Adhiraj didn’t begin with a “PM roadmap.” He began as a design engineer, but got pulled into a project where he had to coordinate across teams and translate requirements into a complete product — working end-to-end across mechanical, electrical, and other engineering stakeholders.

That was the turning point. He realised he enjoyed seeing the product end-to-end, not just designing parts in isolation. When the project ended, he chose not to return to a purely engineering role — and instead moved into product management, first in B2B, then into consumer hardware.

Adhiraj's award-winning product at Igloo was a smart padlock built for harsh conditions. Padlocks are often used outdoors — exposed to dust, grime, rain, and extreme temperatures. 

The key pain point wasn’t “cool tech,” but access: If a technician needs access to a remote location (e.g., a telecom tower) and the key is stored far away, someone has to physically retrieve it — wasting time during urgent maintenance.

The solution: A smart padlock that enables remote access sharing (e.g., pin codes / OTP-style access), while still being reliable in extreme environments.

Adhiraj explained that product fundamentals stay the same across both hardware and software. You still start with user pain points, requirements, and jobs-to-be-done.

But hardware diverges fast once you start building. In software, you can ship an MVP quickly and fix issues later. In hardware, mistakes are expensive — because of:

• Upfront investments (e.g., moulds/tooling)

• Regulatory requirements (e.g., circuits / radio emissions)

• The reality that once a product is in homes, you can’t easily “update” it

His point was blunt: you need to be far more certain before committing — because a bad release can kill the product (and sometimes the business).

Hardware MVPs are less about “scrappy UI” and more about functional prototypes.

Adhiraj described it like this:

"You can prototype using tools like 3D printing and PCB prototyping, but the prototype still needs to do the job — because you can’t run quick A/B tests or ship something half-baked the way software can."

Rather than building a “simpler version” of the product category (like the classic bicycle → car analogy), you usually build a scaled-down version of the same product that resembles the real thing — and test it hard before production.

Raj drew a clear parallel between software and hardware teams:

• UI/UX designers ↔ industrial designers

• Software engineers ↔ mechanical + electrical + firmware engineers

• And if the hardware connects to an app, you still need software/app work too

So the PM’s role stays cross-functional — just with more disciplines involved, and longer lead times.

Adhiraj highlighted a misconception where people assume consumer products mean you’re closer to customers — but B2B can actually be closer.

In B2B, a small set of key customers often drives a large portion of revenue (the 80/20 effect), so you validate prototypes and requirements directly with them.

In B2C, you rely more on personas, trends, and market data — but it’s harder to know exactly why a consumer chooses you, and competition is one scroll away.

At PRISM+, Adhiraj's scope goes beyond just building the product.

He described the work as more end-to-end:

• working with marketing teams on content angles and messaging

• partnering with manufacturing / production stakeholders

• caring about omni-channel customer experience (online marketplaces + physical retail stores)

• even influencing installation and delivery experience, because that’s part of the product “touchpoint”

This also explains why he estimates ~50% of his day is meetings — because PMs influence many teams, rather than “owning” every output directly.

Adhiraj also mentioned that launches always make him nervous. After all, hardware takes a year or more to build, so when it finally ships, you can’t help but worry if everything is right — from design to feature completeness to customer perception.

He also described how PRISM+ gets raw insights during major tech shows. Product managers observe how customers interact with products in real life — hesitations, confusion, what sales pitches land, what doesn’t. Those reactions reveal whether the product needs improvement, or the product is fine, but the messaging and positioning aren’t clear enough.

Adhiraj's advice was tied to a framework: Think T-shaped.

Pick one skill area to go deep in (your “vertical”) — design, engineering, market analysis, prototyping, etc., then build breadth across everything else over time.

His logic is that product is too broad to “master everything” upfront — but if you’re strong in one core area, you’ll have a base to learn the rest on the job.