Mina VelzuniChief Product Officer · Essays & perspective
Collaborative creation and product authority5 min read
Keep the personal decision with the person
A shared editor can give everyone controls while leaving nobody sure whose decision is final. Collaboration needs an understandable account of authority.
We originally imagined the shared family-album editor as a generous product. Everyone invited could add images, replace them, change captions and move pages. One link and one set of controls seemed simpler than asking a group to choose roles. The proposal looked collaborative because no participant was technically excluded from the work. It became less convincing when we watched how people understood the changes being made by someone else.
Personalisation should make an intention easier to express, not turn the customer into an unpaid production expert or the recipient into an account we hoped to acquire.
The room scene made our wall print look finished. It also made an unexamined crop feel settled. A preview should reveal consequential choices before asking for approval.
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Recipient experience and optional digital services5 min read
The buyer chose an online creation service. The recipient chose neither the service nor its growth plan. Our product had to recognise that difference.
Personalised keepsake retail
17 studios
Online creation service and 310 company employees
Product organisation
38 colleagues
Four heads with ₹8.6 crore FY2026–27 development expense
Design, proofing and product work
28 years
July 1998 entry; CPO since January 2022
Keep the personal decision with the person
I am Mina Velzuni, chief product officer at the fictional Qerzuni Gift Studio in Vadodara. I grew up in Aizawl and began as a graphic designer. My work now spans the decisions people make when creating a photo book, contributing to a family album or choosing a print for someone else. The final object may be small, but the people around it do not all have the same role. A contributor, an editor, a buyer and a recipient can need different kinds of control.
Qerzuni operates seventeen studios and an online creation service with 310 employees. Revenue was ₹128 crore and operating profit ₹8.4 crore for the year ending March 2026. An employee-owned design holding company owns 60% and a regional investor 40%; I hold no shares personally. Thirty-eight product colleagues work through four heads within ₹8.6 crore FY2026–27 development expense. CEO Sameer Zorvethi holds enterprise decisions. Our engineering, print-production, studio-operations, legal and finance colleagues retain their own responsibilities; a product recommendation is not authority to bypass them.
The cases here concern decisions the customer should be able to understand before they become difficult to reverse. We separated contributing an image from approving the final family album. We changed a print preview after recognising that a handsome borderless mock-up concealed the crop. We made the physical gift complete without requiring its recipient to open an account. We also introduced a limited studio route for people unwilling to send irreplaceable originals away for capture. These choices added work or gave up a simpler commercial route, but made the actual service more intelligible.
Contribution did not automatically grant final-edit authority
Forty observed family groups described different collaboration preferences. The product retained an appointed-editor route and an explicit shared-edit route.
A preview made the crop a visible choice
Of420 reviewed wall-print previews,96 were deliberately recropped and 324 retained. A changed crop was treated as a preference, not automatically a defect.
The gift could be opened without joining a platform
A physical book and printed message remained complete in themselves; digital companion material was an optional addition for the recipient.
Current focus
Clarifying approval, preview and recipient choices across personalised keepsakes, with studio assistance where the object or decision needs it.
Conversations I welcome
A first board conversation with a consumer business that wants product judgement alongside experienced financial, operational and governance directors.
Beyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
Formation
Bachelor of Design in Graphic CommunicationZeqravi Design College · 1998
Postgraduate Diploma in Management, part-timeVelnqari Management Institute · 2008
Mina made the recipient's task visible in a proposal we had been discussing mainly as an acquisition opportunity. The revised gift could stand on its own while the companion had to offer a reason to join.
Sameer ZorvethiCEO, Qerzuni Gift Studio; fictional colleagueThe full record ↗
Contact
A first board conversation with a consumer business that wants product judgement alongside experienced financial, operational and governance directors.