THAT WAS · Bengaluru · 11 July 2026
The demo works. The pilot does not.
Eight people, and seven of them had the same story: a demo that landed the deal and a pilot that is quietly dying. The table pulled one of them apart, screen by screen. The demo ran on clean data, one user, and a PM at the keyboard. The pilot had three customers, real catalogues, and nobody at the keyboard. The fix everyone agreed on was uncomfortable: run the demo on the worst data you have, in front of the customer, and see what survives.
- Where
- Third Wave Coffee, Indiranagar
- When
- Saturday, 10:30 am
- Who
- 8 at the table
- Cost
- ₹0
Hover a chair. The company, never the name. 8 chairs filled. Companies below.
— AROUND THIS TABLE —
People from 8 companies
Who they are stays at the table. Where they came from is the whole afternoon.
- Curious PM
- PhonePe
- Myntra
- Jar
- Walmart
- Zeta India
- Oracle
WHAT WENT ROUND
Three questions.
Three rounds of coffee.
They went round the table, in order. Nobody presented. This is what came back.
What are you building?
“Pilots. Seven of them, and one honest count of how many customers use them weekly.”
What broke?
“The demo data. Real catalogues are messier than ours, and nobody had shown the customer that.”
What's next?
“Run the demo on the worst customer data you have, with the customer watching.”
THE BILL
Settled, as always.
Coffee, chai, whatever the café did well, and two hours of the table. The bill came to us, which is the whole arrangement.
- 018 chairs, 6 given out, 2 kept for the ones who turn up anyway.
- 028 people sat down.
- 03Nothing was recorded, posted or tagged.
CURIOUS PM
coffee meetup · receipt no. 779
hosted by Ankit Aggarwal
- 1 × Table for 8
- ₹0
- 1 × Saturday, 11 July 2026
- ₹0
- 1 × 10:30 am to about lunch
- ₹0
- 1 × Third Wave Coffee, Indiranagar
- ₹0
- Coffee, chai, snacks
- ₹0
- Slides, pitches, name tags
- —
8 at the table · settled by Curious PM
SETTLED · COME TO THE NEXT ONE
Every other Saturday · a different café each time
SAME TABLE, OTHER DAYS
More coffee in Bengaluru.
The next one is somewhere else, with the same eight chairs.