It’s not often I find myself in a roomful of people driven by a shared vision. Inspiration was inevitably seeping in. It took me not more than a couple of minutes to realise that I should count myself lucky as I was in the same room as the bravehearts who were changing the world one product at a time.
The inaugural ProductNation Camp at Pune was a movement taking shape. More than 120 startups were brought together in the most unique of formats resulting in 2 days of high-quality discussions, learnings and mindshare.
The message behind the format was loud and clear. “No sage on stage”. Entrepreneurs never learn based on a pre-defined syllabi structure. They love to disrupt, destroy and re-build. The 2 days were filled with gems of knowledge, actionable insights and conversations from the heart.
What follows are some which hit me hard:
- Pick your battle and fight it out: A product can’t solve all the problems of the world. Shashank ND, Co-founder at Practo emphasised the fact that a startup needs to focus on a single problem to solve first and fight it out in the market with that one product. This approach ensures a laser sharp focus and allows for the best of resources to be spent towards creating value for the customer.
- Tell your own story, avoid drawing an analogy: I heard few founders introduce themselves saying “I run a startup ____ which is like ____ but with ____. Think of it as Dropbox meets YouTube meets Facebook.” Such a narrow vision or outlook of one’s own product has huge ramifications in the way people react. Not the best way to build trust and confidence. Write your own story, be proud of it and build on it.
- Build an experience, delight the user: The most successful of web products have delightful and simple design at their centre. Harshit Desai insisted that designer(s) and developers should work closely in a team to build the product. Have an inclusive design, avoid focussing too narrowly on a set user profile.
- Being shameless is truly being human: Entrepreneurs are not a differentiated human race. They are brought up in the same systems, and often many of them carry the “What will others think” baggage. “Self-doubt and fear of failure take many down”, said Kunal, Founder at Freecharge.in. Being true to your product and your vision is about losing the baggage and being ‘shameless’. Perhaps a sales attitude often overlooked.
- Two wheels and an engine, the sales hack: Shashank led perhaps the best session of the camp as he dived into the sales philosophy and concepts which he believes in. A photograph of his bike was up on a slide (he still uses it to reach customers). Hit the ground running, talk to customers, no one refuses a cup of coffee. “Spend a lot of time with the end-user of your product and convince them that it’s THE solution they seek.”
- An engaging story comes before a good copy: “Good storytellers, writers are born, not trained”, said Girish, Founder at Freshdesk. Experience counts for little if you are looking to create content as a marketing strategy. Don’t just talk about your product, share your ideas, opinions and learnings with a broader context. With content, be there out-to-educate, not out-sell.
- Technologists are great sellers by-the-way: Ashish Gupta, Senior MD at Helion Ventures is a technologist to the core and he took upon himself to convince us that selling is a challenge and not a handicap. Look around… Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs! Something common? – all techies who rose up to the challenge of selling products (isn’t it about that at the end of the day?).
If I can speak up for many like me, we couldn’t believe that we were in a room of like-minded individuals who shared similar challenges, had fought through and risen up with their head held high. I guess that was the vision behind the format. These startups are sure to change the world in their own little/big ways. As the camp drew to its inevitable close, I was invigorated by the inherited treasure house of learnings, experiences and friendships. The team behind the initiative should be proud and I hope the movement only gets stronger by the day.
Guest Post by Tejaswi Raghurama who is helping build Entrepreneur Academy at the National Entrepreneurship Network.