My learning experience as a Product Management intern at Perpule -By Prakhar Dikshit from DIME IIT Kanpur

I heard of Perpule for the first time when I used its Self-Checkout and Cafeteria app while working in Infosys, Hyderabad. The app was aimed at reducing the wastage of time of people standing in queues in offices and cafeteria, waiting to register their orders. When I came to know that it is a recruiter in my college, I was definitely interested in working with them.

The beginning of a journey

Perpule has a very well planned process for selection. There are four rounds:

• Resume shortlisting
• Aptitude test similar to CAT which was followed by some descriptive questions about product management
• 2 rounds of telephonic interview

They offered me a post that I had been interested in i.e. of a Product Manager. Since I had a computer science background, my tasks revolved around defining the roadmap from product development to launch, designing wireframes and documentation for the product, onboarding of grocery suppliers like Vmart, Big Bazaar, etc. and also working on Google Analytics to generate different insights. Although the whole internship had to be carried out online due to the coronavirus pandemic, the interaction with the others in my team wasn’t difficult. We had daily meetings except on weekends, and Town Halls, and other gaming sessions to kill the inevitable monotony one faces while working from home.

My Growth at Perpule

Apart from the many skills I gained during my internship period at Perpule, one of the most important was the knowledge of Google Analytics. It was key learning as it helped me generate reports from funnel data to analyze drop-offs, bounce rate, website traffic, etc. I also learnt about Balsamiq as a PM. It was really handy as it helped me in designing wireframes. As I didn’t have the prior designing experience, it made the whole process smoother. 

Apart from the technical skills I gained, I learnt to become and manage my team as a leader. I gathered the required information, communicated the same to the development team, added my own insights about a possible solution, and tracked the progress of the team. It gave me a chance to enhance my management skills as a Product Manager, involving owning up to problems and leading the team to a successful solution. With my contributions to Storese, a new grocery selling platform created by Perpule to enable smooth grocery shopping during the pandemic, I even won the best summer intern award. I was uncertain as to how things will go online, but with such a cooperative and welcoming learning space, my growth wasn’t bargained on in any way.

The path ahead

By the end of the internship, my mentor was really impressed with my progress. He also left me with insights and suggestions. One of them was to work on my digital marketing skills as the integration of it with e-commerce websites these days have really become important. He also suggested that I study the metrics in detail to measure the success of the product at different life-cycles. Overall, it turned out to be such an amazing learning experience, working with talented individuals and the latest e-commerce tech stack like Shopify and Magneto.

If given the opportunity, I would really like to go back to Perpule for a full-time job. One of the major reasons for that would be the role they offered i.e. of the Product Manager. It was a very enriching experience as I myself, aim to become a Product Manager post-MBA. Secondly, the work culture has suited me really well. The balance of formal and informal allowed me to express my own ideas and opinions without much hesitation.

For more insights into internship stories, read:

• My sweet summer internship experience with Mondelez -By Utkarsh Bajpai from IIM Ahmedabad
• How a coding challenge got me an internship at Myntra -By Biswajit Nayak from NIT Rourkela
• My deloit-ful summer internship experience at Deloitte Consulting USI -By Silky Chandra from SIIB Pune
• My internship at GSK Consumer Healthcare was a one-of-a-kind experience -By Mohammed Rafi from IIFT Delhi
• My internship at Frost and Sullivan India -By Kamal Jassal from Department of Management Studies, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad