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#SaaSx2 is here – The premier event for SaaS companies looking to scale

When SaaS was discovered by India, a group of young people saw its potential and built incredible businesses around it.

These were the originals, the first SaaS hackers.

We brought a few of them together in March this year, under the banner of SaaSx1, so other SaaS entrepreneurs could learn from them, and don’t have to commit the same mistakes all over again. The idea was that the learning would allow the new, driven breed to leverage experience when building innovative companies. As we said then, the knowledge needed to grow SaaS business from zero to $10k to $100k to $1m in MRR is rare, and the only people who can tell you something about it are the people who have done so already.

The super successful event ensured that we kept getting mails asking us to do another, and soon.

But the quality of the first event ensured that we had to wait and work to put together speakers of the same calibre again, so SaaSx could become a premier event in the ecosystem.

And so here we are.

saaSxWith #SaaSx2, and in the same place where it began – the newest kid of the startup ecosystem, Chennai. The event now returns with a leaner, meaner program that aims at ensuring that people ask the questions they want answers to, and take away specific action items they can immediately implement. This season will also debut an extended networking session, thus ensuring that everyone’s ideas have equal space in the ether, and the information shared and gained benefits everyone in the ecosystem.

Each one of the elements of the program has been tweaked keeping in mind last year’s experience, and the several Playbook RTs and meetups we have facilitated over the last few years. The speakers this year include Girish(Freshdesk), Aneesh Reddy(Capillary), Few SaaS startups and the tentative program is as follows.

Time Session Title
1030 to 1300hrs Pre-Event Playbook – “What it takes to Fund SaaS companies”
1030 to 1300hrs Pre-Event Playbook – “Are you ready to hit the growth pedal’ MVP”
1300-1400hrs Registrations & Lunch Networking
1400-1415hrs Introduce & Welcome #SaaSx2
1415-1515hrs Fireside Chat – “Assembling a Commando Team in the early days”
1515-1535hrs 3 SaaS Founders talks about “One Thing” talk for 5 min each
1535-1635hrs Fireside Chat – “The Nuances of Enterprise SaaS”
1635-1700hrs 3 SaaS Founders talks about “One Thing” talk for 5 min each
1700-1830hrs Group Event
1830-1850hrs SaaS Landscape report to be launched by Signalhill/iSPIRT
1850-1905hrs SaaS Guide to be launched
1905-2000hrs Keynote Address
2000hrs onwards Entertainment – Standup comedy, Networking Cocktails & Dinner

We will keep you updated over this as and when we have information, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you need any sort of assistance or have questions you need answered.

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India B2B Software Products Industry Clocks Solid Growth from 2014 to 2015

India’s B2B software product industry has grown nicely since we published the first edition of this index in November 2014 – the top 30 companies are valued at $10.25 billion (₹65,500 crores) and employ over 21,000 people.  The index has grown 20% in USD terms and 28% in INR terms from October 30, 2014 to June 30, 2015.

There has been an acceleration since 2010 in the pace of creation of B2B companies.  Vertically-focused offerings in retail, travel, financial services, media have reached scale and we are likely to see some larger exits in terms of IPOs or M&A over the next couple of years. In parallel, we are seeing horizontal offerings targeting global markets emerge and start to breakout of India into the US and other global markets – we are starting to see not only India-based venture funds backing these companies but also Silicon Valley funds coming in once there is initial customer adoption in the US.

A new set of founders are coming into the B2B software products ecosystem. These include an increasing proportion who have worked at consumer and B2B startups that have scaled in India and who have identified problems that they can solve with software automation.  We are also seeing continued venture creation from founding teams that have backgrounds from established enterprise software companies and some from IT services companies.

In terms of target markets, fast-growth Indian companies (in sectors such as organized retail, organized healthcare services and technology startups in product commerce and services commerce i.e. online-to-offline) are starting to purchase software from Indian B2B software product startups and have globally-aligned requirements, helping these startups get closer to product-market fit before or in parallel to starting to sell globally. We are also seeing many startups go global from day-one through a desk-selling model, as evidenced by many of the companies in the index. And finally, several startups have moved founders to the US and are succeeding in direct selling models there.

Some of the numbers: 80% of companies have global customer bases, while the rest are India-focused.  67% of companies are domiciled in India, with the rest principally in Singapore and the US.  Bangalore and NCR account for half the companies’ principal city of operations with Chennai and Pune as key secondary hubs – there is a trend to newer companies starting up in Bangalore, Chennai and Pune and away from NCR.  Average enterprise value per employee is climbing toward Silicon Valley levels – the index currently nets out to $480k per employee.

The top 30 companies in alphabetical order are:

Here’s the report in its entirety:

Thanks to all the volunteers at iSPIRT who worked on this project as well as Professor Sharique Hasan of Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University; Professor Rishi Krishnan of IIM-Indore; as well as Signal Hill for providing public market valuation comparables and Rakesh Mondal  for designing the document..

We will publish an updated iSPIxB2B index every year starting with the next one in June 2016 – please do click here to submit names of companies you think should make this list.

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India innovated and celebrated @Inno_fest #IndiaCanInnovate

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

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

You asked us – Why the focus on Innovation?

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

And how do we address the Innovation deficit?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#IndiaCanInnovate.

Just let us know 🙂

Guest Post contributed by Ritika Singh, Proud Volunteer for Innofest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s always a next time J

Guest Post by Rajesh K, ProgrammedV

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Innovation @ Innofest 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest Post contributed by Srinivasan

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Promote innovation and entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable economic growth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest Post by Vikram Upadhyaya

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When it Comes to Startups, an 80% Fix is No Fix

In this polytheistic world of entrepreneurs, who is the Startup Initiative for?

There are many types of entrepreneurs. There is the self-employed vegetable-vendor type, the Thelawala. Then there is the small businessman in Okhla or Peenya who has grown to be in GST net. And how can one ignore the technology entrepreneur who graces the pages of ET every day . Even these tech startups come in many shapes and sizes. Some are after mainstream `Bharat’ consumers; others are building mass-luxury brands.Then there are fast followers in global markets or those who are rattling ferocious global players. And who can ignore startups that are filling white spaces in the safer domestic market and are aspiring to be national leaders.

What’s the one tool all successfulIn this polytheistic world of entrepreneurs, who is the Startup Initiative for? If it’s for all the various types of entrepreneurs, then it will quickly succumb to the 80% syndrome. Policy-makers will address things that are the common denominator for all types of entrepreneurs. While this is necessary , it’s not sufficient. As any product manager in the technology industry will tell you, this 80% fix is a recipe for failure.

To make a critical mass of changes, a persona-based policy making is needed. The biggest problem for Thelawala type entrepreneurs is absence of easy credit. For Peenya and Okhla business Peenya and Okhla businessmen, it is the inspector raj. For technology star raj. For technology startups it’s outdated regulations that thwart venture financing.

Each of these types of entrepreneurs is in pain today . Last year 54% of the funded technology startups redomiciled themselves outside India. This year, iSPIRT estimates, the exodus has accelerated and the number of companies redomiciling out of India will be 75% of all funded startups! There is crisis on another front too. India’s Global Innovation Index has been falling for four years in a row. We are no longer in the top 85 countries of the world! This innovation deficit has a bearing on sustainability of the entrepreneurship boom that we are witnessing right now. We are overly reliant on copy-paste entrepreneurship and this can only sustain if we keep MNCs out like China has done.

The most important decision for a policy-maker is focus on a specific type of entrepreneur. Only then the `how’ comes into focus and a cross-ministerial approach kicks in. Some of this is starting to happen. Later this week, there will be an important announcement by the Ministry of Finance about addressing venture-financing gaps in areas beyond e-commerce, neighbourhood commerce and consumer tech. There is a lot of work to be done to bring Startup India initiative to life. A nuanced henotheistic approach is needed (henotheism: involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others). It can be done. Early signs give reason for cautious optimism.

 

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Happy Independence Day from iSPIRT #IndiaCanInnovate #PNGrowth

It’s Independence Day today, and the last year has been one of the most exciting years in India’s product ecosystem. Just last week, the news that Sundar Pichai has taken over as the CEO of Google has been another shot in the arm for Indian techies. If ever it was the time for Indian product companies to raise the battle cry to take on the world, it is now.

Screen Shot 2015-08-14 at 6.15.42 pmIn conversations with other people in the ecosystem over the last month, there has been a realisation about the need to create what we call category leaders in the product space.

In India right now, we do not have #1 in any large category. Freshdesk (#2 in category), VWO (#2 in category), FusionCharts (#2 in category), are all virtual market leaders but these are our own unicorns.

And this in turn begs the question – do we take a route of supporting only large leaders, or multiple contenders, at which we already have the above companies killing it?

In this discussion, overwhelming support was for more number of companies; we simply need more entrepreneurs, and MORE IMPORTANTLY more product people.

These new companies we want to see don’t need to become category leaders, but category winners. And this would mean a whole new approach to building a company.

We have reimagine our team/culture, process and product to have a shot at being a category winner.

For team/culture, we need a hiring model that is tied to results from the beginning. Hiring great, not just good, talent in the early days requires hunting people down across the world, and creating a culture that scales.

For process, it starts with eschewing chewing-gum culture and thinking about solving all problems with technology in the way that allows Uber to operate with higher customer satisfaction despite having a fraction of the employees that other companies have.

Metaphorically, it is about having German Product Management, American Marketing and Russian Programmers.

For product, it comes to recreating the category, and sometimes creating a new one. And it’s also definitely about scientific and yet disruptive pricing.

Why all this on a national holiday, you might think? When else, then? Today, when we are watching the Independence Day parade in New Delhi, some of us weight think as to what significance our careers have over, say perhaps an Army jaw an who guards our borders? Isn’t his the more important job for the nation?

It certainly is, but we mustn’t forget that in our own way, our work is also aimed at making a stronger country. When we start building world class products the world uses, we are raising the bar for achievement as well. Our may not be to do and die, but maybe our role, in this quest to build India as a Product Nation, is simply to inspire the next generation.

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Build, Create, Connect, Improvise and Explore at the Makers Pavilion @Inno_Fest

We are celebrating innovation, innovatively.And we mean it.

We will be showcasing some of India’s best innovations – the ‘real stars’ of our show – the makers, innovators, dreamers and creators.

Who knows, you might just get ‘inspired’ to innovate and fulfil your own dream! And if not, you might just walk out in ‘awe.’

Makerrs Pavilion

We look forward to a round of applause… watch the videos to know what we mean…

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Innovation has to be the starting point for entrepreneurs

Innovation significantly expands your options, possibilities, and opportunities

That there is enthusiasm about entrepreneurship across India is apparent, and clearly visible. A number of our young citizens are now thinking about starting a business rather than taking up a job. And that’s a good thing, because we need more job creators.

However, in India, innovation is often not the starting point in our thought process for our entrepreneurial journey. Most of our innovators and entrepreneurs are not thinking of how we can solve the problem with a radically different solution or approach. Most of our aspiring entrepreneurs do not think of creating or inventing new products and solutions.

That’s why we see India falling to 76th position this year in the global innovation index. Even within the BRICS nations, we are the lowest-ranked country on this index. Interestingly, while all other BRICS nations have strengthened their position, India has slipped 10 points from 66 last year, to 76 this year.

This has to change.

There is nothing wrong in building a strong me-too business. However, me-too concepts or even incremental innovations on existing concepts limit your own options and opportunities. On the other hand, innovation expands your possibilities, options, and opportunities, significantly. It provides you a fresh new canvas to paint on, rather than trying to fit your signature on a painting that already has other signatures.

But, for innovation to become a part of our mainstream thinking, we need to create an enabling ecosystem and a conducive environment for innovators and entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into products and businesses. I am glad to note that things are improving on this front. A number of private initiatives are creating the infrastructure and resources for entrepreneurs to innovate. Initiatives like Innofest, of which I am a committed patron, which celebrate and showcase innovation, are important to bring innovation at the center of our thought process.

Innofest is a festival of innovation, ideas and inspiration, to be held in Bengaluru on the 22nd of August 2015. I will be there. I hope to see you there too.

#IndiaCanInnovate @Inno_fest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contributed by Prabhu Stavarmath, BookACan

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A Day In Radha’s Life @ Innofest ‘15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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iSPIRT announces the launch of InnoFest 2015

 innofest_logo

      A ‘first of its kind’ marquee event to kick-start the next innovation wave in India, where

     Bengaluru takes the lead in showcasing Public-Private Partnership.

 

With iSPIRT, we are happy to announce the launch of InnoFest – a day long Innovation festival jointly organized and sponsored by Public and Private Enterprise. The event, to be held at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore on August 22nd 2015 is significant – in a daring break from a ’traditional event’ format, InnoFest shall be run as a festival celebrating Innovation…

Here is why…

India needs this movement; not only for Indians, but for the aspiring and emerging worlds’ 5 Billion people, as compared to innovations focused on the one billion in the first world, who are already well served. This is the only way India can avoid the middle income trap, as we grow at 7-8%. The vibrancy of grass root innovation cannot be experienced through speeches and panel discussions within enclosed halls; its energy and exuberance has to be felt and unleashed.

The Patrons of this event are Mr. Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance, Government of India; Mr. Nandan Nilekani, Former Chairman of Infosys and Former Chairman of UIDAI; Mrs. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon and Mr. Mohandas Pai, Chairman of the Board, Manipal Global Education.

Speaking at the launch, Mr. Pai said, “The idea of InnoFest is absolutely aligned with the Government’s thinking. If we are going to increase productivity, employment and opportunity for everyone in this country then we need a grassroots movement that will bring the best ideas to the table. Our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has great vision in developing 100 smart cities across the country as well as a digital India and a leading science and technology program; innovation will certainly be a key driver for all these initiatives.”

Why Innovation, you may ask…

Simply because we have an ‘innovation’ deficit in the country today! We are no doubt an enterprising nation, but we still have a long way to go when we look at being an ‘innovative’ nation. However, please note that there is no shortage of imagination and creativity in India. We need to build our skills where this imagination and creativity is applied to generate unique solutions to local problems. InnoFest is the platform to tackle this challenge.

We strongly believe that to reduce the innovation deficit in India, we need to operate at two levels: the individual and the policy. InnoFest uniquely brings these two elements together:

  • The Young Ignited Minds: will sharpen their innovation skills in a fun and experiential setting
  • The Government of India: will activate thoughtful policies that will help fulfill the innovation potential of India

InnoFest will have various programs like MakerSpace, Product Zone, Hall of Fame, Young Innovators Zone, Townhall and eminent speakers across a galaxy of disciplines including Naveen Tiwari (InMobi), Rohan Shravanan (Notion Inc), K Ganesh (CEO, Portea Medical), Arundhati Nag (Film Personality), Vijay Chandru (Strand Life Sciences), Bhavish Aggarwal (CEO, Ola Cabs) and Phanindra Sama (RedBus).

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

InnoFest has been conceived as a day-long festival of ideas and inspiration that will exponentially multiply innovation across the country and make India into a Product Nation. iSPIRT strongly believes that a robust software product ecosystem is the key to rapid growth across the country. More than 1,000 professionals are expected to participate, pan India.

So, if you want to change the world AND put your own dent in the universe; make sure you are at InnoFest !!

Further details of the event are available on the Innofest website & FAQ’s can be accessed here.

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Mobile Product & Growth Hacking RoundTable #playbookRT by @amitsomani & @VishalAnand

Having a completed a half century of RoundTables, the iSPIRT team was back with the 51st RoundTable on what’s currently the hot topic of discussion and debate in the startup community – mobile! A lot of startups are also trying to figure out their mobile strategy and this was evidenced in the great interest shown by startups in participating in this RoundTable. And why not? It’s not too often that you get a chance to deeply interact and learn from senior industry practitioners like Amit Somani, who was the facilitator and Vishal Anand, co-facilitator for the RoundTable.

The participating startups were from different domains (healthcare, HR, payments, consumer services etc.) and across stages (already have something up and running on mobile, tried something on mobile, but didn’t work, yet to figure out mobile strategy and so on). There was a round of introductions with each startup giving a context about their company and industry, the key challenges and their expected takeaways from the RoundTable. The iSPIRT RoundTables are highly collaborative in nature with a lot of peer learning and feedback as part of the discussions. As the introductions were happening, the facilitators were mapping the areas that startups were looking for help to the mobile journey. With the introductions complete, the group had a fair sense of the key areas that would be taken up for discussion during the RoundTable.

One of the first topics that came up for discussion was ‘Activation’ – how do you get the user to make the first action on your app. Many points came up for discussion – coupons, notifications, social/referral and so on. But two stood out, which Amit stressed upon – one was how do you get the users to have their aha moment and secondly, how do you ensure that you’re scaling this in a sustainable way? While the current sentiment seems to be around growth at any cost, Amit mentioned that it’s important to start looking at the unit economics sooner rather than later. Some of the key points mentioned around Activation where:

Mobile Playbook

  • Coupons:
    • This is perhaps the simplest and easiest way, but could you be smarter in doing this? Could you create different segments of users and offer targeted coupons instead of a blanket coupon? E.g. Say, an iPhone user is more valuable than other users. Could you then possibly offer her a higher value coupon?
    • You’d also need to be careful about the positioning and perception of your brand? If the focus is on coupons, will you come to be known as brand offering coupons rather than be known for your service? Also, with coupons, are you sure that you’re attracting the right kind of users or you’ll end up acquiring only ‘deal-hunters’?
    • While coupons are an effective channel, it’ll be helpful to create segments to as minute levels as possible and offer them to users appropriately.
  • Supply Side Users
    • Some of the companies participating in the RoundTable were marketplaces that had users on the ‘supply side’ as well. Key points mentioned were – a) show demand to the supply side user. b) Some kind of revenue calculator/estimator. These would help the supply side user get a sense of the demand and then take the necessary action (create listings, upload products etc.)

There were some companies that were still in the early stages of their mobile play or were evaluating how to go about their mobile strategies. Some of the points discussed were around:

  • Building in-house v/s Outsourcing
    • There is limited availability of high quality mobile developers and designers these days and startups have to compete with some heavily-funded companies for the same talent pool. Given this scenario, does it make sense to outsource mobile development and design? Participating companies had interesting experiences to share. For some of them, outsourcing hadn’t worked well. Some of them were able to find high quality freelancers and engaged them effectively.
    • However, one insight that Amit shared found resonance among the audience – one way to perhaps go about outsourced mobile development could be to breaking down the deliverables into design, frontend, backend etc. Perhaps engage a good designer for design and do the rest in-house? Also, in most cases, the backend is core to the company and that’s perhaps something that needs to be done in-house.
    • Similarly,
  • Does mobile lend itself to a one-time use use case?
    • For example, if there’s an app for employees in a company to check and update their records etc, does it really lend itself to a strong use case for mobile? Can one create enough hooks to engage the user to come back frequently to the app?

The next key discussion was around metrics and tools to use to measure the metrics.

  • Amit gave a simple, yet powerful formula to look at metrics – Record everything, Track 12 and focus on 3. This will help in identifying the really important metrics and drive the company’s energy to focus and improve on those.
  • An ideal comparison for Lifetime Value (LTV) to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is LTV > 3*CAC. In a lighter vein, Amit mentioned that given the amount of marketing spends companies have these days, he’d be very eager to meet and invest in a company that even has LTC = CAC! That said, the importance of thinking through the right economics and working towards it with reasonable visibility is something Amit stressed throughout the session.
  • Rather than averages, Amit mentioned it might be useful to look at percentages, have cohorts to measure movement and perhaps look at percentiles as well depending on the metrics.
  • (Daily Active)/(Monthly Active) >= 15% is a good number for any app. Also, (Monthly Active Users)/(Install Base) >= 25% is good as well.
  • Some of the tools mentioned during the discussion were:
    • Google Analytics for simple and basic analytics
    • Flurry – gives comparative data and is free.
    • AppAnnie – for comparative data
    • Appfigures for Ranking / Review and Ratings – Daily reports
    • App bot (sentimental analysis on Reviews)
    • Crashmetrics –  Crash reports
    • Uninstall.io – for tracking uninstalls
    • Branch.io – post install deeplinking
    • Segment.io – integrates different tools used

MobilePlaybook

The participants left with a lot of food for thought and actionable takeaways that they hope to put into practice at their startups. There were also some very interesting books recommended by Amit to deeply understand user engagement and get some insights:

  • Hooked
  • Made to Stick
  • Influence