Headline

Product at Zynga | 0 to 1 Products @ Masai School & Lokal(YC’19) | IIT Bombay

About

Senior Product Manager with 8+ years building and scaling monetization, growth, and platform products across gaming, marketplaces, and edtech — serving millions of users and driving significant revenue impact. Hold B.Tech from IIT Bombay. Currently at Zynga, I own Mercury, an internal lifecycle messaging platform serving 40+ games and delivering billions of messages annually across 6 channels. I am building AI-powered product features, optimising engagement through experimentation, and leading cost-reduction initiatives through platform migrations. Previously, as Director of Product at Masai School, I architected internal platforms that enabled 8x scale — growing admissions from 250 to 2,000 per batch while improving conversion 5x (2% to 10%). I built assessment and proctoring systems that saved ₹48M annually and designed an LMS that eliminated 2,000 operational hours monthly. My platforms directly contributed to the company's revenue growth from ₹50M to ₹400M. Before that, I was the first hire at Lokal (YC S'19), where I took a vernacular news platform from 0 to 5M users in 2 years across 3 Indian states. I achieved category-leading retention (50% D1) through deep user research with non-English Tier 2/3 audiences. I built three monetisation streams from scratch — ads, hyperlocal advertising, and a jobs marketplace that reached ₹1.6M MRR with 50K+ organic listings. I also scaled the product team from 1 to 5 PMs and Designers. My expertise spans: 0→1 product development, growth funnel optimization, A/B testing & experimentation, AI-powered products (LLMs, agents), platform architecture, marketplace design, and cross-functional leadership. I won the Zynga Global Hackathon (top 4 of 200 entries). I ran weekly PM peer-learning sessions and am passionate about building products that scale impact.

Location

Bengaluru

AI stack

cursor

opencode

claudecode

Work experience

Product Manager 2 at Zynga, Dec 2023 - Present · 2 yrs 9 mos, Greater Bengaluru Area, Own Mercury, Zynga's internal lifecycle messaging platform serving 40+ games, delivering billions of messages annually to Millions of users across 6 channels (email, push notifications and more). The platform directly impacts daily active users, engagement, and monetisation across Zynga's portfolio. Key Achievements: - Built intelligent send-time optimization for push notifications; validated meaningful engagement uplift through rigorous A/B testing, now rolling out across 40+ game titles - Designed and developing an AI-powered email template builder featuring specialised agents for content generation, HTML conversion, and QA; A/B tests showed significant improvement in click-to-open rates and campaign creation efficiency - Launched new rich media message formats for Android, resulting in substantial click-through rate improvements - Led strategic migration of games from third-party CRM vendors to Mercury, saving significant annual spend - Devised a deduplication system for customer support tickets, reducing support volume and enabling the team to handle higher ticket volumes with the same headcount - Won Zynga Global Hackathon (top 4 of 200 submissions) for innovative product solution - Led weekly PM peer-learning initiative, curating and facilitating content for 40+ weeks

Director of Product Management at Masai School, May 2022 - Aug 2023 · 1 yr 4 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Led product strategy and execution for internal platforms enabling Masai School to scale 8x while unlocking yearly revenue growth from ₹50M to ₹400M. Built and managed a high-performing product and design team of 7, establishing data-driven decision-making culture and agile development practices. Growth & Acquisition: - Architected and launched automated admissions platform, scaling capacity from 250 to 2,000 students per batch (8x growth) - I mproved admission funnel conversion from 2% to 10% (5x improvement) through experimentation and user experience optimization - Reduced "time to admission" from 24 hours to 1 hour, dramatically improving user experience and operational efficiency Platform Products & Cost Optimization: - Built in-house assessment and proctoring platform, replacing third-party vendor and saving ₹48M annually (70% cost reduction) - Designed and launched internal Learning Management System (LMS), eliminating manual workflows and saving 2,000+ operational hours per month - Increased operational efficiency through intelligent automation across admissions, learning, and placement workflows New Business Initiatives: - Spearheaded launch of LevelUp, a new business vertical successfully expanding Masai School's service offerings to a broader developer community - Built comprehensive placement product streamlining workflows for multiple stakeholders (students, instructors, hiring partners); achieved 50% reduction in placement team work hours Strategic Impact: Led build-vs-buy analysis that resulted in in-house platform development, enabling the company to scale rapidly without proportional increase in SaaS costs or operational headcount.

Product Manager at Masai School, Mar 2021 - May 2022 · 1 yr 3 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Senior Product Manager at Lokal, Jun 2020 - Oct 2020 · 5 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, First hire after the founders. Built and scaled a vernacular news and classifieds platform from 0 to 5M+ downloads in 2 years, achieving product-market fit in Tier 2/3 India. 0→1 Product Development: - Created launch playbook and product strategy to scale from 100 to 5M+ downloads across 3 states in just 2 years for vernacular (non-English) users - Conducted extensive user research to deeply understand mental models of Tier 2/3, non-English internet users, resulting in differentiated product experience - Achieved category-leading retention metrics (50% D1 retention) — highest user retention in the News app category and Daily Active Users per location higher than traditional newspapers in Telugu markets Monetization & Marketplace Design: - Built three monetisation streams from scratch: Google ads, hyperlocal advertising, and classifieds marketplace - Launched jobs marketplace achieving strong product-market fit: 50K+ organic job postings, ₹1.6M monthly recurring revenue, and 45 NPS score from employers - Experimented across multiple revenue models, identified jobs as highest-engagement category with strongest unit economics User-Generated Content Platform: - Designed and launched a UGC platform with moderation workflows, enabling users to voice local problems and opinions - Scaled to 1.8M+ moderated posts, reducing content costs by 20% vs. paid journalists while maintaining engagement levels Growth & Virality: - Launched gamified referral program with leaderboards, reducing customer acquisition cost by 25% while maintaining user quality Cross-Functional Leadership: - Built and scaled product team from 1 to 5 product managers and designers - Established data-driven culture: implemented analytics infrastructure and user insight accessibility for 100+ team members

Product Manager at Lokal, Sep 2019 - Jun 2020 · 10 mos, Bengaluru Area, India

Product Manager/Designer at Lokal, Jun 2018 - Sep 2019 · 1 yr 4 mos, Bengaluru Area, India

Freelance UX Designer at Self-Employed, Jan 2018 - Jun 2018 · 6 mos, Mumbai Area, India

UX Design Intern at Aasaanjobs.com, Oct 2017 - Jan 2018 · 4 mos, Mumbai Area, India, - Carried out micro-usability tests of the prototypes - Performed user-testing on all major stakeholders - Designed wireframes and web pages based on user research and analysed data - Reduced bounce rate of the page from 60% to ~15% - Suggested UX changes based on user flow observations - Created user personas

Education

Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.), Metallurgical Engineering and Material Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay