I advice on Product Management | Growing your customer base | Career Growth

2X-Founder | Author | Growth | Ultra Runner | Writer

From failed startups to scaling Truepush to 100B+ notifications monthly and 4,500+ customers worldwide, I've learned what it takes to build products people need and grow them relentlessly.

I built Truepush from paper wireframes to becoming a top 10 global player in our category. At Alohaa.ai, I doubled sales within just 3 months and drove consistent month-over-month revenue growth.
Beyond business, I push limits personally. 

I recently completed an 82.4km ultra run during a 12-hour stadium event. Mountains, travel, and nature are where I find liberation through both excitement and boredom.

Learning obsessively fuels everything I do. I've devoured 336+ books, and continuously invest in courses (Mindvalley, MasterClass, Matt Gray, Justin Welsh, Reforge and more).

When knowledge compounds with consistent execution, results follow:

- Built a 25,000-person startup community across 3 cities
- Published 250+ LinkedIn posts in 2024 alone
- Recognized among the top 1% of mentors on Topmate.io
- Created Solopreneur OS to help others identify market gaps and build growth systems

All while maintaining 7 hours of sleep nightly, seeing friends regularly, and maintaining my unusual preference for vegetables over chocolate (though I love both).

Want to build something great? Let's connect.

Manoj Surya

OpenAI just raised $110 bn (Rs. 10 lakh crores only/-)

Only that much.
Only,
On...

Sorry, taking time to process.

2X Founder | Author - The Serotonin Addict | Head of Growth | Ultra Runner | I write on Growth for B2B and Personal Learnings

There are 3 types of people who smile a lot in Starbucks or Thirdwave

1) Friends
2) People working on a new Idea, together
3) People who are still hiring people into Ponzi-like schemes

Just my observation (3rd type seems constant, and it's disappointing)

There is too much BS on Linkedin these days and I am staying back out of necessity to connect with relevant people.

With AI, everyone started to say

1) 30 hours saved
2) $500k in pipeline
3) I am working with 11 AI agents

Fine, good, but - 

1) 30 hours saved - But along with it, share the quality of work it did, screw ups, learnings too
2) $500k pipeline, but based on your industry standard, whats your TAT  from pipeline to paying customers, are you getting revenue?
3) 11 AI agents. Fine. So? I will hire an intern and ask them to create 100 agents. What does it prove?

If you are sharing something - either tell us the quality you bench mark or revenue. Only these two are signals. Rest all is noise. 

PS: The noise level of BS is feeling like bad AQI in one of the large cities we know.

At Alohaa we work with Voice bots and Voice Streams, and I keep getting curious, here is why - 

While the mass is adapting to AI on Text, Voice AI has its own challenges. 

In India, the accent starts changing in almost every district. This means that to train one language, you can't just train in one accent or dialect. 

There are multiple companies building good models that can understand multiple Indian languages, accents, and dialects. And it's amazing to see how good they are.

Pair it with Voice latency on Telecom lines (Which we are trying to solve with Voice Streams)
Pair it with the issue with getting numbers into spam(Which we are solving use few methods)
Pair the Telecom rules in India with different sectors. For examples in the Financial Sector, with TRAI rules with 1400(promotional) and 1600(Transactional) number series, which started to show lower pick up rates.

While the AI models are one big step for Indian languages, another challenge is the Infra + Regulations.

At Alohaa, we wrote a book on how to be compliant for the Fintech sector and gave those away for free at events we attended, consulted with a few NBFCs to migrate and avoid penalties, and see where we can help or collaborate.

At least in the Voice AI ecosystems, multiple companies have to work together and grow the Industry as collaborators, friends, and grow together rather than growing thought a Enterprise sales cycle.

We try our best to do this from Alohaa, and hopefully the circle grows

PS: If you know anyone working in the Voice AI Industry, do tag them. The more the merrier.

Manikanta Thrivikram

Do things that AI can't do, like 

sleeping well
eating well
exercising
meeting friends
travelling
reading books
telling jokes
learning languages

What will you add to the list?

For most(or all) of us who are lucky to have privilege of education, work and health. Our needs are always met(food, shelter, cloths, some good relationships). 

It’s the wants that are hard and we try to make meaning out of it.

Why we need personal wealth - we need to have clarity first so we know what’s a good number to hit.

I am not saying you shouldn’t build great things , scale and make insane money.

If you have potential (which you have), you should absolutely go for it.

Just that, having clarity will make you differentiate and then actually spend money on things that matter to ‘you’.

For SaaS products, you have AWS credits,
What do you have for Voice bots to deploy on Telecom lines to make phone calls?

From Alohaa , we are planning to give 10,000 minutes of voice streaming (soon)
Which is more than you will need to deploy your bot, test it out, and launch in the market.

Working out on the launch plan currently,
But if you want to take advantage of getting this early (or people you know)

If you are offering companies to deploy your voice bot to make phone calls, 
DM me, we are here to support.

Do share your 1) website, 2) stage of development for the voice bot with me on DM, 3) email id, and 4) phone number. (So it's easy for us to evaluate, reach out to you to coordinate, and avoid to and fro conversations of the obvious)

PS: Once we launch and reach out to ecosystem partners, the turnaround time to verify and give you credits may take time, so if you reach out now, we can get you those credits with less wait.

No lock-ins, no contracts.

cc: Manikanta Vinutha Sanjay Fatema Srinivas Praveen Subba Raju

In India, most of the adoption feels like it's coming from coders, like everywhere else, but in marketing, it feels like it still needs a lot of adoption. 

The reason, my guess is, is purchase parity. For a product that is $100 in the US, we see the same perceived value at $40. 

Images and videos using AI are not cheap. Even other AI tools in marketing don't feel cheap. 

Another reason could be that Marketing needs a lot of experimenting. With code, you can see the output. With marketing, it's still a guesswork. So it may feel safer to go with what's already working than try new tools (the results are visible after a few days or weeks sometimes).

For experimenting, at least for the small to medium startups, it feels like a lot because you end up spending a lot. 

If we compare people versus AI tools, AI feels much better, but got to see how much it will be a common practice soon. 

PS: Or maybe the adaptation is good, and I may not be seeing it well in immediate circles. What's your observation?

Reviews are growing, get your copy here -

Physical copy - https://lnkd.in/grbibXRW edition - https://amzn.in/d/0iqFRk37
You don’t need to believe but you can read why 33 readers have wrote and decide for yourself?

It’s a good read in your break, travel, weekend or breaking your weekdays pattern (while helping you set hard long term goals and making them doable)

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

AI is helping me do many things and it's scary, here is why -

Firstly, I see myself as a generalist in understanding, and having depth with marketing.

Secondly, with AI (using Claude code), I know I can build few things, but then, do not know if I can understand scale or depth.

I haven't focused enough on creating agents, but it will be inevitable not to create agents and get things done.

So anything with some understanding of agents(easy part) + strategy(hard part) can make agents do - Research, compose data, send emails to relevant people for research, build specific landing pages based on personas, make content for ads / seo  (or even run campaigns by themselves in the future)

While I can take this data, use whispr like tools, talk to my command line (or just input the data from research) and let the claude agents orchestrate things and build a product, while I read a book, make tea, or go out for a walk.

There is something called The Jonah Complex - It is the terrifying realisation that you are capable of far more than you are currently doing, which creates pressure to live up to that potential. 

It's that, now you know you can do so many things, and the pressure build up gets the best of you (while we try to catchup with AI, try to avoid burn out while making 20-30X decisions in short time, that we are used to).

If the potential to create anything is scary, I don't know what is.

We will only remain sane, only when we are clear of purpose and direction (at least on the SaaS side of things)

Or else, it's easy to be lost, pressured and even broken now living up to what we can do. And anything that makes us value less isn't worth it.

Things are changing top down (early adapters -> everyone else).

Time to embrace the change. Sooner the better.

PS: The above automation, even to make it, needs conviction, time and a mental framework how things needs to be done and what output you intended to get(hard part). Once we know, it's easy to get things done.

The hard part (direction and purpose) never changes.

Vibe coder, vibe marketer, vibe writer. Fine. Let’s also vibe some good life? Just saying.

A good piece of writing advice is that you have to write as you speak, 
and with tools like Wispr Flow (speech-to-text tool), I feel like you can just speak and it writes, 
So, more or less, it's in the speaking language. 

This week I wrote two posts with Wispr, and the engagement was pretty good. 

When I went back and read those posts, I did feel like they were more natural, conversational, and made a point across quickly(saved a ton of time).

PS: Even this post is written like that.

AI Anxiety - here is how I plan to deal with it and do better things with life.

A short read.

Hey Reader, I don’t know about you. But things changing in AI are not very exciting for me, yet. I am a marketer. Last year, I tried 50 tools and publ

Open article: AI Anxiety - A Personal Discourse by Manoj Surya • 5 min read

Forming an identity and believing is the hardest 

I published a book if someone says I’m a writer, it will take me a moment to realise it is true

I ran for 12 hours covering 82.4km and yet on the day of the run, at the start like, I felt I did not belong there

With marketing sometimes it works in 3 days sometimes in 3 months, easy to have self doubt if I know things well

The voice of imposter syndrome for any creator or a good operator is usually high

Over the years I learnt to see it as a background noise. Nothing more, noting less

If you have imposter syndrome despite results, just know it’s normal

Jack Dorsey cut down 4000 employees out of 10,000, even when their company is already profitable.

He used terms like " intelligent tools - instead of saying it's due to AI

Do those 4000 people won't get jobs?
I think they will.

I feel that with all this AI wave, this is the first time for our generation where we need to adapt to new things, or at least be aware of what is happening.

There are three types of people who may thrive
1) People who create things with AI (Creators) - but still learn the old business strategies (eg, Right to win principles)

2) People who Adapt to AI (Operators) - meaning they know which tool to use when, efficiently

3) 80% of the people who are unaffected because they aren't in the technology in the first place (the whole world isn't on LinkedIn, remember? It's only a small portion)

Here is what I feel we should focus on going forward

1) Companies should spend money on their staff on new tools to try. If not, employees should and must spend their own money and learn to stay relevant

2) Creators have to see how their tool can differentiate for a large audiance, or cater to a specific niche, so winning and growing is sustainable

3) Be healthy mentally and physically, because AI gives you burnout, because it spins out the output in a few seconds, and we haven't been used to making a million judgment calls in a short time. We need our body and mind to be healthy

4) Friends - yes, the show with this name helps, but having real friends will make more sense for us in the world. AI Wave is fine, but sitting on that wave on a boat with friends makes it better.

5) Lone time with the brain - We need to keep away from gadgets so our brains get resting time, thinking time, and time to wander. Without this, we are less human. 
Currently, the best way be more human is to do nothing, literally.
When is the last time you rememeber day dreams? Or looking at the stars? Or heard a bird chirp? (What's wrong with us, have you thought?

The way forward is AI Adaptation + being more human.

Let's accept that, change our day and week schedules for this. We all will be in a better place, as we should be.

PS: Jack's post link - https://lnkd.in/grHCdS3y

People are saying tech people are not writing code anymore, and software is cheap, and anyone can code. 

The thing that is not getting popular is that non-tech people can code or make apps.

The reason is that it's very complex for a non-tech person. Somebody who knows what goes where and what to ask, it's easier for them to get things done, but for a non-tech person, what to ask is also a very big deal. 

It gets very confusing very quickly. 

I did code in college, but then I had to relearn a lot of basics the last few months just to go and vibe code again. I thought I'd manually code, but then I started to vibe code because I know what to ask, at least the basics, and I'm so happy that I've spent a few months learning all the basics again, so I know what to ask and not get lost! I did try Replit, Loveable, to make some apps, but it gets into hallucination, and the apps were never made. 

Because I won’t know what's going on! It will throw an error, and I would never understand what it is. 

So, it's still a good idea to go learn to code, and learning to code is cheap in terms of cost. The only thing is time, but it's an asset. Once you learn, it will stay with you for a long time. I tried Scrimba, got a good discount, and I paid ₹4,000 for a year. I would spend about 30 minutes every day. That’s why it took me a very long time. 

For me, it’s like a hobby, a side project, or an interest. I do know that it's a skill that I need to develop, because going forward, apps may be more dependent on APIs than plugins or interfaces. 

If I want to create some workflow or AI agent or anything, so I am not dependent on the tech team or where I'm not paying a bomb for software, which I could instead make on a weekend. Go to Scrimba, it's cheap, or if you find something similar, you can try, but this is really good. 

If you are a non-tech person, just don't stress about learning quickly. Give it like 30 minutes every day, or like three times a week, it doesn't matter, as long as you're getting somewhere and getting an idea of what this all is about.If you want to do something really quickly, you can go and check Codefast by Mark Lou. I tried that too. That’s where I actually could understand the whole picture of what happens in a SaaS. Then I went to Scrimba and learned the details. 

I did enjoy it, so for me, I didn't really mind just going back to it every day for like 30 minutes or working on it. Just try their free modules and see if it is working for you. Things are changing a lot, especially not tech people. 

I feel like they should learn about some basics of tech. Otherwise, it might get hard, or you might be paying a lot for software. If you are in a startup and on a low budget, this is a good way to innovate and try to do things your way. 

PS: If you are a tech or non-tech person in SaaS, like to know your views on this.

I want to start a Mind-brush up Meetup for SaaS creators 
Will be divided into 3 segments

Basically, you will come, write down everything you want to do,
Brainstrome, discuss, write down information gaps
Write down your success criteria

all this in the first segment

Second segment -> You will reserach on google(not AI) for fact and information checks as needed, write down what you think, discuss

Third segment -> Use AI to compare results from your think and what it says.

You preserve your original thinking, while also using AI to validate, add up more flavour than you do it alone.

You will also be less biased.

Or you can do this at your home or office, individually, if you like this format (to much effort to gather people anyway)

With the tools getting faster, the advantage anyone would have is to slow down in thinking and look at which direction to take. Once decided, execute it fast with the tools.

Better Thinking =

Better mental health
Not stressed out
A mind that is happy
Have depth of the field they are working on at some level
Intuition 
Working with the right people
Managing timelines
Knowing what to cut down
Knowing what to prioritize
Staying sane while all this is happening

What do you think?

Building Founders First Network to help entrepreneurs drive monthly outcomes with a progress system.

Previously headed Product and Growth at PublicVibe (Verse - Parent of Dailyhunt, Josh and PublicVibe). Part of the Leadership Team at PublicVibe, building and scaling multiple products and taking new initiatives.

Worked on multiple startups 

- Sociohub, An all in one community management SaaS platform that helps you run, manage, engage and grow your community in your own private space hassle-free. 

- StartupByte - Discovery and engagement platform for bringing the Indian startup ecosystem together. 

MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson College with 17+ years of combined experience as a Senior Manager in Corporate Development at WEX (NYSE: WEX). Business Technology Analyst with Deloitte Consulting, Business Development lead with a premier Robotics Education provider franchisee in India and also as a Lead Consultant for a Non-Profit initiative of building the foundation for one of the largest Universities in India. 

Strong Skills in Entrepreneurship, Community Management, Product Management, Growth, Corporate Strategy, Business Case Development, Payment Technologies, Leadership,  Management and Innovation.

Praveen Dorna

Swaminathan Gopal recently shared about this interesting community YANC Club. Every Saturday they host a mentor who openly shares what they are building, what is working, what is not, and the real lessons behind it. 

No gyaan, no hype, just honest conversations and curious people in the room.

If you are between 15–28, curious about startups, leadership, or trying to figure out your direction, this is a great way to see how actual builders operate and to meet others on a similar path.

I will be there tomorrow. 
Register if you want to join in.

✅ Entry is FREE
📅 Happens every Saturday
📌 Venue: RMZ Spire, Building #100, 7th Floor
🔗 Startup pitch participation: https://lnkd.in/dKyTQa7a
🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/gpkHsU7x
✅ Join WhatsApp group: https://lnkd.in/gXdJ9RBY

Founder, Founders First Network | Head, Founder Programs, T-Hub

In the last 12 months:

100+ validation and revenue stage founders tracked weekly
 
Stage movement documented for each
Clear next actions every cycle

No praying. No “hope it works”.
Every Single Founder makes progress, Every Week.

A Founder either moves forward, pivots with evidence, or kills the idea fast. 

It's not another program. 

It's a Founder Progress System. 
That's Founders First Network. 

Opening up 20 new Founder slots.

Request Founder Access Here - foundersfirstnetwork.com

Women have quietly shaped every role I play in life.

My mother was the first woman who never questioned my ambitions. She simply pushed me to chase them and reminded me to do good for others along the way.

My better half has stood beside me through calm and storm. Through every uncertain phase of building, she has remained the strongest pillar I lean on.

My 2 daughters showed me what unconditional love truly means. Becoming a parent changed how I see responsibility, patience, and joy.

Last year I had the opportunity to run a community supporting women who were restarting their careers. Listening to their journeys gave me a deeper respect for the resilience many women carry quietly.

The first 2 hires at Founders First Network  came from that very community. 

Even today, in our 3 member team, 2 are women.

When I reflect on my life honestly, women have influenced me in almost every role I play, as a son, husband, father, colleague, and founder.

Gratitude alone will never be enough. What matters more is how we build the environments around us.

One uncomfortable reality is this: 

women are often expected to succeed professionally while also carrying disproportionate expectations at home.

Want to improve things?

• Listen before advising. Many women are already navigating complex expectations. Listening often helps more than preaching.

• Build workplaces that respect balance and flexibility. Talent should not have to choose between career and family.

• Create environments that are safe and supportive, including space to talk about mental well-being.

• Include women in real decision-making roles, not just representation on paper.

• Recognize the invisible work many women carry both at home and at work.

Women do not need symbolic appreciation.

They need systems that make it easier for them to thrive.

If each of us improves even one environment we influence, a home, a team, a workplace,  the impact compounds far beyond a single day of celebration.

What is one small change you are making to create a better environment for the women around you?

When I was in college, the word startup was rarely heard.

There was no ecosystem. No founder communities. No mentors. No playbooks.

If you wanted to build something, you were mostly figuring it out on your own.

Things are very different today.

Students now have access to tools, communities, mentors, and capital that simply did not exist earlier. The barriers to test ideas and start building are much lower.

But access alone does not guarantee good decisions. There's more!

This Saturday, I will be speaking at Studentpreneurs Dialogue 1.0. 

The goal is simple: 
have honest conversations about building startups and the mistakes founders should avoid early.

When
Saturday | 7 March | 2–5 PM

Where
Bower School of Entrepreneurship, Hitec City

Joined by Ismail Akbani | Mohit Maurya | Karthik Nagapuri

If you’re a student exploring startups, innovation, or just figuring things out, this room is for you.

🔗 Register to Attend here: https://lnkd.in/gsMeV9jH

GroundZero | Bower School | Communitie

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CEO @ AIC Mahindra 🔹Governing Board @ ISBA 🔹Director at Heartizzan 🔹Ex Head - Innovation @ SCEI (Symbiosis Tech Business Incubator) 🔹Design Thinking 🔹Cultural Entrepreneurship 🔹Talkhemist 🔹VNIT 🔹IIT Delhi

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