From Features to Economies: Designing Behavioral Systems That Scale Products

As products scale, they stop being a collection of features and start behaving like economies - where everyday product decisions quietly train user behavior over time.
This masterclass introduces a systems lens on product thinking, using familiar, high-frequency products such as Duolingo, Paytm, Zomato Gold, BigBasket, and quick-commerce platforms like Zepto to explore how systems evolve, drift out of balance, and are deliberately governed as products scale.
Rather than focusing on individual features or growth tactics, the session looks at how interactions between product design, human behavior, and scale create balance - or imbalance - in the system, and why many products become fragile when these dynamics are left implicit and unguided.

Participants will learn how to:

• Understanding System Requirements – Shift from feature-level thinking to economy-level thinking
• Core Components & Architecture – Understand how products train behavior, often unintentionally
• Scalability & Reliability – Understand and identify the system properties in their products: incentives, constraints, scarcity and reinforcing feedback loops
• **Security & Compliance –**Identify early signals when a system is drifting out of balance
• Better Technical Tradeoffs Recognize patterns of growth, stress, and governance as products scale
• Real-World Case Study & Interactive Exercise – ​Build intuition for designing systems that remain stable and resilient over time

Pre-Requisites:​

• Understanding System Requirements – Best suited for Senior PMs and Group PMs
• Core Components & Architecture – Designed as a bridge for PMs moving toward broader product ownership and strategy conversations sign
• Scalability & Reliability – Ideal not mandatory: 4+ years of experience in Product Management or adjacent roles