Essays on product management, startups, and building software.https://ayushsaraswat.com/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/no-free-ratings/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/no-free-ratings/Banning a digit doesn't kill the cowardice — it relocates it. I banned 7s on my bake ratings, and the middle 6 inherited it. The rule is a lens, not a fix.Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTrating systemsfeedbackdecision-makingdesignhttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/every-story-needs-an-earned-secret/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/every-story-needs-an-earned-secret/STAR-perfect interview answers fail because they're recall, not insight. The two-sentence rule that makes a story memorable: a counterintuitive POV plus the proof only you could have.Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTinterview prepbehavioral interviewscareerproduct managementstorytellinghttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/retiring-products-that-work/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/retiring-products-that-work/Squarespace had five mobile apps. Three had 4.9-star ratings. I retired all of them. The retirements worth getting right kill the seam, not the product.Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTproduct strategymobileSquarespaceproduct managementleadershiphttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/reverse-engineering-google-flights/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/reverse-engineering-google-flights/Every legitimate path to flight pricing data was too expensive, too unreliable, or dead. So I reverse-engineered Google Flights' undocumented API and built swoop, an open-source Python library for programmatic airfare data.Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTgoogle flightsreverse engineeringflight dataAPIpythonstartupstravel techhttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/open-hours/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/open-hours/Building an app for spontaneous phone calls with friends, and what we learned about network effects.Thu, 24 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMTmobile appsocialnetwork effectsphone callsstartuphttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/peek/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/peek/An IoT device concept that analyzes urine for health indicators, targeting adult children caring for elderly parents.Sun, 10 May 2020 00:00:00 GMTIoThealth techstartup ideaelderly carehardwarehttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/on-universe/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/on-universe/A detailed product analysis of Universe, a mobile app for creating websites.Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMTproduct analysiswebsite buildermobileUniverse appproduct managementhttps://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/splitty-chronicles/https://ayushsaraswat.com/writing/splitty-chronicles/Building an AI-powered receipt scanning app for splitting bills with friends.Mon, 13 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMTmobile appOCRAIreceipt scanningbill splittingstartup