ProductNation

23/02/201523/02/2015

HasGeek announces Meta Refresh and Rootconf 2015

HasGeek is a community of geeks that gets together several times a year to discuss technology relevant to product startups. HasGeek’s conferences are community driven via an open submission and selection process through Talkfunnel.

Product startups spanning the spectrum from Flipkart to Freecharge and SupportBee to Qubole are a recurring feature at HasGeek conferences, where they come to share candidly and compare notes on how their technology works.

Our next conference is Meta Refresh (April 16-17), on building stellar web-based interfaces, and this year’s edition takes a serious look at the mobile web, an area that remains significant despite the growth of native apps, whether for the initial acquisition of a user or a full transaction cycle. A sizeable portion of your existing user base could be accessing your website only through a handheld device. It is quite likely that future web users will never experience a site on a large screen. We’re looking at proposals from the community that address the evolution of mobile web design, content design for mobile websites, as well as best practices for mobile web UX.

Meta Refresh is followed by Rootconf (May 15-16), on DevOps, cloud infrastructure and operational reliability, from development to production. Operational excellence is primarily about learning from experience and tactical improvising, but achieving it isn’t easy. We’re trying to address issues pertaining to continuous integration, deployment, testing and delivery strategy as well as team dynamics, which come up in the process. To that end, we’re inviting proposals about infrastructure scaling and automation, CI/CD strategies, microservice patterns, code security, server vulnerabilities, logging and server monitoring, as well as LXC technologies, and Docker adoption strategies.

The funnels for Meta Refresh and Rootconf have full instructions on focus areas and the selection process.

In addition to the main conferences in Bangalore, Meta Refresh and Rootconf also have mini editions in cities across India. The current planned editions are in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kochi. Details on the Meta Refresh talkfunnel.

Guest Post by Rudi MK, HasGeek

23/01/201523/01/2015

Why India needs to move beyond “Jugaad”.

Innovation is a result of an unaddressed problem.

TITLE (1) Contrary to general perception, design process strives to find the correct problems. Solution to these form the second half of the process and which has complete dependency on the earlier, yet is more celebrated.

A designer observes a given brief, studies it in the context and then identifies the problem(s). He finally calls upon his knowledge and experience to address these. Often enough, reaching out to experts. Later, he iterates solutions at various levels of implementation, progressively validating in the context.

In the case of jugaad, the journey to innovation travels in the opposite direction. The innovator is the user himself. He defines the brief after he has already pinpointed the problems, then makes do with his limited knowledge to address these. In ideal cases, this leads to innovations that are appropriate for his use, and exceptionally, a genius product to generalise.

Much like any heroic story, jugaad innovations are also widely acknowledged. While its solutions are obviously admirable, the process itself isn’t. I offer a few words of precaution in this context.

A step-by-step comparison between the two reveals the risk. At the initial stages, jugaad does a better job in understanding the context and the defining of problems as the user (/innovator) understands his problems better than anybody else. On the other hand, a designer uses his observation skills to relate to the persona of the user, ideally, becoming the user himself. But this ideal case is by-default in jugaad and unrealistic in design process.

However, at solution stage, design process has its advantages. Being better equipped, given the expertise of a designer and access to experts, it not only leads to more efficient solutions but also makes sure that these are appropriate in larger system. Jugaad however depends solely on knowledge and capability of the innovator. In exceptional cases, smart workarounds come out. But these are rare, and bound to fall short of a designer’s resources.

In cases when the solution itself requires lesser expertise, a bigger knowledge pool might be irrelevant. But it can again be a risky proposition to generalise such cases. And that is what we would be doing if we recognise “jugaad” as a parallel process.

However, as I earlier stated, finding the correct problem(s) is crucial, and jugaad is better equipped. A more inclusive process might be to involve users with designers during initial phases. This can lead to exciting results with juxtaposition of experienced users and resourceful designers in brainstorming solutions.

Jugaad by itself should only be looked upon as a desperate option rather than a process. India, being a country well equipped with resources and aiming to be a world-class innovation hub, should do well to encourage correct processes in this endeavour.

Guest Post Contributed by Sumit Dagar, Kriyate

16/01/201516/01/2015

Knowing Versus Understanding Your Customer

When it comes to retaining your customer, you simply do not need to know them but should also try to understand them. If you wonder that why are your competitors holding a superior hand than you and why are they successful in catching the pulse of the customers?

The reason could be that they are putting more efforts in understanding the customers than you.

And here you are….You just know who your customers are, but do not understand them?

Understanding them could mean the difference between retaining customers and losing them to the competition.

Knowing your customers — information typically collected by a business — means you know who they are demographically, what content they’re reading, and so on. Most companies do a good job on this front.

When it comes to understanding customers, however, many companies come up short. Understanding customers helps businesses deliver an online product with meaningful and compelling value propositions that meet not only their current needs but also their evolving and future needs.

Gain customer insight and just merely not know but try to understand your customer’s:

Purchasing power: Find out the degree of disposable income within the community.
Demographics: Demographics serve as a means of locating geographic areas where the largest number of potential customers live.
Residences: Are homes rented or owned? In what kind of accommodation do they live .
Means of transportation: Do prospective customers in the area own vehicles, ride buses or bicycles, and so on?
Age ranges: Does the community consist primarily of young people still approaching their prime earning years, young professionals, empty nesters or retirees?
Family status: Are there lots of families in the area or mostly singles?
Leisure activities: What type of hobbies and recreational activities do people in the community participate in?
Credit risk profile: The credit risk profile of the customer needs to be evaluated in order to understand your customer well.
Attitudes to and uses of technology:
Environmental and ethical views
Their preferences to go to your competitors

To innovate and retain your customers, you should clearly understand their preferences if you want to stand out from your competitors.

Guest Post by Shweta, Institute of Product Leadership

07/01/201507/01/2015

Location is a context, not THE context

Being context aware is about knowing location, identity, activity and time.

Many context-aware technologies give a huge importance to location, but location is just one aspect of context, not the context. Location awareness can improve user experience, but knowing a user’s preferences and specific environment makes it all the more personal and all the more powerful. Mobile apps and devices can tap into this information, as can ad platforms, to create relevant experiences for consumers. Location is certainly important, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

There are plenty of applications that use location-awareness successfully from tracking deliveries to managing inventory or simply helping a user find their lost smartphone, or even a pet. But what if those same applications could know, not just where you are, but what you’re doing? Or better yet, what you’ll be doing or needing in the future. In that case, you’ll get a lot more targeted and helpful information rather than educated guesses.

The experts say…

According to Gartner Inc., “context-aware technologies will affect $96 billion of annual consumer spending worldwide by 2015.” In addition, the company’s research shows that by next year, 40 percent of smartphone users will opt-in to context service providers that track their activities. This would equal about 720 million people, by their count. The research company believes that transportation, utilities, energy and healthcare firms, in particular, stand to gain from these trends.

“Context-aware computing is the method by which new experiences are constructed that blend information from mobile, social, digital and physical world sources,” said William Clark, research vice president at Gartner. “The disruptions caused by context-aware computing will include major user, technology and business shifts, including the use of model-driven security in fraud detection and prevention, convergence in television, game, Web and mobile advertising, and new styles of application programming.”

He added that “organizations that do not prepare for thoughtful information sharing — balancing usage, privacy and business models of consumers, context providers, and the enterprises themselves, will be at a severe disadvantage.”

Currently, context-awareness is being leveraged by mobile applications and wearable technology such as fitness trackers from companies like Fitbit, Garmin and Nike as well as numerous smart watches like the upcoming Apple Watch, and finally, Google Glass. In the app realm, one example is Easilydo, a virtual assistant that manages your contacts, calendar and more, in much the same way that Google Now does, by learning from your actions and stored data.

These smart apps and devices are still limited in their intelligence; they only know what a user shares whether it be actively or passively. For example, location-awareness becomes a challenge when one is indoors and out of range of Wi-Fi. Beacons, standalone devices that beam Bluetooth signals, are one solution that can be seen in the retail sector, where stores can communicate with shoppers, for example. Apple has joined the game with iBeacon, which is built into its devices and OS and can communicate with compatible beacons at retailers. Additionally, apps like Placed can be used to launch apps based on which room of your house you’re in, which makes the beacon experience more personal. But there is so much more potential to be tapped in this arena.

How business benefits

On the business side, mobile ad platforms can use your location to serve ads, but they can become more targeted through user profiling. Here too, location is just one tool at their disposal. InMobi, a mobile ad network, uses context-aware technology to create “SmartAds” which exploit a user’s immediate environment to trigger relevant ads. For instance, a user checking the weather on a hot summer day might see an ad for a cold drink or an air conditioner; conversely, on a snowy day, that same user might see an for a hot drink or winter boots. Looking into the future, a platform that knows not only that a user is at a ski resort, but is actually skiing, could serve ads for nearby après ski locations, or other relevant businesses and services.

These apps and devices are only scratching the surface. Currently, all of them require at least some user intervention or prompting. Eventually, we’ll see smarter applications that can infer more about a user, digging deeper into their interests and preferences and learning from mistakes. For instance, apps could know without explicitly asking, where a user works and lives and what their regular schedule entails, and when they might need a break–almost reading one’s mind.

The possibilities are endless

Guest Post by Prima Dona, Keypoint Technologies

05/01/201505/01/2015

The Bootstrap Ride

There are many paths to successfully bootstrapping a start-up. The trick is finding the way that works best for you. Now more than two years into my journey, I want to share a few lessons I wish I had learned earlier.

I would like to share a few tips from my experiences of bootstrapping an international startup. I want to speak the reality I experienced, my personal opinions, and I do not intend to contradict what others from the industry have said. I only mean to share what I have learnt from my B2B start-up experience within my business context.

Starting-up: Find a problem that exist in a considerably large scale and is solvable. Ideate solutions that could make lives easier. A problem could exist anywhere — in your current job or existing business models. People may or may not know about it. Develop a market need. Don’t build a start-up in view of a million dollar exit. Be obsessive about what you do, aim higher, execute mid-long term plans and take it higher.

Office: You don’t need a flashy office to start with. Work from home, Starbucks & co-working spaces. It’s alright to work from anywhere as long you have a seat, decent connectivity and fewer interruptions. When you set up the office, design it with bright colours and lots of natural light. Adopt a hybrid infrastructure of open workspace & cubicles. At some point in time, when you turn profitable with adequate cash balance and have a strong cash flow — consider owning an office instead of renting. It helps to save significant dollars in the long run and build company assets.

Team building: If you have an idea that you believe in and you have the skills, get started immediately. A few dont’s:

Don’t wait on a perfect team and plan to get going; such a thing does not exist.
Don’t be fascinated about rank holders, high percentile college degrees and flattery resumes.
Don’t do meaningless interview rounds and tests.

A co-founder is not a must-have. Look for freelancers & part time workers to help you get on the road. What matters the most is if the candidate can do your job, whether has the right attitude that fits within your company culture and goals. Give part-time work; engage to get more comfortable before offering the job. Look for skilled human capital available at low cost economies and build your teams internationally. Communicate efficiently, be transparent and set the expectations clearly.

Product: Build products that could be desirable and likeable for large, yet targeted audience. There is nothing wrong with taking a legacy business model, apply modern science and improvise it to create a new business. Change is inevitable; there is always a market for disruptive solutions. Once started, run faster and not ever stop innovating it more.

Go-to-Market: Know your buyers. Short-list them, study their potential business needs corresponding to your products and prioritize accordingly. Approach them with tailored messaging. Focus on showcasing customer benefits, NOT product features. Buyers only care how you can solve their problems not your badges in the sales pitch deck. Plan to be global from day-1. Build your products and company culture for global scale. Gaining market traction should be top priority. Constantly engage with prospective buyers, form a customer council to validate your products and gather market feedbacks regularly to improve your product road map.

PR: Winning new customers is the biggest award and growing your business profitably is the best coverage for startups. Don’t waste your time on pitching into media and investing with PR agencies. Instead, use your website and social media channels to shamelessly self-promote your company, products, case studies and thought leadership. Your prospects won’t buy from you because media covers you and you are popular — they will invest in you if you have a good product with proven benefits and referencable customers. Your company will become popular if your products are useful. Grow your company with disruptive products, global customers and an innovative team. Create newer jobs and give back to the society — let journalists bump into you.

Fund raising: Think of external capital only if you need it. Be sure about why you need the money, investment plan and projected outcome. Do your homework on who you want to partner with. Convince yourself with realistic valuation of your company and practical terms you want to work with; stick to it. Be honest in your pitch deck and fund raising approach. Investors are expected to do their home work too, so don’t be afraid to correct them. If they say ‘Grand ma should understand your business’, and you don’t sell into such audience, tell them openly. Avoid investors looking for start-up lottery. Instead, find backers who promote innovation and entrepreneurship. You can’t do an enterprise startup investor pitch in 3 minutes. Stay away from 3 minutes pitching gimmicks, it’s a ticket selling tactics for startup media events. You can easily find the VC communities from Google search. Pick up the phone and call them or send them an email. Use LinkedIn & leverage reference contacts. It’s at the best, if you build your company with market traction and proven products to be in a position to choose from whom you wanted to take money, if and when you need it.

Networking: Start-up events are trendy and fashionable these days. There is a lot of noise and smoke out there. Be smart to rise above the noise. Don’t compare yours with other startups. Don’t be too excited about showy startup media. Be selective in networking events and look for agendas that can give you key take-away for your business. Remember, your ultimate goal is not to build a worldwide network of know-who, but to know those few who can complement to build your company. Invest your networking time wisely. Not all great companies are built out of startup accelerators. Many successful companies are bootstrapped, built from garages and bedrooms. Startup media publications make most of their money from their event tickets, hackathons etc. It’s severely hyped up. Be practical and selective.

Mentors: Surround yourself with like-minded people who can inspire you and give guidance; people who can introduce you to customers, partners and investors. Build an advisory board that could help you establish your network & connect with right people and open doors to money. Advisers should be fluid, review and make changes at different stages of your start-up journey.

Social: Associate yourself with entrepreneur community. Share your experience and learning with aspiring start-up entrepreneurs. Volunteer in community development projects in small ways you can. Creating new jobs through your start-up is the best contribution you can offer to the prosperity of humanity. Build a company culture to help others and give back.

Personal: Be prepared to sacrifice, compromise and tolerate. Improve your patience level as much as possible. Don’t bring emotional sentiments in customer situations. Make friends with clients. Engage in some sports. Fall in love with everything around you. Never shut down. Travel the world, it makes you richer. Stay humble.

I am the Founder and Chief Executive of Corporate360, a global leader in B2B sales intelligence data solutions. We bootstrapped and turned our business profitable with multi million dollars in revenue. C360 now has a global footprint with over 300 clients, and a successful team of 30 full-time employees and 9 contractors in five countries. I want to share what I have learned from my B2B start-up experience within my business context in the hopes that it will help others on their own journey.

Post Contributed by Varun Chandran, Corporate360

27/12/201429/12/2014

WIEF Startup Competition 2015 powered by LetsVenture

LetsVenture partners with Wharton on one of the most prestigious India-focused conferences in the US – the Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF). WIEF provides a unique platform for thought leaders to discuss the opportunities present to India and the challenges that need to be addressed.

This year, WIEF will be hosting its second India-focused Startup Competition as part of the WIEF conference in Philadelphia on Feb 21st, 2015.

LetsVenture invites startups to apply for this competition to stand a chance to win up to USD 10,000 in prize money, as well as the unique opportunity to showcase your product / service in front of a global audience comprising of angel investors, VCs, corporate leaders and serial entrepreneurs at Wharton. Apply Now

Who can apply?

The Startup Competition is open to any individual(s) (subject to the eligibility requirements) with a business idea or model incorporating products or services targeting the Indian market OR Indian products or services targeting the US market.

What is the selection process like?

Competition entries will be pre-screened by a panel of experts from the Venture Capital industry. This panel will select semi-finalists (post review of 1st round applications). Shortlisted semi-finalists will be provided with 20-minute time slots to present their ideas to the judges (via teleconference) Finalists will present their business plans to renowned Indian entrepreneurs and Venture Capital investors at the Startup Competition to be held on the day of the WIEF conference. The presentation format will consist of a 5-minute presentation and a 3-minute Q&A session.

What prizes are on offer?

Cash prizes worth up to US$10,000. One member from each team of finalists will receive a subsidized return ticket to attend the WIEF conference (where the Finals of the Startup Competition will be held) in Philadelphia, USA. Apply Now

Guest Blogpost by Kasturi Shrivastava, Let’sVenture.

10/12/201410/12/2014

8 Powerful Things I learned about “Positioning your Startup” at the iSPIRT #PlaybookRT

As a founder or technologist mired in the day-to-day tasks of product building, it’s easy to get drawn into thinking of your product as a collection of features. But do customers also see our products as a stack of features? Or do they see products as a sum of the solutions that they offer? How do we best translate our offerings into a simple and sticky pitch that piques our customers’ curiosity and gets them to purchase/sign-up?

To find a thinking toolkit to these type of questions, I attended the iSPIRT Round Table on Startup Positioning at the WebEngage office in Mumbai this Saturday along with the founders and product leaders of 14 other unique startups.

2014-12-06 16.57.35 Over six intellectually stimulating hours, all of us had our product pitches brutally critiqued by everybody else under the guiding presence of Shankar Maruwada, an ex-P&G marketing wiz and the man who got millions of Indians to sign-up for the Aadhar card.

Here are the Top 8 things I took away from the #PlaybookRT.

First, make sure you are positioning to the right customer—A startup can have multiple “customers”. The customer who will purchase and implement your product may not be the same as the one who will use it. Which one of them do you pitch to? Example—should RippleHire (an employee referral hiring tool that uses gamification) position itself to a company’s Chief Recruitment Officer who will deploy the product in his company, or to the company’s employees who will be the actual end users critical to the product’s actual usage?
Then, know your customers well—What 3-4 specific things do you know about your customer, which you can use to create a pitch? This resonated very well with me. Having interviewed a bunch of Instamojo’s customers in the past few days and quizzed them about the outcomes they were trying to achieve by using Instamojo, I had learned that “non tech-savviness” was a common characteristic among most of them. This insight suggested to me that Instamojo’s positioning should embed the fact that it requires “Zero IT Knowledge”.
Find out the customer benefits that your product delivers and communicate them—Beware of confusing features with customer benefits! Features define the tasks that a product completes. Benefits capture the outcomes that customers achieve as a result of using the features.
If your product provides multiple benefits, prioritise them in decreasing order of importance and then communicate just the one or two most essential ones in your positioning. Communicating too many benefits at the same time could make for a confusing message and take the focus away from your product’s superpowers.
Beware of the “Curse of Knowledge”—As product leaders, we are prone to become so close to the body of knowledge surrounding the product and internalise so many assumptions that we forget what it is like being the user. Positioning the product correctly requires us to place ourselves outside the realm of features, technologies, implementations and industry terminology and speak in the language of customer’s problems and our solutions to them. Example—product leaders of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software may forget that many in their target customer base may not even know what ERP stands for, though the same customers may still be facing the problems that ERP software aims to solve.
Use the power of analogies—Often, a complex concept can be explained simply using the construct “We are the X of Y”. Example—“Foodpanda is the Uber of Food Delivery.” or “Wishberry is the Kickstarter of India”. While such a construct may not always fully convey the idea, it catches you the customer’s attention enough for you to then elaborate further on how your product’s benefits make the analogy valid.
Use the power of stories—A powerful customer story can illustrate your product’s benefits and allow the target of your positioning to visualise herself in the story. Example— Apartmentadda helped an amnesiac senior citizen find his way home. His apartment complex’s security guard pinged all its residents on SMS about the lost gentleman using ApartmentAdda. Among those who received the SMS was the old man’s son, who promptly arranged for his pickup.”
Use numbers for a strong impact—What numbers can you say about your product that will help your prospective customers visualise its impact on their lives? Numbers can be about the number of customers whose lives you have changed, the number of steps (hopefully very few) it takes to get started with your product, the number of transactions your product did in the last X hours, the number of hours of customer work your product will end up saving, etc.

Guest Post by Apoorv Pandit, Sr. Product Manager, Instamojo

08/12/201408/12/2014

Head start Higher 101

‘Headstart Higher’ is an initiative by HeadStart Network Foundation. This is as a platform to connect startups to rock star people who could be their prospective employees. This is carried out in the SPEED DATING format, where all candidates meet all startups and then startups can choose to talk further to those who they find competent enough to join them. Our vision is to help startups HIRE at a HIGHER level, hence the name Higher!

Err… who is Headstart Network, by the way?

We are one of the biggest grassroots-level entrepreneurship communities in India, with presence in over 13 Indian cities. Besides organizing over 150 startup events of different scale ever year, we power India’s most popular startup mailing list and do a number of things towards building an ecosystem for startups in India. We believe entrepreneurship can positively impact India in a big way and are working towards that cause for over 5 years now.

So, what do we do at Higher?

We bring STARTUP-READY candidates closer to startups that are looking to hire great people. This is the process that we follow to achieve the same:

Invite participation from prospective candidates and startups. Get details of what the participating startups are looking for in their prospective hires.
Screen candidates based on their profiles and the requirements of the startups.
Let the startups pitch to the candidates on the day of the event.
Let the startups and candidates speed-date i.e allocate 3 minutes to each candidate with every startup and let the magic unfold!

Is this the first of its kind that we are doing?

No, we had a successful Higher session last year in Bangalore. Out of the 40 startups that attended, averages of 3.7 candidates were shortlisted by companies. Hence, this year we wish to take Higher higher, by helping a number of startups hire!

What Higher is and what it is not…

Higher is:

A platform for introductions
A platform to accumulate the right set of people together in one place.
Skillset agnostic. You will find a start-up ready developer, but not necessarily a start-up friendly Xamarin developer.

Higher is NOT:

A job fair. Only early stage startups are allowed here and we are quite particular about that.
A place where joining offer letters are handed out. They are a gateway for final joining offer letter to take place, but they may not necessarily happen.
A selective meetup. Here, every candidate meets every startup. One cannot pick and choose. We do this to make sure maximum value is derived out of the event by every candidate and every startup and it also helps us run the event in an organized fashion.

How can you participate?

Startups and candidates can register here: http://higher.headstart.in/bengaluru/

When is it happening?

This year, the event is happening on 14^th December in Bangalore.

If you have doubts/questions/clarifications, please do drop an email to siddharth.moitra@headstart.in and satish.vidyapathy@headstart.in

When is the last date for registration?

It’s 10th of December. Hurry!!!!

Guest Post by Malini Gowrishankar

02/12/201402/12/2014

The Leap from Context to Hyper-Context to add Value to the Consumer

Mobile is redefining customer engagement models. Highly personalized recommendations are possible now that companies can access location information and user behavioural data. Brands and services must leverage intelligent targeting to win customer loyalty, rev up engagement, boost conversions and most importantly, to stay competitive in the mobile-first world.

By analysing the customer journey and expectations in their moment of need, mobile applications in coming years must become smart enough to design experiences that fulfil their customers’ needs in real-time. Of the many factors that deliver an outstanding customer experience, context rules. Context-aware mobile applications understand the location and environment of the user, as well as interests and past actions.

Keeping in mind the immediacy associated with mobile, accurate data delivery is essential to enhance the consumer experience. Personalizing mobile content delivery based on users’ demographic data, preference, purchase behavioural information and context can positively influence consumer experience, which in turn strengthens engagement or purchase intention.

Context-aware mobile apps are already very common. One example is Gas Buddy, an app that helps you find nearby gas stations once you share your location. But what if apps knew more about you than simply your location? What if your apps knew what kind of car you drive or whether you prefer a window or aisle seat when traveling? Or even your favorite food? That’s when we step into the world of hyper context, where apps can store your preferences, learn from your actions, and make your life a bit easier.

As Cisco defines it “Context aware mobile applications leverage information about ‘where’ the user is. In contrast, Hyper-context aware applications move beyond just location and include ‘who’ the user is, and ‘what’ interest or past behavior the user has exhibited.”

Google Now is one such hyper-context aware application that delivers personalized and targeted recommendations for a highly positive user experiences. On the way to a meeting? Launch the app and Google Now will suggest the best route to your destination as entered in your calendar. The app optimizes your experience by alerting you to the traffic conditions along the way, suggesting alternate routes and continually updating the estimated time of arrival. The application delivers a satisfying solution to an immediate problem by understanding your context – location, time, history, intent, and other relevant information.

Another example of a context-aware application is the Cortana personal assistant for Windows 8.1 phones. Basically a cross between Siri and Google Now, Cortana will not only perform basic assistant-like tasks such as making calls, sending texts and updating your calendar, it can also help you plan ahead by predicting your needs. If you’ve planned a trip and added it to your calendar, Cortana will warn you if your flight is delayed. On a regular work day, Cortana can tell you what traffic looks like for your evening commute. Even better, Cortana can practically read your mind, reminding you when you arrive at the grocery store that you need to pick up milk, for example.

Leap from Context

Contextual Information = Better User Experience = Deeper Engagement

Making a leap from context to hyper-context, it is hyper-personalization that can be the key driving force for deeper customer engagement and an influential factor to drive conversions. Context leverages on the saying “your past influences your future,” but with hyper-context, we go further, by not only looking at your past preferences, but predicting your future needs to give better user interaction with brands and services. That’s personalization at its best.

Today, so much data is being collected from consumers whether they actively share it or passively allow it in the background. If you can serve relevant content, it turns out that consumers are willing to share some private information in return. A recent survey shows that a whopping 88 percent of participants would share their locations in order to receive coupons and offers.

Personalization is the best way to deliver relevant content to users based on their interest and also one of the best ways to influence purchase decisions. In a survey of US based consumers, 86% said that online personalized product recommendations influenced what they purchase, with 25% saying that personalization significantly influences their purchases.

Personalization Influeces Purchases

Mobile data is enabling better predictions using faster processing technology; hyper-context has arrived and will get better in the coming years. Several existing and upcoming applications are joining the Google Now and Cortana tribe and going beyond serving hyper-contextual recommendations on mobile.

Mobile has enabled us to do more, in less time and on the go. Mobile applications need to catch up; and why shouldn’t they, with so much opportunity. With mobility enhanced, there is a strong expectation from new and upcoming applications to leap from context to hyper-context.

The article is attributed to Prima Dona – VP Product Innovation, IP, Business Strategy at KeyPoint Technologies

28/11/201427/11/2014

Screeny — Delete space consuming screenshots easily!

So that you can make more space for your photos and memories.

Being a designer, one is always looking for inspirations, working on ideas, trying and testing various versions of designs, giving feedback to the team, and all of this results in an unattended collection of… screenshots!

Using a 16GB iPhone a year and a half back, I asked a question on twitter “Is there an easy way to delete all my screenshots?” All answers led to a long process of connecting to iPhoto and filtering the photos and screenshots, primarily because iOS did not allow delete access to the core camera roll. That however changed with iOS8 and thats when we built our own app called Screeny. (that too in Swift!)

Screeny’s sole purpose is to find screenshots and give the user an ability to delete them easily. Why do I delete screenshots? Because it was taken at one point of time — to share, review or point out something and then forgotten over time.

From a design standpoint we wanted to keep it super simple. The value addition to someone using Screeny, is not about how many screenshots have we found out, but how much space we can save for you. Which means more space for your photos (of cats) and memories with friends and family.

The next part is reviewing the screenshots themselves. You can select and delete them all! That said, there are times when you are working on a project and need them as references or for reviews/feedback. So we added in filter criterias which allow you to select all screenshots, except for the last 15 or 30 days. Shake to unselect all? YES!

Screeny3

Could we have given the ability to delete all photos and not just screenshots? Yes. But I did not want that. Somehow photos are more precious to me. We know photos consume space and the space in your phone is limited. So we subtly indicate, that there are photos which are older than 3 months and are consuming xxx(GBs?) space. So you can take a backup and delete those photos if you wish.

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Screeny is available in the AppStore and we would love you to check it out and give us your feedback. If you think some of your friends need this app do share it with them as well ☺

Guest Post by Sonaal Bangera, EffectWorks.

24/11/201424/11/2014

Tax challenges being faced by the(SPI)Software Product Industry and Budget Recommendations made by iSPIRT.

With the budget closing in on the industry there are hectic conversations to represent the Software Product Industry in the right manner in the Ministry of Finance. The tax issues both on the Indirect Tax and Direct Tax have been plaguing the Industry for a long time and this hangout addresses the things which need to be done very well. The Indepth Knowledge of Bharat Goenka (Tally Solutions) and the moderation done by Sumeet Kapur(Employwise) leads to an in-depth conversation on the Tax issues.

Bharat divides the two issues into, First, the Direct Tax about TDS the why and when it should be applied along with Industry perspective, the second issue was Indirect Tax – the confusion around excise and service tax relating to products and its definition and applicability of VAT .

It becomes important to introduce the Constitutional Framework under Indirect taxes which broadly talks about Manufacturing and Services being taxed by the centre and anything that is traded is taxed by state.

Confusion arises around “Service” and “Right to Service”. Whereas “service” is not tradable a “Right to Service” when sold is a tradable e.g. a Mobile phone service being provided by a Telco is a service where as when a vendor sells a recharge coupon he is selling “Right to Service” that actually will be provided by the said Telco.

Hence, under this concept of “Right to Service” tends to be tradable until the service is rendered and not after it is consumed, because the title to right to service is nor more existing after consumption. Service is therefore treated as tradable commodity thus qualifying for VAT in states and the Center charging service tax, this leads to invoicing for both VAT and Service tax on a software product.

What is needed is clarity on the issue of tradability of service as “goods” and “service delivery” as “service”.

GST will bring in changes but the taxes will be shared between states and center. GST it self may not fully solve the problem of duality of tax on software products. The problem of duality on VAT and service shall be sorted out only when there is clarity on “Right to Service” as a tradable commodity and “service” is achieved.

We as an Industry need to help Government formulate a distinction between “Service” and “Right to Service” as a tradable, so as to do away the duplicity of VAT and Service Tax so that service tax is charged only on part of service and VAT only on tradable value added portion if and when a service is traded further by channel partners of the service provider.

Direct Taxes (TDS)

Sumeet introduced an issue on TDS. Primarily a TDS made by payers to software company leaves less cash on the money collected. This is mainly for software product which sold leaves the product company with 10% less cash on the money collected.

Bharat mentioned that Software despite being a tradable product is the only product that is subject to TDS. This creates a bigger problem for the young companies and growing industry as early years do not allow you the sufficiency of profits.

We need to bring in front of Industry that no trading activity should attract TDS. Also that by doing away TDS the Government is allowing the profitability and business growth thereby allowing more business to happen and widening the tax base eventually.

Sumeet was of the view that, if software product companies are being subject to a TDS there should be Tax credits available on service tax so that the cash availability to businesses can be balanced.

Bharat added yes we can represent to the Government on this that either give me an input credit or refund TDS on day I file my return. Sumeet added that refund must be done even if there is a scrutiny.

Pramod from Nucleus Software added that in an event the question of Duplicity of VAT and service tax was raised to the Revenue Secretary, who showed his inability to do away with duplicity on tax as VAT is a state subject.

Conclusion

Many of the changes in law have come in past few decades and there was a lack in taking the cause to Government or lack of sufficient clarity in helping Government to clearly define distinction between Goods and Services and to separate out Right to Service being traded verses Services.

Bharat Concluded by saying, in the present efforts done to represent to government, we are looking at adequacy of clarity and this clarity is much needed even if the GST is coming to solve the issues and problem in this regard.

Tax challenges being faced by the (SPI)Software Product Industry and Budget Recommendations made by iSPIRT from ProductNation.in

The detailed budget recommendations can be seen here.

With Inputs from Sudhir Singh, ExcelICT

20/11/201420/11/2014

UxNow ~ Nickel o Wonder : The Design Conference

“It was a rainy day. Everyone in the family was relaxing and I, in my cuddling days, was sketching scenery with mountains, birds and rivers. I filled my clipart with all the colors I wished for and stroked in every direction with the freedom unrestricted. Upon finishing my drawing, I jumped and jacked straight to my granny and she, with all the worldly affection, patted my shoulder and gifted me a cent as a token of appreciation. Back then, the twinkle in my eyes was shining bright and it was just the onset of the creativity in me.”

~Anonymous

Is that a walk past the memory lane? Off course! The semblance of this sweet memory is locked safe in everyone’s account. Isn’t it? So, what if we invite you to unlock and unhide the very childlike streak in you? Are the twinkles in the eyes coming back with a smile?

And now that we know you are smiling, here we go!

Mark your calendar for 28th November 2014 as MakeMyTrip, celebrating the sprit of World Usability Day, brings you UxNow, a conference focused on this year theme of “User Engagement”. World Usability Day is conducted each year in November with an aim to bring professionals, researchers and academicians to work towards simplifying products and services

UxNow aims to provide a multidisciplinary platform for designers, academicians, entrepreneurs & developers to discuss the challenges and potential solutions for effective interaction with and through web and mobile devices, applications, and services.

A one-day conference with exciting talks, chatter, networking lunch and a roundtable panel discussion provides participants plenty of real-world examples along with actionable takeaways.

Checkout the event site & agenda at: http://uxnow.org

To set the ball rolling, we have also started a design challenge where both students and professionals are invited to create products and services that can revolutionize the travel industry. To know more about the challenge please visit the website

UXNOW As it was once said, “A creative adult is a child who has survived”. So what are you waiting for? See you on 28^th Nov ’14 under the umbrella of UXnow. Let us together revisit the creative child in us in our very own NCR and we promise that you would ‘Rediscover’ the shining Nickel for the wonder inside.

Come ready, devices charged. We’ve got a packed day!

Yes!! Your very, Nickel o Wonder!

Guest Post by Dushyant Arora, Head – User Experience & Design at MakeMytrip

07/11/201407/11/2014

Get to Learn from @Zoho – Zoholics: India, Nov 20-21, Bengaluru

We have been around for the last 18 years, making software for businesses around the world. At Zoho, software is our craft and our passion. Our people spend years mastering the craft, and their handiwork are the 30+ products that we now offer. With more than 10 million users across the world, we are one of the largest IT product companies based out of India. This journey has taught us many things, and we are ready to share our experience with you.

We are holding our first-ever event in India on Nov 20 and 21 at The Ritz Carlton in Bengaluru. At Zoholics: India, we will share our story and talk about creating world-class products, and selling them to a global audience, from India.

Other sessions include, product vs services mindset, engineering products, running a business on a budget, whether to take VC money or not, and much more. To view the full agenda, click here.

Join us at Zoholics:India, to learn, share and explore the Indian innovation in IT, through the lens of Zoho.

Who should attend and why

Entrepreneurs and Startups: It does not matter what business you do. Business apps can greatly increase your productivity and help you streamline various processes. This will leave you free to do what you love. At Zoholics:India, you can learn about which tech-tools are best suited for your business, how to position your product in the international market, and whether taking venture capital is good for your business or not.

Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Learn about various opportunities in the local market and how to create world-class products and sell them to a global audience, from India. Also find out how to capture the attention of an increasingly mobile-centric world.

CXOs and Managers: Discover some of the best practices in online marketing for selling to a global audience out of India. Know about the market trends and opportunities.

Technology Geeks: Learn about cloud-based technology and how it is affecting the local market. Find out more about business apps and latest trends.

Business and Technology Analysts: At Zoholics, we will discuss product vs services mindset, how college credentials are of little value as the real learning happens at the workplace, market trends and much more. Also, use this opportunity to learn more about the cloud market in India.

To register, log on to ZOHOICS India website. Use the discount code: ISP to avail a 15% discount.

Guest post by Raju Vegesna, ZOHO

31/10/201431/10/2014

Exploring Mobile Moments and Building a Consumer Strategy for your App

It’s all about delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. Today mobile offers us this capability to capture, analyse and execute in real-time on users immediate needs. Mobile is the disruptive force that is here to change long standing business models. When building a consumer strategy for your app, it is important to understand that the journey to business success begins with the consumers.

Influential factor of brand messages and services increases when the message caters to the consumer’s need, preferences, and context.

Engagement and incentives can make mobile moments more memorable.

mobile moments Brand experience must be pleasant and relevant to your consumers’ experience. However, marketers need to look beyond demographic, location specific or personal preferences and execute more on better targeting options like hyper-context. Hyper-context applications delve deeper in contextual understanding, going a step ahead to combine context with users past behaviours and preferences and to even predict the users’ need in the next moment. A personalized mobile experience that enriches consumer experience can augment favourable attitude toward a brand message, increasing purchase intention and significantly add to a company’s bottom line.

Consumer strategies on mobile must focus on improving engagement with consumers in their mobile moment – defined by Forrester as:

A mobile moment is a point in time and space when someone pulls out a mobile device to get what he or she wants immediately, in context.

The faster companies and marketers adapt to giving contextual experiences to their users the faster they would be able to keep pace with their competitors who are already engaging with their mobile consumers.

Starbucks of US has emerged as a clear leader in catering to consumers in their mobile moments of need. Building a strong loyalty program (My Starbucks Rewards), when members pay via smartphone, they get to redeem their awards for free drinks and food. Talking revenue, the rewards for the company has been huge: “The Starbucks app is on track to process over $1.5 billion in payment volume in the U.S. in 2014.”(Via Business Insider)

Adding on to their brand experience, Starbucks recently announced that they are ‘working on an order-ahead mobile application this year in a bid to speed up service and boost sales.’ The app will allow users to place their order before they arrive, reducing their wait time thereby adding to a more positive experience at their stores. Starbucks, through its successful consumer strategy has established a strong message on how influential factor of brand messages and services increases when the service caters to the consumer’s need, preferences, and context.

With a truly mobile-first Indian market, there is an unprecedented opportunity for marketers and brands to reach out to mobile users and capitalize through new innovative platforms that leverage on the mobile moments of consumers. According to Gartner the Indian eCommerce market will reach $6 billion in 2015 a 70 percent increase over 2014 revenue of $3.5 billion. The report cites the biggest challenge is in ‘getting the business digital commerce strategy right and adequate investments in people, process and technology to engage with customers across channels, which has been ignored by Indian enterprises so far.’

Brands and marketers must focus on creating a strong consumer strategy to increase customer connection and customer delight to overcome this challenge. Engagement and incentives can make mobile moments more memorable and add to measurable revenue growth and improved customer loyalty.

Insights for creating a better mobile experience

The App Publishers need to understand their consumers’ intent and patterns. Once the app publishers identify these patterns and intents and analyse the need and behaviour, it will further help to pre-target user with relevant services, information and content. For example in iOS 8, users can take quick actions in response to a push notification like – accepting an invitation to a party, one-click offers on sensor enabled shoes which indicate a wear outAnother big step in this direction is Google’s step towards indexing mobile app intents/pages. This aids fastest hop discoveries of apps and services from one app to another. With such innovations, it gives marketers a hyper-moment of opportunity to make itself relevant and visible to users when they are in a moment of need.

Another scenario is about enabling a user looking for second hand cars via search, online discussions with friends etc discover great deals catering to his needs and specific to his location while conversing. It is a hyper-moment where the users’ needs have been seamlessly met by just a click, and on the go. Mobile apps have opened up brilliant opportunities to connect consumers and brands in the mobile moment.

Conclusion

Creating such mobile moment, a user can be given the fastest service to solve his need at that instance and helping simplify the process of buy and sell. Apps which are able to weave this intelligence into their offerings will succeed in connecting to consumers in enriching and positive ways. This will not only delight the consumer but will also benefit brands.

Contributed to Ms. Prima Dona – VP Product Innovation, IP, Business Strategy at KeyPoint Technologies

17/10/201417/10/2014

Early Stage Start-up? Your Chance to Get Market-Ready and Mentored by the Best Brains in the Business!

After a successful launch in 2013, TiE Bangalore’s AnthahPrerana is back with a bang! It is not another business plan competition. Think of it as an idea booster. We pick the 10 best unfunded startups in commercial and social sectors, mentor them and get them market ready for exponential growth.

Last year, the who’s who of the Indian start-up ecosystem like Mohandas Pai, K. Ganesh, Krishnakumar Natarajan and Ashish Gupta picked the most promising ideas that TiE Bangalore began nurturing. Out of the 10 winners from last year, 2 have already gotten funding: Tourlandish was accepted into the Dreamit Ventures incubator in NYC and TouchStone Equities invested in Channelyst.

This year, we are partnering with Let’s Venture and IIM, Bangalore to deliver personalized help to our winners! We have assembled another high-powered jury comprising of acclaimed IIM, Bangalore faculty, successful serial entrepreneurs and start-up experts at TiE Bangalore to select and mentor a new batch of start-ups.

Selection Criteria:

0-3 years old companies
No angel or VC funding
Financially viable, for-profit ideas

What Do We Offer? (All for FREE!)

Showcase your idea to investors and start-ups gurus on Grand Gala Recognition night
Get highlighted on the extensive angel investor platform of our partner Let’s Venture
2-day ‘boot camp’ with renowned mentors at our partner IIM, Bangalore’s campus
Automatic entry into our 90-day TiE-Turbo program with the best mentors in town

Key Dates:

October 31^st, 2014: Deadline for applications (Apply now!)
November 27^th, 2014: Announcement of winners
December 5^th, 2014: Grand Gala Recognition night
January, 2015: 2-day boot camp at IIM, Bangalore
February – April 2015: TiE-Turbo mentorship program

Guest Post by Kunal Kashyap, TiE Banglaore