Building Products for Lazy, Vain & Selfish Users

Anuj Rathi

Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Jupiter Money
Ex-SVP Growth, Swiggy · First PM, Flipkart

LENNY'S PODCAST

Core Framework

The 3-Attribute User Model

Lazy: "Blow my mind or I'm gone", no patience for friction
Vain: I have existing habits; don't ask me to change without a compelling reason
Selfish: "Show me what's in it for me", immediately, in my language

"Most people get that user onboarding is important, but just how important it is, and the craft of thinking like a user who is lazy, vain, and selfish… it's extremely hard, but totally worth it."

India Context

Why Building for India is a Different Game

1.4 billion people, but per capita income ~$2,500 (30× less than US)
India Stack: digital identity + UPI payments + open infrastructure layered together
UPI enables sub-₹5 ($0.06) digital payments, cashless for all income levels
Language diversity: official languages change every 15 miles; one product must serve all

1.4B

population

2010

PM era began

30×

lower per capita vs US

The Machinery Mentality Problem

Early leaders came from FMCG and manufacturing. They expected software to behave like machinery: predictable inputs → predictable outputs. It took a decade of cycles for that expectation to break down.

The Monetisation Craft

High traffic ≠ high revenue. The craft in India is identifying which users will actually pay, for delivery fees, subscriptions, premium features, and building specifically for them.

Playbook

"Show Don't Tell" + The 3-Reason Leadership Lens

Show Don't Tell, what it is Instead of writing a spec, map the full lived experience: Who is the person (not persona)? What time is it? What triggered them? What are they feeling at each pixel? Do all 3 versions of the strategy, then compare on a wall.

Person, not persona: "Lenny, 30, earns X, ordered food 3× last week, it's 11pm, his phone is low-battery", not an archetype
The wall becomes a shared alignment artefact across product, marketing, ops, and leadership
Build 3 strategic versions simultaneously to make tradeoffs concrete, not argued in theory
At Swiggy: mapped the 30-min post-order window scenario by scenario, punctured bike, late restaurant, etc., to design communications exactly right

The 3-Reason Leadership Diagnostic When things don't happen as a leader intended, there are only 3 causes.

① Can't Do → Capability

Coach, mentor, or move them to a role where their skills fit.

② Won't Do → Motivation / Alignment

They disagree with vision, don't have time, or aren't bought in. Go deeper, why won't they?

③ Wasn't Set Up → Leader's Problem

Ways of working weren't designed properly. That's on you, not them.

Tactical Playbook

The Onboarding–Marketing Continuity Rule

Ask: "If someone has heard about us 20 times, what exact situation finally made them download?"
Carry the promo (e.g. ₹200 off) through splash → first screen → first order, never drop the thread
Cross-sell fails when product 2 ignores the mental model that product 1 built
The divergent ideation rule: explore radically different directions before converging, broad inputs → connected dots

Jupiter Money application Users who adopted one product (savings account) weren't cross-sold because the app ignored their mental model. Fix: meet them where their value was found first.

Contrarian

Anuj's Most Counterintuitive Product Takes

✗ Focus on power users who love your product INSTEAD → ✓ Design for the lazy, vain, selfish user who hasn't downloaded you yet. Your loyal fans will forgive you; the sceptic won't even give you 5 seconds.

✗ Personas are enough for product design INSTEAD → ✓ Use persons, not personas. Name them, give them a salary, a mood, a battery level, a Tuesday evening. Abstract archetypes hide the exact moment the product breaks.

✗ When the team underperforms, it's a people problem INSTEAD → ✓ There are only 3 root causes: Can't do, Won't do, or Wasn't set up to do. The third, failing to design ways of working, is the leader's fault, not the team's.

✗ Become deeply specialised in your product's domain INSTEAD → ✓ Be like a multi-sport athlete. Insights from unrelated fields produce the best product ideas. Narrow depth creates tunnel vision; wide range creates connected dots.