ProductNation

08/11/201208/11/2012

First Day of NPC 2012 a Roller Coaster between Hope and Reality

A broad sweep of the first day of the NASSCOM Product Conclave gives rise to emotions of a day that rose in energy, stayed sober at the reality picture,
and then gave a reason for cheer as the day drew to a close.

On the shore of Big Blue ocean breakfast session opened up the world of possibilities for Indian product technology. IBM-mers Peter Coldicott (Chief Product Architect), Robert High (IBM Fellow in IBM Watson), and Daniel Yellin (Enterprise Mobility Chief Engineer) perhaps gave a thunderous opening. What products can do and how it can envelope the whole world in its embrace was shown by these three IBMmers. While Robert High showed his project of deciphering human language to understand behaviour to solve people’s problems, using huge chunks of articles data to arrive at solutions for health problems using NLM and cognitive science techniques, Peter Coldicott took “Smart” control of the cities, traffic, commerce, and manufacturing to usher in a Smarter Planet. These two endeavours redefine the role of technology in solving the outstanding problems of humanity and governments. For example, Smarter Traffic will help you negotiate the city traffic by understanding how traffic is regulated and data on what’s real on the road. Daniel Yellin’s mobility solutions through apps would reconfigure enterprise functioning. While IBM is engaged with the whole planet (as it seems to be), Indian product entrepreneurs are just sensing the opportunity on the horizon.

Sharad Sharma’s passionate opening in calling product entrepreneurs transformers of the society gave a sense of purpose beyond the lure of money that gets one to business. His even bolder prediction of product software eliminating poverty gave rise to cheer. “The product entrepreneurs will rule” proposition put product technology on a pedestal. NASSCOM President Som Mittal’s emphasis on the enabling role of NASSCOM by its various initiatives such as it entering into an MOU with SIDBI for risk capital funding of SMEs promised hope. M. Rangsami’s Westward view (or call it Silicon Valley view) of Indian product landscape becoming affordable for millions gave it a mainstream leaning, given that still product entrepreneurship languishes for lack of attention save a few niche communities and select media coverage.

This glorified image was enhanced by Naveen Tiwari’s three mantras of building a billion dollar company. InMobi’s commanding success ranking next only to Google in mobile advertising is a reason for celebration of Indian product entrepreneurship. His trillion ads making $2 billion business impact was transporting us to a dizzy world of big numbers. And the global reach of InMobi in 165 countries employing people of 28 nationalities, less than half of them Indian, gave it a healthy gloss. “We take pride that this company is out of India,” said Naveen, taking with him the aspirations of more than 1200 plus delegates, a major chunk of them product entrepreneurs, to a dizzying high.

The Reality
Soon the hopes that rose high with the keynotes, especially the exuberant one by Tim Paries of Yahoo! on design, surrendered to the reality of so much work left to be done to reach where IBM is today probably taking control of the planet through technology. Product business for Indian SMB market is not VC-fundable, said Pari Natarajan of Zinnov backed by data. The potential user base dramatically shrinks when reality calculations are added. That comes to something like 2000 users in the leather SMB microcluster, for example. Pivoting is not an easy task given various factors such as motivation of employees and financial health of a company. It is a tough and hard decision that product entrepreneurs need to make. “Pivoting is like changing a punctured tyre in a moving vehicle,” said Ashish Kashyap of Ibibo.com, reflecting the real challenges in changing directions of a company.

The failure unconference session by Dorai Thodla attracted a sizeable number of participants willing to pour out. If you started counting failures of product startups, maybe that would make you feel depressed. The rate is high but that’s changing. Product entrepreneurs are evolving to treat failure as a hiccup and move ahead by pivoting or reinventing. The ecosystem is playing a stellar role in holding the entrepeneur’s hope. The sense of issues debated at the unconference as cofounder leaving, developing product before testing the market, and taking care of finance well ahead showed the maturity level of product entrepreneurs in understanding the rough and tumble of this journey. In a typical session like this, a few would have huddled together to exchange views and that’s what Dorai expected. But the huge turnout was a surprise to him but hidden in that was the aspiration of the product entrepreneur to learn from failures that characterizes the entrepreneurial journey.

Raghav Sood, a 15-year-old 10th grader, is the hope of the future. Along with him Thrisha, a 11-year-old, ruled the stage as Archana Rai, the Economic Times journalist, engaged them in a conversation, another novelty to this year’s program. Raghav has now uploaded 8 apps on the Android platform, has authored a book about augmented reality in Android (another book signed up for user interface), and is founder of Appoholics, Inc. What Raghav has done could be dismissed as a genius among a million but if you watched the media closely, reports of teens developing apps are finding a noticeable mention. Some come on the surface and that’s what we think. This holds immense hope for the future as product technology will grow to occupy a prominent position in the Indian technology space in the time frame of 15 years that Sharad Sharma predicted. Together with an army of young entrepreneurs who would have tasted success with app development in their teens, there is a possibility for a robust growth of the Indian product space. Girls like Thrisha, who is developing an app, also lead to your thinking of women playing a greater role in the future. Women delegates were seen in good numbers and that should be an indication of the interest of women in this space.

Founder to CEO
Naeem Zafar gave a realistic account of the role of CEO in his engrossing presentation with a humour embellishment on how founders should be prepared to become CEOs. This transition is perhaps the difficult phase for a founder of an enterprise. But beyond a scale, the founder should make way for an executive better equipped with skills to take the company forward. In this discussion, Prof. Zafar dwelt upon the challenges of a CEO and the focus.

In my view, save the sessions where I did not have an opportunity to participate, the product space has become less inhibiting to test, more
supportive to grow, and, given the holistic dimension of ushering in a better world that IBM has shown the way, it is the future for the world of
depleting resources.

Contributed by Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy, Product Ecosystem Enthusiast

07/11/201208/11/2012

NASSCOM Product Conclave 2012 Reflects the Arrival of a Vibrant Product Ecosystem in India

The kind of conversations that you heard around product companies are changing. From an ambitious “billion dollar companies” born out of India (the overarching goal of NASSCOM Product Conclave last year), the focus is shifting to the bold prediction of product software’s robust growth, in the coming decade and half, eliminating poverty. In his opening remarks, Sharad Sharma, NASSCOM Product Chair (who I hear across the board is an inspiration to the whole community of product guys) called product entrepreneurs by labels as aggressive as “arms merchants” and “disruptors.” He went on to make a bold prediction: “product industry will lift India out of poverty.” He sought to portray Cloud as instrumental in product space becoming an affordable, productive, and collaborative space that would transform public health centres and schools in India.

Reflecting the evolution of NPC, Som Mittal, President of NASSCOM, said that NPC is a great platform to compete and collaborate. He also revealed that NASSCOM is entering into an MoU with SIDBI to provide risk capital to small companies, which would include IP-led product companies. (SIDBI was provided a fund of Rs. 500 crores in the Union budget for investing in SMBs.) He saw angels, investors, and incubators becoming active in the product ecosystem. Mr. Mittal’s statement that CIOs were open to buying from startups should give product entrepreneurs a sweet ring in the ear.
M.R. Rangasami, co-host of NPC 2012, saw three phases of evolution of the product industry in India: mimicking US to get funding initially, growth of enterprise software in the next decade, followed mobile and Cloud computing causing a paradigm shift in this decade. He was optimistic that software products offered at low price points offered by product entrepreneurs (leveraging the Cloud) will be consumed by thousands of customers.
Naveen Tiwari’s Leap of Faith

In a sort of answer to the overarching question of a billion dollar business emerging from India (the same time around last year when Flipkart was rumoured to have obtained a billion dollar valuation), InMobi, a mobile advertising ecosystem player, has emerged as perhaps the biggest company to grow out of India in the last 5 years. Naveen Tiwari’s keynote should be remembered for something alien to product entrepreneurs in India: talking numbers that are in the million and billion range—a trillion ads providing $2 billion worth of economic transactions, reaching 80 million people across 165 countries. The mercurial growth of InMobi has been made possible by the “Think Big” approach of the team and not being complacent with the present status. The company is devising methods to grow five to ten times in the 5 years from now. Naveen Tiwari said that massive scale happens with huge risks and the InMobi team was willing to bet on it. Aiming big, going global, and hiring the best are the three mantras Naveen Tiwari proposed to build a similar company in India.

Ram Shriram’s Bet on Mobile and Tim Parsey’s REM
The man with the Midas touch could not touch down at Bangalore as personal commitment stayed him put in the United States. Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures who delivered the keynote on video sought to paint a glorious future for mobile phone-based innovations going by the sheer number of them. (An exclusive coverage will be done on his address.)

As M. Rangsami announced the TED-like speech of Tim Parsey of Yahoo!, who has changed seven domains and as many companies, it brought a fresh whiff of outside air. Instead of thinking inside, this change of thinking by organizers to bring in someone with a different perspective seemed to have carried well. Tim Parsey gave an absorbing, exuberant keynote on design being important for products. Using the bicycle as an example of his REM framework, he translated the evolution of bicycle to products within the REM framework. Rational value, Emotional, and Meaningful are important components of the design, in Tim Parsey’s philosophy. A rational value in terms of performance and new capabilities, designing for feeling, classic minimalist, and ultraminimalist (appealing emotionally) styles, and being meaningful (aligning to values and evoking personal memories) make a product appealing to the customer. The design principles and design culture should be enticing for the employees as well as end customers for whom the product is aimed at, he emphasized.

So many of them, which one to go?—Indian SMB market too small
End of keynotes opened up to six parallel sessions and thankfully one was cancelled. The sheer excitement of peeping into several sessions would have satiated the delegate but wouldn’t have had a carry on their learning. Color codes in the Agenda clearly showed the prospective audience base for the sessions. If I would have made a point of covering them all, I would have left the readers disappointed with piecemeal quotes that wouldn’t serve purpose. I stayed on with one session per slot. In a curiosity to understand the Indian market, I walked in with a lot of hope of three wise men telling us how Indian market so big as an ocean could be tamed with a magic wand. In the end, despite “doom and gloom” sought to be avoided, Indian market despite millions of potential customers turns to be less attractive for a product entrepreneur if segments are suitably sliced. Pari Natarajan of Zinnov showed the microcluster of leather SMEs finally boiling down to 2000 users. Terming product business in India for SMBs non-VC fundable (implying lack of scale), Pari however said e-commerce is a robust segment. Naru Narayanan, investor, mentor, and former executive selling retail products across India, cautioned the lure of big numbers. He sought to convey that any big number showcased should be treated with caution and provided his guestimate method of arriving at a rational figure. Vijay Anand put the conversation in perspective by bringing down the glorious 900 million mobile users to an active 300 million (multiple SIMs being the discounting factor). Despite the promise of the billion plus, Indian market is yet to become technophilic. Technology touches a niche and not yet mainstream.

This led me to a conversation with Kishore Mandyam of PK4 Software, who led a panel on AWSME Survey, the Nielsen survey commissioned by NASSCOM to look into the SMB market in India. This is an awareness survey by NASSCOM to understand what ails the SMBs in terms of buying software. In over a 1000 SMBs surveyed, it was known that only 30% of SMB owners were approached by a software provider and for example in Kochi, 86% of SMBs were not approached. Out of them, only 9% know the term Cloud computing. To make SMBs adopt technology massively, NASSCOM mandated this survey to drive its Software Laga Do Yaar! Mission. The survey will be used to further enhance the market penetration of software by understanding pain points, influencers, and decision makers by a follow-up engagement perhaps by using case studies to influence buying decisions.

Pivoting is painful is what I got to understand in the panel discussion on pivoting. Naveen Tiwari, Ashish Kashyap of Ibibo, Rajat Agarwalla of RJ Softwares were engaged in a panel led by Shruthi Chella of Groupon. Instituting pivot as part of culture is next to impossible. Pivoting in a small company is easier whereas in a big company, it is first tested within a small group before massive adoption. Customer needs, market opportunities, and competitive advantage drive pivoting. Ashish called pivoting as “changing punctured tyre of a car in motion.”

As the afternoon set in and more sessions awaited, the delegates swarmed the lunch area exchanging contact details and engaged in conversations.

Contributed by K. Venkatesh, VirtualPaper for YourStory.in

07/11/201207/11/2012

Building a great product takes time and happens over a number of years…

Getting patented has immense aspirational value for product developers, but it is a long drawn process and takes normally anything between 5-8 years. Our story this time is about how a bunch of very intelligent individuals, who got together to build a product and have it patented within two years. If it is aspirational to have a patent against one’s name, it is certainly inspirational, the time frame in which it was achieved.

We got talking to Anand, who is based out of Bangalore, and was only 15-days old at Vigyanlabs handling the marketing activities there. The passion with which he spoke, belied his short stint and seemed as if he had spent his entire lifetime in the organisation. Shortly thereafter, we were joined by Srini & Vatsa, the founders of Vigyanlabs. Hugely experienced, cumulatively they both have 50 + years (Vatsa 30 + & Srini more than 20) of building products and software architecture in very large organisations like HP, IBM & Hughes Network Systems. Both had held senior positions in HP, where Vatsa was the Chief architect, and with Srini later, went on to hold Senior Technical Positons at Dell-Perot, just before starting Vigyanlabs. Vatsa had also worked in Processor Systems India, where he did some very innovative and cutting-edge work. These would prove to be building blocks, someday. A very potent combination indeed, which helped file 9 Patents. Slowly but surely the spirit of building an Indian product was taking shape.

Early days:

After calling it quits with their present employers, the duo spent two weeks in just defining Vision & Mission of the company that they would build, and establishing short-term & long-term goals. This brainstorming session helped them in creating the DNA : It was going to be an innovative Science & Technology Organisation; it would focus on green technology and social responsibility to be a key driver. All this would be achieved by harnessing the power of teamwork. The customer and his needs would be primary to all business concerns. A deep-dive helped identify the three major problems that the world was facing: Food, Environment & Energy. The seeds were sown – it would be a Science & Technology company where IT would play a vital role.

Vigyanlabs would primarily focus on : Consulting, Architecture & Design and aim to solve problems related to food, environment & energy. The name itself was very Indian and spoke of the future, The “Science” of it, being right here. Vigyan.

Ideation:

After much study and prior experience, the team soon identified a “hole” in the market and a plausible approach to address the same. Efficient power management was still not very popular in India. The existing solutions were not upto the mark and this was evident, the way laptops consumed power. The battery would get heated and run out sooner than desired, putting user at a disadvantage. The higher income group consumed a lot of power through a freakish number of gadgets and electronic devices. The wastage was huge and put immense pressure on the environment as a whole. This was early 2009, and out of an Incubation Centre in Mysore, was born the idea which took shape and one day be the product IPMPlus.

The concept that was used to build this product had widespread usage and would be extended to other industries as well. In the US markets, patents were filed for something similar, but not so India. It was built around power consumption and its optimization in laptops – all this without causing any obstruction in the normal flow of work. Intelligent Power Management Plus was about maintaining user experience.

The Passion:

For Srini and Vatsa, it was always about building an Indian product which aimed at fulfilling the vision and mission of the company. They found obvious role models in the likes of Ratan Tata and Sir M. Visvesvaraya, who is also a Bharat Ratna awardee – the doyens of innovative thinking in this country.

Wow Moments:

The Beta version itself helped a customer save 40% on energy cost and the need to come out with a marketable version was even more palpable. Within two years of filing for patents, the founders got it done, a record of some sorts, which normally takes anything upto 5 years or even more.

Marketing Outreach & Strategy:

The stretch has been to create a global footprint and get the product onto the AppStores so it can be used with Android, Apple and Windows applications. The other initiative, is integrating with device OEMs and capture a major chunk of the market. On the Enterprise segment, tablets and servers opened a whole new world of opportunity. Just to give an example of how big the problem really is, the amount of power consumption in large organisations is enough to even run a small town, cited in a recent NYT article. Large businesses have 50 – 100 data centres and do not have many tools which harness power optimisation.

Key Learning:

Building a great product takes time and happens over a number of years. The gestation period is long and during this time patience and sustainability is what really matters. Unlike the Valley, the market in India is not so matured and there is an initial resistance to try out Indian products. Somehow product developers should aim to break that. Finally good products come through good people – who are technically sound, who you can trust and who have the business acumen too.

01/11/201208/12/2023

What is that we have to build?

Every now and then, we hear people arguing about building “Microsoft” and “Google” of India. Companies like Microsoft, Google have built up incredible technologies and their contributions in improving our life is significant. When started, they started with big vision, a tough and relevant problem to solve, and brilliant team behind the vision. While I cannot look into minds of founders of those companies and say what they were thinking, the problems they chose to solve had enormous relevance and potential at their time and place.

When some people talk of building product companies, they want to build another “Facebook”, another “Google”, etc. And some people want to build “Valley” here in Bangalore or Hyderabad. If all we’re doing is trying to build another “Google”, replicate ecosystem of “Silicon Valley” here in an Indian city, sorry people. Your attempts are futile. Suppose we go to Kashmir, and like apples very much there. We come back to Karnataka, want to grow apples. Can we grow apples here? No. Climate, and soil conditions in Karnataka is different from that of Kashmir. If we are still trying to grow apples in Karnataka, we’re just wasting our time and effort. But Karnataka grows sandalwood. This is a tree that grows here very well. And we can grow best Sandalwood in the world.

Don’t mistake the analogy here. I’m in no way suggesting that Indians can’t build a technological giant such as Google or Facebook. What I mean is, we should not build product companies for the sake of it. If you can solve a problem really well without building a product, and build a great business out of it, that should be the way. When we’re building a company or building ecosystems, we’ve to encourage startups to be best in what they are building or doing. It doesn’t really matter after a point if you are building a product or offering a service, what matters is quality of your work. It should solve real problems of the people. In doing so, it only makes sense to utilize existing ingredients of ecosystem to the fullest.

What we should aim at is building a culture of solving problems and solving efficiently. To solve a big tough problem, if we’ve have to build a product for that, we’ll build a product. If we’ve to invent, we’ll invent. If we have to offer an innovative service, we’ll do that. Once we start solving big problems, once we start setting standards of excellence in everything we do, may be we’ll realize product companies are by-products.

Guest Post Contributed by Mahesha Hiremath, Boson Research

19/10/201222/10/2012

NPC is the most successful volunteer driven conference in India…Sharad is yet another volunteer.

In recent years the Indian Software Product industry has seen exponential growth in terms of revenue and people. The industry has matured to a state where numerous entrepreneurs have built successful companies that are becoming household names! Our mission this year is not only to inspire and motivate entrepreneurs but to also impart knowledge and grow their skills to become global players.

We’re bringing together actual practitioners from the global and Indian product industry, serial entrepreneurs, CIOs, investors, customers, VCs and angel investors who will formally and informally network with the delegates and provide them useful insights. The Conclave is the biggest platform for entrepreneurship in India as evidenced by the 1,400 people who attended last year. Listen to Sharad’s 3 point theory..

15/10/201216/10/2012

Let the world know about your software product

You’ve spent months and days and hours conceptualizing your product and then taking it to market. You’ve won the first few customers who are now stable and you’re thinking about what next…if you’ve achieved this, it’s time to show your product to the world.

The NASSCOM Product Conclave LaunchPAD is the place you should be to demonstrate your product and recount your journey from CONCEPT to REALITY. We’re inviting a select community to hear about you and your product. Won’t you come?

A day before NASSCOM Product Conclave kicks-off in Bangalore (November 6, 2012), we are pleased to host an exclusive interactive session with the media, blogger and analyst community where you have the opportunity to launch your new product and enjoy your moment in the spotlight. Last year we had some of the crème-de-la-crème of press attending the event and reporting it in the print and online media.

Who is eligible?
If you are an Indian software product company that has a software product in the market for at least six months and has at least one revenue generating (not beta!) customer, then you are eligible to participate. Apply for the Product LaunchPAD here before October 25, 2012.

What happens next?
NASSCOM shortlists eligible companies and informs them by October 30, 2012 Present your software product to the media at an exclusive event.

Publish a booklet containing information about your company and software product which will be circulated to the media and available online on the NASSCOM Product Conclave website. Opportunity to interact with a focused group of professionals and hear their feedback on your product.

Some of the folks who will help us short-list some great Products are:



Amit Somani,	Arun Katiyar,	Suresh Sambandam

Need further help?
If you need advice on how to structure your launch pitch or presentation, then please do let us know. Also we have many curated sessions at product conclave to help you take your software product initiatives even further. If you haven’t registered, then do so NOW!

See you at the NASSCOM Product Conclave – the place to connect with Indian Products Ecosystem.

12/10/201212/10/2012

NH7 Launches Festival Guide Mobile App – Festivapp At #NAMA

NH7.in, the music streaming and discovery platform focused on independent music, has launched a mobile festival guide app called ‘Festivapp‘. The app was showcased at #Alpha, the product and startup showcase at #NAMA conference.

Festivapp is currently available as a free download on the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store and allows one to discover festivals/events in India and attend them. The company states that these festivals can either be cultural, literary, music or a film festivals.

Registration: We tried the app on a Galaxy Nexus and noticed that the app currently allows one to login either through Facebook or Twitter account credentials, following which they are redirected to the app homepage, which features all the upcoming festivals in the country. One can choose a festival of their preference to browse through more information about it, including information like venue, genre, pricing and festival dates.

Festival Wall: In each of the festival listings, there is something called a ‘festival wall’ which offers a stream of updates being posted from that specific event. These updates include organizer announcements, updates from their friends, and event related updates syndicated from social networking sites like Twitter and Instagram. The wall also features a pull-to-refresh feature and has a countdown clock that counts down to the start of the festival in days, hours and minutes.

The app also allows one to post updates directly to the festival wall. We also noticed that one can either choose to make their updates public or private to their friends. It also offers an option to auto-share their updates on Facebook or Twitter.

Photobooth: The festival wall also allows users to upload pictures from the event. What’s interesting though is that users can add photo effects and virtual items to these photographs. The company saysthat these effects will be themed around the Festival.

Besides this, the app also features a slider menu which allows one to head over to any specific section of the event like announcements, schedule, artists, and travel information among others.

At the time of writing this article, we noticed that the app featured more options for NH7′s own events like NH7 Weekender, including the ability to buy festival tickets from within the app, check out nearby places including restaurants and bars, and find accommodation near to the venue. It also offered guides on things to do at the festival and around the venue. We hope that the company rolls out these features to other festival listings as well, in the future.

Original Post –

07/10/201208/10/2012

Product/Market Fit and Why Startups Should Care

Most successful products go through two distinct phases 1) product/market fit 2) growth/scale. There are a large number of startups that fails before achieving product/market fit and therefore, it is important to understand what is it and why it matters.

What is product/market fit?

Product/market fit is a phase where you try to establish that you are in a good market and have the right product to satisfy the market. Generally it involves developing a deep understanding of customers, running several experiments and iterating product several times to create the right fit between customer needs and your product.

It’s amazing how imporatnt the concept of product/market fit for startups is and how often it is ignored. Focusing on growth before achieving product/market fit can be counter productive for startups. Therefore, it is critical to know when you have achieved it and when to start focusing on scale.

How do you determine product/market fit?

So how do you know that you have achieved product/market fit? Which metric or target you focus on?

Sean Ellis’s definition is perhaps most objective definition for determining product/market fit. Sean devised below survey:

How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?

1.     Very disappointed

2.     Somewhat disappointed

3.     Not disappointed (it isn’t really that useful)

4.     N/A – I no longer use [product]

As per Sean if more than 40% of your customers respond that they will be “Very disappointed” without your product then you have product/market fit. You can find more about Sean’s definition in this post.

Famous VC Mark Andreessen describes a more subtle method. As per Andreessen, you can always feel when product/market fit is happening. Your product usage would be great, customers would be happy, key metrics would grow consistently so on and so forth. More about it here.

Product/market fit is essentially having an engaging product that users find valuable. This can be measured by metrics that are critical for consumer engagement. Take social networking products for example. Key indicator of engagement is what percent of registered users use the product every day and every month. A good standard for engaging social networking product is that at least 30% of registered users are MAUs and at least 10% registered users are DAUs. So it is safe to assume product/market fit when you hit those metrics. Exact metric differs based on nature of product but the essence remains same that how engaging and valuable product is for consumers.

How to achieve product market fit?

1) Focus on engagement features

Typically features fall into one of the below quadrants:

Prioritize features that improve engagement and retention and de-prioritize every thing else till you achieve product/market fit.

2) Experiment and iterate fast

Iterate quickly through features using build-measure-learn model that Eric Ries describes in The Lean Startup.

The core idea behind build-measure-learn feedback loop is to consider product development as an iterative process of learning while minimizing the time through the loop. Many startups fail because they build product on assumption that they know what customer wants. Build-measure-learn model requires you to constantly test your assumptions by quickly building features while constantly measuring to determine how those features are resulting in real progress.

Finding product/market fit is an iterative process but bottom line is to establish key metrics that define product engagement and focus on those metrics relentlessly. Anything that doesn’t contribute to moving those metrics upward is not important before product/market fit.

Original Post By Rajat Garg, BubbleMotion and can be accessed here.

27/09/201208/10/2012

Observations on India

I’ve spent a decent amount of time in India over the past few months. Most recently, I spent a little over two weeks of August meeting with founders and investors in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Goa. A couple of observations in no particular order:

Indian founders don’t have clear role models… at least not within the Indian startup ecosystem. That being said, that will likely change over the next 3-5 years as the founders of companies such as SnapDeal, FlipKart, Naukri, MakeMyTrip, Inmobi, Directi (along with many other fantastic companies) continue to grow.
The communication style of Indian founders is quite different than other places. It seems like a cultural thing: founders (and perhaps most people) seem to think that they are establishing authority by giving longer answers to specific questions. I’d like to see founders improve their communication styles: be direct, be crisp and be passionate. By doing that, they’ll be able to better communicate with cofounders, potential team hires, press and investors (both foreign and domestic). More tips here: Your Solution Is Not My Problem. (On a side note: There’s huge opportunity for a speaking coach to make a metric shit-ton of money in India.)
Pound for pound, the Indian technical founder has far more raw horsepower than I’ve seen anywhere else. I suppose that’s why nearly every pitch I’ve heard from Indian founders has been heavy on the technology powering the solution. Unless you’re building a startup that *is* technology, your pitch shouldn’t contain any mention of the technology you’re using.
I’d like to see more Indian founders try to solve problems for the Indian market. Until now, it seems that most focused on building online products that could be sold to the West and that made sense: the Western internet user was way more likely to buy online. Internet penetration is rapidly increasing in India, that’s no surprise — Indian founders should start to focus on the Indian internet user because more of them are coming online daily, their comfort with purchasing on the web is growing and, frankly, becauseoutsiders are less likely to understand the cultural nuances of the Indian customer.
No surprise: most of the Indian investor community isn’t founder friendly. They can be very slow, deal terms can be onerous and the overall experience for founders is rough. For investors, there’s a lot of opportunity in this — just be more founder friendly and I suspect your dealflow will rise considerably.
Investors seem to inherently distrust founders. Investors should only take referrals from trusted sources and initial check sizes should be smaller while the relationship is still new. Founders should take it upon themselves to present themselves in the most truthful way. Regardless, I think you’ll begin to see investors prosecuting founders publicly in an effort to make a statement to the market.
As a first generation Indian-American, I find it interesting that many founders and investors born and raised in India seem to be more pessimistic about India’s prospects than I (and, by extension, other outsiders) am. As Sasha Mirchandani has said in the past, my hope for India is that it changes from a pessimistic society to an optimistic one.

I’m certainly not the first one to say this but, even with all the challenges that exist, India has no where to go but up — the question isn’t *if* but *when* it will happen. We’ve made a handful of investments in Indian startups over the past year and we’re planning to aggressively ramp that up immediately. Watch out India, the 500 train’s coming!

Cross Post – ResultJunkies.com(Paul Singh)

15/09/201215/09/2012

Introducing #alpha: Showcase For Your Product Or Startup At The #NAMA Conference

We’re pleased to announce #alpha, a product and startup showcase at our flagship conference #NAMA, being held on October 10th 2012, at The Westin in Gurgaon.

While #NAMA is largely going to be about in depth conversations about the digital industry in India and the road ahead, in a 20 minute Q&A format (and 10 minutes for an audience Q&A), we also want some fresh (and great) products and fresh business ideasto be showcased.

Why #alpha

With #alpha, we want to achieve two things – try and dispel the notion that India is not a market with great products or one for innovation, and that innovation happens only in startups.

It needs to be unique, fresh and interesting – the alpha product or alpha startup (and alpha as in top-of-the-gene-pool, not half-done-readying-for-beta). Brownie points if you choose #alpha as the platform to announce/launch your product or announce you business.

So whether you’re a startup or a large company, if you’ve build a great product that you think will wow #NAMA attendees and MediaNama readers, we’ll give you the opportunity to showcase the product. If you’re a startup with a fresh and interesting business idea and and you want to announce your launch, we’ll give you the platform.

You can fill out the form for #alpha at http://nama.cc/alphaform.

The last date for submission is 19th of September 2012.

Please be as detailed as possible and sincere about what are the features of the product. We’ll need to see the product (see a demo, see screenshots) and speak with you before taking a decision on featuring the product at #alpha. If you’re selected – and the decision is very subjective – we will need to be involved to curate your short talk as well.

14/09/201214/09/2012

Sanjay Parthasarathy’s Mantra for Product Entrepreneurs: “If You Can’t Think Big, You Can’t Really Scale”

Even top-notch corporate executives get bored with their work and that’s what happened to Sanjay Parthasarathy. Maybe in such cases the corporation is no longer seductive enough to feed the creativity or a stray thought emerges to create something on one’s own instead of creating newbies at corporations. Sanjay spent a little more than two decades at Microsoft, at the forefront of many new initiatives including the Startup Accelerator Program, which he headed, before he exited to become a startup entrepreneur and investor. The geeky executive headed home after a long stint in the US, to Chennai and started Indix, which is into data analytics and products that impact people’s lives. It would be of relevance to indicate that Sanjay directed Bill Gates’s first visit to India in 1997 and that led to a spurt in Microsoft’s India activities and also had high and positive impact on the software industry in India. Besides being an entrepreneur at Indix, he also plays angel investor and mentors startups in the US and in India. In conversation with YourStory, Sanjay spelt out his philosophy and his point of view.

You were in the US for 23 years; you graduated from MIT, worked at Microsoft for 19 years, what triggered you to come back to India?

I think I was a little bored, and the opportunity here was quite ripe, so it is really a combination of these two things.

If you have to look back at your corporate journey heading various divisions at Microsoft, what were some of your biggest take-aways?

Probably, creating things from scratch. I was with the Internet Explorer, then with .Net, and I helped set up the startup business accelerator. So, I always started things from scratch at Microsoft, so that was the biggest learning to do the startup kind of thing.

Starting stuff in bigger organizations vs. starting up as nobody, what are the differences?

Philosophically, they are the same things. You still have to argue for money, though the funding comes from the company in one case, you still have to put your idea out in the market, you still have to recruit a team, as they don’t give all of that to you, you have to take it. In a way, you have to do the same things.

Read the complete Interview by Raghu Mohan for YourStory.in

12/09/201212/09/2012

TechSparks 2012 Unveils the Top 30 Tech Product Startups from India

TechSparks, the flagship event of Yourstory.in, the biggest tech product startup showcase in India, is now in its 3^rd edition. The Grand Finale of TechSparks 2012 was held in Bangalore on September 8^th, after the 5 roundtables which were conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Hyderabad over a period of 4 months. Techsparks 2012 was presented by Intel in association with Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, Sequoia Capital, CNBC TV 18 Young Turks and VentureBeat.

Registering more than 800 applications to become a TechSpark, the response was overwhelming and the jury comprising of investors, successful entrepreneurs, industry experts and the Yourstory team had a tough time shortlisting the top 30. Applications were received from all over the country and the diversity was immense. From education to healthcare to cleantech, there were companies in every sector with a common motive – leveraging technology to build great businesses.

The Techsparks 2012 Grand Finale had the theme “The Smartest Way to Scale Up” and the entire day was organized around that. Starting with an introduction from Shradha Sharma, founder of Yourstory.in, the high-on-adrenaline event was given a huge pump by RJ Sriram and DJ Dhruva maintaining the tempo. Shradha’s introduction was followed by an in-depth keynote by Shailendra Singh, MD of Sequoia Capital, who outlined some of the most important factors for ‘Building a Business’. The ensuing Panel Discussion was a highly engaging one with audience actively participating in the discussion. The Panel consisted of Narendra Bhandari (Director, Intel Software and Services Group – Developer Relations (Asia-Pacific)); Shailendra Singh (MD, Sequoia Capital); Gautam Gandhi (Head – New Business Development Emerging Markets, Google); Joe Ziegler (AWS Evangelist for Australia and New Zealand); M. Maheshwar Rao, IAS (Commissioner for Industrial Development and Director of Industries and Commerce, Govt. of Karnataka); Dr. Wido Menhardt (Vice President, Head, Philips Innovation Campus) and was moderated by Ravi Gururaj (Vice President, Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix).

Read the complete story at YourStory.in

07/09/201207/09/2012

Be There or You Will regret it – Product Conclave 2012

NASSCOM Product Conclave (NPC) 2012 is an exclusive forum for product entrepreneurs looking to get actionable takeaways and learn from experts, peers and practitioners on their Go-to-market strategy. NPC 2012 promises to motivate, inspire and educate. An all star cast of product entrepreneurs, including Ram Shriram (Sherpalo Ventures), Sajiv Sidhu (i2 technologies) will share their proven techniques for product success. Over 60+ hours of goal oriented track sessions in the areas of product management, marketing, sales and business development will help you learn from people who have previously built, are currently building or are looking to build global product organizations.

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