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Clarity

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders

Aurora, IL

As a strategic sparring partner, I help tech and product leaders accelerate when high-stakes initiatives stall.

My role isn't to tell you what to do, or to hand you a template. It is to co-think with you.

True breakthroughs rarely come from adding more analysis to an already complex problem. They come from a shift in understanding: seeing an operational bottleneck or architectural mess in a new way that makes the next step obvious. I call this approach Strategic Simplicity®.

How I Partner With Executives:
● Strategic Co-Thinking: Acting as a confidential sounding board to pressure-test new initiatives, product roadmaps, and business models before you invest capital.
● Navigating Change & Friction: Untangling organizational inertia, team misalignment, and the human friction that slows down enterprise digital transformations.
● Ruthless Simplification: Striking out over-engineered solutions and distilling overwhelming technical options into a sharp, actionable strategy.

Career Highlights:
● President, Puri Consulting LLC
● Founder & CEO, ListWeasel.com
● Early-Stage Leader: Employee #7 & Senior Product Manager, ELCEDE Inc.
● Enterprise Delivery: Helped develop the Chicago Board of Trade's Project A trading platform and the first online banking systems at Bank of America.
● Operational Excellence: Won Motorola's General Systems Sector Award for simplifying the complex change management process for the EMX 2500 cellular switching project.
● Industry Recognition: Inducted into the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame.

$7.50/min

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Startup Consulting Product Management Innovation Business Strategy Change Management Process Improvement Simplification

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Strategic Co-Thinking

Acting as a confidential sounding board to pressure-test new initiatives, product roadmaps, and business models before you invest capital.

Navigating Change & Friction

Untangling organizational inertia, team misalignment, and the human friction that slows down enterprise digital transformations.

Simplify Complexity

Distilling overwhelming options into a sharp, actionable strategy.

Answers 40
Reviews 0

Answers

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How can I land my first client?

Ask friends, families, and previous co-workers to refer you.

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Marketing Strategy

Social Media Marketing

Branding & Identity

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How should I go about getting funding for an ice rink that I would like to open?

1. Figure out how much money you would need.
2. Calculate the price of a monthly card that would give unlimited skating for a month. It should break even at about 20 day tickets.
3. Divide the amount you need by the price of a monthly card.
This is the number of cards you need to sell to get funding for your rink.
4. Sell the tickets, but don't collect the money yet. Tell them that you will only collect the money if you reach a certain level of ticket sales. That will encourage them to spread word of mouth to their neighbors. (If they aren't enthusiastic about an ice skating rink then you are building in the wrong community).

5. Also tell them that if the sale happens, you will give them a free T-shirt when they pay for their ticket.

This method has the advantage that, not only do you get the money without borrowing and interest, you also know that you have customers. The only out of pocket expense will be the T-shirts.

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Creative Financing

Grants

Entrepreneurship

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How can I do a market research?

Find a competitor in the niche you want to go in. See what their site looks like, look at their users and try to identify a subset that you know about (like where they hang out, what they read, etc) and can reach easily. Then, create your product / service. Your site should do the basic functionality that the users want, but you need something that differentiates you / improves on the competition. Then, reach out to this group and get them to use your product. If you get to the point where you have a product/service and regular users who like it, then you are ready to scale.

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Market Research

Business Development

New Business Development

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

When determining your target market, would it be better to be niche or have a broader client base?

Start with a niche audience you can reach, get them to start using your product/service. Then, you can start scaling/broadening your user base in iterations. Remember Facebook: First Harvard students, then other colleges, then (when the product was more robust and the concept proven) the general public.

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Business planning

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

Does it make sense to build a product similar to a recently acquired one?

It's a great idea, especially if the bigger company has now made it bureaucratic, or complex, and users miss the days when it was a small, stand-alone site.

Also, since you were a passionate user, you probably know a few small ways to improve the site. Large companies that buy small businesses have a bad track record for continuing innovation of the acquired product.

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Start-ups

Acquisitions

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

Which method or platform is suggested that I use to launch and market a new type of messenger app I developed?

The value of a messenger app is in its adoption by heavy users who grow to depend on it, and then invite more people. You need to find a niche, and then aggressively get some adopters. Then, find out what value-added features would make them happy. By aggressively recruiting, I mean that just making a free version is not good enough. There is so much noise and competition. You need to contact users in this niche and, if need be, "bribe" them to use it. I know one app in the truck driver space that went to truck stops and gave out free t-shirts and food to get truckers to download and try their apps.

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Strategic Marketing

Mobile Apps

Start-ups

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How can I start a marketing strategy for my bussiness?

1. Develop a good basic product/service. It doesn't need all the functionality, but whatever functionality it has (say the top 80% of functionality users use) has to be robust and easy to use.

2. Identify an initial group of customers that you can objectively identify and that you can reach. For example, students at Harvard (Facebook's initial users).

3. Work hard to get them to adopt your product. With so much noise, just making it free may not cut it. I know of an app in the truck driving space that physically went to truck stops and "bribed" truckers to download and try their app by giving away free food and T-shirts.

4. Once they are using your platform, you are getting the bugs out, and you are not losing users (i.e. they find it valuable), then you can think about trying to scale it.

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Marketing Strategy

New Business Development

Strategic Planning

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How can companies act more like startups?

They have to try new things, take chances, fail quickly.

In an established company, the best way to mimic a startup is to create an independent team, preferably away from headquarters, that are given a budget, minimal bureaucracy and supervision.

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Start-ups

Entrepreneurship

Growth Strategies

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How to make a place in already crowded Business?

It's good to be in a competitive market. Remember that Burger King builds next to McDonalds, because they will get a flow of customers. As my mentor says, "People don't go into McDonalds to browse." That being said, "providing the best quality" isn't enough to differentiate you. These days, people expect a certain level of quality, which is the floor, and they are skeptical that new providers can provide it. Best quality is valuable, because once they become customers and experience your high quality, they will be pleasantly surprised, and so it is valuable for keeping customers and getting repeat purchases. But, it is ineffective for attracting new clients. You need a different point of differentiation. For example, if you can provide a high level of service to a certain sub-group of clients, then you can target them with your marketing. That doesn't mean you have to turn away other customers, but just focus your initial marketing on this group that you can provide differentiated service. Alternatively, instead of better servicing an area, you might have a better process or feature. For example, if you sell ice cream and have flavors or creative sundaes that others don't offer.

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Marketing Strategy

New Business Development

Entrepreneurship

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

How does a catering business find their unique target audience?

1. What inspired you to start the business?

2. What do you picture when you close your eyes and picture a successful catering event? Is it a fancy outdoor wedding? Or an indoor corporate event?

3. Is their a certain menu or dishes you enjoy preparing?

This questions will lead you to choose your unique audience—one you are so excited to serve that you will automatically devote your time and energy to doing a great job.

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Business Strategy

Praveen Puri, Strategic Sparring Partner for Tech & Product Leaders answered

What's the best way to start an outbound marketing campaign for a web/ mobile development agency?

Don't do an outbound marketing campaign to directly promote your agency. Instead, create great content that would be useful to someone trying to select a web/mobile development agency—such as what to look for, what you should be prepared to tell them, how to work with them, etc. Then, use outbound marketing to promote this information and get it out into their hands.

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Lead Generation

New Business Development

Reviews

Member since July 2017