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India innovated and celebrated @Inno_fest #IndiaCanInnovate

With whatever little humility we can garner, we created a platform for showcasing, inspiring, and celebrating innovation in India – in less than 27 days!!

20931485302_e541c3daaf_bWith the awesome support from our partners, sponsors, believers, dreamers, creators, speakers, patrons, volunteers and each and every one who was a part of InnoFest – we rocked it J

You asked us – Why the focus on Innovation?

Well, the trigger for this innovating idea was a little report that caught our eye. Our entrepreneurship deficit has grown while our innovation deficit is slipping. If we don’t build our innovation capability, two things will happen. First, we will not be able to solve the myriad problems that are specific to India. Second, our current national winners like Flipkart and Ola might lose out to their global competitors over time.

And how do we address the Innovation deficit?

There is no shortage of imagination and creativity in India. We need to build our skills where this imagination and creativity is applied to generate unique solutions to local problems. To give innovation scale – to make it grow; to inspire young minds to innovate…

Sharad Sharma, Co-Founder of iSPIRT and Co-Convenor of Innofest, said that “If companies can innovate and transform their functioning and performance radically, why can’t countries? The idea of Innofest is to distil the best ideas in enterprise and inspire individuals, corporates and Government organizations to take innovation to the common man. We are delighted that the Government has stepped in, in a big way to enable this transformation and this cooperation between public bodies and private enterprises will lay the foundation for radical transformation in the country.”

And… we were pleasantly shocked (that is not a phrase, I know :).

From robots and cars to 3D chocolates: we saw it all !!! (Click here for the complete array of displays that were a part of innovation).

Innofest was a phenomenal success. We reached the message via TV (CNBC Awaaz), RadioCity, Hoardings, and most importantly social media to over half a million individuals across the country. Over 1200 participants attended Innofest and immersed themselves into activities like maker-space, experience zone, young innovator’s zone, etc. The team curated and showcased over 75+ innovations from across India that ranged from an 11-year boy who had developed a mobile charger to Team Indus who are building a spacecraft that will go to the moon. The main session with our patrons – Nandan Nilekani, Mohandas Pai, Jayant Sinha, and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw was a huge hit with some of the most inspiring speeches one could experience(Videos shared below). Of course, Minister Babul Supriyo’s singing and dancing was just the finale that Innofest deserved.

A team of 10 committed and highly enthused volunteers – spread across 5 Indian cities – worked remotely and delivered Innofest 2015. And how…

The craziness of schedules, deadlines, and record turn-around times was exhausting yet exhilarating to the core… From media, sponsorships and venue discussions to the unlikely innovations that we experienced – it was indeed an unforgettable experience for each one of us.

And not surprisingly, we have been flooded with requests from all parts of the country – from individuals/companies/cities, offering to host the next Innofest – and it feels good and satisfying …

20948742491_2e3fe98f8e_bWhile we go about thinking what to do – this is a call for volunteers for our next. We anticipate it to only get bigger and better and we will need all the help that we can… because we cannot create this magic without YOU.

Do let us know how you can help us. Think.Innovate.

#IndiaCanInnovate.

Just let us know 🙂

Guest Post contributed by Ritika Singh, Proud Volunteer for Innofest

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As somebody rightly said “it was all a notion but hey, its innovation now”

What’s more, when you give this notion a Woodstock fever! That would be Innofest’2015. My participation was courtesy iSPIRT and Avinash, with whom I was interacting for my startup. One thing lead to another, and like a typical startup guy, I asked for a discount. Voila, got a free pass.

So, the day was 22nd August, a Saturday; excitement was there in the air, I am still at home but the thought of meeting fellow entrepreneurs along with rockstars of the startup world was good enough a reason to put that extra zeal on my steps.

And then, I reached the Venue – IISc, one of the best campuses to have a Woodstock for Innovation. One could get a glimpse of what’s- in-store – we see a band tuning-up their instruments center stage; the batmobile; the crew in their black T-shirts going about giving a final touch to the venue. But the black T-shirts were for real and they were the volunteers who had put the InnoFest event together and I was told – in less than 27 days!!. True startup spirit this J

The registration was smooth – go to the designated counter, pick your tag, go online.

Yes, we were provided with wifi, and it helped a lot of participants, especially students. And there were quite a lot of them who had traveled from Pune, Hyderabad and New Delhi just to attend the event. The sheer number of youngsters that participated showed the startup spirit that the country is experiencing. I interacted with few of them; they were 2nd year, 3rd year students. Gone are the days when they were worried about only grades; now they are worried about the next big thing and identify themselves as the ones who can lead it.

Once inside, there were booths showcasing various products, I was particularly interested in hearing the discussions by, as I mentioned “rockstars” of the ecosystem, and that was happening in Hall C. And I was hanging around the venue. But then, you can’t keep your curiosity down when you see an exhibition area and some strange things hanging from the trees. The exhibition area was showcasing some of the best products that the young minds had developed. I didn’t venture inside all the arenas but it was jam packed, felt like I was in a ‘mela’ where the kids are intrigued by everything that they see but here it was students and grownups showing the same spirit and instead of the usual ‘throw the ring,’ it was all about technology. The discussions were very informative and in a different format. It was packed; every inch of the hall was occupied so much so, that the black T-shirts had to become bouncers to get the speakers to the podium. The discussion varied from – where are the cut-copy-paste ventures heading to the scope of product manufacturing in India. Manufacturing would be the next thing that India will experience, fuelled by product innovation. Be it making 60k chapatis in one hour, i.e., a 1000 chapatis a minute by Akshaya Patra or 3D printing of a knee joint. Again as Mr. Shridhar Venkat, CEO- Akshaya Patra, said, it started with a jugaad but now it has become an invention. And Mr. Kunal Shah, CEO-Freecharge, reaffirmed “ a jugaad/ hack becomes an innovation when it works”. Think audacious but be smart.

Through the afternoon, there were different DIY camps around the venue and workshops on crowd funding etc.. Once outside the Hall C, I thought I will explore a little, that’s when I heard someone strumming the guitar and singing the blues. I went in the direction of the sound only to discover that I can have my lunch and listen to him. Perfect. And if you are not into live music there was a Dj mixing up a deep house. Just when I was thinking ‘all in all a good day’, there were people milling about the main auditorium and realized it’s not yet over, the heavy weights who started the startup revolution and put India on the world map were yet to address. Mr. Jayant Sinha, Prof. Anurag Kumar, Mr. Nandan Nilakani, Mr. Mohan Das Pai, Mr. Sharad Sharma, Smt. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Dr. Kshatrapati Shivaji, and Mr. Babul Supriyo. And I expected serious power talk by these gurus, instead it was a combination of power talk, motivation, humor and out right Woodstock when Mr. Babul Supriyo took the auditorium by storm with his songs combining it with witty one liners. One never expected the heavy weights to let their hair down and take a jibe on one another, be it, ‘I was asked to come for one hour a month back to discuss something and I am still here’ or ‘Ministry will work on subsidy for the entrepreneur ecosystem but you will become rich’ or Mr. Babul Supriyo asking Mr. Jayant Sinha ‘are you texting the center that Babul Supriyo is going to sing, again’ !!

Disruption – what they did and that is what innovation is all about.

It was clear from the interactions, events and speakers that India is experiencing a mammoth change in the field of technology innovation and everybody – the policy makers or rock star entrepreneurs or the heavy weights – all of them are supporting it in whichever way they could. Innofest’2015 was one such event to bring all the stakeholders on one platform and celebrate a notion that will become innovation tomorrow.

It was one the best initiatives that I had attended; the only thing that I missed was tasting the ‘3D printed chocolates.’

There’s always a next time J

Guest Post by Rajesh K, ProgrammedV

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Innovation @ Innofest 2015

Here is small write-ups of stalls I visited and could relate better with innovations at stalls@Innofest. Wish that innovation stalls were open for viewing by public,children and youngsters. Captured innovations to share and motivate readers to dream.

Let me start with TeamIndus, prototype design and aerial vehicle. Young guys have been able to innovated on large scale and serve as motivation for all to dream big and achieve.They stand to demonstrate that fundamental innovation can happen in India too.

Kisan Raja , powerAdapter to enable farmers to swtich on motor pumps in the field from his home and save the effort to walk across a long distance.

Visited stalls of 3D printers PRAMAAN and PRAMAAN-Mini. Learnt  what items can be made with 3D printers and raw materials used to create items like keychain, table tops, flower pots. Wish the innovators work to enable audience to relate to product easily, something like create some pre-designed items, make items and share with audience to take home(for charge). Connected auidience has ability to share with more people.

vSkin is a wearable glove to creates a sense of touch on the users’ fingers in a virtual setting.  One can feel the hand movements while working with a digital piano or use glove as part of video conferencing calls to perform remote handshake. The innovators are currently in age group of 19 to 22 years.

Tesseract is a Virtual Reality headset. The prototype headset works with content created or stored on a laptop; new ones work with mobile phones also. Wish Tesseract becomes complimentary item with XBox for customers to think about. They have sourced optics from China, acrylic lens from India and manudactured in China.

RideLogik helps with charging base for the smartphone. Wish they provide more value propositions around the vehicle efficiency and performance. Though they can integrate with any vehicle that runs based on electronic control unit, their focus is 2-Wheelers. They need to develop channels to reach existing 2-wheeler owners.

Found innovation of insulin pen to enable diabetes patients to take care of their health better more connected at ground level.The innovator has patent filed In India.
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Shrishti  has displayed multiple innovative items. Though I am not covering all of them, I would like to cover the chair they have made using old newspaper. This chair can be used for outdoor purpose too and would not spoil in rain.  A means for paperwallas to become furniture makers? Here is my photo on the chair to say that chair was stable with my body weight.
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Plugzee is device to turn any audio speaker system into a Bluetooth speaker. The device plugs into the 3.5 mm audio jack of speaker & lets you stream music wirelessly by Bluetooth pairing with a smartphone. They have leveraged crowsourcing to transform innovation to reality. Already started to ship last week- that is nice.

For more innovative items present in the stall, please check Madan article Passion and policy – startups and ministers at InnoFest 2015!

Guest Post contributed by Srinivasan

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Promote innovation and entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable economic growth

We are at a profound moment in India’s history. We have a young and energetic workforce, a robust macroeconomy and a strong leadership at the Centre. This is our chance to power India forward. A key aspect for achieving sustainable economic growth and providing jobs to our youth is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. We need to do more to enable our young people to think creatively, create innovative solutions, and take them to market and achieve global scale.

The government is committed to creating a supportive environment for innovators and entrepreneurs. Major initiatives such as smart cities, direct benefits transfer and ‘Digital India’ will create a large, domestic market for innovative products and services. Additionally, streamlined policies, new infrastructure and an overall thrust on fast-tracking innovative ideas through public, private and public-private initiatives will see more innovations hitting the market.

Indians are known for their ingenuity. Our creative thinking, when applied to problem-solving using meagre and locally available resources, Jugaad, is universally recognised.

The number of innovations highlighted by the National Innovation Foundation are an eye-opener to the innovative thinking that Indians bring to play while solving problems. Anumber of these innovations are centred on addressing issues in rural India, which can tremendously impact our economy and society.

Over 750 MNCs have their R&D centres in India. Many of these are creating products and solutions for global markets. India is where the zero, cataract and plastic surgery, high quality crucible steel, buttons, ink, and rulers were invented. So, despite such a rich history, why is India today not Innovation Nation?

Our innovations have largely been about affordability and designing solutions for local problems by making incremental changes in existing products and solutions. We have focused on process and price, not enough on product innovation. Examples of innovation abound: cheaper and faster drug discoveries; faster and better ways of creating software to make air travel safer; modifying existing farm tractors as a rural transportation solution; lowering telecom prices; organising over 3.6 million small milk producers in a cooperative movement and creating a global dairy brand; fighting hunger and malnutrition by using technology and forging strategic partnerships; Mumbai’s ‘dabbawalas’ delivering lakhs of meals to people with a home-grown, un-automated process with precision; and more.

But this innovation is often not apparent to the world, because it is usually localised and not scaled up. We need to encourage innovators to scale up their solutions to global levels, particularly in the developed world. The government’s new policies and programmes are designed to make it easier for innovators to find larger markets for their solutions and products.

Today, we need a two-pronged approach: one, encouraging and enabling more product innovation; two, facilitating innovators to scale up their solutions for commercial success or social good. To that end, we require a grassroots-driven movement that will celebrate and inspire entrepreneurship.

Many ecosystem players, such as the Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable (iSPIRT), the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), the department of science and technology (DST), the tech startup accelerator TLabs, the Indian Institute of Science, the 10,000 Startups initiative of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), Paytm, Practo and the Anita Borg Institute, are coming together in Bengaluru on August 22 at Innofest to jumpstart this process.

In tandem with the just-announced ‘Start Up India, Stand up India’, the India Aspiration Fund and the Atal Innovation Mission are encouraging startups like never before.

Guest Post by Sh. Jayant Sinha, Union minister of State for Finance. This article was first published in ET

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India Inc’s Innovators Are Setting The Stage For The Ecosystem

Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple Inc and one of the greatest innovator from the tech world, believed that innovation was the only way to win, and by no means did he just see innovation in making things more complex. An advocate of simplicity, he also reiterated, “Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” That’s why we, at GHV, believe “Innovation is not just doing something new. Sometimes it means pushing the existing more powerfully and elegantly.”

Innovation or doing things differently is something that has set the momentum of the “startup scene” in India. It is because of thinking differently, the “old wine in a new bottle” syndrome that has revamped and fuelled the success of top startups in the country today. Innovation is all about bringing something new and exciting to the customer. Given the cutthroat competition in the market today, innovative products and ideas are the key to differentiating yourself from others in the race.

Successful businesses often anticipate future trends and develop an idea, product or service that allows them to meet this future demand rapidly and effectively. It is not just about fulfilling the pain points of the consumers, but also being able to preempt the future needs of the consumers before they even feel them. In essence, predicting and fulfilling a future void and working on its solution in the present, staying ahead of the curve. Innovation can help you stay ahead of your competition as markets, technologies or trends shift, thereby giving you a definite edge.

This year, India has slipped 10 places in the Global Innovation Index to a disappointing 76th position. Imagine what we can accomplish as a nation if more people were to focus on innovation. We can easily transition to become a nation of job creators than job seekers.

Renowned global brands like 3M, GE, Lego, Nestlé, Pepsi and Starbucks are all from different industries, but have been constantly innovating their products. These companies have successfully created and supported an internal innovation capability that drives new products into the marketplace year after year with remarkable success. In fact, the very reason behind their success is that they made innovation a critical capability within their organisations. These companies recognised innovation as a key driver for success by enhancing the value that the business was delivering to customers.

With Indians like Nikesh Arora and Sundar Pichai, leading the heavy weight ‘innovating’ companies like SoftBank and Google, we are looking at a complete change in the way India and Indians are perceived globally; whether it is Indra Nooyi, Satya Nadella, Ajay Banga or Shantanu Narayen.

Innovation helps large companies survive challenges. According to Clayton Christensen, disruptive innovation is the key to future success in business. For companies to become market leaders and retain that position, they have no choice but to innovate and disrupt an existing technology or market by recognising opportunities.

For example, Patym had revolutionised mobile commerce in India. Earlier, people were wary of storing their debit or credit card information online. The company created a secure digital wallet where a user can put in a small amount without threat of online and credit card fraud. The payment solutions provider uses an RBI approved semi-closed wallet that is being used everywhere, right from Domino’s Pizza to Zivame to Uber. The company now has over 80 Mn mobile wallets and more than 15 million orders per month.

Innovation is that one thing that all successful businesses worldwide have in common. Innovation is a part of their culture… it’s in their DNA.

To foster a spirit of innovation in today’s youth, iSPIRT is hosting InnoFest, a daylong event focused on kick starting the next wave of innovation in the country. The event to be held at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on 22ndAugust 2015, will offer young innovators a platform to present their ideas and interact with like-minded people from across the country. The daylong fest is meant to celebrate innovation and bring forward ideas that can become game changers for the nation.

Guest Post by Vikram Upadhyaya

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The Secret Sauce Of Networking Success

On a page of the daily, I saw Mr. Obama shaking hands with a young man at the back of a handful of fans hammering into the president. The young man seemed to be at a height of euphoria and the president almost being dragged by his securities away from the crowd. Pragmatically, there is no correlation between sales and a presidential Campaign, but the image made me think of the essence of successful networking. The American president has certainly nothing much to do with a “Metal Freak” looking young man at his twenties, but he took the pain to be dragged by his bodyguards just to shake his hands!

Approach is the Essence

Approach

What approach to take?

Your approach is the basics of networking because it is what that determines how you network. Your aim is not just to make the sale; your aim is to build a relationship — this must be the central theme of your approach to networking. It is the mindset most appropriate to formulate a plan of action, which is the blue print of successful networking. Adopting this mindset will shape up the businessperson in you, while focusing only on short term goals will make you just another “Street-Smart” sales man.

Do not Dismiss Anyone as Unimportant

With a holistic approach towards your responsibility, enlarge your circle of influence. Consider your clients not by what their position is, but by who they are. The best way to attain this is to realize that: You do not know much about them. Therefore, you need to approach every person who can be contacted. Networking is more than a point-to-point connection; it is a Relationship Cloud of accumulated information. Taking with people offers a vantage to reach other potential buyers on their network, even if they themselves might not be interested.

Creating Demand

creating demand

People need you. But do they know how helpful you could be to them?

Creating your demand when you have none is the key to build contextual relationships. I call it Contextual because networking is driven by objective; else, it would be just seeking help from friends. Demand is created by offering something, which is needed by your counterpart. Therefore, before trying to get something from the person, try to give him something that they value. Find out the ways you can be of help to them, there will be just no way to deny your proposal. Asking, “How can I help you?” before closing any deal results in surprising outcomes. Successful Networkers offers more than they receive.

Attitude Matters a Lot!

Emotional intelligence plays a major role in any business relationship. Being emotionally intelligent is about how much you value your client. Offer genuine answers to every question of your client and make transparency your benchmark.

This creates trust, which itself is a “feel good” factor. Your attitude and behavior are the parameters that determine the perceptions about your personality. Be generous and kind, always maintaining a persuasive but mild tone. Be more open, friendly and honest.

In a nutshell, to be successful in networking, one must know how to grow a relationship and build a self brand through your business interaction. A sales person must be such that people just cannot deny what he or she brings. After all, selling starts from building successful relationships.

Guest Post by Ajay Chauhan, co-founder, Salezshark inc.

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Free Open Software and Growing Entrepreneurship Climate in India

“Imagine if Mathematics was owned by corporates and every time you wanted to use it you had to buy some from a corporate!” started Eben Moglan, Founder of Software Freedom Law Centre at the Open Innovation and our Digital Future Lecture series organised by iSPIRT. It was definitely a thought provoking preview of the work that is taking place in India in the space of Free Open Source Software with Moglan emphasising the need to create a viable environment for an alternative legal scenario for the growing start ups in India. If Make in India has to be a success it is pertinent that start ups not only have feasible options of protecting their knowledge but more importantly are not infringing the big corporates patents. For the growing entrepreneurial system the system of patents is not only dampening but also acts as a growth step towards fund raising albeit detrimentally. While corporates file patents to demonstrate hold over knowledge in the past few years this has led to patents over software suits that impacts open source creation adversely.

SFLC and OIN are working towards shifting the game and ensuring that start ups have effective legal counsel available to not only create long term strategies but also to have access to defensive patent pool. Keith Berglt, CEO, OIN made a pertinent point when he said that the advantage that a start up needs is access to global patents to work with while they hack new solutions to global problems. With the emerging world of big data and the scope of solution creation from big data analysis is going to lead how Intellectual Property Laws of India are interpreted and eventually amended to feature in the innovative approaches of start ups. While the legal system holds IP close to its chest Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director, SFLC pointed out that the government is keen on defining start up specific legal mandates and modalities.

The realm of possibilities that open up for hackers creating solutions for todays problems is boundless when the team doesn’t have to die a thousand deaths at the hand of protracted patent defence suits! Whether or not big corporations will move towards releasing their grips over knowledge and creations through softwares has to be waited out but open source innovations are going to pave the way for future solutions in India, especially with low cost solutions, and need a better support mechanism. The Digital India mission needs open source creations to fuel remote learning mechanisms which in turn requires a robust structure that allows hacks in the existing software architectures.

It was only befitting that Moglan closed the discussion on how models like facebook need to be replaced with distributed data models equalling it with the power that open sharing contains over capitalist ownership.

Post contributed by Megha Sharma Bhagat

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What I got from the pre-entrepreneur bootcamp called iKEN.

I started this journey with a jolt this January, when I got laid off from my job as a Manager at a big MNC. In the notice period, they did offer me many other roles, one of which got finalized and was about to accept, but something in me kept telling me to use this opportunity to fulfill the startup dream that I was dreaming for a long  time.

First there is a bit of flashback. I came from humble background and during final  stages of engineering had to sustain myself and to get enough money to come to Bangalore. It is during those days I got hold of telephone coin box ads and became a reseller of them in the remote region of Karnataka. Within few months I made enough money to get through engineering and landed up in Bangalore. While the journey in software industry has been great and it provided me a huge exposure, I have often wondered what would have happened, if I had pursued the coin box business. That is the reason; I never brought EMI obligations on myself and kept myself relatively free to startup.

So I quickly connected with a friend with whom I shared a common passion of fitness. Started working on a software product (SaaS) idea for gyms. Our plan was to spend a year building the product and see where it goes. So in a way not a great plan. That is when I heard about the pre-entrepreneur bootcamp called iKEN from iSPIRT and duly signed up.

In the hindsight it was one of the best decisions I took. The program itself was great, I learned a lot, but I was struggling in the class and didn’t/couldn’t complete many tasks specially ones focusing on the customer specs  and asks. Meanwhile things unraveled with my co-founder as well and I realized  that he isn’t ready to quit the job and we parted ways in a civil way. With things  back to square one I started thinking very hard about the whole thing. Everyone in  the batch from anchors (Prasanna, Rajan and Manjula) to fellow batch mates was trying to get me back on the trail.

Finally a hard, blunt discussion with Milindh a fellow batch-mate who asked me really hard questions made me wake up and I started applying the fundamentals that the boot camp tries to focus on.

First one was “What I know, who I know what I have”. I realized building software product with high-end technology is not my strong point and my biggest skill is selling things to folks. My telephone coin box experience was a good memory and  data point for this.

Second was the “bird in the hand principle”. I realized that while the gym software is a viable product, I didn’t really have the money until the product is ready which  could take months and will burn lot of money without a technology person on  board. My “affordable loss” at this time was only the opportunity cost and not  anything more.

So at around 9th week of the program (it is a 10 week program and I didn’t graduate), I simply decided to drop the idea and went back to the drawing board. I realized one of the problems that I was constantly facing was getting a water can delivered to home. There are just too many delays and multiple folks to call to get it  delivered. Most were unorganized and tracking them was very hard. I realized I  could potentially make this process simple smooth and efficient. What’s more? This could be a cash generating business very quickly.

Armed with this theory, I literally hit the road on my two-wheeler, chased down the water delivery guys, met factory folks and many corporates. It was an immense and  exhausting field research but the amount of real data I had convinced me that I am  on the right path, so I sat down and set up a website (www.bookacan.com) and started delivering to my first few customers. There is huge “co-creation” happening  with delivery guys and factories. I am happy to announce I have a steady business  now and lot of new things in the plan.

While I understand it is a long journey before I call it a success, I am happy that I  reached the clarity needed and am up and running. Please check my project at www.bookacan.com and drop me a line if you are interested in collaborating and co-creating.

Contributed by Prabhu Stavarmath, BookACan

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A Day In Radha’s Life @ Innofest ‘15

innofest_logoThe stage is set, I have received my invite to Innofest’15 and look forward to the day with great anticipation. I have just completed my engineering degree from Davanagere, and have received two offers, both through campus interviews. Both seem interesting, and both are in technology, after all thats where everything is today.

And yet! I am not sure if thats where i want to be. You see, i have this dream. I have this idea of creating an instant water purifier pen. You put the pen into a glass or a bottle of water, and electronic pulses instantly destroy all germs in the water, turning it safe. Even a child can drink it. Imagine what it would do to the lives and productivity of all those millions who don’t have access to quality drinking water.

I dearly want to create this product. Do i have all i need to bring it to life? Do i know everything i need to get going? Will my being in Davanagere allow me to reach out to everybody i need to?

Thats when I heard of Innofest, a new grass root movement and festival of innovation. Reverie over, back to the air-conditioned weather of Bengaluru, in an UUla cab from aunty’s home to IISC. Always amazed at how green this city is. And wondering if Bharat, the founder of UUla, uses his own product? Well, i will ask him that as I have signed up for a hands-on workshop with him this morning.

Lots of excited faces. We head to the zone, and are immediately hit by the brilliant arty stuff that decorates the venue. Lovely, innovative, bright stuff, that seems to ring fence the entire venue. There is the torn jeans that Bharat first made his passionate pitch to taxi drivers in Rhennai in.

And that half chewed pencil bears mute testimony to Mansal’s mood as he made the pitch that got him his first 100K in funding. I am pleased to find they seem to be a tapestry of history of entrepreneurship. Hey, they are the kinda cool gang i would love to be a part of. Make a mental note to save all my torn jeans…

See the Showcase zone and the Google Lunar X-Prize contenders, the one and only Team Indus – what a coup it would be if they got the $30Million purse on offer if they put a vehicle on the moon by December 31st? They are the final three shortlisted globally. Who says its all about getting billions of dollars in funding? This is as much about the pride of india as it is the future of India.

A tune. from a flute. Whats that? A youngish dude playing the flute surrounded by ardent fans? Over a steaming kulhar chai with him, I find out his name is Hari Prasad, and he’s trying to create a tourism destination out of every town in india. Do you know each of the 800 districts has its own tourist attractions, customs, food, clothes and artefacts that can be very beautiful? Talk about stimulating conversations, and he’s not too bad looking…

At the UUla workshop- chap sitting next seems interesting, so start talking.. He’s is from Ramgarh- and i immediately ask him, so do you have Gabbar’s autograph?He bursts out laughing…. UUla is so intriguing. Ever heard of a cab company that doesn’t own a single car. I haven’t. So how does it work? Get into the nitty gritties, And guess what, impress Bharat enough to get a meeting with him to present my idea next week. Zowie, things are moving for me.

After the UUla workshop, which clarified a few of my financial thoughts and closed out a few open loops in my mind, i ask Ram what else is there to see. Well, turn out, there’s more, so much more.

For instance, Makerspace which is just behind the main auditorium where I walk towards for the unveiling of the grants. There are some 3D printer demos that seem exciting. I make myself a thunderbolt, like an Indra’s vajra or Zeus- some thing about Innofest makes me feel like “I have the power”.

And the day progresses. And things continue to happen. And i keep getting hit with high after high. Finally, end of day. 100 meetings and 100,000 ideas richer, I head back, abuzz, on a high. Will I be able to sleep? I know not. However, I do know where I am headed. And let me give you a hint. Both of my prospective employers are going to be disappointed.

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Enterprise Software Products – Big Clients, Big Opportunity

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of investment activity in the B2B Technology product space. One can broadly classify B2B Tech into two categories based on the size of the end clients, and the delivery model (on-premise or Cloud).

End Customer      Mid-Large Enterprises      SMEs
Typical Delivery Model      On Premise      SaaS

Most of the recent investment activity in the B2B Tech space has primarily been in “SaaS”. This is because SaaS products are relatively easier to scale globally as against Enterprise Software products. Some of the drivers for this are as follows:

  Enterprise Software SaaS
New Customer Acquisition (High Cost) Sales Team Driven Digital Marketing (backed by Inside Sales)
Sales Cycles 3 months – 9 months 2 weeks – 1 month
Enterprise “Buyer” Multiple business heads & CIO, CEO / Board Single Business Head (directly impacted)
Integrations & Customizations Needs “Services” Primarily DIY
Recurring Revenue % Low – Typically just the AMC (10%-20%) (not counting the “upselling”) High – Periodic subscription based

That being said, we see a huge opportunity for Indian Enterprise Software product companies. The “edge” such companies have over typical SaaS companies are as follows:

  • Only a handful of global players are fighting it out for the larger clients. For example, in case of Enterprise CRM, the primary competition is from Oracle Siebel, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce (for large enterprises that are comfortable with SaaS), and SAP. In case of Contact Center Software, it is from Avaya, Cisco, Aspect & Genesys. In contrast, for most SaaS products, the vendor market is quite cluttered since the barriers to entry (and exit) are much lesser for SaaS products.
  • Incumbents in Enterprise Software are large (and relatively slow moving) firms with “legacy” products. Large enterprises have seen lesser innovation as compared to SMEs – immense opportunity to be nimble-footed and have a more contemporary product platform for the younger product companies in this space.
  • Enterprise Software platforms are typically more comprehensive and feature-rich, whereas SaaS offerings are relatively more of “point” solutions.
  • As a result, an Enterprise Software vendor has greater opportunities to expand and penetrate into adjacent add-on offerings, with great ease.
  • Higher customer stability – typically much lesser churn, since the integrations and customizations are an ‘investment’ and provide stickiness to the vendor.
  • India is a great place to start. Getting large Indian enterprises as customers and then expanding overseas (to other developing regions like South East Asia, Middle East and Africa) is a trend we keep seeing.
  • While in developed markets, even large enterprises have adopted the Cloud infrastructure and software as integral to their businesses; in India the mid-to-large enterprises are still in the early-cycle of Cloud adoption.

So if you are an Enterprise Software company, and are looking to raise funding, what are some key aspects from a VC fund raising perspective? Here are a few that we at Zanskar Advisors have learnt from our past engagements:

  • Revenue Scale already achieved: The bars seem to be higher for Enterprise Software companies as compared to SaaS. For e.g. an Enterprise Software firm would need to have approximately $ 5 mm of revenue to attract similar amount of funding (for similar dilution) as a SaaS product firm can attract with say $ 2 mm (that too on an annualized run-rate basis).
  • Established Partnerships (especially for overseas customer acquisition / servicing): As the “expansion” would be primarily coming from overseas, some instances of selling to overseas customers (preferably through channel partners – as direct sales are less scalable) will help.
  • Instances of displacing established incumbents (large product companies) at key accounts (for reasons other than just the cost).
  • Revenue Trends
    • % of Product Revenue (License + AMC) as against Services revenue (upward trend is favorable)
    • % Revenue from top x (say 5) clients (downward trend is favorable)
    • % Revenue through Partners (upward trend is favorable)
    • Average Revenue per Customer (an indicator of “upselling” – could be in terms of no. of users or no. of modules – upward trend is favorable)
  • Global Recognition (from the likes of Gartner, Forrester etc.) is a plus

We strongly believe that a new wave of Enterprise Software product companies from India is going to take on the world – in line with the thesis of “Make in India” (and sell globally).

Guest Post contributed by Mandar Kulkarni, Zanskar Advisors

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Announcing the Working Group on IT Security

siber640e_0With the growing penetration of technology, Internet, and digital medium, there is an increasing need for protecting critical infrastructure of the country. If compromised, these infrastructure can bring down the entire nation to stand still. With the nation going Digital India and the Prime Minister himself talking about security frequently, and challenging Indian citizens to create products that will server the nation and the world, we at iSPIRT are taking this
opportunity to create / develop / nurture the IT Security products, entrepreneurs involved in it, and product companies in the country.

We see a great opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to take this challenge and develop new products, small companies to find their niche and create a larger market for themselves, medium size companies to scale and become bigger, and large companies letting their employees to contribute in their individual / expert capacity. Keeping
iSPIRT’s vision in making India a Product Nation, we have created a Working Group on IT Security. We hope to get the support from all the relevant stakeholders. You can find more details about the program here.

Initiative Co-Hosted by Bikash Barai{iVIZ} & Ponnurangam Kumaraguru (PK) {IIIT-Delhi}

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Product Management for Startups and Understanding Growth #Playbookrt52

It was a rainy Monsoon Delhi day with heavy downpour, traffic jams and water logging but these couldn’t keep a bunch of entrepreneurs from making it in time to the Product Nation Roundtable focused on Product Management and Growth Hacking.

Led by Round Table veteran who has done it all and scaled Slideshare to great heights, Amit Ranjan, the excite bunch got together in the lovely office of Posist.

The round table kicked off with discussion around Product Management with Amit discussing his learnings and unfolding carious aspects around it step by step.

He defined Product Management as the function that manages the product life cycle through activities like planning, forecasting, production, marketing and has flavours of engineering, design, sales, marketing, data etc.

No matter what the stage of the company is, Product management is relevant, it is carried out by Founders is small startups (say less than 10 in strength) and then there are multiple product managers in big companies.

Important takeaway: “A Product Manager should be the CEO of the product” – Amit Ranjan

443b5ffef7b5079d7b20822404fd3124“A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat”

The group further analysed many examples of startups such as Uber, Twitter, Slideshare etc. around a model shared by Amit depicting 3 pillars of Product Management which are:

  • Vision
    • align org goals with market conditions & user needs
    • ‘get’ the pulse of the product (think movie directors)
  • Design
    • give shape to the product: feature mix, user experience
  • Execution
    • work with engineering, quality, marketing to deliver

However, a common issue cited by many founders was the issue of making the right hire for such role. The group identified and discussed the various aspects that must be considered while making a hire for the role :

  • Strong product sense/instinct
  • Carries multiple points of views
  • Communicates clearly
  • Simplifies & prioritizes
  • Measures & iterates
  • Understands good design
  • Writes effective copy

The second half of the Round Table was focused around Virality and the art of Growth Hacking with Amit sharing many interesting anecdotes and case studies.

Amit defined Virality as “Marketing built into the product…if the product is viral, it will market itself.

It is different from Word of Mouth, Marketing, Buzz etc and is simply the ability of the product to spread on its own. The role of a Marketer is to enable the product to do so and leverage different mediums to do so.

In Slideshare’s case, it was widgets that worked out very well for distribution. Amit emphasised to a great extent the importance of cracking and working on distribution right from the get go. The ideal scenario of working deeply on product (engagement) as well as channels (distribution) is hardly realised. It is a call that the entrepreneur has to take and has its own pros and cons. In Slideshare’s case, the heavy focus on distribution instead of deep diving into product development to a greater extent helped them erect barrier against new competitors/clones who tried to differentiate with added media support but could not pick up. As a negative, Slideshare faced issues in motivation as it never made users compulsively log in or create deeper engagement on the platform.

1e742688c80a7e0d19ccbafabe8ee071Amit emphasised the importance of tracking the product’s viral coefficient which is the number of additional members every new member brings. It should be greater than 1 for the product to become viral.

Viral Growth

The participants at the Roundtable were:

  1. Ashish Tulsian @posist.com (Host)
  2. Shashwat Srivastava @iflylabs.com
  3. Saurabh Arora @airwoot.com>
  4. Siddharth Deswal @wingify.com>
  5. Rahul Batra @getwalkon.com>
  6. Sujan Deswal @adpushup.com>
  7. Ankit Singh @aprogift.com>
  8. Amir Moin @contify.com>
  9. Sudhanshu Aggarwal @fizzysoftware.com>
  10. Amit Ghasghase <[email protected]>
  11. Mrigank Tripathi @qustn.com
  12. Udit Sajjanhar @splashmath.com

Founders share their own growth hack stories and channels’ learnings. For majority, in the B2B scenario, content marketing has worked well to boost the acquisition and few discussed the idea of generating leads from fake Linkedin profiles!

Amit cautioned that one should always be looking out for new channels as a channel that’s working for you today will saturate soon.

The group got some great insights and takeaways to implement from product management and growth’s perspective. Ashish’s hospitality at Posist with amazing Cholley Bhature was cherry on top of the cake

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FinTech-Tech: The future of banking?

Banking and financial services industry is undergoing a massive transformation all over the world. While until the early 2010, FinTech wasn’t even on the radar of banking institutions let alone the entrepreneurial kinds, suddenly there is an upsurge in activity in the FinTech community.

Global FinTech financing has grown from less than $930 million for the whole of 2008 to over $1.04 billion in the month of October 2014 alone.

Customer experience is driving and bringing forth disruptive technologies and innovation in the form of mobile wallets, branchless banking et all and FinTech  startups offering a plethora of banking solutions – from payments, money transfer to apps and peer-to-peer lending.

I’ve been following the FinTech industry for a while now and can see spurt of activities in different parts of the world and different sections of the communities coming together to give it its due importance.

We can see growing signs of action in Australia with a strong FinTech startup ecosystem taking shape seeking to disrupt the traditional banking industry. Similarly, London is becoming quite a hub of all things disruptive in the financial services industry globally with branchless banking and an ever increasing focus on providing banking services to the unbanked. KPMG in collaboration with AWI and the Financial Services Council has released a report detailing 50 of the world’s strongest FinTech innovators.

Though traditional banks are now making conscious efforts to revamp their outdated systems and introduce new offerings to lure Millennials, they are, however, still competing with other global banks and financial institutions.

According to a recent post by Scott Walcheck, “Financial services are becoming à la carte. People, particularly millennials, are moving away from single monolithic banking institutions serving the majority of their financial needs to hand picking the specialized services that work for them.” Banks and financial institutions are yet to cover ground to compete with the likes of new entrants in the financial services arena.

It is already evident that FinTech is disrupting the traditional banking models. An interesting development on the sidelines of FinTech in the financial industry is the entry of new players in the banking industry. Tech giants Apple, Facebook and Google too have jumped onto the financial bandwagon and showing keen interest to provide financial services to their customer base. These players are using their platforms and scale of their existing user base to provide gamut of services – fee free payments, peer-to-peer payments etc.

We are living in a time where Gen Y or ‘Millennials’ have virtually grown up connected and accustomed to open and social lives. The future potential customers of financial services will be driven by these expectations. Tech giants such as Facebook and Apple would enjoy an upper hand compared to FinTech or traditional banking institutions in gaining the trust of these customers as they have spent time and money building brand equity and understanding their customers’ psychology. According to a recent study by Gemalto, “One in four millennials has effectively abandoned branches altogether.”

There is an interesting report by the UK Government Office for Science on FinTech  Futures: The UK as a world leader in Financial Technologies which outlines measures such as setting up of a “FinTech  Advisory Group” with representation from the government, regulators, trade associations amongst others for developing UK as a global hub for FinTech innovation community.”

While the debate over FinTech vs Tech taking over the financial world is HOT, it is measures such as the ones being adopted by the UK government that will lead the way forward. Definitive measures on a global scale will act as critical success factors for the FinTech-Tech players to flourish and launch innovative financial offerings to compete with the mainstream banks and financial institutions. We need equal amounts of innovation and disruption with government support, monitoring and intervention to regulate the industry globally.

These are certainly exciting times for FinTech startups and Tech giants around the world as they are suddenly in the limelight and a foreboding time for traditional banking & financial institutions since this will shape up the future of the industry.

What do you think is the biggest threat to banks at the moment – FinTech or Tech? Which should the banks focus on to start with. Please share your thoughts. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are personal and are not reflective of the organization the author works for.

Guest Post by Ina Bansal, Nucleus Software

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SEBI Startup Listing Exchange – Nasdaq of the East

Efforts of iSPIRT’s List-in-India Policy Expert Team have reaped the desired results. The securities market regulator, SEBI, has announced relaxed norms for a separate platform to allow “new-age companies” having an innovative business model and belonging to the knowledge-based technology sector to list in the country.

The existing legal framework has considerable challenges for a successful listing, including the mandatory track record of distribution of profits for 3 years. Consequently, Indian technology startups (with their usually disruptive business models) have been increasingly looking to list overseas in view of the less stringent regulatory hurdles. It is hoped that the relaxed regulatory regime will provide software product companies with an opportunity to raise capital through listing onthe proposed platform, and give them a viable alternative to offshore listings. The new platform is also expected to provide an exit opportunity to the investors who have invested in such startups, thereby generating further cycle of investment in the economy.

The iSPIRT List-in-India Policy Expert Team is very happy with this outcome. Things have moved really quickly after we kicked off the effort on Dec 19th in Blr. Mohandas Pai has been an excellent mentor and driver of this effort. We are now working hard to address issues that drive exodus at the Seed and Series A stages of software product startups.
More details of the SEBI Policy can be taken from here. Some of the coverage we have got from LiveMint, Business Standard and Economic Times are here.

 Guest Post by Sanjay Khan, Khaitan & Co

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How SignEasy got featured in an Apple campaign (and almost screwed it up!)

SignEasy was a two person operation in 2010, the year we launched. And bootstrapping meant a lot of pressure first on gaining and then on maintaining traction; there was, and still is, no safety jacket. If we have no money to pay salaries and run operations, there is no company or product, period. But we have been lucky, and successful enough to be profitable.

Today we have grown into a 15 member team, and SignEasy is now among the most successful apps on iOS and Android.

As more and more paperwork moves to the cloud, we are extremely well placed to help individuals and SMBs use eSignatures, and in turn, save paper and a lot of time and money in the process.

What we think about a lot

Innovation and customer happiness, that’s our mantra. An app like SignEasy is passing through a quality check every time a customer uses it. Which means any and all feedback is in real time, giving us the data we need to keep innovating and to keep the customer happy.

Our almost continuous updates and fixes to leverage Apple’s iOS strengths (such as our iOS extension and Touch-ID support), and to bring more capabilities to customers is due to this ruthless focus on user experience.

The mail from Apple

These priorities are what I believe got us noticed by Apple.

Early April this year, something popped up in my inbox. It was a mail from Apple’s marketing agency about featuring SignEasy on their upcoming iPad summer campaign. Needless to say, we were overjoyed. Though branding with an Apple ad was one reason for our excitement, there was a significant business angle as well — iOS accounts for 85% of our paying users, and Apple’s early adopters, the people who appreciate a well designed product, had always been our own champions. Apple wanted secrecy, they specified that no major changes should be introduced to the UI and product screens throughout the campaign, which would have made the ad rendering dated.

We agreed, and complied within a 48 hour window. We couldn’t control our excitement. After all, this was the ecosystem we had been nurturing for some time. This recognition was the ultimate feather in our cap. It was all about that important word we kept hearing about in startup conferences and funding events all around the world — validation. Then we went back to our work mode with fingers crossed, looking forward to hear back from them in the near future.

Until it all went wrong.

It was the 4th of May. A routine update for iOS went wrong and our users were unable to sign documents. We were devastated. We apologized to our customers immediately, and by May 6, had expedited a fix that went live that very night, restoring full service back to our users. It had taken a day and a night of non-stop work, but we had fixed the issue, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

SignEasy1

Several users were happy with the way we handled this

1-mbRylRTFH7QTzref6TIGKg

Little did our users know that we were running against time, as May 7 was the day the iPad campaign went live. A lot of interest would be heading in our direction and needless to say, it wouldn’t have been very impressive if the app had been down on that very day.

Behind the scenes

The point I want to make here is that this experience again underlined to us the uniqueness of the lean, nimble startup model that we follow, despite being a five year old bootstrapped company. Our users have never had a reason not to trust us, and neither did Apple. As partners and owners of the ecosystem we are part of, it was imperative not to disappoint them, and we are proud we did not. The work that we put in to get the app working for our users again, the small colors and buttons we test and change to enhance usability, the late night frustrations with pizza delivery — these are things our users will never see, and that is by design.

It makes us proud that all this behind the scenes work reflects on the little screen in our users’ hands, and that they enjoy it enough to say that they love it.

Head over to this Youtube video where SignEasy’s ease of eSignature is being showcased by Apple

and other apps listed in the small business section by Apple:www.apple.com/ipad/change-everything/.

1-PIQFLWGxQ3VOu82GyIdFkQPart 2 of this post will talk about the actual gains that we had by being part of the Apple campaign. There are going to be metrics, and a lot of takeaways for app store citizens like us. So stay tuned!

Guest Post by Sunil Patro, Founder & CEO, SignEasy