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.