Persistence and Product-Led Growth Strategy: Lessons from Pinky Panjwani’s Journey

When you’ve spent more than two decades in product management, your playbook evolves — not just your products. During my recent conversation in Trailblazing Women in Product with Pinky Panjwani, Director of Product Management at Miles IT and leader of the team behind Striven, I was reminded that building a great product-led growth strategy isn’t about tactics alone. It’s about mindset: persistence, simplicity, and a relentless commitment to learning. 

Pinky’s story spans engineering, architecture, leadership, and transformation. But the through line is clear: growth isn’t a phase. It’s a philosophy — for both the product and the people behind it. 

 

Simplify First, Scale Second 

Every PM says they value simplicity. Few actually practice it. 

As Pinky explained, “It’s easy to complicate things and really difficult to simplify them.” Her point hit home. In every product-led growth strategy, clarity is a competitive advantage. Whether you’re designing a feature, mapping a process, or communicating priorities, simplicity scales better than complexity ever could. 

Simplification isn’t about dumbing things down. It’s about breaking them down. A clear message to engineers, marketers, and executives alike accelerates decision-making and aligns teams faster. And when your product sells itself (as it should in a mature product-led growth strategy) that clarity extends straight to the user experience. 

 

Culture Is Your First Framework 

Before we talked about metrics or roadmaps, Pinky described something far more powerful: culture. 

At Miles IT, continuous improvement isn’t a buzzword. It’s baked into the team’s rhythm through something they call “Sharpening the Saw”: a dedicated week after every few sprints for continuous learning in product management. No backlog pressure. No feature requests. Just reflection, reorganization, and upskilling. 

 

That’s what makes their product-led growth strategy sustainable. When your team learns faster than your competitors, your roadmap naturally gets smarter. And when learning is normalized, trust follows: the foundation of every high-performing product org. 

 

Building Trust Through Structure 

Trust doesn’t happen because you talk about it in retros. It happens when you build systems that prove it. 

Pinky’s one-on-one structure is a masterclass in how to operationalize trust. Every team member defines their “strides”: long-term growth goals aligned with their quarterly objectives. In each one-on-one, they review progress, surface roadblocks, and share opportunities. 

The outcome? Transparency without micromanagement.  

Team members feel seen and supported, while leaders get early visibility into potential risks. It’s one of the most overlooked enablers of any product-led growth strategy: ensuring your internal velocity matches your product’s external momentum. 

 

When Growth Means Letting the Product Speak 

The most exciting part of our conversation? Pinky’s current focus: moving from a traditional sales-driven model to a product-led growth strategy. 

Her team is exploring how analytics, AI, and user experience can make Striven “so sticky that people refer it to others themselves.” That’s the heart of PLG: combining product analytics, automation, and personalization to turn users into advocates. 

In a world where attention spans are shrinking and budgets are tightening, PLG isn’t just a growth lever. It’s a resilience strategy. It aligns perfectly with Productside’s own frameworks: letting outcomes, not outputs, dictate direction. 

 

Remote, Yet More Connected Than Ever 

If you think building culture remotely is impossible, Pinky’s team would like a word. 

Her software division operates fully remote, across time zones and continents. But what keeps them aligned is purpose, far more than proximity. Every meeting starts with a “belief of the week”: a cultural principle like “Interruptions are opportunities knocking.” 

It’s a small ritual, but it reinforces autonomy and empathy: both essential ingredients for leaders implementing a product-led growth strategy in hybrid or distributed environments. 

When culture scales, so does clarity. And when clarity scales, so does growth. 

 

Persistence Over Perfection 

Perhaps Pinky’s most resonant advice came near the end of our chat: 

“We’re in an age of instant gratification. But product management requires persistence. What I imagine today might only take shape six to nine months down the line.” 

It’s the kind of patience every product-led growth strategy needs, especially when early metrics disappoint or adoption lags. True product leadership isn’t about fast wins. Instead, it’s about consistent execution toward a clear vision. 

That’s why persistence and learning go hand in hand. If there’s one takeaway from Pinky’s journey, it’s this: products grow when the people behind them do. 

 

The Bigger Lesson for Product Leaders 

For every PM trying to lead through ambiguity, Pinky’s experience offers a blueprint: 

• Simplify relentlessly. 
• Institutionalize learning. 
• Trust the process. Literally. 
• Let the product do the talking. 
• And stay patient when results take time. 

Because the future of product management doesn’t belong to those who move fastest. It belongs to those who learn fastest… and stay persistent enough to apply what they learn.

 

Lead the Growth. Level Up Your Product-Led Growth Strategy

• Listen to the full conversation. Catch Pinky Panjwani and Nicole Tiesche on Productside Stories — available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. You can also watch it on YouTube for the complete interview.
• Take your product-led growth strategy further with our Digital Product Management and Optimal Product Management courses.
• Now it’s your turn. How are you evolving your product-led growth strategy in 2025? What habits or rituals keep your teams learning and aligned? Share your thoughts and tag Productside on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear how you’re leading growth through simplicity, culture, and persistence.