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My first draft

I wanted to create a newsletter and share my internal thoughts with a very tight community since a year.

This is my first start.

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Welcome to Unlearn Daily.

I aim to develop this newsletter to share insights I learn from my rabbit hole (my mentors, books/articles I read) or during Unlearn Cohort sessions that can help you improve your life.

I was puzzled about what to write in the newsletter’s first issue. But yesterday night, I thought - I should introduce myself to you so that you know who is talking behind this screen.

You should know me before reading my words.

You should understand my context; otherwise, my words would be meaningless.

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Reading time - 4mins 32 secs

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So, I did my primary schooling (3rd to 5th standard) in Kasauli. A small town in Himachal Pradesh. The same place where Ruskin Bond (the famous NCERT book author) used to live.

That place was a definition of heaven. Perfect amount of cold, not too much that it snows. There were no fans, and we also needed to sleep with blankets in summer—European vibes.

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After that, I came to Delhi and went to a high-end school - where the average income of a student’s parents was 3X what my parent used to earn. Fathers are such noble souls, ready to sacrifice every time. I know your father would have made some sacrifices too. Acknowledge that and always remember you are here because of your dad’s sacrifices.

This place taught me ambitions. It fueled me to not settle for mediocrity, embrace challenges, welcome scar tissues, and never give up.

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After my schooling, I didn’t have a plan - didn’t prepare for JEE and thought I would clear NDA (Armed Forces), but I failed twice. In JEE, I got 32 out of 360.

I got admitted into a Tier 4-5 college to do my Engineering.

Every day felt like someone is stabbing my back with a knife. Every day, I used to feel - I was dying within. Every day, I felt like this was not me. I never deserved this.

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This was the moment when I was the most vulnerable. I used to cry going to bed. I have seen my parents feeling ashamed of me whenever there used to be a party, and someone asks - so where is Rohan studying.

All their kids went to IITs and NIT’s. But now, they dial my dad asking if I can advise their kids who need an MBA to become a Product Manager or if I can help 😛

I refuse to help anyone of them—just my scar tissues.

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In my second year, I migrated to Chandigarh University. From Tier 5 to Tier 3, it was a fantastic upgrade for me. I got good exposure to startups and started my first company - Happy Farmers - connecting fresh produce from farmers to consumers.

Looking back, this is where my learning started about startups and products. We assembled a small team of 4-5 people and kept building the website and the product we forgot about the business.

We just used to prepare pitch decks and go to pitching competitions that we forgot that we had to sell products as well—a typical V.C. startup mindset.

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After that, I started as a Product Manager. I built some products in a Fintech startup. The offline Aadhar KYC introduced by RBI was my brainchild. We developed it in-house and rolled it out in a week. This happened after the Supreme court banned private companies from using Aadhar in 2018.

This change would have increased customer acquisition cost from ₹7 (e-KYC) to ₹210 (to collect offline documents + shipping charges). A 3000% increase. This idea came to me when I was on a train after the judgement and kept looking at the Aadhar card for more than 15 minutes with curiosity, and after I scanned the Q.R. - I was like, damn, this is all the information we need to do the KYC. Try it yourself once.

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After this, I went to an A.I. company and led their cloud product. Understood a lot about B2B products, their nuances, how sales are an engine for growth and why your product is not important in your users’ lives (hard realisation).

Then the most fantastic opportunity came to me - to lead a company as a CEO. It was the most amazing job - I was getting paid to run someone’s company. But I gradually started feeling exhausted - I didn’t enjoy doing this. It felt like even though I ran this entirely, this was not mine so after a year, I decided to quit.

No backup plans, with only 3 months of runway - I QUIT. I used to earn 50LPA+, but somehow money didn’t feel the reason. I thought I just didn’t want to do anything.

Till now, Unlearn Product used to be a side gig. I only charged 5k per person to do the cohort; we had 10-12 people per cohort. Hence it didn’t feel like a viable option to do full-time. But I enjoyed it.

So, I took a chance. I decided to go ahead with it and got some fantastic instructors onboard increased the price, and in the first cohort (after quitting), we got 12 people—a BIG VALIDATION.

Now, even though I earn 60-70% less than what I used to make, I enjoy this. I am grateful that I have been able to scale this and have a team of 4 super exceptional individuals who run the show.

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This was it. That was the highlight of my story.

If you have read this till now, thankyou ❤️

Did you like reading this newsletter? What can I improve?
Please reply and let me know.

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P.S. - If you are looking to get into Product Management. Our next cohort is starting soon. Go checkout 👇🏻

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A product that you should try -

Endel - A great soundscape app that generates music based on the time of the day, and your heartbeat to make you enjoy what you’re doing. Personally, I love the UX of the app and the details it has.

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