Interview with product manager Mayur Kamat

Interview with product manager Mayur Kamat

CryptoPotato had the opportunity to speak with Mayur Kamat – the Head of Product at the world’s leading exchange – Binance.

Kamat revealed that 2022 was a year in which some bad actors set the exchange back in terms of user trust, but they still managed to onboard many new users, companies and governments to Web 3.

Speaking about the company culture, he said that Binance is very hands-on, with CZ and other founders personally working on a few individual products.

Interestingly, Kamat brings experience from tech moguls like Microsoft, Google and Agoda, so let’s dive into the full interview.

Q1: Can you please tell us more about your background and when did you come across cryptocurrencies?

I'm fairly new to crypto. Only started after I did an interview with Binance. I have always been fascinated by the industry and its potential, but like many others, I also had a healthy skepticism about some aspects of it. I decided that the best way to know how it will change the world is to do it, so here I am.

Her experience includes working at tech heavyweights such as Google, Microsoft, Agoda and others. How do you make such a radical shift in the relatively young crypto industry?

In essence, building products are not very different across industries. We still need to focus on user experience, finding product-market fit, improving onboarding, studying user engagement and retention, building great platforms for users to inform, engage and communicate, and last but not least, trust and security. These are just as important in Web3, I would say even more so. My experience at some of the large technology companies will hopefully add some maturity to our already excellent products.

On a personal level, it was a fantastic educational experience for me. Binance is also a very hands-on culture. CZ, Yi and other founders personally work on a few individual products, so all leaders at Binance are expected to be detailed and continually innovate for our users. It's always fun to build your own products!

2022 has been a wild ride. As Head of Product at Binance, can you tell us the highs and lows of the year for the Binance ecosystem?

Heights – assumption. We brought many users, companies and governments to Web 3 in 2022.

Low points – a few bad actors that set us back in user trust.

If you had to take one main thing with you from 2022 – what would it be?

Always do the right thing for the user. It's not always easy, and you won't always be recognized or appreciated for it. But it will always win in the long run. If you lose sight of this and chase short-term goals/wins, it will eventually catch up with you.

What was the biggest product Binance released in 2022 in terms of customer impact?

I would name 3:

• Compliance-/Regulierungsprodukte für das Onboarding von Benutzern
• Binance Pay und seine Arbeit bei der Förderung der Akzeptanz von Krypto-Zahlungen
• Binance Earn und wie einfach es für Benutzer ist, passives Einkommen mit ihren Krypto-Investitionen zu erzielen.

What is the Binance product you are (personally) most excited about?

I'm very excited about SBTs - Binance BAB Token has already seen massive adoption. The concept of identity on Chain has been discussed for a long time, but has always been hypothetical. It already works with BAB! Identity is a key problem that needs to be solved for mass adoption (see what Google/Facebook Sign-in did for Web2). If we can solve this for Web3 we will speed up adoption quite a bit.

They have combined the Flexible Savings, Locked Savings and Locked Staking products into a one-stop platform called Simple Earn. Yield-generating products came under massive scrutiny in 2022. Have you felt the effects?

I'll say what I said before. Please the users. Always. As long as we do that, our products will be fine. With Simple Earn, we have made it easy for users to stake their cryptocurrencies. We don't offer crazy, unsustainable returns. It may make us seem less attractive to some users, but fundamentally sound investors understand and appreciate it. And that's what will matter in the long term.

Heading into 2023: What can we expect from Binance?

Many more product innovations! CZ asked us to launch a new product/feature every day. We'll see how well we succeed.

Maybe a little out of the blue, but – what is it like working with CZ?

CZ is unlike any leader I have worked for. First – he is connected to the community. He's so close-knit that he sometimes knows about product issues before I do (something I'm working on!). Second – he is extremely humble and detailed. He will personally work on some of our important products, which keeps all product managers busy. He also lives and breathes the Binance mission of financial freedom and inclusion. We build products for users in over 200 countries, not just those that bring us more revenue. This makes building products more useful and worthwhile!

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