category leadership Archives

14/09/201614/09/2016

50 Companies. 3 Days of Bootcamp. 1 Year of Mentorship. #PNgrowth2016 is back

We’ve done this for two years. It has been successful. But we still felt that it could be improved. We went back to the drawing board. We thought hard about how we could do this better.

And we’ve come back with something that will be more powerful, and even more demanding from our product entrepreneurs.

#PNgrowth2016 will feature only 50 startups, giving each startup more facetime with the mentors, more scrutiny, and more learning. Reducing the number also means that the quality of the startups attending will also go up, thereby making peer to peer learning and networking even more valuable.

So 50 Companies. 3 Days of Bootcamp. 1 Year of Mentorship.

The Product Bootcamp is back. Smaller, better, more intense. Apply now!

Who is #PNgrowth for, and who is it not for?

PNgrowth2016 is a program to help companies chase ‘Good Scale’ i.e. achieve high growth AND increase in quality. Achieving Good Scale is a critical first step to a company achieving Category Leadership.It will be a year long program comprising of selecting around 50 companies who will go through a three day bootcamp, followed up with monthly mentoring sessions to track progress over the next 12 months.

The idea behind #PNgrowth2016 is to identify companies who can be significantly impacted with Mentoring and put them together in an intense environment to accelerate their learning curve. It is not meant for companies who are:

Well funded, have their business model figured out and have access to business inputs and sufficient mentors.
Companies who are in survival mode, are wondering whether they will survive the next six months or don’t yet have a working product and some initial customers.

How will the format be?

The inputs to the companies will come from structured frameworks provided to them and from intense practice of these frameworks as it applies to their individual cases. During these practice sessions, they will get relevant feedback from their peers, and from experienced Mentors. The feedback will help them improve their thinking and the structure (including metrics) will allow them and their Mentors to judge the progress being made over the next 12 months.

What happens in the three day bootcamp?

You might have heard of a Product Teardown? #PNgrowth2016 starts off with a three day bootcamp for your business model. It is an intensive ‘business model’ teardown for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.
To begin with, you will be provided with a structure along with frameworks and metrics which you will apply on your own business.
There will be three main sessions (each lasting 4 hours or more) – Market (Demand), Product (Supply) and Product-Market fit.

Across these three sessions, your business model will first be torn down and rebuilt. Along the way, will be questioned on every assumption you have made about your customers, your product, metrics, your business etc (maybe even about yourself)!

You will also get feedback on your efforts from peers – you will be in a cohort of 12 other entrepreneurs. These fellow entrepreneurs will be in your cohort throughout the three days, and for the rest of the year (Think iSPIRT RoundTables)

You will get feedback from Mentors who are practitioners of the science and art of building companies – VCs, experienced entrepreneurs, specialists in Product, Marketing and Sales, Finance. There will be two mentors assigned to each cohort of 12, and there will be around 4 cohorts in all.

There are three formats of learning we’ve planned:

VC or ‘Judgment’ – Where your business is judged by those who might want to invest in you and their judgement is a kind of feedback for you to refine your business model.
Sage on Stage or ‘Teaching’ – Knowledge from experts whose experiences inspire or instruct you to refine your business model.
Guide by the Side or ‘Learn by doing’. You get relevant feedback and insights on your own efforts from peers and mentors that are directly applicable to refining your business model.
PNgrowth will be 85% of ‘Guide by side’, 10% of ‘Sage on stage’ and 5% of Judgement model. Your output is proportional to the effort you put in. There is no passive learning.

At the end of the bootcamp, based on all the business model tear down and rebuilding, you will walk out with the top metrics of interest for you, your goals for those metrics over the next three, six and twelve months, and your choices and actions to reach those metrics. The metrics will enable you to progress check in monthly meetings/calls with Mentors and your cohort group.

The preparation for bootcamp will begin with the curation process itself. You will start answering the very simple set of questions that will be repeated throughout #PNGrowth2016 – What is your hypothetical customer Bob’s problem that you are solving (Market-Demand), how are you solving it (Product-Market fit) so that you can have a scalable, sustainable Business Model which allows you to achieve ‘Good scale’ and positions you on the track to Category Leadership.

And since there are only 50 slots, you should start now!

28/10/201528/10/2015

The final agenda for #Pngrowth is here

In the fourth #PNGrowth hangout last week, the usual suspects got together but this time with something a lot more concrete to hand out. With #PNgrowth generating the buzz that it has, we have been inundated with questions about what exactly the three days of the residential workshop will entail. As we have been vocal about, the residential workshop will kickstart the yearlong program that is #PNGrowth. To give everyone deeper insights into the agenda, we brought Sharique Hasan, Rem Koning, Sharad Sharma and Pallav Nadhani together to speak about the program we have put together for the three days.

You can watch the whole hangout here, which will give you a deeper insight into what we are thinking about and hoping to achieve, but this blog will give you a rather simple breakdown of the agenda itself.

With the major objective for #PNgrowth being category leadership, we have calibrated the three days to be workshops; there will be no gyaan sessions and every entrepreneur will be thinking and working through problems they face.

Day 1 – Rethink

The first day will be spent on entrepreneurs getting their bearings right and reflecting on where they stand with respect to where they want to be. The day will focus on getting the best tools and frameworks they need in place, to think about where their company is heading, and to understand their company represents versus what the category leader in their segment will look like.

Day 2 – Redesign

The second day will focus only on one thing – getting a gameplan in place with the aim of getting to category leadership in their spaces. This day will contain what the entrepreneurs will need to carry back most. The day will cover all the important things entrepreneurs need to concentrate on – culture, team, product/business, authentic leadership and so on. With sessions designed for entrepreneurs to work this out, this is going to be an absolute cracker of a day.

Day 3 – Implementation

On day three, the gameplan will be put to the test. The question of how to implement the plan, what challenges will rise, and in what sequence to implement the learnings will be discussed. The important metrics to focus on will be finalised and most importantly, where to start, how to start and how much time and energy to focus on and where will all be cleared up.

After the workshop, when all the entrepreneurs have gone back to work on what they learnt, comes the most important part. Now when they start, they’ll come up against the real world, and will need help adjusting their plans with things that will come up. This is when the real value of will come in. With a direct line to mentors who have done this before, they will know who to call and when to call for help. This kind of opportunity is unprecedented in the Indian ecosystem and was formulated with the goal of an Indian product nation in mind – a community of product people who have a network to help each other and grow together.

For people who still haven’t applied, we have ONE last batch to select. You should apply.

25/10/201525/10/2015

Five reasons to attend #PNgrowth

Ever since we opened registrations for #PNgrowth, we wanted to do a list of this sort, to make it easier for those who wish to attend to have a look and decide whether this program is helpful for them. But somehow we never got around to it until now.

#PNgrowth is now red hot, and we have three applicants for every place on the program. We still want to tell everyone about it because only a small fraction of the applicants will qualify for this program.

So here you go, five reasons you should be at #PNgrowth –

1. Handcrafted for the Indian Startup eco-system by iSPIRT and B-school professors from Stanford and Duke.

For the first time in the Indian ecosystem, evangelists and academia come together to design a program that will give maximum returns to the participants. With iSPIRT’s experience conducting Bootcamps and Roundtables across the country, and the experience of faculty from the Stanford and Duke school of businesses, the program has basically been handcrafted for Indian startups. You’ll know when you’re there.

2. Three day residential kick off event

Infosys Mysore has been kind enough to volunteer the space and infrastructure necessary for a program of this scale. The three day residential kickoff camp will take place at one of Indian tech hubs. This is followed by a year-long engagement with each Startup to help them achieve their goals.

3. Focus on category leadership

#PNgrowth is designed for the company which has already done the hard yards and has potential to ascend from profitability to category leadership. The program will help organisations get past this transition without losing sight of the goal, which is to become category leaders in their space.

4. The best mentors in the country

#PNgrowth has the advantage of being able to bring into the program some of the best mentors in the country. With iSPIRT’s(Mavens) network of India’s most successful entrepreneurs who have been there, done that, some of these mentors at #PNgrowth is like a who’s who of the Indian startup scene.

5. Months of follow-up through remote hangouts and peer-based learning

And lastly, the program is a long term investment. The aim, which is category leadership, will be achieved through several months of follow-on remote coaching, mentorship and peer-based learning. You will have direct contact with mentors and will be able to ask them questions as and when they arise for you. This isn’t just rare for the ecosystem. It’s unprecedented.

Now that we’ve said our bit, do come over, look at our entire program, and decide. We would love to see you in Mysore! apply now, before you miss the Mysore bus.