Product Manager - New Ventures

About talabat

talabat is the leading on-demand food and Q-commerce app, dedicated to providing convenience and reliability for everyday deliveries across the MENA region. Since its inception in Kuwait in 2004, talabat has established deep local roots, understanding and catering to the specific needs of the communities it serves in eight countries. By leveraging innovative technology, talabat simplifies daily life for customers, optimizes operations for restaurants and local shops, and offers dependable earning opportunities for riders. The company fosters a high-performance culture, emphasizing an engaged workforce and talent development, and is recognized as a multi-great place to work award winner.

About the Role

The New Ventures organization at talabat is focused on building the next generation of consumer products. This Product Manager role is central to that mission, with a mandate to take innovative ideas from initial concept through to launch and ultimately achieve product-market fit across a diverse portfolio of new business initiatives. You will be instrumental in shaping how millions of shoppers in the MENA region interact with entirely new categories and business models being introduced to the platform. Each venture will present unique challenges, varying customer bases, supply dynamics, economic models, and competitive landscapes. The role demands agility, speed, and a strong commitment to customer satisfaction in an environment characterized by ambiguity.

You will collaborate closely with dedicated venture leaders, engineering, design, data, commercial, brand, and customer experience teams for each initiative. Expect to contribute to multiple ventures simultaneously, applying insights gained from one to enhance others.

Why This Role Is Rare

• Opportunity for genuine 0→1 product development within a well-established and profitable platform, offering startup agility without the inherent risks.
• Access to a substantial existing user base to kickstart new ventures, mitigating the common cold-start problem.
• Exposure to a wide array of categories and business models, fostering rapid growth as a product builder.
• A lean, founder-centric team environment where the Product Manager significantly influences strategy, rather than just executing pre-defined roadmaps.
• Direct engagement with senior leadership at talabat and Delivery Hero, ensuring high visibility from the outset.

What You'll Do

• Spearhead the development of features that address critical shopper needs within new ventures, covering the entire customer journey from acquisition and discovery to retention and repeat engagement.
• Design and build scalable products tailored to diverse shopper segments and the specific market contexts of the MENA region.
• Collaborate within cross-functional teams comprising Product, Engineering, and Data specialists to deliver impactful features.
• Cultivate strong, trust-based relationships within your team to enhance execution speed and decision quality.
• Work closely with design and research teams to identify unmet shopper needs and uncover new opportunities.
• Partner with commercial, marketing, and brand teams to formulate and execute go-to-market strategies.
• Ensure alignment of new ventures with talabat's overall customer lifecycle by coordinating with other product teams.
• Lead the discovery process for your team, managing it from problem definition through to solution validation.
• Develop a deep understanding of the target shopper for each venture, including their preferences, values, purchasing behaviors, and obstacles.
• Leverage customer interviews, data analysis, and market insights to identify and mitigate risks associated with new opportunities.
• Execute rapid ideation, prototyping, and testing cycles to drive key venture metrics.
• Systematically capture and transfer learnings across ventures, contributing to a shared playbook for 0→1 product development.
• Define and refine product strategy, balancing customer satisfaction with business objectives.
• Prioritize problems and solutions based on customer needs and their impact on team KPIs.
• Continuously iterate to enhance and scale the core product experience.
• Own and manage the product roadmap, ensuring it aligns with the strategic goals of each venture.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in digital product management.
• Proven track record of successfully launching products, including at least one 0→1 initiative (e.g., new vertical, business model, or marketplace).
• Proficiency in leveraging AI in product development, including building AI-enabled features and improving team AI literacy.
• Ability to quickly gain expertise in new domains, understanding shoppers, supply chains, competitive landscapes, and economics within weeks.
• Comfort with analyzing business models and unit economics, and understanding the drivers of venture success.
• Aptitude for operating effectively in ambiguous environments, forming opinions with incomplete data, and adapting based on new evidence.
• Skill in influencing partner teams without direct authority, including engineering, commercial, and brand departments.
• Solid understanding of Agile methodologies and the dynamics of empowered product teams.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to engage technical and non-technical stakeholders effectively.
• Experience in defining data-driven solutions and conducting independent analysis, informed by user and stakeholder feedback.
• Strong execution discipline, ensuring team progress and stakeholder communication without becoming a bottleneck; proficiency with tools like Jira is expected.
• Enjoyment in breaking down complex problems into manageable, iterative steps.
• Prior experience in e-commerce, marketplaces, q-commerce, fintech, or content/discovery-focused consumer products is highly advantageous. Experience taking a venture or product from inception to product-market fit is a significant plus.

Additional Information

talabat is committed to building a high-performance culture through an engaged workforce and growing talent density. The company values keeping things real and making a difference, with over 6,000 employees dedicated to its mission.