Protik Roychowdhury — IdeasEssays on AI product strategy, trust in high-stakes products, product leadership, and marketplace design.https://protik.info/2026-07-01T00:00:00ZProtik RoychowdhuryThe meter is always runninghttps://protik.info/ideas/the-genai-pnl2026-07-01T00:00:00Z2026-07-01T00:00:00ZWhat generative AI actually costs when you are the one signing for it. A product leader's guide to GenAI unit economics, model routing, and the hidden costs nobody puts in the demo.Protik RoychowdhuryMarking the model's homeworkhttps://protik.info/ideas/evaluating-llm-features-before-shipping2026-06-26T00:00:00Z2026-06-26T00:00:00ZHow we evaluate LLM features before shipping. A practical playbook for AI evals: vignette-based evaluation, eval suites as release gates, harm taxonomies, tiered escalation to humans, and regression testing prompts like code.Protik RoychowdhuryEverybody wants the home screenhttps://protik.info/ideas/growth-at-superapp-scale2026-06-20T00:00:00Z2026-06-20T00:00:00ZWhat consumer growth actually looks like inside a superapp — ML-based personalisation, behavioural segmentation, onboarding funnels and engagement loops at Grab, where every vertical competes for the same home screen.Protik RoychowdhuryFrom consumer app to $20M enterprise ARRhttps://protik.info/ideas/pivoting-to-enterprise-saas2026-06-15T00:00:00Z2026-06-15T00:00:00ZHow Intellect pivoted from a consumer mental-health app to a B2B2C enterprise SaaS platform — multi-tenancy, configurable compliance, enterprise billing, and the buyer-versus-user tension, told by the VP Product who ran the platform.Protik RoychowdhuryThe same conversationshttps://protik.info/ideas/why-product-managers-get-stuck2026-06-11T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZProduct managers often stall not because they lack skill, but because their strengths go unchecked — helpfulness becomes overcommitment, diligence becomes output theatre, and loyalty becomes stagnation. And often the real cause is not the PM at all.Protik RoychowdhuryVibe-coding the nuptial archivehttps://protik.info/ideas/how-i-vibe-coded-my-wedding-album2026-06-09T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZA product person who builds for millions of users couldn't face selecting 200 wedding photos from 2,000. So after a year of procrastinating, he vibe-coded a Tinder-style voting app in a weekend.Protik RoychowdhuryPayments at scale: what I learned about fintech at Grabhttps://protik.info/ideas/payments-at-scale-lessons-from-grab2026-05-25T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZLessons from leading Growth, Engagement & Loyalty and Driver Rentals at Grab — building payments infrastructure, financial services, and engagement loops for millions of users across Southeast Asia.Protik RoychowdhuryMarketplace lessons from Ola: supply-demand, fraud, and driver economicshttps://protik.info/ideas/marketplace-lessons-from-ola2026-05-25T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZProduct lessons from building marketplace products at Ola — supply-demand optimisation, dynamic pricing, fraud prevention, and two-sided marketplace design at India's largest ride-hailing platform.Protik RoychowdhuryThe anatomy of startup blind spotshttps://protik.info/ideas/what-i-got-wrong-as-a-founder2026-05-15T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZThree startups, three different mistakes, one common thread. Lessons from building Bhalu.com, Croak.it, and Athlete Diaries — on pivoting, persistence, and co-founder alignment.Protik RoychowdhuryThe architecture of algorithmic trusthttps://protik.info/ideas/how-to-build-trust-into-ai-products2026-04-10T00:00:00Z2026-04-10T00:00:00ZTrust in AI products has three layers: transparency, control, and recourse. A cross-domain framework from marketplace fraud prevention, clinical AI safety, and payments integrity.Protik RoychowdhuryThe architecture of consequential AIhttps://protik.info/ideas/shipping-ai-in-regulated-industries2026-03-20T00:00:00Z2026-03-20T00:00:00ZWhat's different about shipping AI when you have regulators, clinical governance, and real harm potential. Lessons from building GenAI features in mental health at Intellect.Protik RoychowdhuryWhat product leaders actually dohttps://protik.info/ideas/what-product-leaders-actually-do2026-02-15T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZThe job of a senior product leader isn't roadmaps and sprints. It's judgment under uncertainty, saying no to good ideas, and building systems so others can exercise judgment too.Protik RoychowdhuryThe great unbundling of product management: why 2026 belongs to the impact architecthttps://protik.info/ideas/the-great-unbundling-of-product-management2026-01-15T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZAI is absorbing the mechanical parts of product work. The PMs who thrive in 2026 are Impact Architects — people who frame problems, make resource bets, and build conviction in teams.Protik RoychowdhuryThe ROI of care: investing in mental health as infrastructure for performancehttps://protik.info/ideas/the-roi-of-care2025-05-20T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZMental health isn't a perk. It's infrastructure. And like all infrastructure, its value isn't captured in a single metric — it's felt in everything that sits on top of it.Protik RoychowdhuryWhat humans still do best, and why that should shape the future of AI in mental healthhttps://protik.info/ideas/what-humans-still-do-best2025-05-18T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZAI will transform mental health care. But not by replacing humans. By doing what humans can't — so humans can do what AI can't.Protik RoychowdhuryDesigning for trust in mental health apps: why UX is carehttps://protik.info/ideas/designing-for-trust-in-mental-health-apps2025-05-15T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZIn mental health products, trust isn't a feature — it's the product. Five UX principles for building experiences that earn trust in high-stakes, vulnerable contexts.Protik RoychowdhuryWhen AI becomes an echo chamber: the ethical risk to mental healthhttps://protik.info/ideas/when-ai-becomes-an-echo-chamber2025-05-10T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZAI chatbots that only validate without challenging create a therapeutic echo chamber. What the mental health industry needs to do to build AI tools that actually help people get better.Protik RoychowdhuryHow AI is personalising mental health support at scalehttps://protik.info/ideas/how-ai-is-personalising-mental-health-support2025-04-15T00:00:00Z2026-06-11T00:00:00ZAI is changing the personalisation equation in mental health care. Here's how — and what it means for product leaders building in this space.Protik Roychowdhury