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Startup Action Plan: Glass Half Full

Innovation and entrepreneurship are cornerstones of sustained economic growth. The Government has done well to recognise this by launching the Startup India Action Plan. The event was an unprecedented and resounding success. The energy in entrepreneurs, leaders of unicorns, seasoned investors, Government officials, etc was intense and, for most part, contagious. No doubt the Startup India Action Plan has provided various important exemptions and incentives to startups. However, the key question is this – Whether the Action Plan adequately addresses the irritants that make the Indian startup ecosystem unattractive? In our view, the answer is no.

iSPIRT has been closely associated with the Government in this endeavour, and had put together a list of thirty four key irritants that need to be resolved to arrest the exodus of Indian startups. The list is called the Stay-in-India Checklist. Of the thirty four issues, ten each came under the Revenue Department and the RBI, nine came under the MCA, and the remaining came under multiple departments such as the DEA, DIPP, RBI, MCA, and SEBI. Based on our analysis of the Action Plan and other announcements made, the present status looks like the following:

Startup Action plan

As noted above, only one RBI issue has been resolved so far (that too by way of a clarification during our discussion prior to the Startup India event). There was no announcement on any other RBI issues as part of the Action Plan. For creating a vibrant startup ecosystem, it is imperative that the investments from foreign sources are made easier. While the RBI, MCA, and other authorities had assured us that action will be taken on most of these issues (see the orange category above) once the definition of ‘startup’ is released, so far, there is no clarity as to when such action will be taken.

We will internally continue to interact on the outstanding (orange and red) items with the RBI, MCA, Revenue, and other departments. We hope that these issues will also be resolved by the relevant authorities soon.

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#StartupIndia Little Action Plan

There was palpable excitement all around on June 16th as the much awaited Startup India policy was to be unveiled. Scores of intrepid, passionate, dedicated, knowledgeable volunteers from multiple groups had worked tirelessly for very many months advocating the need for the administration to recognise startups as legitimate 21st century vehicles for creating jobs and wealth in society. For this to happen, multiple sessions were held to educate, illustrate and showcase what startups had done for other economies and are beginning to do in India.


One of the great accomplishments has been to get the word “startup” accepted within the administration. Acknowledging that an educated highly talented set of individuals could come together to start an entity based on innovation and driven by technology and intellectual property was a major achievement. Because till then, the visual metaphor was of a safari suited micro and small business owner – much maligned in various soaps and movies – obsequiously dealing with multiple government agencies and not averse to bending the law and greasing the machinery!

It is said that the beginning of wisdom starts with definitions. Section A of the Action Plan details the definition of a startup which is quite acceptable. However, what is important is to see how language gets transferred into official government notifications and the law.

However, for a startup to get government tax benefits it has to receive a certification from an Inter-Ministerial Board that will be set up for such purposes! When such a Board will be set up, the composition of the Board, the frequency of their meetings, the discretion powers vested with this Board are all yet to be made known. Why not have An online self-certification mechanism for this with severe penalties for those misusing or misrepresenting their case?

A mobile app will be made available from April 1st of this year for the purposes of registering, filing, tracking, applying for schemes, by startups. Interestingly, though the hope is that it will be within a day, the Action Plan document doesn’t specify how long it will take for a startup company to be registered! And what the pre-requisites are eg does the Inter-Ministerial Board or the DIPP or any other approved 3rd party have to certify the startup?

Self-certification of compliance, via the mobile app, with 9 Labour and 3 Environment laws is a welcome move with a 3 year moratorium on labour inspection. But why not include simple self-certification compliance for all other laws too, eg secretarial and governance matters? And why not for say, 5 years? Especially when the definition of a startup talks of an entity that is less than 5years old?

The Action Plan aims to allow a startup to wind-down its operations in 90days after it appoints a liquidator/insolvency professional and pays off all creditors and sells the assets. This is a very welcome move as anyone who has attempted to shut a company down in India can attest that it is an almost impossible task. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Bill 2015 (IBB) that’s pending in Parliament will detail the provisions of the fast-track and voluntary closure of a business. Till the IBB is passed and the details known, celebrations will have to wait. The PM even exhorted the audience to use social media to rally support for IBB!

Since April 2015, central and state governments and PSUs have to mandatorily procure 20% from micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This has been extended now to include startups. But only startups only in the manufacturing sector are eligible! Why not all startups? And in place of “prior experience/criterion” startups have to demonstrate “requisite capability to execute the project as per the requirements”. Whatever that means! With fears of the CAG audit, one can see how this will be implemented in practice.

Startups don’t have to pay Income Tax for 3 years. Well, am not sure if there are any startups that generate taxable income in the first 3years! Why not make startups exempt from all taxes for 5 years?

There is an exemption for investors with capital gains to invest in the government “Fund of Funds” and for investments in manufacturing MSMEs. This is just an extension of an existing provision. But is this exemption applicable to entrepreneurs (not just investors) who say, sell their house and invest in a startup? If not, why not?

Angel investors cannot claim the FMV certification exemption that now, thanks to this policy, includes incubators in addition to venture capital funds.

A clear liberal stock option policy, taxation policy, onerous compliance requirements for startups raising capital – either domestic or overseas – are other areas that will have to wait another day or the budget.

A Rs 10,000crore Fund of Funds, setting up a Rs 500cr annual venture debt scheme, encouraging the setting up of research parks, incubators and a country wide programme to spread the awareness of startups in schools and colleges showcase what the government does best, namely creating large national schemes with a grandiose hopeful vision. Clarity on how these will be implemented and more importantly managed and monitored and what kind of outcomes are planned will however have to await another day!

This Startup Action Policy flatters only to deceive. The reluctance of the state to disengage from the culture of command and control shines through. India jumped 12 places to 130 from 142 in the Ease of Doing Business Index 2015 thanks in large part to the improved power situation and not due to any radical change in procedures and laws!

The good news is that entrepreneurs are unstoppable and have, in spite of the best efforts of India’s crushing bureaucracy, demonstrated their abilities and established India as a global startup hotspot. The steps outlined in the Action Plan will only nudge them along faster. And that can’t be bad. India remains the country with enormous potential!

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of iSPIRT.)

This article was first published on YourStory

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Prof. Sharique’s(Stanford’s) email to internal iSPIRT community

Dear iSPIRT Family,

I wanted to follow up with an update from the PNgrowth team at iSPIRT. A little less than a year ago, a small group of iSPIRT volunteers proposed something unconventional:

We would run a bootcamp to jolt 200 growth stage entrepreneurs from India to aspire to category leadership. The bootcamp would combine learnings from strategy courses taught at Duke and Stanford with detailed case studies of Indian companies such as InMobi, Zoho, Paytm and more. More radically, we would eschew the Sage-on-Stage model for 3 days of active learning where founders worked with peer and mentor support to rethink their own startup’s raison d’etre. To provide as intensive an experience as possible we would have morning and evening breakout sessions and the bootcamp would be fully residential with accommodation, food and transport from Bangalore available to all participants. Finally, we would do this with only minimal cost to the participants. In early 2015, something of this complexity and scale seemed not just unconventional, but improbable.

As many of you know, last week a team of nearly 30 iSPIRT volunteers pulled off the PNgrowth bootcamp in Mysore for 200 growth stage startups. The response before and after has been tremendous, and we have learned much in the process. After the bootcamp, participants have taken to social media to share their experiences. A few examples on the iSPIRT blog:

https://pn.ispirt.in/top-10-observations-of-pngrowth-camp/

https://pn.ispirt.in/le-lo-panga-lets-make-india-a-product-nation/

https://pn.ispirt.in/whats-your-unfair-advantage-pngrowth/

And read the many tweets on #PNgrowth:

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23PNgrowth&src=typd

Now, with some experience under our belts, we hope to continue working with the PNgrowth participants over the course of the year, learning about their startups and providing help and resources when possible. But, if producing many category leaders from India is the ultimate goal, then even the best organized 3-day bootcamp will be insufficient. So, as 2016 begins, a small group of volunteers is beginning to reimagine even bolder ways to help India’s product entrepreneurs. The ideas are likely to be audacious and unconventional, but that might be what it takes.

Thank you,

Sharique
An incomplete list of the volunteers who made PNgrowth possible:

Aaron Chatterji – Duke University; Amit Somani – Prime Ventures; Aneesh Reddy – Capillary Technologies; Avlesh Singh – WebEngage; Kunal Shah – FreeCharge; Manav Garg – Eka; Manjula Sridhar – ArgByte; Nags – [24]7 Inc; Pallav Nadhani – FusionCharts; Phanindra Sama – Former redBus; Prasanna Krishnamoorthy – Microsoft Ventures; Sanat Rao – iSPIRT; Sanjay Deshpande – Uniken; Sanjay Shah – Zapty; Shankar Maruwada – EkStep; Shekhar Kirani – Acces; Sumanth Raghavendra – Deck; Avinash Raghava – iSPIRT; M. Thiyagarajan(Rajan) – Intuit; Sandeep Todi – Remitr; Rohit Veerarajappa – Wow Labz; Praveen Hari – Thinkflow; Manu Jolly – Student; Tanish Thakker – Zone Startups; Rem Koning – Stanford GSB; Sharique Hasan – Stanford GSB; Solene Delecourt – Stanford GSB; Randy Lubin – FactoryX; Gokul K S – PNgrowth; Sairam Krishnan – iSPIRT; Hrishikesh Kulkarni – Freshdesk; Senthil Kanthaswamy – Freshdesk; Sharad Sharma – iSPIRT.

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Sign Startup Bridge Petition and promote Stay-in-India Checklist

Today’s Economic Times carries an article about “The Dark Secret of India’s Start-up Boom”. This implores the Modi Government to make bold moves regarding the onerous regulations that startups face.

iSPIRT is also part of the new Startup Bridge India campaign, which urges the Indian government to adopt best practices from around the globe to help startups start, flourish and exit.  We’ve been working alongside a consortium of lawyers, think tanks, entrepreneurs and venture capital firms from TiE Silicon Valley to put together detailed legal language and fixes in the current policy. Startup Bridge India is hosting an online petition that demands simpler processes for investing in India’s future, a petition intended to show widespread public support for these important initiatives. Every signature matters and timing is critical to help bring about much needed policy change. You can sign the petition on startupbridgeindia.com.

iSPIRT has been involved in nitty-gritty work with the Government in the past 75 days around its Stay-in-India Checklist. Here is what’s been happening…

What is Stay-in-India Checklist?

More and more technology startups are being forced to redomicile to Singapore or US due to a host of policy irritants that disparage the Indian startup ecosystem. After careful consideration, iSPIRT’s Stay-and-List-in-India Policy Team identified 34 key issues that need to be resolved immediately to stop this exodus. The list includes issues covering incorporation, fund raising, operations, taxation, exits, closure, payments, and intellectual property.

How was it created?

We looked at submissions from TiE, NASSCOM, IVCA and FICCI and put them into a single spreadsheet. After de-duplication we had about 120 items. These were then classified into hygiene and incentives categories. Based on consultations with startups, the hygiene set was further refined to create the Stay-in-India Checklist.

What are some of the key items on Stay-in-India Checklist?

The Checklist includes requests for favourable IP tax regime, harmony in taxation of listed and unlisted securities, relaxed external commercial borrowing norms, faster incorporation and liquidation processes, and permitting convertible notes, indemnity escrows, and deferred consideration in foreign investment transactions.

Who manages the Checklist?

iSPIRT Stay-and-List-in-India Policy Expert team managed the Checklist. The team has 7 members – two startup CFOs, two VCs and three tax/legal experts. Mohandas Pai as the mentor to the team.

What’s been the progress on the Checklist?

The Checklist received mixed responses from the regulators. While certain items (like permitting share swap as a valid method of share transfer in FDI transactions) were allowed during the discussion process itself (hence removed from the Checklist), the regulators were hesitant in permitting other items (such as tax exemptions). Largely, the regulators were receptive to the suggestions. We had detailed discussions on each item of the Checklist with the relevant regulators. Wherever the regulators were unable to implement our suggestions, they conveyed to us the concerns that restrained them. We hope these concerns are alleviated in due course, and they are able to implement all suggestions.

What are some of the key meetings that have taken place?

We have a good partnership with Mr. Amitabh Kant, Secretary, DIPP on this. His office has setup about two dozen meetings with the relevant regulators. In these meeting, iSPIRT plays the role of being the subject matter expert on items in the Stay-in-India Checklist.

The whole process kicked into high gear after an intense and productive meeting with Mr. Amitabh Kant on Oct 23rd and with Dr. Raghuram Rajan on Oct 24th. This was followed by a meeting with Principal Secretary, Mr. Nripendra Mishra at PMO on Nov 9th. Subsequently, meetings with Revenue Secretary and MCA Secretary took place. These led to numerous follow-up meetings and calls with relevant officers. Nakul Saxena has coordinated all these meetings.

What are some of the learning’s from this effort?

There is very little awareness about the world of technology startups. So education on the realities faced by the startups is critical. Sometimes one runs into situations where the issue can be closed without much effort. At other times, the dichotomy between regulatory agencies is most frustrating. Also, because of the way liberalisation of regulatory framework has been widely misused in India, the authorities exercise great caution before liberalising any regulation. The approach, therefore, is to not permit any ‘risky’ regulation, rather than punishing those who misuse it. Overall, we find the receptivity of the government agencies is good. Our positioning of being a think tank, focussed on the national agenda, rather than being a tradebody is helping a lot as well.

Guest post by Sanjay Khan, Khaitan & Co

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The Dark Secret of India’s Start-up Boom

The Modi Government has made bold moves on the world stage. Its now time to make one at home!

By Mohandas Pai & Sharad Sharma

New-age startups are making waves. Flipkart has redefined retail. Ola is changing how we travel by taxis. PayTm is at the threshold of disrupting banks. Forus Health is attacking blindness with gusto. Eko is bringing financial inclusion to millions. Team Indus is on its way to land a rover on the moon. Nowfloats is bringing lakhs of businesses online. Pick any sector, even agriculture, and you’ll find a new-age startup gamely trying to bring about change.

These new-age startups are not like our traditional small businesses. They are peculiar in many respects. For one, they don’t play safe. They take on incumbents that are many times their size. They seek out David versus Goliath battles. They have a ‘panga’ mindset where our traditional small businessman was all about ‘dhanda’. This craziness in their DNA makes them wonderful change agents. No wonder, these new startups are transforming India from within.

We are blessed to have these new-age startups. It turns out that this new species of small businesses thrives only in a few places in the world. The most famous locale is, of course, Silicon Valley. Europe, unfortunately, is a veritable desert. South America has only Chile as a small oasis. Asia, however, looks really promising. Israel became a startup hub first, then China and now India. We are now the third largest startup ecosystem in the world.

But there is something dark about India’s startup boom. Six of the eight Unicorns have domiciled themselves outside India-in Singapore or US. In 2014, 54% of all new-age startups raising money chose to domicile outside India. Last year this number grew. It is estimated to have crossed 75%! This points to a big problem.

You might wonder why it matters where Flipkart is domiciled. For starters, when Flipkart has its IPO, Indian citizens won’t get a chance to participate in it. Worse, the intellectual property of these redomiciled companies moves to their new home. But the worst is that the money that the founders and investors make at the time of an IPO or an M&A goes to their foreign bank accounts and tends to stay there. It stymies the creation of Rupee risk-capital system in India. It makes are startups almost fully dependent on foreign capital leaving most of them starved and under-capitalized in their early years.

Startup India is an opportunity to stop the exodus. It turns out that only 34 issues, across Ministry of Finance, RBI, Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Ministry of Commerce, need to be tackled. Work has been underway on them since 23rd Oct and 60% of the issues seem to be on their way to a resolution. But this 60% fix is a recipe for failure. Unless all the 34 items are resolved, exodus will not abate. Just one friction point is enough to send the startup to Singapore, where, a welcome band awaits.

Anything that we do in Startup India without addressing the issues on the Stay-in-India Checklist is a gift to Singapore. The Modi Government has made bold moves on the world stage. Its now time to make one at home!

Mohandas Pai was the CFO and then the head of HR at Infosys. He is now Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners.

Sharad Sharma was the CEO of Yahoo India R&D. He is a co-founder of iSPIRT, a non-profit think tank that wants India to be a product nation.  

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“What’s your Unfair Advantage ?” #PNgrowth

This was one of the questions posed as a challenge to all startup founders at the #PNGrowth Camp last week. We all thought that we had the magic sauce or the unfair advantage that will help us build category leadership companies, only to realise that most of us did not.

200 startup founders across the country, spanning different domains had participated in the PNGrowth Camp at the Mysore Infosys Campus last week (Jan 8-10). It was the first ever such large gathering of Indian Founders at a single bootcamp.   This was organised by iSpirt to nurture the Indian startup Ecosystem to help founders create more successful ventures.

The Advantage had to pass the following criteria to be qualified as an Unfair Competitive advantage.

– An Advantage that

  • you could derive value out of.
  • cannot be copied.
  • is quantifiable.

Putting this to test, most of us realised that we did not have the unfair advantage.

In the “North Star” module, we explored how much we have stayed true to the core goals and vision we started out with and how much we have steered away from. A small digression initially looking harmless, takes us far far away from the original goal over a period of time. In the day to day running of a startup and firefighting, we often forget the big picture, missing the forest for the trees. This module bought us back to the core.

“Your network is your networth” is a well known adage.

In the “IPO module”, we got to know where we stood w.r.t leveraging our network (Information, People and Organisations – IPO). We explored what missing connections we needed to take our startups to the next level.

In the “Shark Tank” module,  mentors reviewed our actions plans and gave us candid and honest feedback on what we need to do. This was the best part of the whole program for me to be picked and my startup strategy reviewed, and getting candid feedback.

Overall, this 3 day bootcamp was a great transformation experience to get my bearings right, get honest feedback from mentors and peers, make a lot of new connections, revisit some of the assumptions and have a solid plan to execute.

Thanks to iSPIRT team and #PNGrowth program team members for giving us this “Unfair Advantage”!

Guest Post by Shashi Bhushan, HealthMacro

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Le lo PANGA- Let’s make India a Product Nation

PNgrowth

I am Amit Mishra – running a SaaS venture Interview Mocha, a pre-employment skill testing company. In this blog I am sharing my experiences from PNgrowth 2016 and how it transformed the way we (Indian product startups) think.

Brief about PNgrowth

  • PNgrowth helps you redesign your startup to win.
  • 2 1/2 days resident full-time programme organized at Infosys Mysore campus from 8th Jan 2016 to 10th Jan 2016.
  • Arranged by iSPIRT and supported by Stanford, Duke.
  • 200 curated Indian product startup founders attended it from every corner of India – metro, non-metro.

Who I am writing this for?

  • Thousands of Indian product startup founders who couldn’t attend it or are willing to attend it in future.

Why am I writing this?

  • To let Indian product startup founders know that you are not alone.
  • To boost up their confidence.
  • My cent to promote iSPIRT to make India a product nation.

My takeaways, thoughts, learnings as below –

1.  Good News! We are supported by reliable Ecosystem.

Acche din ane wale hai!

I was amazed and ecstatic to see, we are genuinely supported by iSPIRT, Infosys, Stanford, Duke and dozens of entrepreneurs who have been there and done that. Infosys (an IT services company) helping us (product startups) made me write a slogan for PNGrowth programme– “Powered by Infosys, Driven by Intellects”.

2.  The Journey is not lonely.

Journey_Is_Not_Lonely

Here, there, everywhere – all product startups.

200 product startups at one place – amazing feeling to know that we are not lonely. The road less travelled is not so lonely and dark anymore.

3.  Bade Bhai log are at rescue.

Bade_bhai_log

Bade Bhai (and behan) log were selflessly helping, sharing experiences, showing realities, shaping up our dream, challenging us to take PANGA (to take on fight) with world leaders, saying bullshit quite often to what we do ;)

Thanks, Hats off, Salute bade Bhai log. Keep helping :-) I will join your bandwagon soon :-)

4.  What was told? and What it meant?

Below I list down the crux of what was told and what it meant during numerous sessions, peer reviews, seminars, campfire sessions, spark sessions, coffee/meal breaks in the programme. Key points are

  1. Learn to say no.
  2. Aim to take category leadership position in your own category. Otherwise, you are in bullshit.
  3. Having Vision (belief) and North Star for your business is a must.
  4. Companies in the past are not successful by accidents or incidents. Unfair advantage is the key to success.
  5. Leverage ecosystem – PIO(People, Information and Organizations).
  6. Take PANGA with the leaders in your category from the day one.
  7. Have action plan to grow 10x in 2016.

So, all the startup guys out there – are you ready for the great Indian PANGA!

And yes, YARO MAINE PANGA LE LIYA ;)

Guest Post by Amit Mishra, InterviewMocha

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Top 10 Observations of #PNgrowth camp

#1. Volunteers: They deserve beyond a standing ovation. They have not only just volunteered- they passionately executed – Awesome job, and hats off.

#2. Participants: They are the best part of this program. Everywhere there is energy, and everyone wants to meet someone new. Great listeners who are wholeheartedly and passionately pursuing their dreams. Everyone of them will be a great leader and make India very proud. They think, live, breathe, every moment about how they can make a meaningful difference to someone’s life. Their ideas are amazing and are solving very specific problem.

Good to see so many first time entrepreneurs with over 15 years of professional experience. The domain knowledge brings completely different value to the ecosystem. Instead of building completely different and disruptive ideas, they are optimizing and creating an incremental value by solving problems in the current system itself. These are big opportunities especially with country over a billion population, great opportunity for many category leaders.

#3. Speakers & Coaches: Amazing delivery. Very interactive and precise. Rather than being on the stage, they walked around showed us that the were with us and available within arms-reach. I enjoyed every second.

#4. Program: It was planned, designed and delivered well by accomplished entrepreneurs and top academicians. The simple and easy workflow streamlined thoughts and reiterated quickly, brilliant!

#5. Discipline: There was Pin drop silence many times during the workshop- hard to do with 200 high energy founders in one room. No cell phone rings, no side conversations, or laptop clicks. It was a bold idea to use whistling many times to override the energetic tea breaks

  #6. Campus: It was inspiring and majestic. Every inch was sparkling clean and amazing positive vibes everywhere. The choice of this campus was brilliant as it was designed and built to create great leaders. Thanks to Infosys for the opportunity.   #7: Food: There was a question once about how many of you are still following your new year resolution diet and only few hands were up. I think most of us took diet as one of our resolutions and we gave up these three days. Believe me, it was hard to resist.

#8. Brutal Feedback: Many may disagree about the first day “Brutally Strong” feedback, but it was a needed one to push out of the comfort zone and give more power to the peer-to-peer learning. The next two days were completely unbiased and brutally honest discussions. We are warriors and came here to train to win the battle. If we get hurt ,we don’t look at our wounds or worry about the bleeding-we will swing our sword stronger and push the enemy back so we took it in the right spirit.

#9. Schedule: The program was designed for 16 hours a day, from 6 am to 10 pm. After that we caught up on burning issues or socialized beyond midnight and showed up at 6 am next day. We are all entrepreneurs and used to the 18 hours days, so thanks to the organizers for your confidence in us to give our all.

#10. Giving back: The camp is giving back to the country by highly successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders to create more winners and more jobs. It refueled and reignited the startup engine for a long journey.We all have an opportunity to give back every day by sharing the knowledge and mistakes or feedback to the fellow entrepreneurs as participants. What I’ve realized in my last 8 years as an entrepreneur is giving back is actually getting back in bigger value. (Mostly in the form of knowledge of do’s and don’t’s.) We all have an obligation to support the great initiatives of iSpirt to make India a great nation.
prabhakan

Guest post by Prabakaran “Praba” Murugaiah, TechFetch.com 

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iSPIx is a Public Good that will help us in our vision of making India a Product Nation.

The Indian Software Product industry has undoubtedly become a burgeoning sector. It is on way to claim a significant share of the global mutli-billion dollar enterprise software product industry. iSPIx-B2B is an initiative from iSPIRT to put exact numbers on this exciting growth story.

iSPIx stands for ‘Indian Software Product Industry Index’ and read as ‘i-specs’. The index essentially captures the value of the top 30 Indian B2B Software Product companies along with a bunch of other statistics and information (employee numbers, company profile, product focus, funding type etc.). While the general data is used to get a broad picture of the industry profile, the key piece of information in this exercise, is the anonymize and aggregated valuation figure of the top 30 companies. This is used as a metric to gauge the size and growth of the Indian Software Product industry.

To our pleasant surprise, this turned out to be a $10.25 Billion figure recording double digit growth rates!  These 30 companies are gunning across the business horizontals and verticals with their strong product portfolios. They directly employ over 21000 people. Click on this info-graphic to know who these 30 companies are (listed alphabetically and not terms of value size).


This iSPIRT hangout did provide an overview of the iSPIX initiative by iSPIRT and why it is necessary for the product ecosystem with its focus on B2B companies in the Indian context. The Indian B2B software product industry has been growing nicely outside of the spotlight – the enterprise value of the top 30 companies is $10.25 billion (₹65,500 crores) and they employ over 21,000 people. With such encouraging growth and global focus, it becomes important to see what insights we can gather about this relatively unsung group of companies.

The Hangout was moderated by Sharad Sharma, Co-Founder, iSPIRT and had Dev Khare, Fellow at iSPIRT & Partner at LightSpeed India & Raghu, Fellow at iSPIRT

To our pleasant surprise, this turned out to be a $10.25 Billion figure recording double digit growth rates!  These 30 companies are gunning across business horizontals and verticals with their strong product portfolios and directly employ over 21000 people. Click on this info-graphic to know who these 30 companies are (listed alphabetically and not terms of value size).

Read the November 2015 edition of the iSPIx-B2B report to know more and watch the video if you are curious about how we put the index together.

We believe iSPIx is a Public Good that will help us in our vision of making India a Product Nation.

Guest Post by Raghu, Fellow at iSPIRT

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Scaling Revenue Roundtable

Enterprise Sales, Marketing & Inside Sales Team Build Out, First International Customers Acquisition, Enterprise Pricing etc. I understand, we have heard these topics in multiple events & conferences, so why this round table be different? The difference is gyan vs hearing from real person with real experience which sometimes exactly what you want to hear, even reading 10 books will not help compared to one line coming from a CEO who has done it over and over again and seen the success.

AiAfOYoopNK2-JpnERWxOZdUFD5vPYd5ajC8OOkJg_tPIn this Round table, Aneesh was leading and moderating the discussion. He leveraged the experience of other founders which made the most out of few hrs of interaction. The participants are founders of mid-stage startups, who have good-size customers and have decent ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), growing and scaling.

This blog narrates the learning in the form of Q&A.

How to establish a meaningful and sustaining Partnership for your B2B enterprise business and grow your business?

  • Partner are those who have done similar product sales in medium/large scale before, so ask them for their sales targets (region wise) and their profile of B2B partnership in their existing set up. That is a good validation point for partnership. {It is like validating by their current and past experience in partnership}
  • Partners could be the companies who are into services (in your industry vertical like healthcare or retail etc) and likes to have monthly revenues.
  • If your product sit on top of other product and integrates then go for a partnership program to the base product. For instance, if your product complements or built on top of Salesforce, then you can enroll in Salesforce has AppExchange program wherein you can list your product and generate good visibility and leads. Partners, could be the product that your software compliments or built upon it.
  • Partners could be the implementation companies of the product that your product built on or compliment. Say your software built on Salesforce, then the service companies who are implementing Salesforce solution could be your partners.
  • You could also go for two-way partnership, like I push your product and you push mine, sometimes one partner performs a lot better than the other, in that case, be open and refine the terms as you go in the journey.
  • If you are enrolling in partnership programs from large companies like IBM, Salesforce etc and see if you can use their promotion events and brand your product, many gives a free offer for promotion. You might end up in getting leads worth a lot that might seems impossible to generate by the solo marketing you do on your own.  These large companies also have paid outreach which has high outreach and see if it is worth investing.
  • Incubator and Accelerator, if you are part of any incubation center or accelerator that helps a lot in getting the right partnership e.g  Microsoft accelerator
  • How to bring transparency in partnership? You might also want to try “Lead Protection Program” which creates 100% transparency in the leads generated, let your partners enter the leads in your CRM & both of you can track the status and you can also make sure that right analytics are coming out.
  • If the partners are asking for exclusivity, ask for minimum guarantee e.g 30 qualified leads per quarter per area
  • Partnership takes time to achieve, so keep experimenting, be conservative and go slow, do a some sort of pilot before you sign larger partnership contract. And ready to fail as it takes time to get into right partnership.

AtT1H_5g3UkqxqIvC6jRlOknnwXUZPnMjQ0GkhyzAymFHow to acquire customers in new international market?

  • You can go with the existing customers and if they have business overseas then you can approach them for the initial open door to international market.
  • Another suggestion is to participate in events and have a booth or something so your product gets exposure and you might end-up in getting partners or customers
  • LinkedIn is a great source to find first few pilot customers in that region.
  • Overseas partnership also you can explore using LinkedIn or Quora, but it is not that easy to find viable partnership
  • And also cold calling for opening doors also worked for few startups.
  • If your product is like B2C then publishing in appstore, Appstore marketing, google adwords would be a good start, but if you are in B2B and enterprise sales, then the steps mentioned in the beginning are the way to go.
  • Once you have handful of customers internationally, select a country where you could open a small sales team may be start with one or two guys and these guys need not be very senior like VP level, 2 yrs to 5 yrs exp and they have to work with India Sales team parallaly. You might need to travel and stay there for a while for initial years to establish a sales pattern oversees.

Ar3dOzl_O6w-FGfJzAg_J7VarpANJbdP-uJ4bFiora6FHow is to do pricing for your product?

  • See your competitor price and product features and how much it solves the customer problem, how your product makes them dependable, this combination will help you to arrive at pricing.
  • If your product a lot better than your competitor, do not lower your price to compete, you need to stay at a price tag for the right product.
  • If your product does not have India based competitor, see the US pricing and create some kind of benchmark value to arrive your pricing.
  • You can have different packaging but not too many, max 3 to 4.
  • You kind of have to experiment with pricing, for e.g one of the enterprise product was priced it 5k for the first few customer during pilot (initial years) and when they need to sell the product in the second year to a bigger organization, they tried quoting 1L and end up in selling at 60k.  So you need to try and see how market is reacting for your new pricing, first few year keep experimenting, you will be able to arrive at pricing between 1 to 3 yrs if not before.
  • When you sell enterprise product, make the price attractive in the pilot stage and after showing the desired results, you can go for high price and the customers would not mind paying it as they have seen the results which impacted their top line.
  • The pricing could be geography based and can be different. And again, find the right pricing by seeing your competitor and demand in that market.
  • If you want to give freemium version, give it free but let the customer give you some kind of asset that you can use for your business like marketing or brand building. For e.g refer 2 friends to get the free version or share in your facebook page to get the access. Some kind of exchange of benefits for freemium version.

What is the most painful growth in the entire journey of the startup?

  • 1M to 5M growth is the most painful where you are likely to make mistakes
  • While growing fast, you need to be careful when reaching to new markets, not all regions works great for your product. US need not be the best market for all products. If you have invested in one region and seems like it is not working, then shutdown and alternate your sales strategy in overseas.
  • Please refer “acquiring customers in new international market” for more details.

How to upsell and cross-sell to your existing customers?

  • There are two ways, first upsell more apps/ additional features to the same customer
  • Second is find out other departments or other sister organization and do a cross sell
  • An customer account is usually handled by an account manager, the upsell/cross sell need be done by different person say group account manager.
  • Every group account manager handles multiple accounts, like 5 to 10 accounts, is responsible for upselling. The account manager finds opportunities for upsell. Do not mix up the account manager dealing with customer on day-to-day basis to do upsell as the negotiation will become very tricky otherwise.

How to give discounts to the customers in SaaS product?

  • The discounts needs to be distributed, do not give them at one go.
  • For instance, do a yearly subscription with 2 months off. Those two months are going to be 11th and 12th month. So incase they leave in 6 months, these discounts does not qualify.
  • Another way you could spread across 3 years like 3rd month, 6th month off, 22th month off for discounts.

How much is the typical yearly renewal increase in ARR for the Enterprise Product?

  • 8 to 10%
  • We need to say 10% increase is very common and if the customer creeps, bring down to 8%

How to get testimonials and referrals?

  • Usually testimonials are done after building a strong relationship with a customer. Usually after 1 or 2 years. Make sure that the account managers and CXO’s of the company has a good relation built with customers to ask for testimonials. Once you establish those soft links, whenever the customer delightness go very high and initiate the process. e.g Release of product feature which solves one of their pain point which the customer demanded for a while.
  • Another idea is to mention this in the subscription or contract time itself. Suppose if the customer is asking for discounts then you can tell him that you can enroll in the “Loyalty Program”  in which you might have to give testimonial & also give 2 referrals and participate in the case study within the first 2 years and you are eligible for this much discounts. This way the customer is well aware of the expectation and also enjoys discounts. Do not give discounts for free, make him have some benefits offered to us.

Does awards and recognizing important for startup?

  • This comes directly into credibility building so it is good to get some recognition
  • The important point is apply for recognition that are credible and genuine with a selection process like boot up awards by ispirit
  • Have some sort of recognition award or have an article or mention in international news & media like Techcrunch, Harvard Business Review, Gartner, Marketing Magazine, Forbes, Wall Street Journal etc.This will help both India & international brand building.
  • You can use a PR agency to reach out these media and appear for the competition or for the product review

Name some books good for Inside Sales and for Complete Sales?

  • Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
  • Sales Acceleration formula by Mark Roberge

Is there any online tests used as a first-cut of sales roles?

AkKzIBAt4w99IJ_Uj2_8mQGs0EyU9dnA03l9hY6xQA1qHow to provide incentives for your IS(Inside sales) team?

  • Incentive are always a motivating factor for the Inside Sales team. We have laid out some numbers as a sample for you to see below.
    • 2% to 3% of Annual Recurring  Revenue(ARR) for new customer acquisition.
    • 2% to 2.5% of annual revenue for UpSell/Cross Sell or  have a fixed amount like 10k for all revenue of 3L to 5L per year, 5K for 2L to 3L etc.
    • You can also say, if you get a referral from a customer then the account manager gets 5% of revenue.
    • You can also include testimonial incentives for e.g Video testimonials 10k, Text testimonial 5k, Case Study like 10% of ARR
  • Even you can add some incentive for first go-live means successful deployment and this is applicable for enterprise products
  • Make sure these numbers are published and you make sure the check is given to him as soon as you receive them from the customer.

We would be writing another blog on a related & demanding topic “How to set up a Inside Sales Team from scratch & generates Leads?” in the upcoming week.Stay Tuned and Happy Reading!

Contributed by Asha Satapathy, DocEngage

 

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A new year, a new dawn: Startup INDIA, Standup INDIA

Sh. Amitabh Kant, Secretary of DIPP brainstorms with iSPIRT.

Greeting_Card_for_website_v2 (1)He is the author of the book Branding INDIA, a key driver behind many successful branding INDIA campaigns like Make-In India, Incredible India, and Athethi Devo Bhava (Guest is God) campaigns. He is a decision maker par excellence and above all the Secretary of DIPP (Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion). Mr. Amitabh Kant. who is now also in charge of Startup India, Standup India campaign, met up with iSPIRT, in Bangalore to understand the plethora of Technological Break-throughs and Policy Transformations that iSPIRT is facilitating for the benefit of the Startup Community. He provided some very useful advise by participating in interactive session for close to 2.5 hours.

Prime Minister Mr. Modi in his Mann-ki Baat radio address had announced that the Start-Up India, Stand-Up India initiative will unfold on January 16. The initiative will be anchored by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). Mr. Amitabh Kant, and his team consulted and deliberated extensively, on opportunities that can be Game Changers for Indian Startups.

On Tuesday, at Shangri-La in Bangalore, iSPIRT with its team of Volunteers which included Sharad Sharma, Co-founder of iSPIRT, Sharique Hassan from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Shashank from Practo, Sanjay Jain from Ekstep, Jas Gulati from Nowfloats and other volunteers, presented the INDIA STACK, PNGrowth and various other Leap-frogging breakthroughs which will help INDIA innovate for the next 6 Billion people.

Below are some of the key highlights of the Session.

AmitabhKant1iSPIRT Show-case of various Ongoing Initiatives

The session started with a presentation by Sanjay Jain on IndiaStack, a suite of technology-led services, currently being developed to solve identity, payments and personal data management for all Indian citizens. It was followed by Shashank from Practo, about Healthcare, which highlighted how Accessibility and Affordability is helping Health care reach the masses in INDIA. Mr. Amitabh’s participation on both these were highly involved, and he pointed out how States like Rajasthan have taken a pioneering approach, especially in Healthcare. He was quick to point out that if we can create a FEW champion states adopting the IndiaStack and its suite, the rest of the states will quickly follow.

This was followed by Jas Gulati presenting both the book and details around Digital Desh (Impact of Internet on Indian MSMEs).. It was clear that 2nd Tier and 3 Tier India is waiting to explode and join the Internet and Digital revolution in INDIA. iSPIRT also presented its SPiX Index and M&A initiatives helping Quantitatively track the progress and market growth of Indian Startups.

The most intense session was when Mr. Sharique Hassan presented the PNGrowth Initiative Details. China has had an exponential growth in Innovation in the past 15 years, and India now has the Opportunity to repeat the same. However to unleash India’s innovation potential, INDIA needs to capitalize on the Founders hunger and also harness the Institutional assets created by Educational Universities like Stanford, Harvard, Duke etc. Mr. Amitabh was very impressed by the PNGrowth agenda, and commented that it would make an Orbital shift in the Organizational Skills and Strategic Thinking levels of Entrepreneurs in INDIA. He wanted such programs to reach all academic incubation facilities in INDIA.

Ak2Insights and Advise from Mr. Amitabh Kant

If Indian Entrepreneurs focus on Fundamental Science and if they can create a competitive advantage, Mr. Amitabh felt that there was nothing stopping us from leap-frogging the WEST. He was immensely supportive to all programs and in-fact extended financial support for PILOT Projects in various spheres discussed. However, he had 5 important pieces of advice.

  • Pilot projects need to achieve success in at least some corners of INDIA.
  • Nothing Succeeds like Success, so it was imperative that we quickly implement ideas.
  • Institutional Mechanics will follow Innovation, there are several District level funds, MP Lad Funds and also Innovation Funds.
  • Startup challenges can be addressed quickly by Joint Inter-ministerial committees provided we can carve out clear definitions and scope for those challenges.
  • Policy Levers will respond to fast changing needs of Startups. Startup India, Standup India will make sure that ease of doing business is a top priority.
Conclusion
Mr. Amitabh Kant was highly impressed with the body of work presented to him. He said that everything from Challenge Grants supplementing the various RFP tendering processes, of the Govt, to the Inter-ministerial committees quickly acting to enable the Growth levers, were geared to make sure that the Startup Entrepreneur is successful. iSPIRT on its part is fostering and facilitating many such conversations to nudge Policy Makers help the Startup Ecosystem. For the Entrepreneurs, its now up to you to Stand-up and Start-up, to create a new dawn and a new beginning. Happy 2016 to all change makers!
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Fin-Tech: Financial Services To Come

IGIDR Finance Research Group partnered with iSPIRT to help conduct a Fintech Session in their 6th edition of Emerging Markets Finance (EMF) Conference held at Sofitel, BKC – Mumbai. The chosen theme for the Fintech Session was “Financial Services to come”. The session was divided into two parts – (1) inform the disruptions in financial services together with the showcase of select software product companies that are offering products leveraging these disruptive influences, and (2) panel discussions to get thought leaderships on the disruptions in payments, including the role of the regulators.

Mr. Nandan Nilekani delivered the keynote address and he enthralled the audience in his inimitable style. His session started by giving insights into the influences driving the disruptions in financial services, including a real-time demo of one such influence i.e. eKYC using Aadhaar. He then took the audience on a journey of how software product companies are leveraging these influences to introduce innovative business models that would fundamentally change the way financial services are conceived and delivered, laying stress on cashless payments. Nandan, not only, laid stress on the current but also gave the audience a glimpse of the possibilities.

2015-12-18 14.10.18The keynote address was followed by sessions and demos by four select software product companies that have introduced innovative products and / or business models leveraging these influences and making the ‘new’ Fintech happen.

The second half of the Fintech session was designed as panel discussions to engage thought leaders and first movers on their perspectives of these disruptions.

The first panel discussion was on Future of payments, moderated by Sanjay Jain (Volunteer, iSpirt). The discussion was wide ranging, with Mr. A P Hota (MD and CEO, National Payments Corporation of India) providing us the perspective on the infrastructure that has been setup by the NPCI to interconnect banks, which is the basis for payments in India, and Mr. G V Nageswara Rao (MD and CEO, NSDL) on how Payment Banks will bring in technology led business models and change the way payments are done in India. Prof. Bhagwan Chowdhry (Professor, UCLA Anderson School of Management), and David Katz (Deputy Head, Global Govt. Relations at Paypal) brought an international perspective to the panel. The conversation included perspectives on how transaction costs, and the removal of friction play an important role in the growth of digital payments and the move to a cash less society.

2015-12-18 14.47.08The panel where status quo meets disruption was highly animated discussion led by Prof Phatak and with two participants from the startup/VC community – Haresh Chawla from IVFA & Sanjay Swamy from Prime Ventures – Dr Ajay Shah and Anand Bajaj, Head of Innovation at YesBank. Dr Phatak opened by stating the time is ripe for disruption and to move to a cashless and cardless world of mobile only payments. Mr Chawla was of the view that innovations will come once the cost of moving money between accounts is near zero – and the next wave of innovations will be around applications of low cost payments. Dr Shah was of the view that the regulator still needs to encourage disruptions and remains a risk to the innovation ecosystem if they stop innovations. Mr Bajaj, fresh from the signing of the MOU between YesBank and iSpirt to setup a framework for a banking app store reiterated the bank’s desire to partner with the startups as they innovate. Mr Swamy called for the need to remove some of the obstacles in on-boarding customers for electronic payment acceptance, and asked for a framework for piloting new concepts. Overall the panel raised several real issues that were actively debated – questions from the audience also echoed the fact that most of the points raised were relevant and real issues. Over the coming months we hope the banking industry will address these issues head-on and SRT the stage for India to maximize the opportunity of the new disruptive technologies from Aadhaar to biometric authentication to IMPS and the Unified Payment Interface.

2015-12-18 14.47.04This is was the first Fintech event for iSPIRT in Mumbai and it received record registrations. IGIDR FRG event organizers expressed desire to conduct a dedicated event based on the positive feedback received.

Guest Contributed by Surya Kasichainula, 3I Infotech & Volunteer for iSPIRT

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What it’ll take to make ‘Smart Cities’ ‘smart’ in the truest spirit

What the BJP is touting proudly as its Smart City development of hundred shortlisted cities across the country, the Congress had initiated during its rule by the name Urban Clusters. The ultimate objective was to judiciously use technology for intelligent planning and efficient running of urban centers in India.

This subject has been discussed by various eminent people in the field ranging from town planners to architects to civic authorities. Most are of the view that injecting technology in a contrived manner was not desirable and the need was for sustainable cities rather than ‘smart’ one’s, where the approach is more outcome based. Infrastructure by itself is of little value unless it is complemented by systems, which are efficient. The approach has to be holistic and should be in tandem with other related programs such as AMRUT and Swacch Bharat.

All such mega ventures with huge capital outlays come with their own set of impediments. To begin with, there are three bureaucratic layers to contend with, the Central Government, that holds the purse strings, the State Government where the Chief Minister could be the gateway to fund distribution and the Civic body where the implementation will be finally done. As things stand today, the CM of the state will be the overriding authority in decision making, but then political equations and differences could at times influence decisions. Also, politicians have short tenures, whereas planning and execution could be a slow laborious process.

For most major cities in the world, the city mayor is a powerful and influential authority as far as the planning and systems are concerned. Some of them have managed their cities so well that they have gone on to become national leaders. In India, mayors are but figure heads with minimal powers, at least as far spending is concerned. Should we then think of a separate body or authority to decide on city matters, especially for the metro cities of India? For instance, like the NCR region around Delhi, can we have a State Capital Authority for all the capital cities of our states?

Then, there is the tricky issue of procurement and purchase. With the proposed top down approach where the Centre releases the funds, this issue could hit road blocks. Who would decide on what and from where to procure the material? For instance, if a city needs 100 CCTV cameras for security, does one go for wired ones to stay within budget or go for wireless ones? Should purchases be made from local sources?

It will become desirable to make it a more democratized process with active citizen participation, where smart cities are run BY the citizens rather than FOR them. More involvement of citizens in varying degrees at the various stages of decision making would become a norm for the future. For this to happen, data which is under layers of bureaucratic stops is freed for the general public. The use of active API’s as envisaged by iSpirt could be put to good use. For specific problems of certain spots within a large city, accessing such data could enable residents to come up with solutions. The India Stack is a good example to follow for smart cities.

All major towns have authorities assigned with the task of systematic planning and infrastructure layout with the of 1917 serving almost as a bible; a 100 year old but meticulous document. Cities today are in disarray because vested interests, together with the collusion of authorities at times, have got away with violations in spite of a firm legislation. Smart cities could help curb such acts to a great extent since all planning has to be based on metrics and accountability and as we move to a ‘presence-less approach’ with the use of technology, the roles of these vested interests could diminish greatly.

So yes, a lot is possible with the use of technology towards the making and running of our cities, but for that a lot needs to be done other than earmarking funds and selecting cities to me made ‘smart’. From the dissolving of ward boundaries to accessing of geospatial data to free use of active API’s smart city development needs a concerted effort from more than one source.

Guest Post by Ranga Raj, Thinxtream Technologies

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Bill Gates meets with iSPIRT

Bill Gates met with members of iSPIRT in Bangalore in December to learn about the organization and its volunteers’ efforts to solve India’s hardest problems through the use of technology.  Nandan Nilekani played host to the event and also present in the room were Sharad Sharma (iSPIRT co-founder), Nachiket More (former Board member of RBI, now senior advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)), and various senior members of BMGF.

Bill-Gates1There were three broad themes that were covered — finance, healthcare and education — each of which forms an important part of the Gates Foundation’s work in philanthropy. Product demos included the IndiaStack, a suite of technology services currently being developed around identity, payments and personal data management for all Indian citizens; three of the leading startups in the healthcare space — Practo, Logistimo, and Swasthya Slate; and EkStep, an education-focused nonprofit that focuses on facilitated learning.

Shashank presenting to BillBill Gates observed that India is producing cutting-edge work and there are few countries which can boast of a digital infrastructure as sophisticated as we are producing here. With such positive encouragement from one of the most accomplished individuals in the world, the vision of transforming India at large through application of technology has received a new impetus.

the panel with BillGuest Post by Saurabh Panjwani, iSPIRT

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Rediscovering America – The SaaS way !

iSPIRT Roundtable Delhi – 12th December2015

ColumbusCenturies ago Columbus took an adventurous sea journey to discover India in search of gold and in the process stumbled upon America. It is ironical that after ages we Indian product entrepreneurs are re-embarking upon the journey to rediscover America in search of gold, just that we no longer trust the sea and prefer to go via the cloud.

So on Saturday, 12th Dec’15, in the Delhi winter fog, a group of iSPIRT SaaS entrepreneurs met for a Round table titled “” where selling to US was a key focus. I drove in my odd numbered car on even numbered date( the Delhi car rule has not yet triggered in) to get my share of gold. The captain of our ship was Samir Palnitkar from Shop Socially. Samir is a known face in the Indian entrepreneur circle, a serial entrepreneur who has done it all. Still when you meet him you’ll see that glitter in his eyes yearning to achieve more. What I like about the iSPIRT round tables is that they are not about endless powerpoint presentations but active discussions about real issues – real solutions. Every time I attend one I’m amazed by the positive energy in discussions there. You meet real achievers who are hungry for more yet humble enough to help those who have started their journeys. The true bond between us entrepreneurs is that of respect. Respect for hardwork , commitment and perseverance because only we know that that there is no easy way to get up there.

While the queen of spain sponsored Columbus’ sea adventure, ours was hosted by Investopad and I must thank them for that. Located centrally in heart of South Delhi , Investopad has a carefree yet professional environment for any startup to bloom. An ideal setup for our round table. Add to it the Vada Pao and Masala tea from Chaayos, and you are rearing to go. As Peter Drucker said “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” So here we were getting a sneak peak into our future.

The Round table started with a brief round of introductions from each of the participants. Interestingly, there was no debate on why we were there. Each of us knew that if we have to succeed, we have to go global with a special focus on the US market.

Outbound Vs Inbound Marketing

As the discussion evolved, it centered around one key aspect- Outbound Vs Inbound marketing.

InboundThere is a school of thought which believes inbound marketing using content and blogs gives you good quality low cost leads over time. I personally belong to that group having built SalesPanda, an inbound marketing product. But there is another set of people who feel its better to go target the exact customers you want to bring in via outbound. I must say this round table was dominated more by the latter than the former. Like Sachin from Insidesalesbox.com shared the perfect analogy of fishing with a spear and not the net, its yours to choose. In the same room we had two successful startups using both the methodologies successfully. On one side we had Samir our speaker from shop socially who has 70% of leads from outbound email and telecalling and other side we had Sidharth from Wingify(VWO) who have 70% leads from inbound content. Ideally you need to master both and leverage one with the other.

Samir, I must say has mastered the art of selling to global audience via outbound. And it’s not cold calling or randomly hitting on the entire market. It’s a well designed, cured and planned way to segment and target the market. He calls it warm calling to people who show interest to a drip email campaign.

Yes outbound it was, the group agreed and Samir would share his secret recipe to conquer customers globally.

We started the discussion with the fundamental questions

  • How do we find global customers?
  • How do we reach them?
  • Should I build a team abroad?

Marketing-driven Sales

Samir shared the concept of marketing driven sales where the you build a pipeline driven by marketing campaigns both outbound and inbound. Inbound leads are standard SEO and website based leads whereas outbound leads are a mix of email drip marketing and outbound telecalling.

The outbound process starts with a drip email campaign on a carefully built database.

Samir shared his inside sales process as in image below. You have an inside sales team(Qualifiers) to reach out to prospects who either open or respond back to the emails. They pass the leads on to Sales Managers(closers) who demo the product to the clients. There is a customer success team who’s job is to move free trial customers to premium and also upsell and cross sell. For specific hot opportunities a special Pod is created which nurtures these leads to keep hem engaged to close.

Inside Sales Process at Shop Socially

The key question which would come to your mind is that where would the data come from. The team discussed various options and tools to buy data. Here is what Samir shared about their process at shop socially.

  1. Set your target criteria- Industry verticals, Titles, Company Revenue, location etc
  2. Build a list of companies you want to target using tools like Builtwith, Datanyze, Hoovers, Data.com
  3. Work with third parties to scrub list – use elance, upwork etc.

InsidesalesOnce the database is ready, import it to a marketing automation tool, in case of sell socially they use Pardot. Create a drip marketing campaign across different offering. Segregate the prospects as R,C,O – People who respond,click or open your mailers. The inside sales team calls out to people who atleast clicked on the email so its never a cold call as atleast the customer has heard about you before. The chart below details the emailing process. The prospects move to a CRM solution where the lead is progressed. Shop socially use Salesforce and Sugarcm but any other good CRM would do. Ajay from Salezshark also shared how their CRM software provided an integrated mobile ready solution. It have built in contact database seamlessly integrated into the solution. Do check out !

Some of the other salient points mentioned by Samir and agreed by the group were

  • The product needs to have the stickiness for people to come back. You can get people to try but there has to genuine stickiness for them to buy.
  • The email content should be concise. Fancy EDMs are a big no as text mails are more acceptable.
  • Calling script is critical. It should be detailed enough for callers to navigate through all possible scenarios.
  • While reaching the prospects on a call, its always better to get them to block the calendars and follow it up with a reminder on the day of the meeting.

Go Prepared !

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” ― 

We spend so much effort to create databases, send multiple emails and calling the prospects to fix demos. But the important question is how prepared are we to get into the battlefield. Are our sales guys equipped enough to answer customer queries ? Some of the Sales Collaterals you need to build before starting the process are as below

  • Standard Video and company presentation
  • Whitepapers and Case Studies
  • Video Testimonials
  • Webinars
  • Pricing and Value Calculator

Also remember conferences are for sales. When you participate in events and conferences, go prepared. Fix meetings with prospects there well in advance to utilise your time.

Finally, in the last leg of the round table we discussed on people ratios, targets and other infrastucture details. We also debated on hiring tips for key resources including inside sales and career plan for them.

One crucial point the group debated was the need and value of outsourcing some of the processes. As we debated, a concensus evolved on outsourcing top of the funnel activities. We need to focus on closures because as funnels goes down it gets more critical. So you can outsource top of funnel activities like data profiling, appointment setting etc but keep the bottom activites like demo and closure calls with you as every slip can cost you heavily.

Overall it was a great experience for all of us as we came out more clear and confident on reaching global customers. In fact, last few days I myself tested some of the ideas like drip marketing campaigns and reaching out to data profiling team via upwork and I must say it works ! I believe that as years go by, we Indian entrepreneurs would master the art of selling globally via the cloud. Here is the team who attended the round table. Carefully, note down these names coz when decades later your great grand children ask you who rediscovered America via the cloud, you should know J

A big thank you to all who participated in the round table and to iSPIRT for organising. A day well spent. Look forward to the next one !

by Samit Arora, Co-founder, SalesPanda.com