Dipa Dubhashi is the Director of Product at Agoda, a global digital travel platform with millions of customers that offers affordable deals on various travel services, including hotels, flights, activities, and more. With over ten years of product management experience across e-commerce, SaaS, payments and fintech products, Dipa currently heads Agoda’s payment and fraud prevention product teams - driving the product vision and strategy for this pillar.
I began my career as a data/business analyst at a management consultancy firm before launching my own company. Within a couple of years, we were acqui-hired by another data solutions startup called Sigmoid Analytics where I took on the role of Head of Product. The next four years were incredibly rewarding and we were able to build a fantastic team and product that grew from 0 to $10s of millions in ARR, securing multiple rounds of funding from Tier-1 VCs like Sequoia Capital along the way.
At that point, I decided to move on and explore the world of B2C product management. Being an avid traveller and Agoda fan even back then, it was a no-brainer for me to join Agoda’s product team where I started off as a product manager responsible for a couple of our marketing products. After about a year, an exciting opportunity in the fintech product team arose, specifically around a new payment-related product. Despite my lack of experience in the world of fintech and payments back then, I was intrigued by the innovative product we were developing and decided to make the switch.
My role at Agoda has evolved significantly since then, from product manager of a single payment product to senior PM driving a couple of related payment products, to lead PM spanning the entire consumer payments area, to now director of product, overseeing our entire payment and fraud prevention domains.
Having optimized a mature product for about a year, I was keen to work on something more 0 -> 1. An opportunity sprung up in the fintech product team, where we were looking for a product manager to help drive an innovative, new payment product that was greenlighted. I spoke to a few people to learn more about it and despite having limited knowledge around payments, was blown away - both by how interesting and complicated the area was but also the innovativeness of our own envisioned product. That sparked my interest and convinced me to make the move.
The most surprising aspect was the number of different layers beneath the surface that customers and even most merchants are unaware of. There are countless ways to optimize the payment experience, adding value for customers and merchants.
Although I anticipated some complexity and nuance, I was amazed by how intricate the payments ecosystem is and its many challenges, including things like regulatory compliance. Operating within such a controlled environment and finding new models that add value for businesses and customers is both an opportunity and a challenge.
Being a product manager is all about solving consumer and business problems, and in payments, there is no dearth of problems to solve. Finding innovative solutions to existing pain points enables people to do things better and faster unlocking value for the business.
Payments have intrigued me since I joined that team about six years ago. Our payment setup was relatively nascent then, but the potential was evident. Ensuring that all our customers, with diverse payment preferences and backgrounds, can make seamless payments on our platform is no easy feat and while we have made great progress, there is still a long way to go.
I learn something new every day, a rarity in many other roles. Payments is a field where even multi-decade veterans can continue to expand their knowledge and skills, making it a continually exciting and evolving area to work in.
The product, commercial, and engineering teams work hand-in-hand to craft Agoda’s payment strategy, informed by data, evolving consumer needs, business goals, and market dynamic
Our goal is to ensure we enable any customer who wants to make a payment on Agoda to be able to do so successfully with a delightful experience. That implies offering relevant choice and flexibility around how and when someone wants to make a payment, eliminating friction in their payment journey, and ensuring robust security & fraud prevention mechanisms... At the same time, we cater to business goals around minimizing cost and driving efficiency.
That then translates to specific tactics around adding new payment methods, offering flexible options like BNPL, optimizing conversion/acceptance rates, improving our fraud detection models, security and platform modernization, etc. , all of which go through a rigorous prioritization process to determine our eventual strategy and roadmap.
Selecting the right third-party partners is also a critical aspect and a lot of thinking goes behind selecting the ones that can provide the right technology, experience, insights, etc. to help us realise our goals.
We foster a knowledge-sharing culture across the business. Different product teams regularly discuss their current initiatives, experiment results, and the corresponding lessons learned. This shared learning helps everyone understand the overall product and business more deeply and enables them to consider a wider variety of factors when developing new features or products.
Continuous education is crucial to ensure product managers evaluate their experiments holistically and avoid rolling out products or features that may have unintended, negative downstream consequences. A PM could run an experiment that skips the fraud check step entirely in order to improve conversions and see positive results, however, this will likely result in a flood of chargebacks coming our way a few days or weeks, or even months later and the result in a net poorer outcome, both for consumers and the business.
Educating our teams helps us consider different customer personas and potential risks, ensuring we build the most effective and secure products.
Inefficiency in payment workflows is one aspect that often creates frustration but that also means there’s a lot of opportunity and value in eliminating it. Often, processes are followed simply because “that’s the way they’ve always been done.” This can be frustrating, but it also presents a chance to break the mold and create something innovative and better.
Finding and implementing solutions to these inefficiencies is highly satisfying. Transforming outdated systems into streamlined, efficient processes improves the customer's payment experience and drives business growth.
The skills needed for payment product management are similar to those required in any product role. You must think like a scientist, applying a first principles approach and viewing things from the customer’s perspective. It’s essential to be open-minded and dig deep to find the truth rather than take everything at face value.
I’ve often been surprised by how much is taken for granted. People make false assumptions, so it’s essential to always challenge conventional wisdom, especially when it doesn’t feel logical. Questioning and challenging assumptions is almost always the path to discovering newer and better ways of doing things.
While new technologies will undoubtedly influence payment strategies, it’s important to proceed with caution. Understanding the limitations and risks of innovations like blockchain or generative AI is essential. Before hastily adopting the latest digital advancements, we must thoroughly explore their design, limitations and assess fit.
Absolutely, I highly recommend a career in payments, and more broadly in fintech. The industry is filled with inefficiencies, ripe for disruption and offers numerous opportunities for creative individuals who enjoy tackling challenges and developing new business models. I advise staying curious, continuously learning about new trends and technologies, and being ready to innovate. As Steve Jobs famously said - Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.
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