Member story · Cohort 07 · June 2026

Eight years at Google. Now builds fintech knowing how AI works

Head of Product at SILQFi, solving credit for SMEs. Eight years at Google before that, across Pay, Ads, Marketing and Cloud.

Balaguru’s portfolio
LinkedIn
Balaguru Sakthivel
Balaguru Sakthivel Head of Product at SILQFi
Balaguru’s feedback

In Balaguru’s own words

What Balaguru sent us on WhatsApp on 6 September 2026, when we asked what the course had changed. His words, lightly trimmed. These are real people with real portfolios, not marketing copy. Want to talk to Balaguru? I’ll intro you.

Balaguru SakthivelWhatsApp · 6 September 2026
Balaguru on the course

The team and Ankit stayed true to what they promised, from the beginning till the end of the course.

They went overboard to make sure we got the right tool access, and were always open to 1:1 sessions outside the regular lectures. The cohort had a good number of experienced people, and that showed in the questions asked.

After the course, I don’t use AI without understanding how it works, and that definitely makes a difference. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to quickly understand what’s going on in AI and what it means for product managers.

✓✓
What changed for Balaguru

Knows how AI works before he uses it.

Took 1:1 sessions outside the lectures.

Recommends it to PMs who want the AI picture fast.

Balaguru learned alongside PMs from
Quest American Express Publicis
Morgan Stanley Google PhonePe
Salesforce Oracle NVIDIA
Barclays Airbnb JPMorgan Chase
Microsoft Walmart Global Tech India Amazon
Cisco Palo Alto Networks Myntra
Intuit Tesco Technology Verizon
Indeed Caterpillar Unilever
Motorola Solutions Zoho Trellix
U.S. Bank Lowe's India EY
F5
The path

Google, in four countries, then fintech, and now AI

  1. 2017

    Media Strategist, Google Ads

    Google

  2. 2020

    Strategy and Operations Lead

    Google Marketing, Singapore

  3. 2020

    Strategy and Operations Manager

    Google Cloud, London

  4. 2021

    Senior Analytical Lead

    Google Ads

  5. 2022

    Product

    Google Pay

  6. 2025

    Head of Product

    SILQFi: credit for SMEs

  7. Jun 2026

    Curious PM

    Cohort 07, with 18 other PMs

The work

What Balaguru built, and writes

See everything on Balaguru’s portfolio ↗
01 / 03

Database-connected AI chatbot

A chatbot built in five stages, from a plain OpenAI call to one that holds conversation memory, calls tools and answers from a live database.

OpenAI Streamlit Python PostgreSQL
Open ↗
What it teaches a PM

Memory was the smallest change with the largest effect.

02 / 03

Podcast search engine and MCP server

Semantic search over a thousand podcast episodes, then the same engine exposed over the Model Context Protocol so an AI assistant can search, keep notes and run research briefs.

MCP RAG Pinecone FastMCP
Open ↗
What it teaches a PM

An MCP endpoint is a live API: ship it with auth.

03 / 03

Personal AI agent with voice

One agent loop that searches and reads the web, remembers you between sessions, runs a job search from your resume and answers the phone, with chat and voice sharing one memory.

AI Agents mem0 ElevenLabs Twilio
Open ↗
What it teaches a PM

The assistant grows by registering tools, not by adding branches.

What Balaguru writes
balaguru.curious.pm4 min read ↗

The PM who writes their own SQL

Why SQL sits at the top of his skills list, ahead of fintech.
balaguru.curious.pm4 min read ↗

Eight years at Google: what actually transferred

Media, marketing, cloud and analytics across four cities, and what carried over.
balaguru.curious.pm4 min read ↗

Why SME credit is still broken

The problem he gets out of bed for.
Around Balaguru

Where Balaguru works, who Balaguru learned with

Where Balaguru works
Balaguru Sakthivel

Head of Product

Working on credit for SMEs.

Since 2025
LinkedIn
Balaguru SakthivelBalaguru
Cohort 07 · June 2026

Nineteen PMs, one cohort

Balaguru Sakthivel Lokesh Radhakrishna Lokesh Radhakrishna Disha Somra Disha Somra Ullas D.P Ullas D.P LC Lokesh Chandariya HR Hanumesh Rajalbandi VP Vinod Pattan NS Nikhil Sancheti AK Anuj Kantharia O Osho SR Sreenivas Rajagopal PV Prithvi Velsa SC Swathi Chandrasekaran SB Saurabh Biswas A Abhinav AZ Aditi Zutshi J Jahnavi AG Archit Gulati YG Yashashvi Goel

Every PM from Cohort 07. Tap a face to meet them.

19 members · 8 weeks
Meet the cohort
Your turn

Balaguru built these. What would you build?

Eight weekends of building real AI products with a small group of PMs. You leave with a portfolio like Balaguru’s.

Next cohort
Cohort 09
Starts
Nov 14, 2026
Length
8 weekends
Seats
18–24
Apply for a Seat
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