Shreyas Sali is the Director of Product and Data (Marketplace Product) at Spocket. Spocket is a Vancouver-based dropshipping marketplace that is serving over 60,000 merchants. Shreyas is also an author of his own book regarding the PMP exam and an active member of the BC startup and product communities.
Nino and Shreyas originally connected through a startup and software engineering community called Stackraft. The community is created and being run by one of the first guests on this very podcast - Vartika Manasvi (you can check out Vartika’s full episode here).
Originally from India, Shreyas spent many years living, working and studying in the US. He started his product manager career in the US and gained experience in the tech industry before making the decision to move to the Canada. During the episode, we uncover what were his primary motivations for considering Canada as his next destination and some of the issues his friends experienced with the H1-B visa process in the US.
Some of the resources mentioned during the episode include the book Shreyas wrote on how to ace the PMP exam (you can find it on Amazon and at pmpapp.co) and a resource and philosophy he highly recommends for anyone interested in building successful products - Working Backwards.
One of the most important takeaways from this conversation includes the realization Shreyas had regarding Canada and how important it is for an immigrant to find a country where one can build a solid foundation for growth. Although Canada might not have been what he initially planned, he kept his options open and was able to discover something completely new. Something that ended up working out even better for him at the end of the day!
P.S. Interested in networking with fellow immigrant professionals? Check out the VisaWire Community: https://community.visawireapp.com/