to welcome my co-host for the evening as well. Maybe give a quick intro. Parth, welcome to Mosak 2025.
Yeah. Hi. I am like a lot of you. I think we are here and there around the globe. I'm joining from Europe, Berlin. And I've been part of the TPF journey for a long time, almost six years now. It has been fun. I also work as a product person in a fintech called Lana in Berlin. Yeah, that's a bit about me and always up to chat about anything product, tech, community, startups. So shoot me.
Awesome. Thanks so much Parth for joining in from Berlin. Folks, I'm tuning in from SF Bay Area and I know a lot of you all are joining in from across the globe. I think backstage on the other chat while you all were joining in we were asking folks from where exactly are you guys joining in from across the globe and it was so interesting to see all the cities you guys are coming in from. Now that we have almost everyone tuned in already, one thing we'd like to do is maybe walk you guys through an agenda of what to expect in today's session. Two, what to expect over the next two weeks and really excited to see all the products you guys are going to be building as part of this buildathon. Right, let me kick off with today's session. What we have in store for you is over the next 15 to 20 minutes maybe give you a little bit of a heads up on what to expect. So what we will do is we will walk you through a little bit about the product folks journey. I know some of our community members are new. Then we'll share a little bit about the buildathon Mosak. You know who's joining in, who our partners are, who are the workshop speakers, who are you going to be learning from. Then of course we have a very special guest joining us for this kickoff. Many of you all know him already. Some of y'all will learn more about him. And if you have any questions for him, we do have a Q&A section. So please please do drop your questions in the chat. There's a special Q&A tab. Drop it there. Others can upvote and we promise you we will take up some of the most upvoted questions there. Post which there are some housekeeping rules. We have lots of credits from our partners for all of you. I know you all have been trying to use some of these AI tools. And through the community we've got you some of these exclusive credits. So we'll share the process on how you can redeem some of that. I know some of you had questions around the buildathon in general, right? So Parth and I will stick around post the fireside. So we request all of y'all to stick around another 15 to 20 minutes since this is the kickoff. If you have any questions around the buildathon, it could be any questions, we both are here for you. We'll walk you through each and every part of that. Right. So is everyone ready? Drop it in the chat. Let's get started. I do see a couple of reactions coming up on the screen as well. So really excited to see you guys join this buildathon and get right started.
Awesome. Like Parth mentioned, I think the journey to kicking off and building product folks has been a long one. Some of y'all have seen it right from the beginning. This started like Parth mentioned almost five and a half, six years ago. Back in I'd say May of 2020 or May of 2019 in fact, right? Where it started with one small event in Bangalore and India moved on did a ton of initiatives. I think the journey is long so I'm not going to cover each and every initiative but post that I think we did a ton of initiatives across online education. We today host over 300 meetups across the globe every single year, right? So from one single event in Bangalore in 2019, today we're across 28 cities globally. So in case you guys are joining in from a city, do check out Grab Chai which is happening in your particular city. So lots of offline events happening and in case it's not happening in your city already, DM us. We'd love for you to kickstart a chapter with us. Right? So lots of stuff on the offline bit. On the online side, we do a ton of online initiatives and learning sessions for our community that are completely free. Feel free to join in, learn alongside. We do a ton of mentorship in the community as well. So post learning if you guys want access please do join the slack community where you can reach out to senior people in the community and jam with your peers on what they are building and learn how interesting products are built across different startups and companies. Apart from mentorship we also have a very interesting opportunity section and it's probably one of the most active channels on the Slack in case some of y'all are looking out for new opportunities. Check us out. Two or three initiatives that I'm very proud of. I know it's been a long journey and it's a completely exciting one. One thing I'd like to say is this is a volunteer-driven community and none of this could have been possible without the effort of everyone working behind the scenes to put this together. So in case you find any of our TPF volunteers on the chat section do give them a shout out. I think they've been putting nights and day to make this happen behind the scenes. Right. So that's one shout out. There are a lot more initiatives we do. I know we don't have probably time to cover it in today's session because we want to keep it super focused on the build but if any of y'all are interested please do check out the website. If you all want to join the team or volunteer with the team please do reach out to us. And like I mentioned lots of exciting initiatives which we will tell you as MOSA progresses on right but anything you want to add what was your most favorite initiative at the product folks.
I think maybe the true housekeeping is you should just first sign up on productfolks.com, so that's a start in case you haven't. You get all the details about what we are up to. What was cool, I think a similar thing: years back we did this product boot camp which was called 'In Sergio' which was short for 'In Search of a Job', which we were helping a lot of people with. I think that was when the first time we saw the scale of TPF, which was I don't remember, 25,000 odd people joining for five odd weeks. I would put that as something at the top and where I saw the power of community for the first time really. And yeah, even now every now and then I keep hearing that 'Hey, I was a part of this In Sergio' as part of that, which is always great to hear and just adds more meaning to what we do here.
Yeah, I think like I said, I think the first time we hosted in the pandemic and having so many folks joining I think that was super lovely and I think the second bit is just in general how we've been bridging ecosystems. I think what's been really exciting is getting some of these senior leaders across the globe and getting access for our community. I think that has been probably the most rewarding just from the feedback I keep hearing from participants. Right. So do lots more of these but yeah, almost our sixth year anniversary together as well. So more on that coming on socials. A little snapshot for new folks joining us, for everyone else who's been part of the community. You probably have seen this for a while, but today we're a large large global community. Definitely one of Asia's largest, but also one of the largest product communities globally. Thanks for being part of the journey. I know some of you all have been there from the very beginning. It's been a ride and I can assure you lots more exciting stuff coming. So if you guys are looking on how you can transition to become an AI product manager or how you can pick up some of these tools while you're working or just generally want to meet like-minded interesting folks across the product community, do join any of these channels in case you aren't following. There are lots going on within the community, so do participate and yes, lots of exciting stuff coming your way.
Back to Mosak. Before we kick off, I think want to definitely give a shout out to some of our partners without whom it wouldn't have been possible. We did put out a poll in our community asking folks on who we should definitely get to partner for this initiative of us and we've been able to cover most of the love products that you guys shared. I know some of y'all have already tried some of these tools and like we were sharing we've been able to partner with them and without their support none of this would have been possible. So huge huge shout out to each and every partner as part of this initiative but also they've been really kind to share credits with the entire community. So many of you have already signed up to our buildathon platform which is DevFolio in case you haven't, you should have received a link in your emails. We will also share a link here on the chat section. Do join in and you will be able to redeem most of the credits. Right. Now comes the more exciting part. Per whatever we shared earlier, we have builders from across some of the best AI companies coming and sharing their learnings with all of you. The schedule will be in your email shortly, but you will access these learning sessions exclusively on the platform that you are currently on. Right? So as part of the buildathon, yes, the goal is to come in with an idea to build something along with us over the next two weeks. And yes, it is a competition, right? But along the way, we thought, what if we could get you access to some of the best minds building AI product across the globe? And these sessions are all live by the way. Right? So I know these are folks joining in from different parts of the world. We have gone via the polls in the community that we created. So there are some topics that our community members wanted to learn from and we reached out to folks from OpenAI, from Gemini, people who were very senior up at Walmart, at 11 Labs, and we've been trying to get some of their knowledge and learnings because they've been at the middle of all of this for a long time, right? So over the next few weeks you will have access to these sessions. Please join whichever session you think might be interesting and might contribute to your building journey, right? Post our kickoff session, we have a fireside that's lined up. Post that we will definitely be taking up some of your questions as well. What I will do though is give you a sneak peek into what's coming your way over the next hour.
Just one thing I'd like to add. I think all these sessions that you see on the screen are designed to be very very hands-on. So what we're expecting out of these sessions is that by the end of an hour or 90 minutes you're going to go out with a takeaway where you have actually done something in those 60 to 90 minutes. So look at these sessions as very less theory. I think we have a lot of boot camps where they do cover theory. This is not one of those. This is end to end build to help you really learn to build and actually build. And yeah, that's the idea. I'd highly recommend going for each of these sessions just to understand. Each of these sessions are structured on the different parts of your building journey. So let's say the vibe coding stuff, the voice stuff, the eval stuff. So yeah, keep an eye through the whole timeline. That would also help you understand when what is happening.
Thanks so much Parth. I see a lot of questions around this in the chat section. So before we kick off with our special guest for this evening, do we want to maybe walk people through some housekeeping rules? Do you think that would be interesting?
We have a few minutes. Let's do that.
Okay, let's do that. Awesome folks. So, let me do one quick thing. I know there is a lot of questions on chat around this. So maybe just before we kick off our fireside chat, maybe take few minutes to just share this with you. Many of you all have already and we had a ton of other people on the wait list. So, yes, if you are seeing this live on our platform, congrats first of all for making it through the wait list. Second, we have already shared a link to the platform on which we will be conducting this buildathon. This platform is called DevFolio. You should have received a link. If not, we're going to pin it in the chat as well. This is a platform where you'll find all the information regarding the buildathon. Please please do sign up. You will also be able to access some of the credits only via the platform, right? So this is definitely an essential step. We have tons of prizes, tons of credits for you guys to take away. Entering this session, especially at the kickoff stage, I'd love for all of you to start thinking and some of you have already shared what you are building, but if not, start thinking about one interesting idea that has been lingering on your minds for a long time now. And this is probably how you will all be able to ship with the community. Right? So step one if you haven't already please do go up to DevFolio, follow the link. We will pin it to the chat section. I'll request maybe Nandan or Abbe, if you guys are around, please do pin this to the air or the YouTube chat section as well. Yes, if you have any questions around this, please drop me, I will be able to help you out here. Second, if you haven't already, please please join the Slack channel. We have a community that is just for this particular cohort. As you join in, you will be directly on our Mosaic channel. If you are already part of the Slack, please please go ahead and search for this channel and join in. Right? You guys can also meet other builders from the same community and maybe build products together as well, right? So meet other fellow builders, participate in upcoming stuff that's coming out, right? So register on DevFolio, join the Slack channel if you haven't already. Third, email before every single session. We've shared some of the pre-reads, right? In case you haven't gotten this, we're also going to be sharing it on the Slack channel. So please do join the Slack channel and you will be able to go through the pre-reads before every single session. Last but not the least, some of these invites and links might not be landing in your primary section, right? So maybe I will pause for a minute or two. If you can, please do go to your email inboxes and move the invites to your primary inbox. Right? So, I will pause for a minute or two, join the Slack channel, register on DevFolio, and give us a thumbs up on the chat section as soon as you done this. We will probably take a minute or two. And I know folks, you are probably sharing your LinkedIn links in chat as well. There will be ample opportunity for you to network post the session. You know we will be on Airmeet, we will be around here, you can network live with other folks. If not, you can always join the slack channel and connect. Right? We probably have less than five minutes to kick off the fireside part. If there are some questions from the chat section, in case you want to take up, but I'd love to pause for a minute or two so people can complete all the prerequisites before we kick off. All right. And folks, yeah, please avoid sharing LinkedIn links on the chat section.
Yeah, maybe whoever hasn't been able to navigate the Q&A section. You can go there. There like a bunch of questions. You can up vote. We can start picking the top few ones. So the first one easy. Hi, I just want to know if recorded session will be available. It is. This is live on YouTube as well. We highly recommend you attend it live. And that's because we have a bunch of surprises planned for each of these sessions. But yeah, just from the angle of attending it later, you will have that option.
Awesome. Couple of questions. We have pinned the link to the DevFolio platform as well as Slack here. Some of you all might not be able to join Slack because so many people are clicking the link at the same time. But don't worry, rest assured in case you find an error right now, you can always come back to the link in a couple of minutes and join it. Another thing is on the codes bit, please join DevFolio link and you will get access to some of these tools. Another question is around in case you missed this recording, in case you missed the live session, we will have an unlisted link on YouTube for the next week, right? So as long as the buildathon is on, you can always access these resources. Just subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don't miss out on a notification. Post that we will be taking it off YouTube and for everyone attending, you can also access it on our academy that's on the website, right? So you can always search for the product academy and you will have some of these resources there, right? But for the next two weeks, all of y'all will be able to access it. What else are there any other questions? Okay, folks, if there are any other questions, please drop it in the chat section and we'll be able to help you. We will maybe take another two, three minutes so that all of y'all can get through these steps. I know some of you all are still registering on DevFolio and in less than five minutes I think along with Parth we both will be hosting someone very very interesting for this kickoff. A question from Yat: where can he access the pre-reads? Yat, this will be available on the slack channel once you join it. We will be dropping some of the pre-reads again there in a couple of hours so that you can access them. Right. AJ says he's got access only to main tools. Yes, that's right. All the participants will have access to two main tools and some of these tools are then reserved for different stages. As you submit your application, you might get access to some of these. Once you submit, you might get some access to other tools, right? So some of you all might not be able to join Slack right away. Yes, you will probably have to wait for a couple of more minutes. I think there's a huge wave.
We've also opened a poll on Airmeet where you can just confirm once you have joined Slack and whoever is not able to we can sort of solve for it.
Awesome. We have a question from one of our participants saying that once they submit a particular project will they be able to change it? Absolutely. You can always try different idea. The best part is we have access to tools like Rocket, Lovable which give you an idea on how you can go from a very basic just an idea with a single prompt into something that's fully functional. Right? So you can always figure out different ideas as you play along with some of these tools, right? Awesome. Now people are able to access it. And folks, if there are any more LinkedIn links, you unfortunately will be blocked from the platform from just moderation perspective, right? So just giving you a heads up. It is not my call. It's a message that I received from one of our volunteers. So just giving you all a heads up from ourselves.
Awesome. With that, I see are there any other questions? Anything we can help you before. The idea of this kickoff is exactly this that we help each and every one of you all onboard into the platform. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to any of us. I think Parth and I are pretty accessible on Slack. Across any platform you find us, please DM us. We'll be able to help you. We also have a bunch of our volunteers very active on the chat that I can see. So if you find them, if you have any questions, please reach out to us. Yes, on Slack because there are lots of you all trying to access the same link, you might face an error but just bookmark the link and come back in a couple of hours. You are rest assured you'll be able to join. I have one question: how many people can there be per team? The maximum number per team can be three people. So it's either most of you all can build this individually or in pairs, but maximum per team is three, right?
Yeah, the only catch is if you end up winning, the prize gets split in three. So there are both upsides and downsides to teaming up.
Yeah, like they say, right? I think the first step is winning it. So even with a team of three, if that allows you to win it, go for it. But like I mentioned, if you can go all the way solo, go for it. Maybe let's just take a few more questions.
Sure. Can students benefit from this? Lisa asked this 100%. I think the age of AI is without any age. So go for whatever stage you are at in your career, feel free to go about it. You're probably way more creative than we are as well, right? So every creative idea that you have, come in our Slack channel. We have build nights that we're going to be doing. There's going to be lots happening in that one Slack channel. So come along and the best part is it doesn't matter where you're joining in from. One of us is going to be there 24/7, right? Like we're covering the globe like Parth mentioned earlier. He's joining in from Europe. I'm currently here in the US. We have a volunteer who's currently in Singapore. We have one of our volunteers in Dubai and we started in India. So we definitely have lots of them across. So we're across the time zone. We can assure you that this is truly a 24/7 community, right? So don't worry, anytime you have anything just drop it on that chat section, some of us will be there to help you out.
On the Slack channel folks, we acknowledged this earlier. I see a couple of more questions on the Slack please wait it out. There are lots of you all trying to join at the same time and hence it might not be available but just bookmark this link and come back to it in an hour or two. Right? So, we will be updating the link with a fresh Slack invite. So, don't worry about it. We've already addressed this.
Awesome Parth. Any other questions that you see?
Yeah, maybe there a few more. Let me refresh. Will we receive support during building if we get stuck? Yes, of course. I think Slack is the center where you get all these things answered. Will there be a founder operator dating? Because there might be a lot of quality apps coming out of MOSA that will need real operators to make into a real company. I think 100%. I think the demo day is sort of built for that. Not just finding co-founders, I think this might just be a good place where we're getting VCs also to look at those ideas. So it's on the cards. I think it's going to come organically and for that there needs to be some outcome coming and reaching till the demo day. And then I think slack, all the channels are there.
Awesome. I tried taking while Parth was covering some of them. I tried covering a lot more on the chat section. If you need team owners, I know some of them have been sharing this. What we will do is on slack we will try creating a small poll for this. So you can definitely drop it on the MOSA channel on Slack once you join in. There are others here as well who are looking for team members. So we'll start a thread and everyone on that thread can just reply if you're looking for a team member, right? So we'll start that thread. Don't worry. We'll try doing that once you all join in today. We will drop that in tomorrow. Don't worry. Right. As soon as you're set. Lan asks, 'What time are we kicking off the fireside?' As soon as all of y'all are kickstarted on the platform. So, give us a thumbs up if you've been able to one sign up on DevFolio. Okay. Lots of thumbs up coming in. Does anyone else have any questions on the buildathon? Anything on the timeline? Any questions on the platforms? Slack. Yes, you'll probably have to just bookmark this link because some of y'all aren't able to join. So Slack, some of you all who are asking the link, it is on the pinned chat. So don't worry, we will be able to, you'll be able to join that in a bit. Don't worry. But please get, in case you want access to the recording just subscribe to the YouTube link so that you get access for the next two weeks. If you need access to DevFolio, the link is on your pin chat so please sign up right away. If you need access to the links, someone's asking links to the platform, you should receive it in your email. Just move it to the primary section. You can search it and move it to the primary section so you don't miss out. Right. Someone asked if you get office hours with the speaker. Unfortunately they will not be able to join you one-on-one but you can definitely use the chat section here to interact with them. These are all live sessions. So they will be joining each of the speakers that we share will be joining in live. So you can definitely interact with them. Think of these as group office hours. Right. Awesome. Any other questions, folks?
Shall we go to the tracks piece?
Sure. I think tracks is up on the website. But also sharing this with all of y'all that there are four tracks that you guys can all build in. I think this was a question on the chat as well. We have access that all of y'all will get access to credits from ElevenLabs. So you can definitely check out and build your own voice agents, your conversational products. I think all of us wanted a particular app that we can voice journal into. There are lots of use cases you've been trying to play around, so we have enough credits for you to build your own platform. So that's coming your way once you sign up to DevFolio. By tomorrow you should have access on how you can access these credits. You'll all be receiving some credits to Rocket and of course Lovable is something all of y'all have been maybe playing around. So we have a track on that's just vibe coding. So if you end up building on Rocket, you should be able to particularly participate in this track. And for some of y'all who haven't built products earlier, I think this could be a great way to get started, right? So you can play around with this tool. Again, access to this tool will be available on DevFolio in a bit. Third track is AI agents and workflow automations. So some of you all might not be building end-to-end products, right? You might have come across some of these tools and you might be thinking, okay, maybe I can use some of these AI tools to really automate some of my processes. So it could be an internal facing dashboard. It could be a very complex workflow that you end up building. I think we are very interested in that as well. The part of this buildathon is to build something useful, something functional that a lot of people might be interested in, right? So it doesn't have to be an end to end consumer app per se, but this is a track that both Parth and I are personally very interested in. So do check it out. That's also another one for people who aren't hands-on coding. This could be a track that you could participate on. And like I mentioned, each track has winners. We have overall winners. So lots of prizes up for grabs in gadgets, cash and credits, right? Pick a track. See where your particular interest lie. The last one is one topic that is exclusively for PMs, right? What we noticed is every global senior PM leader that we chat with, the questions that we get were very very similar. What is the most important skill for PMs in this coming year or two? And unequivocally, I think one thing that has come across is on evals. So, one, we have a workshop specifically designed for you guys on just evals. Second, if you guys are building anything around this, it's probably a track that's slightly niche, but if you guys are building anything around this, it's probably not something that you would be able to do 0 to 1, but for folks who end up picking this track, we have workshops designed exclusively for you guys plus a track. And yes, of course we have track prizes for just participating in that track. So check this one out. So these are four tracks. Our vibe coding track is in fact also the open track. So there might be some questions that you think might come slightly outside of this. All of this comes catch-all in the vibe coding track. Right. Are there any questions in the chat, Parth, that you think we should take up? I know I was probably focused on the slides. So just checking if there are any questions around this.
You can check the Q&A section.
My screen is shared, Shria. So in case you can't see it, maybe you can check it out on YouTube. Awesome. I don't see any other questions right now.
Yeah, in general if you want to find a teammate, use our Slack, put your default link and kind of try to find someone who wants to team up with you. Slack should be the place where this can happen very easily and we've seen in our past hackathons as well.
Okay. Someone asked why specifically of vibe coding? I think in all honesty, I think we wanted to see the power of some of these tools, right? So what we're trying to understand is how far along you can come across and the other three tracks are definitely open. You can use any amount of code that you want to and participate in any others. And for folks who are joining in right away, I think you can check out the recording on YouTube. I think we will have that live for the next two weeks. So you can definitely check that out.
Awesome. Someone's asking are there particular problem statements in any of these tracks? There aren't any particular problem statements. These are more open innovation challenges. So you can pick out the idea. The goal is to come in with an idea. These are largely four tracks to help you segregate your ideas or to bucket into one of these groups. But in case you're building something that is across two of these tracks, for example, if you're using a vibe coding tool and a voice product, you could submit it to any one of these tracks wherever you think it's a fit. Right? So these are just four tracks we picked for this particular buildathon. And the best part is we're going to be doing more of these, right? So participate, there's more to figure out how you guys can build amazing products with some of these tools as well. So that's from our end.
I can take one from the Q&A section. Uh yes.
So Samart asks, do we have to just build a prototype or just want to confirm the functionality of the end product? So we are not restricting anyone, but of course the winners are going to be the ones who have functionality. We'll try test when we decide the winners. So fidelity is going to be important and I don't think there is a reason to not do it, thinking that these tools that are available by coding and all that support this really well. So I would recommend everyone goes for a full-fledged thing.
Awesome. With that, I know you know there's the part that you guys are most excited about. I think we've covered most of the questions. We've walked you through some of what's coming in the next few weeks. And the moment that you guys have already been waiting for. I think if you have any other questions maybe folks, I will stick around to as late as you guys want. I'll be around this so I can take questions but I know some of y'all are very eager to kickstart this fireside with our guest. So what I will do now is on the chat section if you guys are ready, please please please do hit the thumbs up and we will then bring Arvind on stage for all of you. Okay awesome. See a lot of thumbs up coming in. Give me one second and we will bring him on stage. So, Arvind is here backstage with us. And we will bring him live on your screens in just a minute. Awesome. Seeing a lot of thumbs up. So, the good part is everyone's on board. And with that, we have Arvind on stage with us. Arvind, welcome to Mosak 2025. Thank you so much for being here today.
I'm super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
We're also I know it's pretty early in the time zone that you're joining in from, Arvind, as well. So really appreciate you taking out this time for all of us. We just had everyone here is super excited and was waiting for you. We're getting started with this fireside with Arvind. Arvind, just to give you a quick background, there are lots of people and this is a live session. People are joining in from across the globe. Over the next two weeks we're doing a buildathon at the community and this is the kickoff session. So over the next 30 to 45 minutes, Parth and I will have a quick fireside with you. We have some interesting questions lined up that our community would love to learn from your experience building this app. Post which we also have a Q&A that some of our members here have posted. So we'll curate some of the best questions that come up and we'll get started. So that's just a little background into what you can expect over the next 45 minutes. I would love to give a quick intro. Arvind is the founder and CEO of Glean, an AI powered work assistant that brings people the answer they need to be more productive and happier at work. Prior to Glean, Arvind co-founded and led R&D at Rubric, a publicly traded leader in the data security space. He also spent over a decade at Google as a distinguished engineer where he led teams on Google Search, Maps, and YouTube products. Right? He's had a very illustrious career. Some of y'all have probably already followed his journey. But over the next 30 minutes, we will be diving a little deeper into some of the questions that we as a community had for him. Arvind, I'll probably just quickly stop sharing so we can see you in full on the screen and kicking this right off. Right. So Parth, maybe I'd love to kick off the first question. Something that I've always been thinking of and it's slightly spicy. You've probably spent a decade or two or even more on the search side of things, right? From Google to Rubric to Glean. I had a question for you. What is the most counterintuitive thing that you've learned on how people actually search for queries either on consumer knowledge or at work?
