 words so it feels weak, or the fact that I need to improve my writing skills, and that its would be very shameful to post something that has mistakes wether in spelling or grammar. That’s why I am no longer looking to do that, but rather this will be about writing for the following guidelines:

1- Improving my written communication:

I think every product manager should be a master of communication, and anticipate the opposite side comprehension level, and honestly majority of the job is rather happening in written format from Tasks to users stories, to PRD (Product requirement Documents) and Product briefs, to agreeing on action items and even sometimes even more;  so the more you are better at your written communication the easier the job will be. and that’s why I am working on improving mine through practice.

2- No extensive articles:

I people cared and liked an article or had questions then it mades sense to dig deeper on the interest areas, rather than wasting time or the perfect article to start off with, I am waiting for the people to direct me to the perfect article if that exists or even needed.

3- Getting my story out there:

I have initially gained interest in product without actually knowing that its product, from Y combinator or other startup stories as well as my own story, and so this is a more of giving back the information I got for free the past 10 years to the community along with a touch of my own story.

4- Getting Feedback:

This might be the most important aspect in the process, where I would learn something more from other people, Meet like minded folks, and exchange knowledge. but that is hugely influenced by the material I will be writing, so that what's why I am treating it a a by product to this blog.

Note: I initially wanted to write 5 goals, that then I changed to 4 guidelines for me to share, as I am trying to share stuff as they are rather than perfect it.

What to expect out of this Blog?

I will majorly be writing about the areas where I am heavily engaged in Product Management, from the process, design management , Project management for software, Software Engineering, User Research, User Experience. I will also be occasionally writing about Fitness and nutrition as to sharing my experience in Crossfit training as well. but majorly the target is to pick a topic and write a 1000-2000 word article about that topic in a bi-weekly frequency.

Get to know me

Now, I am not an expert in anything, but rather in an always learning state, and if I have something I would contribute my experience to it would be my diverse experience with startups which I will be laying out briefly here:

Kngine (2010):

At kngine our aim was to build a semantic search engine and my job was developing the android app, but as you know in startups you wear multiple hats, and I was engaged in design, and User experience, iOS development as well. Kngine was sold to Samsung in early 2019.

Asknative(2012):

Leaving from my previous experience in kngine and my earlier exchange student experience in Sweden I wanted to build an app for sharing the native experience across the globe, we took a small seed round from flat6labs, and along with gaining experience in asknative journey you would get experience in another 7-14 other companies that you deal with on daily basis for 4-6 months which played a huge role in shaping my experience as the CEO of asknative, and building a world class app from the heart of cairo.

Grapesnberries (2016):

Taking my experience  to build apps that touch people’s hearts to a software house and helping other companies and startups build their apps, I was initially iOS Team lead, then interim CEO for a brief 6 months due to an emergency situation, then back to managing my team, and doing Biz Dev as well.

Eventtus (2018):

Moving to Dubai, I joined another startup that I already knew their journey back in cairo, in Eventtus our mission was to bridge the gap from the events offline world and the events online experience, providing tools to event organizers to help them digitize their experience. In my role I have established the Dubai office, as well as manage automating the was B2B product management from Product Ops side.

Wakecap (2019):

At Wakecap our mission was to digitize labour management in real-time, improving the workers productivity and safety. In my role as head of product I helped establish the product team, and reaching PMF for our smart helmets.

I am currently working in mumzworld, which is the leading Ecommerce website for mother and child products and experiences. Job is mainly managing the customer facing products and experiences.

In the future posts I will be drilling down on my previous experiences, as well as the pitfalls I have encountered, as well as the things that I am currently experimenting with. I hope that my journey would provide someone out there with something to learn, a pitfall to avoid, or even something teach me.