Make
Pigs
Fly

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Ready to Fly?

Welcome, brave product managers, curious clickers, and those wondering if pigs can actually fly (Spoiler: they can—if you know the right tricks).Make Pigs Fly isn’t about defying gravity. It’s about defying mediocrity. This book will teach you how to communicate like a legend, influence without sounding like a corporate robot, and impress your colleagues so much they'll wonder if you secretly hired a PR team.Whether you're battling feature creep, decoding stakeholder jargon, or just trying to explain to your mom what you do for a living—this is your ultimate guide.
No fluff—just practical idioms and phrases to make your ideas soar, so grab your copy and let’s get those pigs off the ground!

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About

Ali Rakhimov is a self-proclaimed “blue collar product manager” who has spent over 12 years in tech, focusing less on buzzwords and more on building things that genuinely impact people’s daily lives. His journey from the hectic world of K-12 education to the fast-paced tech industry, wrangling everything from hardware and SaaS to payments and eCommerce, taught him that the key to human-centered design lies in fearlessly asking all the silly questions, empathetically listening to all the answers, and radically executing towards the vision.
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As a startup founder, senior product manager, and now author, he’s proud of helping others break into tech—proving that you don’t need a fancy pedigree to build great products; just curiosity, grit, and a hunger to learn from other people’s mistakes. That’s one of the main reasons why he wrote Make Pigs Fly—to share real-world examples of company successes and failures, so readers can skip the hard lessons and focus on what works.
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Ali has called Arizona home for over 22 years and lives with his family, four kids, and a lively flock of backyard chickens. Between navigating career growth, mentoring aspiring tech professionals, and embracing the beautiful chaos of parenthood (and the occasional rogue chicken escape), he finds solace in his weekend Meetup soccer games—a ritual he rarely misses. He also loves escaping to his favorite spot, Sedona, where he and his kids soak in nature’s beauty and indulge in a perfect slice of wood-fired pizza

Contact

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Garage

Welcome to Ali Rakhimov’s Garage—where side passions, past startups, and half-baked ideas get tinkered on, broken, rebuilt, and sometimes left in the metaphorical junkyard. Just like any good garage, it’s a mix of organized chaos: some projects are polished and running, others are still up on cinder blocks, and a few might just be wild ideas scribbled on a napkin. Whether it’s a scrappy MVP, a business that actually made money, or just another "what if?" moment, this is where it all gets tested—grease, sweat, and occasional sparks included.

The MPF Trailer

Tired of business books that read like a never-ending PowerPoint presentation? Make Pigs Fly is here to save you from corporate monotony. This isn't your typical dry, jargon-packed snooze-fest. Instead, it’s a witty, no-nonsense guide filled with 180 bite-sized insights designed to sharpen your communication, boost your career, and help you navigate the chaotic world of product management—all while you’re enjoying your “most productive” breaks (yes, even in the bathroom).
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Ali Rakhimov doesn’t do fluff. In Make Pigs Fly, he dishes out brutally honest advice with a side of humor, making it one of the most engaging reads for anyone managing products, people, or projects. You’ll learn how to impress colleagues without sounding like a corporate robot, sell your ideas even if your product is as exciting as a beige filing cabinet, and master the subtle art of avoiding nonsense in meetings. Whether you’re an ambitious associate, an over-caffeinated engineer, or a battle-hardened Product Manager, this book is your go-to playbook for surviving—and thriving—in the product world.
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Think of Make Pigs Fly as part business book, part corporate survival guide, and 100% relatable. Flip to a random page whenever you need a quick insight, a fresh perspective, or just a good laugh. It’s perfect for bathroom reads (no judgment), desk references, or as a gift for that PM in your life who could use either a reality check or a morale boost. Because in product management, if you’re not making pigs fly, you’re probably not aiming high enough.

Skookii (acq./dis.)

My very first startup fling began with a 200-pound metal contraption—yes, literally 200 pounds—designed to accept cash, checks, and card payments at K12 schools. That was SKOOKi 1.0. We soon realized lugging that beast around wasn’t exactly the future, so we pivoted to SKOOKII 2.0: a fully freemium SaaS/mobile product serving mainly rural and small public/charter schools. The inspiration came from watching front office chaos and even a little fraud (who knew 5th graders don’t care about field trip receipts?). I learned the hard way that building features nobody asked for is a bad idea, and sitting in the office waiting for sales to magically appear is even worse—so I ended up selling door-to-door from Arizona to New Jersey. Sure, I got some gray hairs bootstrapping this thing, but my amazing cofounders—Ato, Manu, and Andy—stuck with me, even when I was convinced “if we build it, they will come.” Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work like that. On the bright side, by the end, I accidentally fell in love with my current craft - Product Management.

SprintQA (acq./dis.)

After years in both K12 and tech, I developed a bit of a grudge against the college system—mostly the colossal student loans doled out to blissfully unaware students and parents. I wanted my nieces, nephews, burnt-out teacher friends, and some awesome Uber-driving immigrants to get solid tech skills without drowning in debt. So in early 2020 (just as COVID hit), I launched a single course in QA Automation. By 2023, we’d expanded to DevOps, Cybersecurity, Salesforce, and Product—graduating 250 students worldwide. At that point, I sold the business because, fun fact, working with humans is complicated. But wow, it was incredibly fulfilling to watch people land better jobs and upgrade their lives in real-time. Sure, we didn’t solve the entire broken education system, but we gave folks a path into tech without the four-year diploma price tag. I call that a pretty sweet victory.

Tufcup

It all started when my pregnant wife kept spitting into Costco water bottles—those lonely, half-filled, kinda gross containers cluttering our home. That’s how I discovered ptyalism, a condition affecting over 2 million pregnant women in the U.S. each year. I couldn’t find a decent, leak-proof container on Amazon, so I designed one myself. Actually, I cheated: I hopped onto Alibaba, sifted through a dozen manufacturers, and got one of them to modify an existing silicon bottle mold. Fast forward, Tufcup accidentally became the #1 selling spittoon on Amazon ("toof/tuf" means "spit" in my native Tajik). Funnily enough, my original audience was pregnant women, but 95% of my buyers turned out to be chewing tobacco users (and their sympathetic partners). Amazon FBA was a headache to set up, but once it’s rolling, it’s basically autopilot. Eventually, I partnered with my buddy Osman to manage day-to-day because, let’s be honest, mass-selling spit cups isn’t exactly my life’s calling.

Apples AI

When the AI buzz was just getting started, I bought a cool domain—Apples.AI—on a whim and decided I’d figure out the product part later. My first idea was a matchmaking platform for K12 schools and foreign STEM teachers, because there’s a massive shortage of qualified math and science teachers. But COVID slammed the door on that, literally shutting down US consulates and halting J1 visas. Next, while working at Macy’s, I got intrigued by hyper-personalization. I toyed with an idea for using visual AI to show shoppers how clothes would actually look on them on product pages (PDP/PLP). After some surveys, though, we learned that people just weren’t losing sleep over it. So that fizzled out, too. But hey, I still own Apples.AI—and you never know, maybe one day Apple (the fruit company turned tech giant) will realize it needs this domain. I’m open to offers, Cupertino!

AZ Rule 69

Let’s be honest: divorce is brutal. For folks who’ve never been through it, buckle up—it’s mentally, physically, and financially draining. Throw kids into the mix and you’ve got a triple-layered headache. I’m a visual person, so I kept imagining the Age of Empires cheat code “marco polo” that reveals the entire map. That’s exactly what the divorce process needs: a cheat code to see all the pitfalls, especially when tackling the nine major elements—child custody, parenting time, alimony, taxes, you name it. After spending 13 hours on Zoom with a court-appointed mediator, I realized that if couples had a simple, one-page infographic summarizing their positions on each element, we could skip hours of pointless, emotion-fueled chatter and zero in on real deal-breakers. The cherry on top? A modern child support calculator that doesn’t look like it was built in 2003. Still working on it, but if I can save just one couple some $500 per hour legal fees (and a few tears), it’ll be worth it.

Hozir

Picture this: I’m at T-Mobile, wanting to reward my colleagues for a job well done with a simple chocolate emoji on Slack that magically turns into real chocolate delivered to their doorstep. As a lazy gift-giver, I loathed the idea of navigating countless screens to send something sweet. So I dreamed up Hozir (means "now" in Tajik): an instant “emoji-to-edible” converter. After some user feedback, I realized that while people love chocolate, they weren’t exactly begging for a Slack-integrated candy dispenser. So I shelved that idea. Then I tried applying the concept to help homeless folks instantly accept card payments—because not everyone carries cash, and everyone deserves financial dignity. I built a proof-of-concept IoT device that accepted $5 taps. Even pitched it to Circle K. Guess what? Another rejection. It’s still on the backburner, though. One day, I’ll solve this problem for underserved communities—including street performers and teenagers—by giving them a 3-in-1 rugged wallet they can literally hold forever (will collect micro-payments, store funds, and act as a debit card) without needing bank underwriting, Wi-Fi, or electricity.