Altizon – Impact of Effectuation

Effectuation (effectuation.org) is a decision-making framework used by expert entrepreneurs. The early morning workshop of PN Camp Introduces this concept and help participants arrive at stakeholder commitments for their product market fit.

vinay_nathan Vinay Nathan of Altizon talks about application of effectuation in his company and how it made him do more with less. Altizon is a Pune based Industrial IoT company. Altizon was founded in April 2013 by Vinay Nathan, Yogesh Kulkarni and Ranjit Nair and is a venture-backed startup. They recently launched state of the art Industry experience center for their product

What was the change in your head with effectual Stakeholder Dev?

Put in a lot more structure and rigor and discipline to something we should have been doing anyway. After 2-3 yrs of doing this startup we got insular. This workshop made us go out and resume our conversations with stakeholders. Really made us think about their affordable loss, make our asks into Affordable Asks for them. We were surprised by how much we got.

We’re an Industrial IoT company, and IoT is ecosystem play, so it was a snap-fit for us. We have to go to SI, App devs, chip guys, OS guys, manufacturers, etc.

What stakeholder development did was when we went across stakeholders with an ask here, and an ask there, and you get surprised by what happens. We did many mini pivots based on our asks and what we got from our stakeholders.

Mainly, while this was something at the back of our mind, we weren’t doing it in a structured way before, and we hadn’t heard about effectuation before. It put in a framework to what we were doing before in a patchy way.

How was affordable loss useful as a concept to you?

We now ask every SI to build a demoware component on our platform, this is affordable loss for them, and an affordable ask we make. Once we found out the affordable loss of our partners, we were able to put together an entire Industry 4.0 experience center with loaned equipment and demoware. So from manufacturers we asked for demo equipment, from Sis we asked for demo software that integrates, and works on our platform. This was nowhere in the picture without asking bunch of affordable things from our already existing stakeholders. In fact the Centre now acts as an interop lab for our SI partners to test their solutions.

For example, we have the entire integration equipment and a mini assembly line for smart manufacturing in our lab that Wipro or Microsoft doesn’t have in their center of excellence. We have the only center where an Industry 4.0 lab things actually has live hardware, integration across these equipment, demos from multiple SIs, and our platform in the background. To get this lab In place we would have had to spend $75k at least, instead we got it all with Affordable Asks for on engineering effort and loaned equipment. The use cases knowhow would not be available even on hire. We have now begun investing in this infrastructure to further enhance it.

Another example, we realized for scale, if we go down the solution route, we will use 50% of our dev bandwidth for that but won’t be setting up for scale. For us scale comes if Sis take our platform and sell/implement on it. So even if it’s more painful invest in the ecosystem, as much as we do ourselves. Category leadership meant we need to grow faster, so made building the SI ecosystem critical. The Affordable Ask/Effectuation framework helped us reach out to Sis and get demoware in return. This was not our approach before Stakeholder Development.

What were 2-3 things that you got?

We weren’t reaching out to competitors. Stakeholder development was breaking barriers of who to reach out to. Logical ones anyway you will meet anyway. But stakeholder development made us go all out to meet competitors. This was a huge mind set shift.

Industry 4.0 experience center was not even a dream before this

While getting customers to our experience center, we became aware of another group in the company, got them as customers

When you go with Asks, you might get new Means, but you also get New Goals. How do you take on ‘new goals’ without getting side-tracked?

We started working with an industry major on courseware for Industrial IoT. We were investing in the courseware since it was a marketing effort for us, and affordable loss for us. While we did that, we got to learn about a parallel product group sitting in Germany, who were looking for a platform/OEM play. We took this opportunity and are now in a sales discussion with them, where they will OEM our product. We then got in touch with their consulting arm, and they wanted to know how to use us in their consulting practice, and we’re working with them on this. This happened in 8-10 weeks after we learnt about effectuation.

Right now, even more than the leadership, the entire team kind of works on this, and keeps doing it.

How much would it have cost to setup the experience center you vis-à-vis doing the Affordable Asks? Equipment cost, plus demoware cost (in time/money)

Easily we have availed of engineering efforts worth $75k in the first version of the center. Now this is ongoing activity and we will continue to benefit from the partner driven approach to building the center.

How are the Sis working with you in this model? Is it different from how you’ve worked with Sis in the past?

We would sell evaluation kits and hope they built good demos. We would rarely have access to what they built. Now by utilizing our own demo center they are keen to have it running in our center.

The other option we did with some partners was a joint webinar. But the number of stakeholders were too many and it was time consuming. Now we have more of a hackathon approach.

Can you give us some more examples of where you accepted different goals from stakeholders, in exchange for new means you got?

By interacting with our stakeholders across SI and equipment players we believe there is a space to create a Consortium focused on Industrial IOT for India. We now plan to play a leadership role in creating it.

What were some surprises along the way that made you do mini-pivots? Did you get any Lemons that you made Lemonade from? ☺

We discovered while talking to the SI that there many application ISVs that have built assets on older Historian product lines that would love to move to an IOT stack. This acted as a spur for us to do campaign in that sector. We landed one applications ISV partner through this campaign who is now building an app for the Power sector using our platform. Now this is a customer segment we are actively targeting as it aligns very well with our marketplace model.

19/09/201604/05/2017

#PNCamp – No BS feedbacks and teardowns to build great products groundup

So, you got a startup. Great! You have a product ready and a few users/customers too, Awesome! I am sure you are super excited to take it to next level, right? But thats when the hurdles begin.

Users just do not understand it
Users don’t go beyond certain point
Our product is awesome, but Product lacks stickiness
I am not sure how to position our product
We have different kinds of users, how to deal with varied expectations of users
I don’t know where to find large number of userbase
I am a technical guy, I don’t know how to market it
User growth is very slow, we need some cool growth hacks

If some of these thoughts/challenges are lingering in your mind too, then you are not the only one. Trust me pretty much every startup goes through these hurdles in its early days. Sad reality is, vast majority fail to cross these initial hurdles and die early death.

“Almost every startup has a product, what they don’t have is users/customers”

If you are an early stage startup with a working product thats been used by a few users/customers and you are struggling through some of the above mentioned challenges, then look nowhere and block your Calendar for Oct 8th, 2016. iSPIRT is bringing PNCamp in Pune focused towards all the early stage startups.

PNCamp in pune is your grand opportunity to get candid feedback on your product and its marketing. If you are a startup with a prototype or product at an early stage with few users/customers but struggling to get further traction, then PNCamp is a great place where you could get an opportunity to showcase your product and seek feedback, inputs and suggestions on specific to your product. At PNCamp, experts will take product teardown sessions on following aspects.

How to build a right product (great and useful product)
How to market your product (product marketing, communication, KPIs)
How to achieve 10X user growth (Use Analytics, customer feedback loop, sales tactics)

At PNCamp, India’s some of the most successful entrepreneurs are coming together to host one day focused camp and work with selected group of startups on their product, market and sales growth strategies. This one day focused action oriented efforts are equivalent to your one year of badly struggling to figure out things in dark.

Here is whats going to happen at PNCamp –

“You involve me and I learn maximum”. Keeping this in mind, PNCamp is structured in a way to maximize real action oriented learning. Its no Gyaan, No B.S. All real action, real stories, real candid feedback, real strategies, real action plan, real work toward real results. At PNCamp, successful entrepreneurs who are expert in their specific area of product, marketing, or sales growth will discuss their observations and learnings.

In case of B2B products, things such as the product quality, security, product learning curve, analytics, integrations, etc might be driving factors for initial success whereas in case of B2C products its visual appeal, user friendliness, pricing, discounts, customer loyalty, social appeal, etc could trigger the success. Hence each product need to be looked at it from various angles. At PNCamp, specific sessions are dedicated to deep dive in these areas. In B2B track, experts will discuss building a right product for B2B market, getting traction for your product, marketing strategies and sales funnel. In case of B2C track, the experts will delve into building products with focus on mobile an analytics, finding right KPI and organizing everything around it, product communication, and building a successful customer development strategy using feedback loop. After every session, a few select product startups will be given an opportunity to present their product, marketing strategy, or growth strategy. Experts and fellow participants will do a product teardown and give a deep dive feedback. In all 12 startups in B2C space and 12 startups in B2B space will get an opportunity to present and get detailed feedback.

Product teardown: In this section, select startups will provide a quick walkthrough of their product website/app. As each startup will get limited time to present, key is to stay focused on most critical or concerning area of your product. Experts and fellow participants will provide feedback on core functionality, usefulness, right fit of the product, visual and experiential aspect of the product. In the past, such product tear down has help entrepreneurs get amazing inputs in matter of minutes. Moreover it has opened up doors for more insightful beta users from the cohart. Product teardown session focuses on product flow, functionality, identifying specific KPIs and using analytics to derive insights, and immediate critical aspect that might be hindering product traction or stickiness. Founders will get actionable inputs that can be applied next day and see improvements.

Marketing/Communication teardown: Great number of startups have good products but fails on its marketing. Product marketing is all about positioning. It is all about clear messaging and creating a “hook” in user’s mind. Unique compelling product positioning is always a challenge, especially when your product has potentially multiple target segments. If your product positioning is correct, then it helps in driving marketing and create a growth strategy. In this section, select startups will get teardown about their marketing and communication strategy, how to build initial traction, building a customer feedback loop, how to think specific KPIs and organize things around it, how to use analytics to tweak marketing funnel, etc. Is the message clear and compelling enough to click with your audience, can it be improved further, etc. In the past, founders used the session feedback to improve their product message, website communication, emails, etc for which the group continued giving feedback.

Growth hack / Sales teardown: This is a piece everybody wants and wish for but is very difficult to achieve. Experts will ask select startups to present their current growth strategy and provide working session on building a growth strategy. B2B sales strategies, setting up sales engine, inside sales strategies, etc will be discussed along with tools and techniques. Useful tools, techniques and trends in B2C market, use of inbound growth hack techniques, from customer acquisition to conversion, retention and achieving viral growth will be discussed in detailed. This is a hands on session where startups will be asked to create a plan of action.

Get naked – At PNcamp, everything is transparent. So, one may think, “How can I disclose my trade secrets with entire group?”. Indeed its a valid concern, but its upto an individual founder whether and how much information they want to share with fellow participants. Our experience is that, getting naked has helped entrepreneurs more than shielding or hiding behind curtains. Plus, one unsaid rule of the camp is, “Whats said in the camp remains within the group”. Product nation is building a community of trustworthy entrepreneurs who are passionate about helping each others. Hence, its expected that you bring a transparency and will maintain confidentiality.

So, enough said about the camp and its structure. PNCamp, with this full action oriented day is looking forward to bring ton of insights to you through direct feedback and critical inputs to help you take your startup next level. This is a MUST attend camp for any early stage product startup. Do not miss this unique opportunity to catch the brains of experts and fellow participants through product feedbacks and interactions. So, if you are an early stage startup looking to take your startup to next orbit, then register yourself right away at www.pncamp.in Lets build great product nation, one prodct at a time! See you at PNCamp.

Guest Post by Abhijit Mhetre, founder at Canvazify. He is passionate about startup innovations and is a volunteer at iSPIRT

16/09/201623/09/2016

5 email marketing myths you shouldn’t believe…

Well, just as any other marketing strategy and methodology is important and it works, the concept of email marketing is equally important. Email marketing is sending emails to a group of subscribers promoting your product or services.

In fact, most marketers don’t realize that email marketing is one of the major components of marketing.

But just as everybody has myths about web marketing, there are a number of myths in email marketing too. If you want to make this strategy flawless, you can consider 5 email marketing myths you shouldn’t believe.

If you think unsubscribing is bad for your business, then it is time you think again

Yes, that’s correct. Unsubscribing has a far wider concept than you think. The audience who subscribes aren’t necessarily focused on knowing about your product or services. They may have done it in the spur of the moment or to get the information about your product for their own use.

That does not mean they are going to buy it from you. And unsubscribing speaks volumes. First, not interested and the inactivity of the user are about not being very much indulged in reading what you present them in your emails. And then unsubscribing saves you from the trouble of including them in the list of recipients who never respond or express interest.

Email is dead

If you think that emailing has lost its charm, then you are absolutely wrong. There are hundreds and thousands and millions of organizations that are making huge sums of money with email marketing.

In fact, email marketing is a major component of traffic for most websites.

The length of the subject should be less than 55 characters

If you think you can make a better and the intriguing subject line that exceeds 55 characters, and then feel free to do so, because content is the KING.

It is true that if you make subjects that are shorter, it will of course result in higher rates of opening, but it is never said that it will also result in higher clicks or higher conversions.

The best time for sending emails to subscribers is either the Monday or the Tuesday

Yes, it is true that everybody gets back to work on these days. But that is not necessarily true that the subscribers are more open to reading emails on these days only. There are millions of people who read their mails on everyday basis, no matter if it is a weekday or if it is a weekend. So you make sure that you send them emails on everyday basis. Weekends are the two days where the people get enough time to take a detailed look to their emails.

If that you send with a trusted automated responder, there is no reason to worry

Organizations like Aweber, Infusionsoft etc. changed the meaning of how marketing is done. There was a while where you must be uncertain about giving your email address online because you could open the ways to interminable spam. Then, some big email marketing names ventured up and led the pack so you would know whether you hit “Unsubscribe,” you would be allowed to sit unbothered.

These myths are the perfect signs that email marketing isn’t bad and can result in the increase of sales and business in ways you wouldn’t think of.

There are companies all over the world that are experiencing the rise in business with the help of email marketing only. They are consistent in sending emails to their subscribers, draw their attention and ensure that on receiving the subscriber responses will take care of their queries and answering their concerns.

So do not take these myths into account and make your email marketing more effective.

Author – Charlie Robinson

(He is a marketer and interim VP of Marketing of multiple tech companies. He is currently heading marketing at Adling, a digital agency in Cupertino).

09/09/201609/09/2016

Payments 4G (aka UPI) The Best is Yet to Come!

Last week was a landmark week for all Indians and by sheer coincidence; the country witnessed the launch of two generational shifts. The one that has everyone excited is Jio, a pure, data-only high-speed mobile network.

The other that perhaps will have equal transformational impact is its peer in the world of digital payments, the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). As soon as I had my first experience with UPI, I realized that its impact has barely been appreciated by most, including me.

Why Payments 4G?

Similar to data networks in telecom, which were built on top of the existing voice/SMS infrastructure, most innovations in Payments are layered on Card platform, a solution conceived in the 70’s. Almost all large-scale payment systems today run on the rails of card-based systems, operated globally by Visa, MasterCard, AmericanExpress and adapted in other regions by companies like UnionPay in China and RuPay in India. While innovators like PayPal, Venmo and Paytm in India have attempted to create close-loop systems, some with more success than others, the interface to the external ecosystem was still mostly card-based.

With UPI, the payment rails have been rethought and built from scratch, a de-novo system that was conceived in the year 2015 and implemented within 12 months. From the ground up the system is built with the idea of SmartPhones and Mobile Internet and like all things in Digital India, ZERO Vendor Lock-in.

A few key capabilities in the UPI architecture are fundamental game changers:

1) Real-time, inter-bank authorization and settlement from one bank account to another: It sure is fascinating to see a live transaction with someone who receives a notification and can do a balance refresh to see their balance updated instantaneously using ANY application!

2) SMTP for Payments: Just as you can use any email client (e.g. Outlook, Gmail to access any email account), UPI has decoupled the payment instrument (application) and store of funds (bank account). During the first week of its launch, two of my colleagues showed me a demo of transferring money between each other’s accounts with the same bank and neither of them was using that bank’s mobile application.

3) Support for all types of payments: It can be anything from one-time, recurring, pull, push, pre-authorized, on-us, off-us, etc. The flexibility in the platform that is exposed to the banking ecosystem as an API is immense.

4) A concept of Virtual Payment Address (a la email) that enables privacy and security and in effect as much of anonymity with auditability and traceability.

India has largely been a cash economy. For digital payments to takeoff, it is important to be able to bring as many of the real attributes of cash as possible, notably in Real-Time, with 100% value and allowing anonymity between payer and payee. Additionally, digital transactions have the benefit of auditability and traceability, both of which are important in the case of dispute resolution.

For once we have a payment system that is built on a whole new rails and I believe its impact will be nothing short of revolutionary. Coupled with the Smart-Phone and Mobile Internet penetration and an aggressive business model, there are five areas that will be impacted significantly.

1. P2P – P2P is set for lift-off!

a. Until now P2P payments in India have been largely done in a batch manner using NEFT or RTGS platforms and even with the launch of IMPS (the underlying foundation of UPI), few had used the slightly clunky interface. With virtual addresses, it becomes easy to send money to someone or send a collect request too. This means Social Payments, Bill Splitting, Gifting and other such use cases will come to the fore.

b. Additionally two fundamental changes are likely to happen

i. Informal sector merchants will be happy to accept payments into their bank accounts because they are real-time and zero charge – which can be a great way to get them into the system. Of course once they recognize the value of being in the formal sector, they may have to pay a fee – or alternately a bank may leverage the data for services like loans etc. and keep the payment transactions free.

ii. Everyone automatically becomes an ATM machine , which in essence can be a catalyst for digital transactions. A large part of the population keeps cash because they may not have access to an ATM, but knowing that an ATM is always around the corner will give people the confidence to keep their money digital. One company has built an app to do just this and could be an exciting one to watch.

2. Acceptance – from Rates to ROI/Impact will drive decisions

In the enterprise and mid-market sectors, the previous generation of payments innovation, notably SmartPhone-based Mobile POS solutions that have enabled businesses like insurance companies, e-commerce companies, utilities, police departments, and several others to enable digital payments – although on the same rails as the card system. These initial forays have proven the improvement in agent efficiency and productivity, often an increase of up to 10%.

With UPI, the stage is set for SmartPhone/POS to go mainstream and for payments to be integrated into business workflows. Businesses will hence make buying decisions not based on Merchant Discount Rates but more by choice of applications, availability of SDK’s, breadth of payment offerings and by trying to quantify ROI and productivity gains. We expect such sales processes to no longer be driven by banks but done more in partnership with Application or Flexible Payment platform providers.

3. Consumers – Win with rich choice of front-end applications

Until now, consumers could only transact with a card issued by their bank (credit/debit/prepaid) or the mobile banking app of their bank. With the 4-party model of UPI, consumers can use any UPI-certified app to transact via their SmartPhone. This is a breakthrough in that consumers will be spoilt for choice and can pick the best app. While the initial restriction is that a bank must develop such apps, there are some examples of banks allowing third parties to build differentiated experiences. Over time it is clear that there will be an abundant supply of apps and consumers can use any app they like. While this might seem like banks are giving up control but in reality banks that develop a partner-ecosystem can benefit the most by getting visibility into transactions with customers who may not even be banking with them. It’s surely a shift from the banks’ perspective but a big opportunity nonetheless.

4. Convergence – Online & Offline

Historically in Card-based systems, there was a lot of importance given to Card Present vs. Card Not Present . However as we move to a “Phone-present” world, there is fundamentally no difference between a face-to-face transaction and a remote transaction. We are already seeing use-cases like Uber where the service is delivered in a face-to-face manner but the payments are processed in an online manner. We expect more and more of this to happen and business wise the system should start treating all payments the same. I expect to see one simple business model for payments in the near-term.

5. New Metrics – Mining the digital exhaust

Business Metrics will change – from Stores to Flows!

The most fundamental thing that will change with UPI is the business metrics. In the past for banks, CASA (Current Account Savings Account) count and balances were always the primary metrics that were tracked, along with Merchant Discount Rates and transaction fees. However in the UPI-enabled world and the four-party architecture, it is clear that the most important isn’t just to be the store of funds, but to be in the flow of the transaction. As such banks will need to start tracking the use of mobile apps by them or partners, use of such apps by existing customers and customers of competitors as well as the use of competing apps by their customers. With switching costs now becoming close to zero, banks that encourage the creation of an ecosystem and giving the maximum choice to their customers are likely to emerge as winners. Mining the digital exhaust will be key for banks to make the most of UPI.

While exciting, it’s still early days in India. UPI has barely gone live in the past one-week, and already we’re seeing some dramatic impact it is having on the system. The next few months and years promise to be truly exciting for the Indian consumer, retail or corporate, as well as the banking sector which stands to gain a great deal from this innovative approach to payments. Indeed the real-time architecture of UPI will truly make it the envy of many a payment regulator and industry expert around the world.

Watch this space, the best is yet to come – but one thing is for sure – UPI will usher in a disruptive step-function in the growth of digital payments in India. There is no precedent from developed economies – India is blazing a new trail and writing the new chapter in the world of Real-Time Payments!

PS: All images are courtesy iSPIRT

Guest Post by Sanjay Swamy, Entrepreneur & Early-Stage VC! IndiaStack Evangelist. Reblogged from here

07/09/201607/09/2016

5 ways to increase your CTR on blog posts

For those who don’t know what CTR or Click-Through Rate is, it is the number of times visitors click on the ad placed on your blog divided by the number of views your blog gets. The business rules are simple. You get paid per click that is made on an ad placed in the blog. But, there are certain factors that control the way users click on such ads. The prime reason for placing such ads is to bring the reader close to a purchase decision.

Listed below are 5 ways to increase your CTR on blog posts.

Catchy headline or message

The headline of the ad is like the elevator sales pitch. Learning the art of how to create a blog is not everything. One chance and it’s either a click or ignored. So a catchy meta title and meta description does more than half the work for you. They improve the user engagement by around 500% so the blog post shares a greater chance of CTR. A catchy title is necessary as most of the people on the internet is speed readers who have less time to focus on such ads.

Presentation matters

A well-presented and maintained page is more likely to make the reader feel good than a messy page with ads placed all over. So the layout design of the page, the font size and style along with the quality of images matters. This creates an ambience for the ad as the placement and click on an ad depends on it. A good looking page containing an ad is more likely to get a click, so make sure your blog post looks neat when opened. This is one way in which CTR can be improved.

Dodge ad blocks

A big hurdle your CTR and in turn, ads may face is the ad blocks that are on the host computer or mobile. To get through them, you need to test your ads before by applying it by yourself and check if it is good enough to dodge it. One advice is to use three ad blocks and three links for each page of the site. Do not try to blend your ads in the content or play with the colors or fonts. If people can read the headline and if they feel interested, they will click on it. It’s that simple.

Two in between content

It is seen that although it is discouraged to place ads between your content, but the metrics show that those that are placed in between content in a proper manner get the most clicks. Additionally, color influences, but in the right amount. Use maroon red rather than blue to catch attention. The click on ads after the content gets lesser views, so there are more chances for a click on the ad before the content ends, thereby improving your CTR.

Text and image based ad works

Adsense lets you choose between a text-based and an image-based ad. Both yield different results. But text combined with image allows advertisers to bid on it and this increases your overall cost per click thereby improving your CTR. Never expect an exponential increase, but over time, it gives better results than a solely text or an image based ad.

Decoding how to increase CTR doesn’t really have to be difficult, all you have to do is just implement the above mentioned ways in your blog and see the magic!

Author – Charlie Robinson

(He is a marketer and interim VP of Marketing of multiple tech companies. He is currently heading marketing at Adling a digital agency in Cupertino).

06/09/201605/09/2016

8 Personal Finance tips for Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs

Starting up is hard, make no mistake about it, while media romanticizes startups and mostly talks about the glorious success stories, what goes behind is months and years of toil, frustration, fighting all kinds of odds. Cliched as it might sound but overnight success is the culmination of years of hard work.

Bootstrapping a startup is even tougher, apart from challenges of building right product, right team, right marketing plans and dealing with daily operational chaos, you additionally need to worry about money and cash flows and hence constantly innovate to compete, there are no easy paths, what you need is undivided focus and continued perseverance.

Now with all these challenges last thing a bootstrapping entrepreneur needs are fresh challenges on personal finance front. It can be distracting to least and can even have a debilitating impact on your business, when all your energy and time should be focused on getting your business to move to the next orbit, unforeseen issues on personal finance side can sap your precious energy.

While we cannot mitigate all risks in business, but with a better financial planner you can reduce distractions and also some legitimate business risks, here are few tips that can help you manage your personal finances better.

1. Keep your personal fixed expenses low

As you bootstrap, start with a review of your personal expenses see if you can lower your expenses especially the fixed ones, there are always expenses which can be cut, like a costly dish TV subscription with all the channels you never watch or suboptimal phone bill plans when you can get a better offer or the weekly outings where you splurge or non-healthy junk food, or the gym membership where you never go, maybe a jog in nearby park can be better. Cut expenses wherever you can and migrate to a leaner personal expense structure.

2. Track your expenses and do active budgeting

Last thing you want when you are running a startup is surprises every month on your expenses which can be due to faulty planning. Plan your expenses to the last tee, do active budgeting. If required, use budgeting software. If not, pick up a simple excel sheet. There are a lot of pre-formatted excel workbooks available which can help you plan your budget.

You can use the following sheet for expense planning.

3. Before you bootstrap plan for the worst

Create multiple cash flow scenarios. A lot of assumptions go bad when you are starting up as there are too many unknowns in a startup environment. Slipping product timelines, fundraising plans going awry, growth not taking off as you expected there are simply too many moving parts. So for any plan you create do a thorough analysis. Hope for the best but always have a plan ready for the worst.

4. Get a good health Insurance for you and your family

One of the major unplanned expense that can hit you is unforeseen health. Cost of health in general has skyrocketed in India. So before you bootstrap, ensure that you have a good health insurance cover for you and your family, the cover should be adequate and should reflect your lifestyle.

5. Do not park money in savings account, Invest in liquid funds

Your day to day money requirements should be parked in instruments which give higher returns. Every additional rupee matters. Therefore, do not keep your money in savings account but invest in short-term liquid funds. They provide 2-3 % higher returns than saving accounts and are almost as liquid as savings account, so you can use your money anytime and also earn higher from your savings.

Let’s say you maintain 5 lakhs rupees balance in your liquid account, this is an account for your emergency funds. Below chart explains what will be your account balance at the end of 3 years, if you see liquid funds will give you 4.3 % and 8.3 % higher return vis-à-vis Fixed deposits and savings accounts respectively.

6. Avoid speculative investments like daily stock trading

As an entrepreneur, you are already grappling with ambiguities and surprises. The last thing you would want is surprises on your personal finance front. So start avoiding any risky investment you are making and stay away from stuff like daily stock trading or other speculative investments in the stock market or otherwise.

The below infographic explains why day trading is not a good idea 🙂

(Source: Zerohedge)

7. Create a personal financial plan

You must have created a proper business plan for your startup but what is also equally important is that you create a financial plan for yourself. Look at how your cash flows are going to be like what are your projected expense, both recurring and non-recurring, sources of income, how much savings you have, short term and long term liabilities. Finance planning helps you create a detailed view of what to expect on money front in next few years, here is a simple step by step guide to create a financial plan

8. Ensure your loan liabilities are taken care off.

Having large loan (personal or home loan ) commitments is not a good idea if you are planning to bootstrap. If you have such commitments relook at them and figure out a way to manage risks arising out of these liabilities. Set up a viable payment plan for all of these liabilities.

Article Credit : Sarabdeep Singh, co-founder of Bodhik.

02/09/2016

India in 2030’s – Impact of India Stack

The year is 2030. India is a developed, happy democracy. With a population of over 1.5 billion, it has become a role model for other nations, both developed and developing, in putting public digital infrastructure to enable paperless, presence-less, frictionless transactions.

The new generation does not know what a government office looks like and has not encountered government bureaucracy. Instead, what they interact with is an omnipresent, government digital infrastructure that delivers services instantly — from anywhere with no paperwork, only with their consent and their privacy protected.

We describe the typical activities of life as it progresses from the view of two generations.

The story

Radha and Rahim live in a remote village in India and are expecting their first child. The government provides financial assistance to the pregnant mother, Radha, for a healthy diet. The financial assistance is transferred to the Aadhaar-linked bank a/c using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) infrastructure. Radha can use the money and the UPI system to pay for nutrition in a cashless manner at any shop for supplies. Her pregnancy monitoring medical reports are delivered to her Digital Locker electronically. With her active consent. she can share these reports electronically with other doctors or agencies to assist her in the decision-making process during the pregnancy period. Further, Radha can, again with her active consent, share her anonymised pregnancy reports for data analytics, which will in turn promote the understanding of major medical trends in the neighbourhood, region, state and country.

Soon, Radha and Rahim are now blessed with a beautiful girl. They name her Rani.

When Rani is just about a month old, her parents get her an Aadhaar identity. Since the day Rani started understanding concepts like her name, her identity, etc, she also knew she has a unique identity number, called the Aadhaar number. Even before she could walk, Rani had a bank account. So as she grew up, Rani would provide her Aadhaar number as part of her identity at various interaction points. Be it getting a scholarship in school, her education progress reports, her medical reports, her insurance policies, her bank a/c details, and so on, all these documents are conveniently available in here Aadhaar-linked Digital Locker. Rani can conveniently access and share these documents with her active consent.

In Rani’s mind, there isn’t much difference between a bank a/c and an email account. While one holds and transacts with money, the other holds and transacts with emails. For Rani, her Digital Locker account is the only locker she understands, and this is where she can find and keep her documents safe. She never has to worry about maintaining physical documents or their photocopies as the Digital Locker is a hassle-free system.

Rani, Radha and Rahim visit the local medical centre periodically for routine check-ups and immunization. Their medical progress records get digitally stored in their respective Digital Locker accounts. If during the medical interaction, a new doctor wishes to refer to their historical medical record, the same is available to the doctor after s/he gets active consent from the patient.

Back in the days…

Rani once went to the ‘bank branch’ to open a new a/c. This field trip was part of a ‘museum tour’ for her class to understand how banks used to work in the past. When she stepped inside the branch, she was shocked to see old photographs showing how people would carry papers and files of their identity papers, stand in long queues at the counter and submit photocopies to have a bank account opened, in the past.

In this museum bank branch, she witnessed old cheque leaflets, passbooks and various forms which were used for withdrawing and depositing money in the bank being preserved in glass displays. This was all very strange for Rani because the only physical currency that she had ever seen was in a preserved format at her home. The visit sparked Rani’s curiosity. When she got home that evening, she asked her parents about how her generation’s life differed from theirs.

Rani’s question took Radha and Rahim on a nostalgia trip to the times before 2010, when they struggled to access basic services. They narrated the ordeal they faced, starting from establishing their identity at various government departments for any service delivery, the umpteen number of photocopies of their psuedo-identity papers such as ration card, voter id, etc, that they would need to submit. In addition, since Radha and Rahim were young and would move depending on where they found work, it would be hellish to establish their identity in different cities and towns in the same country. This was so because one state would not recognise an identity document issued by another state.

Life in 2030

Soon, Rani completes her education and is skilled enough to enter the workforce. She shares her credentials with independent agencies, which anonymize her identity and add the data provided by her to the national skill registry. Such a skill registry can assist the government and other agencies to plan for skill development of the nation. Rani shares her credentials from the Digital Locker with her active consent with a prospective employer. This appears seamless now but she recalls her parents’ struggle that in the pre-2010 times, there used to be an entire industry whose job it was to verify credentials submitted by candidates for prospective employers. This so-called industry was so big that scrupulous elements would run scams of procuring fake certificates to enable unqualified job seekers get jobs.

After working for a few years, Rani decides to become an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, Rani interacts with various customers and vendors. She uses the UPI framework for seamlessly receiving and making payments across the country instantaneously.

Rahim often jokes about the ease of payments in the current times, describing how difficult it was to send money to his parents in their village. Today, anyone can send money to someone else by simply knowing the person’s mobile or Aadhaar number at near-zero cost and almost instantaneously. But when he was young, he would be charged 5% of the amount to transfer money, and the transfer itself would take upto a week before the money reached his parents.

Rani gets married, she receives her marriage certificate from the government in her Aadhaar-linked Digital Locker electronically. Rani was able to share her marriage certificate electronically with various authorities and agencies to change her name on documents such as her driving license, bank account, passport, etc. This ensured a seamless and hassle-free name change.

With marriage came the onus of investing in life and non-life insurance policies. Being a digital native, Rani acquired these policies using the E-KYC process with UPI framework for payments. These policies were then issued by the insurance companies and directly resided in Rani’s Digital Locker. She can access these policies from any location and at any time. The best part is that she isn’t afraid of losing the paperwork — unlike her mother Radha, who now has a special affinity for the Digital Locker.

Radha had a particularly trying phase in 2005 when a cloud burst in Bombay led to a massive flood in the metropolis. Radha’s ground floor house went under water and she lost all her documents — her identity cards, education certificates, medical reports, insurance policies. She had to run from pillar to post at several agencies and government offices for an entire year after the floods just to obtain a copy of all the washed out documents.

Every time Rani recalls her mother’s tale of ordeal, she feels blessed to be born in the current time.

The safety of the digital locker makes her sleep peacefully without worrying about paper documents, and being able to share these conveniently with consent. The removal of the big payment processing hurdle has ensured that Rani focuses her energy on improving and expanding her business to serve the larger society. Macro data analytic trends helps her plan for what the society needs and be assured that her services will be required in the future.

Conclusion

India Stack is the term given to a bunch of public digital utilities that have been created by the government since 2010. These include:

1) Aadhaar – a biometric-based, unique identity platform, with a facility to authenticate online

2) E-KYC – A service which empowers an Aadhaar-holder to share his/her Know-Your-Customer information electronically with active biometric consent

3) E-Sign – An online electronic signature service, facilitated via E-KYC to digitally sign a document

4) Digital Locker – A mechanism to issue government documents to Aadhaar-holders in electronic format for convenience of storing and sharing when required

5) Unified Payment Interface (UPI) – A payments architecture that enables universal electronic payments that are cashless and promote financial inclusion

In the pre-IndiaStack days, there was much friction in every transaction of routine business. Concepts like data analytics on anonymized records for prediction could not be envisaged. The extensive adoption of IndiaStack makes all these benefits a reality.

Shrikant Karwa

31/08/201631/08/2016

Scalability Vs Sustainability – What should come first for a startup?

In the highly competitive market today, it seems like a trick question on whether a startup should focus on scalability, which seemed to be a trend until last year, or sustainability. Though one might toss for scalability at the very outset, facts speak otherwise.

This year, a lot has been written on the high “cash burn rates” of the star online startups and predictions of doom in the areas of growth or funding. This is in stark contrast to last year which was dominated by high valuations, wide ranging expansions, hyper sales and big hiring packages. These high cash burn rates were partly due to investor pressure to scale up, gain market share from the rivals and clock high GMV’s (Is it the right metric anyway?). There was a furious race to achieve this among the top funded companies and a lot of “me too” startups hoping to cash in on the investor gold rush.

However, now this unbridled growth has reached a plateau due to coffers running dry and wavering customer loyalties. So, this frenzy for rapid scalability seems to have come at a cost. The way these companies have been spending cash has raised a big question mark over their long term sustainability. So the moot question is whether it is wise to scale up so fast if it puts your very survival at risk?

A leading Indian brokerage firm made a study of the 22 top Indian e-commerce startups during the financial year 2015 – 16. The prognosis by them was quite grim. In that period, the combined losses grew by 293% to Rs. 7,884 crores on a combined earning of Rs. 16,199 crores. Only one start up, Practo, in the healthcare tech sector, was making more revenues than expenses.

Inspite of the hectic pace of growth, the losses were brought about by ‘below cost’ discount sales to attract customers, big advertising spends across all media, and rapid expansion into smaller cities to achieve scalability. Also, there was a dearth of original ideas or products. Most of them were copycats of each other with similar product offerings. One can’t but be reminded of the egg selling scheme of Milo Minderbinder in Catch 22 of buying high and selling low!

In fact, the first five months of 2016 have witnessed over 18 startups wrapping up operations. Atleast 15 of these startups were funded and just one startup went beyond Series A stage. Not surprisingly, 4 startups were from the food tech space, 4 in the hyper local category and 2 in fashion. They were all crowded landscapes already. Going by a Goldman Sachs report, private equity investments in startups has declined by a whopping 25% as compared to last year. So obviously, focusing on scalability over sustainability may have been a flawed strategy.

High cash burn for scalability and a dependence on investors is not the right survival strategy anymore for Indian startups. Investors too have shifted their focus to startups that have the potential to sustain in the long run rather than those with just high valuations and no ‘real’ returns.

In a way, this year will be the best learning for startups as they are slowly realising the pitfalls of only focusing on scalability. Pepper Tap, the grocery delivery app, had to shut shop in six cities, including the major metros, and still couldn’t survive as it had scaled too fast and were not really prepared with the correct logistics framework to service its customers. It did not spend enough time to gain a stronghold in an already existing market and diversified too fast. Even Grofers, Housing.com, Food Panda and Zomato have scaled down their operations significantly and have shut down or scaled back operations in non- performing cities.

There are quite a few startups like Urban Ladder and Carat Lane that are building world class products and are competing with the top brands in the world. They have managed to organise fragmented markets to create “online” brands with positive unit economics. Oyo rooms and BookMyShow, are examples of such startups which can effectively fill a need in the market and have managed to innovate and grow their market share.

Since 2005, MU Sigma a leading Indian business application software company has been making waves in its respective domain too. It has quietly made a mark in the world without any high valuations or spending sprees because their business has value.

Conclusion

Many lessons have been learnt from startups that have gone bust in the past. Clearly, it is high time that startups start focusing on sustainability first because once a sustainable business model is in place, scalability will automatically follow.

Going forward, only sustainable businesses which are value-driven, with a respect for the bottom line, will draw the attention of the now cautious investors and yield better returns on their investments in the long run as compared to valuation-driven startups. Moreover, only the sustainable business models will be able to scale successfully and prove their real mettle rather than becoming just ‘one-time wonders’. In fact, brick and mortar or e-commerce, the fundamentals don’t change!

An article by Mahesh Nair

Founder at Picsdream

30/08/201631/08/2016

Google Analytics For Particularly Curious SaaS People

You are what you measure.

This is especially true for SaaS businesses. Our goals and endeavors center on user growth, delivering consistent value, and profitability. This again depends on the efficiency with which customers can be earned, and nurtured.

All this begs a question: how do you know and measure the most crucial KPIs to achieve said goals?

Well, I know this is subjective. Because it depends on where you stand and where your focus lies at any given point in time.

That being said, Google Analytics comes in handy no matter where you are as a company. And that’s precisely what we’ve set out to explore with the help of Dave McClure’s AARRR framework in an in-depth slide deck.

If you are at the helm of a small to medium sized business, Google Analytics just works, as it is a free/standard analytics tool that is easy to configure and maintain.

Although, when I was introduced to Google Analytics, I found it to be quite irksome to grasp for the following reasons:

1) There is a lot of generic material about Google Analytics on the internet, and its scope of use for a SaaS application is difficult to pin down.

2) Lack of actionable resources (what I really required wasn’t just a frame to understand the tool, but real lessons that I could put to test at my end).

Hence, with that in mind, I’ve put together a deck with things that I’ve learned over the last few months, that’ll (hopefully) give beginners a broad perspective on the use of Google Analytics for a SaaS business, and at the same time provide some actionables to get started.

Now, let’s dive into the deck.

Google Analytics for Particularly Curious SaaS People from Chargebee

Guest Post by By Preethi Shreeya, ChargeBee

27/08/201605/09/2016

Instant, Automated, Remote: An Introduction to Digital Credit

There is today in many countries a proliferation of new digital credit services. These have been especially prominent in mobile money markets in sub Saharan Africa. The poster child has been M-Shwari out of Kenya; though there are a burgeoning array of new varied services in many places. The signals of deep interest from India are strong and India Stack may well position this market for an exciting ride.

At CGAP we have come to use the term “Digital Credit” to describe this new kind of service; though there may well be other terms. We hold that digital credit has three attributes that distinguish it from conventional credit:

instant – decisions and transactions happen fast from application to disbursement to collections
automated – while lending decisions are carefully calibrated each individual decision happens within a decision tree framework along a set of (evolving) algorithms, and
remote – the services are delivered without relying on in-person interactions.

As we have examined nearly a dozen digital credit deployments in the past year, we saw many exciting innovations but also many early stumbles. To help new entrants get up the learning curve faster we developed, delivered and tested a set of training materials. These materials have been refined thorugh more than half a dozen deliveries with a wide array of banks, fintech firms, analytics firms and mobile money operators. We have put these materials together into An Introduction to Digital Credit. .

An Introduction to Digital Credit: Resources to Plan a Deployment from CGAP

The introductory course is available for wide public dissemination and use. We built it around five main sections:

An introductory session describes what digital credit is and distinguishes between two key models. One is new products – like M-Shwari – that are direct to individuals. As contrasted with new digital credit services that are delivered via a merchant or value chain aggregator. These two approaches entail quite different risks and business models.
A second sections covers credit scoring and uses of new alternative data, such as mobile phone call records, are often part of the new innovation in digital credit. There is an introductory session for those new to credit scoring that describes how scoring is developed, how to tell if scorecards work, and an introduction to various kinds of data for scorecard building.
A third section covers some of the product and service design considerations. This includes product details such as tenor, loan size, and initial pricing. There is in particular some very early research on consumer protection concepts pioneered by CGAP – a particularly important issue where given how fast digital credit can be delivered.
A fourth section covers some of the financial considerations. While digital credit can be extremely low on branch and staff costs, often requiring no physical infrastructure to reach clients, it still incurs other costs. This section details a basic financial model for how digital credit business models can be built and highlights some of the unique financial dynamics.
The final section is on partnerships. This is often the biggest source of failure is around partnership and blockage to experimentation. This concluding section on partnership highlights critical roles and provides a basic tool for how interested parties can consider and build out potential partnerships.

Whether you are already operating a digital credit service or planning to do one, the course aims to provide a structured high level view based on real deployments. It is a starting place to benefit from others that have tested and tried the idea.

At CGAP, we are excited about the potential of digital credit to expand access and also realistic about what more we need to do to make lending responsible amid the speed new technology. India’s fast moving changes in digital finance will provide a new array of opportunities and we can’t wait to watch and learn from what happens next.

Guest post by Gregory Chen, Regional Lead for Asia at CGAP, a resource center on financial inclusion housed at the World Bank.

25/08/201625/08/2016

Freedom from fragmentation! Welcome to the ecosystem

The emotions of independence and freedom are flowing around in our hearts; hence it is befitting to discuss the same in a domain where most people haven’t pictured these yet. Let us talk about the product that is eating the whole world – yes, we are talking about the world of ‘Software’ after all. Even the people who are new to this part will notice the sheer amount of change that has come around in the world economy, labour markets, currency valuations and more, solely by the influence and discretion of software prowess. However, what becomes hard to notice for many people is that there is a silent revolution underway in this whole domain. What we are talking about is the shift from a fragmented approach to an integrated one.

Before you start thinking about the questions (like what is the need? Why is a change required?), let us consider a very simple real life example. Take the following phrases and see what comes to mind while thinking about them – ‘Discover what is happening around me’, ‘Chat with my group of friends’, ‘Discuss and plan for a group activity’ & ‘Split and share money with a friend’. If you look closely, these 4 action aspects pretty much sum up your daily social lifestyle, especially considering the complicated lives that we lead nowadays.

However, interestingly the legacy platforms and systems that are prevalent have been mostly confined to 1 vertical in each of these cases. For example, you have ~2 apps in your phone for checking out the movies and events running in town, then there would be ~3 different apps for checking the best restaurants to go to and the deals to avail, and furthermore, a plethora of apps to chat with your group of friends. Now, each of these apps perform specific functions suited to their use case, however, in a dynamic and real time social scenario, you will find yourself juggling between multiple apps / web pages, taking screenshots / copying text and then performing the desired intended series of actions. Isn’t it?

Now, think is this really a smart way to go about it? Do we REALLY need so many apps? Keeping the subjective part aside, let us take a look at some hard numbers. Consider this fantastic report compiled by TheNextWeb on the fragmented Android market or this detailed analysis by ContractIQ on the vendors and variety of software suites out there. Well, things get clear, don’t they?

Fragmentation

Welcome the ecosystem approach

In light of the above, ask yourself, why should we remain limited to the old approach and use up more time in juggling between different apps and systems? Why not go for a more advanced ecosystem style approach (something like what Facebook messenger is bringing around now in terms of allowing you to book an Uber and more directly from the chat window). This is the approach that precisely a lot of new age products advocate (including ours) in terms of the complete flow. Not only does this approach help you save time (that we all value so highly) but also maintain just one point of contact in terms of the interacting system (Comp. Science geeks and service guys will understand the enormous value of this).

Sweetspot Getting back to the phrases we discussed earlier, let us combine the vertical sections of the app market into 1 and perceive the awesomeness that we get –

Discovery of events, activities, restaurants, deals and more
- Exploring the best movies, events, deals, restaurants and outings around you
- Also checking out the details required under one neat and seamless flow without jumping between multiple apps

Discussing, planning and chatting
- Choosing whatever activity you want to go for, after checking what’s trending, what is recommended, what do your friends like & much more, all at one place
- Inviting your group of friends to add them to the group to discuss and plan together. Chatting together to see who is in and who is out

Splitting and sharing money from any account
- Splitting the costs for your activities (whether before or after) and everyone can put in their own share directly using any means linked to their bank account.
- Avoiding the hassles of making excel sheets / notes and even setting reminders. Letting the single solution handle everything is the ultimate nirvana mode.
- Not only that, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the app didn’t even require you to share any account details (like account number, IFSC code etc.) with anyone!

I am sure you will find that the old fragmented apps scenario pales in comparison to this integrated solution when it comes to seamlessly navigating your social lifestyle. For those who have not explored yet, come and check out the magic that happens when all these touchpoints come in one trajectory under one roof at Mypoolin – https://mypoolin.com/mobile-app.php

Time to say ‘ahoy’ to freedom and welcome this silent revolution towards an integrated future!

Guest Post by Rohit Taneja, Co-Founder at MyPoolin

24/08/201624/08/2016

8 tech products from India for the World

India has come a long way since its Independence on 15th August, 1947. One industry that has really shined for India is IT/ITES and that really have put India in a global map. The major contribution has come in the form of Software services with names such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro & HCL being the torch bearers. However, be it due to lack of media attention or for the lack of sheer scale, India is still not looked upon as a Product Nation that has created a global consumer or enterprise facing product such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and other such marquee names. It is a bit ironical that all these big giants have a size-able number of Indian minds working for them!

So, on the eve of Independence Day of India, let’s give a shout out to few products which are slowly and steadily helping India to become a Product Nation and inspiring many Indian entrepreneurs to dream big for the World!

Capillary Tech — Any retailer in the world if looking for a customer engagement solution, then Capillary probably will be there in the list of evaluation. That is the brand it has able to create for itself in quick time. It has shown that an industry specific solution can be also scaled up big time!

Crowdfire — It is a social media management app for Instagram and Twitter. Earlier know us ‘just unfollow’, it has really shown that to get users, the focus should be on user need and not on complex problems.

Finacle — Infosys should always be proud of on the success of Finacle. This has helped them take multiple risks in product and platforms space. Finacle has always kept itself up to date owing to change in banking customers’ behavior. The fact that banks are using it in more than 94 countries speaks a lot of its universal applicability. Finacle has shown that despite the parent company being service oriented, products can be created if given independence in execution!

Freshdesk — It started in an industry which already had multiple matured players in the market. But focus on UX, price points and its target customer needs, it has nailed the customer support space. And with its recent hiring, it has shown the importance of right leadership.

Tally — It is almost a synonym for accounting software. And probably the first global product out of India. Again have shown to focus on user problems than anything else.

Web Engage — It has redefined the way how products should engage with customers. Again it operates in a highly competitive space but with its focus on innovative features, has shown how a product should be scaled up.

Wingify — Just look at their main page and you will fell in love with its mission statement. Overlaps with the web engage space to some extent but the mission statement itself separates them out.

Zoho — The perfect example of how to run a product business. In the age where founders chase funding, Zoho has remain bootstrapped and keeps churning out a productivity product for a business problem.

These products inspires us at UX Hack on a daily basis to have the right intent and build for the World!

Guest Post by Nishith Gupta, Founder, UXHack.co

22/08/201612/03/2017

6 challenges faced by early-stage startups that some effective tools can help you combat

Harbouring an idea in your head is one thing. Taking the leap of faith to execute, nurture and grow the idea is an entirely different ball game.

It calls for a tribe of people that we call Entrepreneurs.

Fortunately, this breed is on the rise. They make this game look deceptively simple.

Apart from the fact that you have to face a fair amount of social ire and family grumpiness, launching your own business and getting it off the ground comes with its unique set of challenges, the foremost of which is the problem of “scarce resources”. Your money tree will take months, sometimes several years to sprout.

One of the most valuable lessons we can learn is that there are several tools and apps for various functions that have grown all over the internet to help us overcome this “limited resource syndrome” that startups acutely suffer from.

We faced this challenge of limited resources in our early days too. In our experience, here are some of the biggest challenges faced by an early-stage startup that the appropriate tools can help you combat.

Bringing order to your sales pipeline

Sales requires a combination of people skills and product know-how. It also demands that we make sense of what the customer wants, and quickly dive into seeing what they need.

While getting those first few paying customers is about networking and selling within your circle, there comes a time when you have to start casting your net wider.

It is important at this point to have a process and tackle sales in a methodical manner.

While you can make do with Excel sheets for the first few months, they will add to the chaos as your customer base grows. Investing in a CRM tool becomes mandatory at that point.

This simple tool will allow your sales team to focus on selling and not waste time on decoding the sales pipeline and customer information that would be scattered all over the place without a CRM.

Working together as a team

Needless to say, one of the biggest assets for a startup is its people. For an early-stage startup, the people are the company’s only assets.

A startup environment requires people to fill multiple shoes and wear multiple hats. Not to mention that people now consider remote-working a norm – thanks to technology.

Team collaboration tools can help a great deal with keeping the team together and assist the project manager in assigning tasks in a more meaningful manner. It’s easier to keep track of projects and the status of tasks, and come up with contingency plans better.

Plus, it helps keep the sense of purpose alive in the team.

Without a tool to keep track of what the entire team is working on, it is easy to lose sight of the priorities of things that need to get done.

Creating a brand following

In the bygone era, marketing used to mean plonking billboards on the highway or buying TV spots for blaring commercials. Today, marketing means mastering the nuances of social media. It means building an email following. It means adding value through useful content and leveraging SEO.

Typical tools like social media scheduling tools to manage multiple social media accounts, email marketing tools, content management tools and analytics tools that integrate with your website are must-haves to keep your visitors and customers engaged.

This is also a way for the team to measure, analyse and learn from their experiments. Building on what works and scrapping the things that don’t is an important step forward in the growth of the company.

Design

Design is not just about aesthetics anymore. It has become an absolute necessity.

According to research, coloured visuals can increase your audience’s engagement with your offering by 80 percent.

Whether you need a website designed, a blog image or simply an image to go with a social media post, there are several tools to make your life easier – even if you have never been anywhere near a design school in your life.

Managing the monies

Amidst all the high-energy events in a typical startup workday, finance can be the one thing that will be happily relegated as the last priority – only for it to get back at us with a vengeance during those closing days. Not to mention that most startups don’t exactly consider hiring a dedicated accountant at this stage.

Here again, somebody has mercifully created tools for the non-accountants to look up and still smile after “crunching numbers.”

If you have the resources to invest in just one tool, let this be it. Trust us, you’ll thank us for it.

Connecting with your customer

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”- Bill Gates

Understandably, most entrepreneurs seek to meet a critical need in society that can be fulfilled by offering a product or service. However, the most well-planned startup can fail in the blink of an eye if they lose sync with the customers who use their products and services.

Customers are a huge part of the startup ecosystem and being accessible to them at every turn can define the success of the product or service.

It becomes imperative that we establish, open and maintain channels for valuable dialogue with our customers while making sure we are listening to them. Again, some amazing tools make this a breeze, while also acknowledging that a startup does not have deep pockets.

To sum up, it’s an excellent time to be an entrepreneur. Countless opportunities exist, and more and more free resources are available to entrepreneurs than ever before.

Tapping into these resources and advice effectively can be the thin line between the success and failure of a startup.

For a detailed list of the tools that helped us grow during our early days and our experience with them, download our ebook here. (There’s a lot of tips and some ideas for jugaad as well).

Guest Post by Shivakumar Ganesa(Shivku), Co-Founder and CEO of Exotel, a leading cloud telephony company

18/08/201618/08/2016

Design Thinking- The UnConference way

Gerard Butler and his army of Spartans walking down the stone corridors of the beautiful and mythical surroundings of IIM-B paint a beautiful picture. It’s really not too hard to picture them there, blending in beautifully with the surroundings too.

Designthinking ‘Preparing for glory’- Like the Spartans, Pensaar too is setting stage for the ultimate revolution. The UnConference, Phase-ll of the Design Thinking Summit is gathering traction and building from a 60+ gathering at Phase-l to now include 300+ participants.

Our existence being rooted in Design Thinking the day of reckoning, 26^th August is going to be an action packed day covering various topics. It begins with Pecha Kucha and workshops followed by exciting interaction formats like fishbowl, socratic dialog, market place and world café. Tying it all together will be design thinking experts from diverse backgrounds, wielding their own special weapons and skill sets ( Added bonus- they decide to show up in their greek robes. We have sent them the memo)

Embodying the mission to raise awareness about design thinking and its impact we are thrilled to bring to you just that. Join us and our partners IIM-B and Intuit to take advantage of this unique gathering of people, after all it has been designed keeping you in mind.

Click here for registrations: designthinkingsummit.com and help spread the word #DTSummitBLR

Guest Post by Deepa Bachu, Pensaar

17/08/201618/08/2016

Through the Effectual Looking Glass

I began my entrepreneurial journey in December 2014. The incidents of 2014, when several cases of child molestations were reported in Bangalore’s schools, had spurred me into trying to do “something” about it. The key to keeping children safe in schools is to ensure that the people who work with them have a good track record. In the past, this was ensured by word of mouth. But Indian cities today are teeming with floating populations and there is no easy way of verifying a person’s history and credentials.

The idea was to build a digital platform where schools and their employees would participate in a simple process to build employee history and credibility. This would create a white-list of people who can be trusted to take care of children. The platform would optionally use Aadhaar for identity verification. We called it Staff You Trust.

My initial attempts at trying to get this incubated somewhere came to nought, so I took stock of what I could do with what I had. These were:

Time (oodles of it, because I had quit my job)
A technical mind that I hoped had not rusted after years in management roles!
Access to the wonderful world of open-source software

A friend introduced me to Django, a Python-based web application framework, and I took the plunge. I built a prototype, and got some early feedback from a few schools. There was definitely interest, but the conversations were quite theoretical. I thought that I should build the product and then come back to them. (An experienced entrepreneur would probably have got some commitment from schools first. But that’s hindsight now.)

I talked to a classmate who runs a software development firm, and he arranged for an Android engineer to build the app. I drew wireframes, learnt how to expose REST APIs from the server, how to install and run the server on a Linux VM in the cloud. It was a year of complete bliss. So much so, that I got myself into a new comfort zone that I was reluctant to leave!

For a while, I kept procrastinating, adding a link here and a button there, and telling myself that these were all-important features! The truth was that I was afraid of venturing out and facing rejection.

Around this time I heard about iKen, a bootcamp for early entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs, which could help in my journey. I applied, and got accepted for the batch starting in April 2016. The program doesn’t waste time – the first very assignment teaches you to face rejection. It rips off any band-aids that you may have placed around your ego and forces you to step out of your comfort zone. I had thought that my lack of sales experience would be a handicap. But I was told not to worry about that, because the past is no indication of the future.

My other obstacle was that I knew just a handful of people who had anything to do with schools. By now, I’d done my Bird-in-Hand audit at iKen – that included creating an inventory of ‘Who I am’, ‘What I know’ and ‘Who I know’. I approached friends, and got introductions through them to school owners. At each meeting, I would try to get a few more contacts, and so on. I built a 4-week-4-month plan with goals and metrics and religiously updated that spreadsheet every week, recording the outcomes of this week and planning the appointments for the next.

Gradually, I overcame my discomfort of doing ‘sales calls’ and started thinking of them as relationship-building conversations. And there were many wonderful conversations – with people (mainly women) who are passionate about education and have started their own preschools in pursuit of this vocation. Whether or not they agreed to sign-up on my platform immediately, my network was growing.

One day, I was surfing the web, looking for information on preschools in my neighbourhood, when I came across an article by Shweta Sharan, a content developer at the Buzzing Bubs publication, a digital publication targeted at parents. She is also the Founder of the Bangalore Schools Facebook Community that has more than 11000 members. I reached out to her over LinkedIn. A couple of days later, I received an enthusiastic response, with a request for a meeting.

We met in a café in HSR Layout on a Thursday, and I showed her my app. She was super-excited and filled a page from her notebook with a list of schools where she had contacts. Sitting opposite her, I felt exhilarated – I didn’t have to do this alone!

By that evening, I had joined the Facebook forum, and emailed her a blurb about my product, asking for beta trial customers. On Friday morning, she posted it, and vigorously set about tagging parents and school owners. She called/emailed school owners to arrange meetings for me. Those emails are still coming in.

On Friday afternoon, I got a call from Sarayu Srinivasan, a journalist at The News Minute, asking for an interview. On Saturday morning, Sarayu and I met and talked for over an hour. She reviewed the app in depth, asked a lot of questions, examined different scenarios, and asked for some screenshots. The next morning, the article was live, and being shared in different fora! Sarayu has also promised to introduce me to other people who might be able to help.

This was the principle of Crazy Quilt in action! You reach out to people, and when new connections are forged, you suddenly have more means at your disposal. It was now going to be about ‘Who we are’, ‘What we know’ and ‘Who we know’.

My plan now is to run pilots in schools of different sizes and categories – stand-alone preschools, preschool chains, large schools, child activity centres – and iterate based on user feedback. We need to quickly scale the user base across Bangalore’s schools so as to build a sustainable solution for a very pressing social problem. This should then be taken to other cities and regions, so that in the future, if an employee moves from Kolkata to Bangalore or Chennai to Chandigarh, his/her reputation travels intact.

Tanuka Dutta has an extensive background in computer networking, having worked at Cisco Systems and Motorola in various engineering and management roles. In her last role at Cisco, she was Director of an 80-member engineering team. She is currently on her first entrepreneurial journey, working toward increasing safety measures in schools and pre-schools. Tanuka holds a B.Tech in Electronics & Communication and M.Tech in Telecommunication Systems from IIT Kharagpur.