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CISO Platform Decision Summit to Showcase Innovative IT Security Start-ups

India’s startup ecosystem has climbed another step towards becoming the largest in the world. It is the fastest growing and third-largest in the world. Though we have more than 3000 start-ups in India, we are way behind in terms of IT Security start-ups. With the growing concerns of Cyber warfare, India as a country needs to have significant indigenous capabilities in the field of cyber security. With the vision to promote the IT Security start up ecosystem in India, CISO Platform has launched an initiative to promote Indian product companies during its flagship event: Decision Summit and Top 100 CISO Awards. iSprit has joined hands to support this initiative as a community partner.

In order to encourage entrepreneurs who have come up with innovative ideas in the field of information security, CISO Platform is providing an opportunity to showcase their ideas at Decision Summit 2015, New Delhi. This event shall serve as a platform to connect with the top IT security decision makers and numerous innovative Information Security companies. The selected companies shall be able to present their innovation during the event apart from having space in the expo floor.

The event shall host 100 to 150 Indian Chief Information Security Officers or Head of IT Security. The platform can be utilized by the selected start-ups to network and learn from the top CISOs and also introduce their innovation to them. The event shall also have numerous sessions and workshops in the emerging field of IT Security like Cloud Security, Cloud Access Security Brokers, Threat Intelligence, RASP, IAST and lot more.

To know more about Innovative Start-up Showcase: Click here

To know more about Decision Summit: Click here

Guest Post by Bikash Barai, Co-Founder, iViz Security.

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Roadmap To A Cashless Country

Denmark is well on its way if not already the first country in the world to go 100% cashless. Sweden is not far behind either and in fact may be ahead of Denmark in cashless behaviors. The governments of the two NORDIC countries are enabling and encouraging cashless mechanisms through legislations. That means, all payments towards a cup of coffee or a house will be through cards or mobile wallets. This is an amazing development in our life times as we go from touch and feel experience of money to just clicks on our digital devices.

This got me thinking if India will ever go cashless. My prediction is that at least in the foreseeable future, India will never be 100% cashless. Just one glance at the collections in temples will show how small change matters. But over the next decade we will see strong pockets of cashless transactions by use cases. A recent report showed Cash On Delivery (CoD) still reigns supreme with 55% of overall e-commerce transactions. This is a good metric to follow on how the nation is doing with regards to cashless transactions. The tipping point towards cashless would be a sharp decline in CoD mode of payment.

In most cases, the choice of CoD is just habitual and easier, fuelling the habit. The challenge for any online business is to shift the default from CoD to digital payment modes including credit cards, debit cards or mobile wallets. Businesses don’t make it any easier with more number of instances of broken credit card machines that occasionally remind you to carry cash at all times. This along with having to remember a million passwords for both offline and online transactions easily makes cash the default king even if having to run to the nearest ATM! Cash has another benefit that is hard to beat – there is no digital footprint of the source and destination. Also, there are no fees to transact in cash unlike credit cards where some party needs to bear the cost of infrastructure.

Advantage Cashless

Uber, the taxi app set the bar high in showing us how incredibly easy the customer experience can be when it all works fine. Uber asks you to pre-register your credit card with their service when you install their mobile app. Uber is one example of a superior customer experience through the use of a payment platform from Braintree.

There are three trends that give hope to rise in cashless payments. They are mobile smartphone owners, rise in payment technology platforms and consumer behavior trends.

Mobile smartphone users in India have reached 111 million and expected to exceed 200 million by 2016 according to eMarketer. Ecommerce companies are saying majority of the purchases (CoD despite) are coming from mobile. Mobile wallets are at the least occupying the mind share of users, thanks to airtel money and PayTm. I am sure the companies will have more to say about actual usage trends.

Payment platforms are making a splash thanks to Apple which pretty much reinvigorated the space with Apple Pay. Tap and Pay is a cool platform that allows buyers to simply tap their mobile phone over a NFC enabled device installed by the business. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) released RuPay cards which offers much lower transaction costs that helps the Indian government and businesses to reach all sections of society in its ambitious financial inclusion program. In summary, there is a lot of innovation happening in this space that will be interesting to watch on simplifying payments.

Consumer behavior trends show Gen Y and Z, people born and waking up with mobile devices will be comfortable with mobile communications, transactions and payments.

Why small to large businesses should promote cashless?

The benefits of cashless transactions to businesses are that it saves time and money that is today spent in end of day accounting, safe storage, transportation and handling.

Why government should make it easier?

The clear benefit to government is in moving towards a more white money economy and curbing black money. Of course, governments may be tempted to react to increased visibility into billions of every day micro-transactions at grocery stores, newspaper vendors etc. Increased visibility in large transactions such as buying real estate will help curb corruption and create a fair marketplace for all sections of the society.

RBI certainly would appreciate the savings from not having to mint so much money. The impact of a majority cashless economy on monetary policy is an interesting question and may be worthy of seminal research.

Society would appreciate sharp declines of bank robberies and ATM heists. (Hang on to your copy of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). However, there are risks and the biggest is the electronic fraud. There will be many attempts to hack in to the digital vaults and steal. The nature of insuring digital banks that support cashless economies needs to be reconsidered.

Why you should pay cashless?

As someone who values money, cashless allows you to track every paisa spent and received quickly and easily, thereby allowing you to make better decisions on short term, mid term and long term financial futures. Cashless also allows you the convenience of not having to worry about carrying enough cash.

Conditions that must exist before a country can go cashless

  1. The biggest condition that must exist is Trust. Trust between the parties to give and take money through digital modes; Trust with the payment platform provider that the transactions are secure; Trust in governments to honor the transactions and also safeguard user data as every transaction leaves a digital footprint.
  2. Ease of Use in cashless payments through better user experience design and a holistic customer experience. Right from easy one click logins to finding the service you are looking for, to raising issues with customer support all done through mobile apps will be the way to go. But, several of the digital banking applications are learning the hard way about the need for solid customer experience design. My consultancy Pravi Solutions offers workshops and consulting services to create the best customer experiences.The challenge is to provide a simplified experience while still working within the regulatory framework.
  3. Scalable back-end payment systems with a ready non-cash alternative in case of emergencies. There have been internet outages even in large companies in developed countries. Even in cashless countries, there have been instances of total meltdown in taking payments. There has to be very clear government mandated and honored alternatives in case of emergencies.

In summary, the road map to a cashless country is one which will ride on the mobile internet wave and as consumers start to enjoy and appreciate the ease of use of mobile apps and the convenience of not carrying cash, it will be a matter of time businesses of any size from micro to extra large will start supporting mobile payments. Governments only need to create enabling mechanisms and institutions that safeguard citizens interest in this brave new digital world.

What do you think?

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China and India: Rivals and friends?

The tone set by the Prime Minister’s visit suggests that the two countries can be both, with India being an equal partner

Narendra Modi found himself marking a year as Prime Minister neither in his home state of Gujarat nor in New Delhi, but in the bustling metropolis of Shanghai.

The final engagement of his three-day visit to China (May 14-16) was a speech to the expatriate Indian community. I was there and I doubt I shall forget the spectacle. Nor could one argue with his refrain: vaqt badal raha hai (the times are changing).

modi-l5Becoming visible

When I first arrived in China from the UK in 2011, I was struck by how few Indians could be seen there. This impression was compounded by discovering how limited the flight options between China and India were, in great contrast to the daily (often multiple) flights between China and the UK and other more distant destinations. Although business school academics in Shanghai brought together leading practitioners, diplomats and experts to reflect on Sino-Indian business activity, it seemed that neither nation saw the other as much of a priority.

But a lot can (and does) happen in four years. The Modi show in Shanghai certainly suggests progress has been made since I first set foot in China: in the emergence of a new style of foreign relations in India, in the willingness of China and India to engage with each other, in the ability of the Indian community in China to cohere.

As I reflect on this event I am encouraged and cautious in equal measure about China-India relations in general and Sino-Indian business activity in particular, for three reasons.

Prior experience to go with the charisma. My biggest source of encouragement stems from the fact that although this was Modi’s first visit as Prime Minister, it was far from being his first experience of China. Indeed, the one bright spot in my early dismal assessment of China-India dealings was Modi’s visit as Gujarat chief minister in November 2011 — and that had been his fourth such visit.

I teach international strategy in a business school, and I emphasise to my students the importance of prior experience in helping entrepreneurs and managers succeed in foreign markets knowledgably. Modi’s China experience of the past augurs well for what India can achieve in China, and may well make a big difference to whether his visit ends up yielding incremental advances in business opportunities for Indian businesses in China and vice versa — or representing a genuine inflexion point that heralds the next substantial wave of Indo-Chinese commercial activity.

Honest self-reflection

Honesty about problems helps, but doesn’t fix them. My biggest source of caution arises from the fact that the honest acknowledgement of problems is a necessary but insufficient condition for solving them. Modi has been justifiably commended in the Indian press for being frank about the need for tackling vexing issues such as border disputes, and his Chinese counterpart has reciprocated the candour. This helps, but the proof of the pudding will become apparent only as the interfaces established on this visit are utilised for continued dialogue.

Business veterans in China, including some from India, often comment on the need for commitment, patience and persistence in cracking the Chinese market. Surely, this holds for Sino-Indian diplomacy as well.

The Indian community in China exists! Whatever the actual outcomes of Modi’s visit for Sino-Indian business, the event has already made history in bringing together far-flung expats of Indian origin in China on an unprecedented scale. The significance of this might not be easy to grasp for those living amongst numerous people of Indian origin in the US, UK, South Africa, West Asia and Down Under.

In China, however, the sight of Indian restaurants and other signs of a thriving Indian community is not commonplace outside of the large metropolises (or Yiwu, the city with the largest contingent from outside Shanghai at the event).

So to have nearly 5,000 people of Indian origin under one roof was truly remarkable. As a colleague commented: “I have always wondered where all those Indians travelling with me on Air India flights to China went, because I’ve never seen them afterwards. Now I know!”

Quo vadis?

Several years ago, when I was a newly minted lecturer at Glasgow University, I was invited to an Indian community reception in London for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. My recollections of that event in London are of low-key dignity and a profound sense of history. Shanghai was high-octane celebration and a profound sense of anticipation.

So, where to from here? India has to be honest and understand that although China and India are spoken of in the same breath, in reality it is a distant second as an economy. The interest that Modi has generated in China, therefore, acquires even greater significance. To his credit he has come across in the media, both in China and India, as one who wouldn’t settle for anything but treatment as an equal. But it does not mask the fact that India and China are great rivals. That said, I would aver that the debate as to whether China and India are (or should be) friends or rivals represents a false dichotomy.

Rivalry between the two most populous nations in the world, widely regarded as the two largest economies of the future, is virtually inevitable. But what is not inevitable is whether this rivalry is friendly or bitter.

An important understanding I have acquired is that often the Chinese deal with dilemmas differently from their western counterparts — they tend to opt for ‘both…and’ rather than ‘either…or’. This may be a good way to go because neither nation can afford not to be rivals — or to destroy friendship over their rivalries. What China and India should work out is how to be rivals and friends at the same time.

Blog Post  by Dr. Shameen Prashantham, Associate Professor in international business and strategy at Nottingham University Business School, China

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Why the Internet won’t remain neutral forever

netneutralityThe telecom companies don’t want a neutral Internet. They built the pipes and hooked them up to your phones. They also sell you broadband fiber at Rs 800-Rs2000 per month. And they hate to see you spending more time on messenger and chat apps which are getting better by the day. Unlike Gtalk and those of its ilk, today’s apps are on phones, untethered from the computer and therefore as personal as it gets. Their quality? Almost as good as a voice call. And that’s where the trouble lies.

And therefore why should they remain a silent observer to their voice and sms revenue being eaten away by Jan Koum’s Whatsapp, Larry Page’s Hangout or Skype which was built in Estonia. Apple’s Facetime is probalby the best of the lot but platform restricted hence does not create as much noise (hint: @Apple … please release #Facetime for Android and join this war!)

Dave Mcclure’s recent defense of the valuation of Unicorns reinforces the case for modern Internet businesses that are poised to disrupt the Fortune 500s. The prospect of the large telcos being uprooted by these Internet businesses is very very real and has not been more threatening than it is now. Because the telcos have now started to either resist the enemy or have started sleeping with it. Either way, they cannot ignore the enemy.

But we do need the Airtel’s and Vodafone’s to own those pipes that will carry those meek software signals. We can’t disrupt those pipes if we want our software to disrupt the world. Those who own the pipes will keep inventing new experiments aimed at spoiling the party. Someday, one of these experiments will succeed. Whether it’s Airtel’s net neutrality gambit, or the recent Airtel One which for now allows free trials, or the Airtel Zero which allows Startups to pay for giving free access to their users. Once public memory has receded and Airtel Zero gains acceptance, they may get emboldened and even sign on a free Facebook and free Youtube. Time will tell. It’s just another way of having differential tariffs without charging the user upfont.

If Airtel had succeeded in differential pricing for Whatsapp like services, you and I would be paying for that usage. Fortunately for consumers, that move got scuttled. In its Airtel Zero play, the content providers are paying Airtel to allow we the junta to use it gratis. Ultimately in both these experiments Airtel is the one that wins, with someone putting cash in the bank. If differential pricing does come in some day, no prizes for guessing whether Hike messenger would be subject to similar restrictions, and certainly none for guessing the fate of Jio Chat if Airtel had their way. This really brings me back to my hypothesis that in this case Airtel (and its counterparts) will have their cake and eat it too. Eventually. Unless another Startup chooses to become a data-only Telco with a eat-as-much-as-you-can data pack.

Lets look at another scenario where email transforms and becomes as good as chat. What would be the difference between instant messaging (as in real time chat), vs a scenario where everyone is on gmail and messages are delivered instantly to each person on the Gmail network. Google could actually do that since then it doesn’t need to depend on asynchronous smtp protocols for Gmail-to-Gmail delivery.

If Google were to try this, the day would not be far off when they would re-invent Gmail (since Gtalk is dead) to be more spontaneous, more Whatsapp like and less of a pre-planned hideout like Hangouts. You must have guessed by now where this argument is leading to. If you and I were to end up paying for Whatsapp and Skype chat, we may soon end up paying for Gmail. Sure, the telcos only want to charge for voice usage on these networks for now. That’s how it usually starts and then you start expanding your argument to ring-fence more and more unsuspecting folks into the playing field which you own and where you make the rules.

This hypothesis, by the way, is not just about cost. It’s as much about content. If you are forced to play in someone else’s playing field, not only do you have to pay the rates they charge, you are also restricted to playing (or watching) the games they want you to. Free services given on preferential basis (e.g., free Facebook but no free Google) will eventually thrust the Facebook world view on you. One that is not unbiased, not empirical and certainly not a view that’s shared by all. Imagine being left out of access to unbiased news, grassroots journalism, views of specific political parties and certain critics of those who control this free service.

I don’t really fancy letting these seeds to be sown today and neither should you. Else, my dear friend… the Internet won’t remain neutral forever.

P.S. — edited on 13/Apr… if you want to really make a difference, voice your opinion on the savetheinternet site — click here.

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Announcing 2015 India SaaS Survey – A Joint initiative by Signal Hill & iSPIRT

The Indian SaaS market, which is still in its nascent stage, according to a report by Gartner, shows immense potential for growth in the next few years. It is estimated that the Indian SaaS market is set to grow from USD 246 million in 2014 to a whopping USD 707 million in 2018, with CRMs as the major contributor.

Despite the favourable projections, there are quite a few challenges faced by those that are currently operating in the space and those who plan to launch their own SaaS enterprise. These challenges, if not addressed by the industry as a whole, can hamper the growth of the market.

Lack of funding, product distribution, and availability of quality human resources are some of the major challenges that companies in this industry are currently facing. We believe that there are numerous more challenges – payment gateways, the cost of customer acquisition etc – need to be mapped, in order for them to be addressed and resolved.

saas-survey-9To understand the challenges mentioned above and gain insight into the current SaaS landscape, Signal Hill, a reputed independent advisory boutique and iSPIRT Foundation are conducting the India SaaS Survey 2015 – which is open to all software/ product companies in India that have a subscription based (SaaS) revenue model.

With this survey, we aim to create a single reference point for all players in the SaaS ecosystem on aspects such as –

  • current investment
  • estimated future investment
  • expansion plans
  • services offered
  • delivery mechanisms
  • target customers
  • current revenues
  • lifetime value of the product to the client
  • most importantly – their funding needs – both current and future

To participate in the survey, respondents just need to fill in two simple forms Form A (devoid of company information to keep it anonymous enabling more people to come forward and share accurate data) and Form B, requiring 22 minutes of your time. For ease of navigation, start with Form A and on completion you will be automatically guided to Form B. As mentioned above, the information shared in both parts of the survey will be kept completely confidential and responses to Form A of the survey will be independent to responses to Form B of the survey.

Apart from the analysis of the industry trends and a glimpse into how the future of SaaS is being shaped, participants can also look forward to their company logo featuring in the report and a surprise gift from the organizers as a token of appreciation for their support, time and valuable inputs.

 

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Embarking on a journey called Digital Desh Drive

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Since 2012, NowFloats has been helping small businesses all over the country get discovered and grow online. This year, we are embarking on a journey called Digital Desh Drive as a part of our mission to get every local business online by 2020. Digital Desh Drive is all set to kick start in Amritsar on the 6th of May, cover 20-25 important cities across the sub-continent and end in Kanyakumari on the 27th of May 2015.

The drive aims to study the behavioral patterns of entrepreneurs across different regions and also help them build a strong digital footprint online. Led by startup enthusiast, Prathibha Sastry, the four member crew will interview these small business owners with a mindset to gather insights and stories about their setups and also help them to connect digitally on a larger platform with their end consumers.

Follow NowFloats on Twitter to know when we are coming to your city, and come say Hi. Use the hashtag #DigitalDesh to follow all the action from the tour.

Got questions you would like us to ask these small business owners? Tweet to us at @prathibhasastry and @swapnakucherla.

Guest Post by Swapna Kucherlapati, NowFloats

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The Future of India

Trends in the US could portend the challenges India will face.

independence-day-67aLike many people, I dislike long flights, particularly since my body does not deal well with jet lag. I therefore try to avoid visiting the United States more than once a year. But every time I visit that country, I remind myself how important it is to keep in touch with what is still the powerhouse of the global economy, for that enables a better understanding of India’s challenges in the years ahead.

This time, my visit spanned the whole country – a few hours in transit on the east coast, a day in the mid-west, two days each in Texas and California. My reflections suffer from one bias though: my visits were primarily to universities. Yet, speaking to academics helps understand some of the broad trends, even if these institutions tend to be more liberal than the rest of the country.

The Decline of the Middle Class

A distinctive feature of the United States in the 20th century was the emergence of a large middle class. But an equally striking feature of the early years of the 21st century has been the decline in living standards of this same middle class.

In his book Fault Line: How Hidden Fractures still threaten the World Economy, Raghuram Rajan spoke of the challenge of re-tooling the American blue collar worker for the new workplace. But, this is not a problem of factory workers alone.

While in the US, I realized that at least four of my 51- or 52-year-old IIT classmates don’t have full-time jobs anymore. Their opportunities have declined as the number of middle-to-senior managerial positions has shrunk. Further, many organizations prefer younger employees.

By the way, in case you thought that this trend is restricted to the US, think again – we see a similar nascent trend in Bengaluru, particularly in MNC subsidiaries.

The New Economy

The US continues to be a leader in engineering. I had a ride in a Tesla car, and I was really impressed by its smoothness and its ability to bridge the gap between an electric car and one based on the internal combustion engine. Universities like MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign continue their focus on core engineering and devices.

But, value added in manufacturing is on the decline, with even sophisticated design no longer enjoying a cachet. Hardware companies don’t count for much anymore – a friend in Silicon Valley was telling me that a company that designed a high tech drone with all possible bells and whistles gets valued at $200 million, while companies of the WhatsApp ilk are valued at multiple billion dollars. This change in value is reflected in the geography of the Valley itself.

Over time, there has been a northward shift in the centre of gravity of corporate activity, in the direction of San Francisco. Chip companies in the southern part of the Valley are passé.  Youngsters prefer to live in San Francisco even though they don’t get to spend much time there if they work in Mountain View-based Google, the northern edge of the southern part of the Valley. The geographic shift also represents the difference in skillsets required by social media and other emerging consumer-centric startups. This shift in value is visible in India too – just check out the sky high valuations of India’s e-commerce companies. According to a recent article in Business Standard, Flipkart is more valuable than Tata Steel or Mahindra & Mahindra!

It’s not clear how long the best and brightest of the United States will work in hard engineering if the money is chasing e-commerce and social media!

It’s not clear how long the best and brightest will work in hard engineering if the money is chasing e-commerce

Change in the Nature of Work

It’s time we thought seriously about the future of work and society. While in Silicon Valley, I caught sight of the Google driverless car prototype on multiple occasions. The grapevine has it that the prototype works well, and only regulatory issues can delay its commercialization. Driverless vehicles will change transportation completely. Car ownership will decline, while public transportation will get a boost. Though driverless vehicles on India’s chaotic roads may seem utopian, just imagine their impact on the employment of drivers.

India is ramping up for a foray into manufacturing just as manufacturing is on the cusp of major changes. Automation is accelerating, and China has the largest number of robots in the world. As automation spreads, routine jobs that require limited skill levels will go to lowest cost locations. And, companies are smart enough to compute the overall costs, and not focus on wages alone. Overall costs factor in labour productivity and the efficiency of logistics as well as the regulatory environment. India will struggle to be competitive when these overall costs are taken into account even if we improve our skill levels.

India is ramping up for a foray into manufacturing just as manufacturing is on the cusp of major changes.

Winner-takes-all Economics

The decline in the middle class reflects another important shift – income distributions are veering farther away from “normal”. While in the Valley, I attended an interesting talk by Sanjiv Das, a professor at Santa Clara University, in which he emphasized how few things in the world are distributed in the favourite “normal distribution” of our statistics professors. While the internet may be democratic in terms of access, it has only accentuated winner-takes-all economics.

All these changes in wealth and income distribution combined with changes in the nature of work don’t bode well for India. India may create the largest workforce in the world, but what if such a large workforce is not required?

India may create the largest workforce in the world, but what if such a large workforce is not required?

Winner-takes-all economics is spreading in a way to the broader society as well with income and wealth inequalities deepening. At the same time, governments are unable to manage social welfare systems efficiently. While the resultant tensions may be manageable in the small, wealthy countries of Europe where minimum living standards are already high, it’s not clear how countries like ours will manage these issues.

Public-private gaps are visible in US infrastructure as well. I was struck by how the freeways and public roads in the Bay Area are not in the best shape while private buildings get fancier and new dwelling units appear in hitherto low-density areas like along the sides of El Camino Real, the north-south artery through Northern California. This uncannily reminds one of India.

Monopolies and winner-takes-all trends are active in the non-internet world as well. While Starbucks Coffee outlets dot the US landscape, I was amused to find that other outlets including hotel coffee shops also now serve Starbucks coffee and proudly advertise so. Starbucks is practically the only coffee brand on offer now!

But, even Google has its Limits…

In all of this, it’s good to see the Americans retain their sense of humour. I particularly liked one hoarding in front of a church in Silicon Valley: “Google can’t satisfy every search.” I hope we can retain our sense of humour too!

Reblogged from FoundingFuel

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IT: Enhancing Healthcare for a Better Quality of Life

Information Technology has successfully reshaped our lives in ways unimaginable even a decade or two ago. The era of the telegram is now officially over and access to information is not just at our doorsteps but at our finger tips, due to the availability of communication tools like cellular phones, computers and the internet. It is no wonder then that technology has played a key role in healthcare as well and has the potential to completely change the way we deal with a disease at various stages.

The current government rightly focuses on using technology to improve the dismal standards of basic healthcare, not just for the urban population but also for people living in rural settings in remotest corners of ‘Bharat’ which is home to almost 70 percent of our country’s population. Evidence from national and international data clearly shows that the effective use of ICT in healthcare can improve access to better quality services, reduce costs, and empower doctors as well as patients. India has been aggressively experimenting with IT in healthcare, with notable progress in ‘m-health’, ‘tele-medicine’ and ‘e-health’. Many of these services are ready to take the next step and be scaled up to achieve their true potential. The use of IT in healthcare can be the first big step in improving the primary healthcare network in the country.

Simultaneously, it is also important to tap the energy of the private providers of healthcare services in India. Some estimates suggest that by 2012, private sector comprised 80 percent of the healthcare providers in India as against 8 percent at the time of independence. Traditionally, the private and public healthcare sectors in India have viewed each other with mistrust, and to get them to work in tandem is not an easy task. Efforts need to be made towards building confidence and fostering cooperation. This is where the true advantage of IT lies. Technology is available to doctors in both the sectors and can be used for notifying, reporting and following up on medical cases.

Take the issue of Tuberculosis in India, which accounts for more than 25 percent of the new TB cases worldwide. This contagious airborne disease kills almost 2.4 lakh Indians every year and is among the top four causes of death in adults. The Revised National TB Control Program (RNTCP) provides mechanisms to ensure treatment adherence monitoring and support, but these currently reach patients treated by the public sector. Inappropriate, inadequate and unmonitored care could lead to treatment failure, recurrent TB, and most devastatingly the development of drug resistant TB. Hence, proper mechanisms for awareness and monitoring for all TB patients, whether publicly or privately-treated, become all the more important.

In 2012, RNTCP launched e-NIKSHAY, a case-based and web-based reporting and recording system that would act as a centralized avenue for data collection of TB cases; aiding state and local systems to track the progress of patients and keep all the stakeholders in the loop. Over the last 6 months, in the Mehsana, Mumbai and Patna pilot Urban-TB projects, such IT- based systems have helped issue over 10,000 drug vouchers for privately-treated TB patients, and linked those patients to improved treatment monitoring and support. Total TB case notification in these districts, including public and private, has improved significantly demonstrating its success and importance. Increased transparency and monitoring leads to better planning and accountability.

The main reason behind the success of any IT application is its user friendly attribute. It is time to reach out to private practitioners with easy-to-use applications that take minimum time, and yield maximum value to providers and their patients. The most basic yet powerful communication device, the mobile phone, which is used by over 70 percent of Indians, will help us penetrate in the remotest corners of the country. This device can help extensively in increasing the reporting of cases and keeping a close watch on patient who often skip medicine. The Union Government’s recent launch of an initiative to maintain an electronic treatment record of TB patients by encouraging them to send a missed call notification on a number printed behind the strip of the drug is a classic example of how reporting and follow up can be done without involving significant extra cost and effort. This will help the treatment provider to intervene at the right time in case the patient misses a dose.

Training and education in e-healthcare plays the most crucial role in the implementation of these projects. For this purpose the Indian Council of Medical Research has made an open access online bibliography and there are hospitals which have collaborated with universities to teach certificate courses in telemedicine.

India is a leader in innovation, research and IT. It is important that this innovation potential and its resources are harnessed to combat India’s healthcare challenges. If we truly want to improve access to healthcare and sustain it, we need to scale up such innovative new practices by providing adequate resources and encouraging the appropriate skill-development. It’s time for us to move beyond working for IT and start making IT work for us.

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Join the team building cool tech stuff for 1.3 billion Indian citizens… from the startup trenches inside the Government!

After SlideShare, I’ve taken up a role in the government sector. I recently joined the National eGovernance Division, Ministry of IT, Govt of India. My work involves architecting and building e-governance facing products and services under the Digital India program. So after doing a startup, getting acquired, shuttling between Delhi & Silicon Valley… now e-Governance?? What does this term even mean… and why should you care?

You should care because there’s a good chance that (like me) you are a first generation beneficiary of the internet and have seen the transformative role it has played in your life. The way you work, learn, read, buy, communicate, travel, make friends – everything has been turned upside down. Now imagine if the internet could have that same impact on how India is governed. Imagine if the simplicity and fluidity of platforms like Wikipedia, Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype could be replicated in the citizen services that you and I use everyday – be it applying for a passport or a driving license, filing your taxes or getting your govt scholarship. Imagine what citizen services can be built on top of the biometric identification system Aadhaar, which currently at 830 million is just a stone’s throw from the billion mark. Imagine if the internet could be the same change agent in the lives of our less connected co-citizens in far off towns & villages, in the tribal areas, in remote rural corners where roads dont reach – thats what e-governance is about.

The National eGovernance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry of IT is tasked with designing and running national e-governance programs. These take the form of 31 Mission Mode Projects (called MMPs) which are the administrative backbone of the Indian government. My team at DeitY/NeGD is looking for smart, motivated professionals to build e-governance products/services. For people from the private sector, this is a great opportunity for the following reasons-

– In a direct way, what you do in office everyday will contribute to the transformation of India into a digitally empowered society & knowledge economy
– There is a shift towards technology enabled open governance systems (open source, open APIs, open standards, open data) and you could drive this openness inside the government
– The Govt needs domain specialists… your domain expertise could shape key parts of government functioning
– Work like a fast paced startup while inside the government… these product teams will get a startup type environment to deliver quickly
– If you’ve only worked in the private sector previously (like me), this could be a refreshing change from its the profit driven culture

So what positions are available and whats the reqd background/experience?

These are the positions – Web Developer, UX/Interaction designer, Backend Engineer, Big Data Engineer, Android Developer, DevOps/Sysadmin, Open Source Community Manager. The projects are all high impact, massively scaled citizen facing technology applications e.g. Building services on top of Aadhaar’s core identity capability, products aimed at paperless governance, open governance initiatives (Open APIs, Open Source, Open Standards, Open Data) etc.

The roles are full time contractual positions (1-2 yrs) based in New Delhi at the Dept of IT in Scope Complex, Lodhi Road. Its a very centrally located office area.

In case you are interested, go to this link and apply using the given form. Brief job descriptions are given.

Or if you know of someone else who might be interested, please pass on the link.

If you have any questions about the roles, about DeitY/NeGD or how can you make the transition from your current course to working for the government (and what all that transition entails), feel free to drop me a mail – amitranjan25 AT gmail DOT com. Happy to help you think through this.

Reblogged from WebYantra

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Software Patents: Evil, Necessary or an Evil Necessity? iSPIRT OEQ Hangout

iSPIRT organized a OEQ(Open Ecosystem Hangout) on 20th April, 2015, to understand the role of software patents within the software ecosystem.Software patents are a much debated subject in the technology world today. In some jurisdictions like India, software is not part of patentable subject matter, while in other jurisdictions like the US, software patents are rampant. Do Indian startups need software patents? In a globalizing world, what strategies can they adapt to navigate through the software patents conundrum?

I moderated the session and asked the software entrepreneurs in the discussion to share their cost-benefit analysis of software patents.

Rushabh Mehta of ERPnext responded by saying that as a young startup, they find the cost of software patenting (estimated at around $ 15,000-$20,000 or between Rs 9.3 lakh to Rs 12.4 lakh) to be too high.

Srivibhavan Balaram of Vocera Communications, an entrepreneur, who has worked with open source and closed source software companies, said that patenting makes sense only if there is something unique that is worth patenting. However, he also added that the market for enterprise software was tilting more to open source now because companies were more inclined to go with time tested open source software, which find much faster acceptance. He added that companies are wary of proprietary software from startups.

Subramaniam Vutha, a veteran IP Lawyer and founder of the Technology Law Forum, said that India should actively encourage open source software, while accumulating as many patents as possible in jurisdictions that allowed it. He called this strategy, “Running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.”

Samuel Mani, Partner at Mani Chengappa & Mathur, said that defensibility is the only reason to file software patents. In a study that his organization did, he found that most areas that could be patented were already staked out. He pointed out that the cost of patenting is between $15,000-$20,000 which is the cost of hiring one employee for two years. He suggested that companies that aim to create a defense against software patents could join a defensive patent pool like the Open Invention Network (OIN).

Mishi Choudhary of the Software Freedom Law Center agreed with Mani on defensive patent pools like OIN. She added that most Free and Open Source Software are copyright licenses, but some also contain patent grants. She suggested that participants review the Debian Patent Policy.

This was the first such Hangout on software patents from iSPIRT, and there are plans to organize more such Hangouts to generate greater understanding of this topic.

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How does Net Neutrality Play a Part for India’s Product Ecosystem?

If You are connected to the Internet, Social Media or any form of media, you must have heard about Net Neutrality and the protests that are going on.
While it feels like iSPiRT hadn’t officially made any announcements on the same, quite a few of us have been working behind the scenes to ensure that our voice is heard and that TRAI takes the next steps regarding the Internet in India.

A bit of backdrop:

On December 2014, Airtel quietly dropped a note that they will be rolling out a plan that will differentially price calls that are made on its network – both voice and video calls, using skype or viber.
After the backlash that started, Airtel rolled back on its rollout plan, however forced TRAI to give them a guideline on how this should be handled, because the masses had mentioned it breaks netneutrality.

A bit of context:

India, if it gets the policy on Net Neutrality would be the 7th country in the world to have a stance on net Neutrality. Most nations assume a stance of Net Neutrality (as has been the case in India so far). But the policy defines a clear line in the sand, as operators all over the globe have been itching to cross the line to find ways to increase their profit margins.

Are we against Operators making money?

We aren’t. We understand that businesses need to be sustainable. But it is also the perogative of the ecosystem to allow for innovation to happen. Zero rating and slicing the internet into pieces and selling them in packets wouldn’t be innovation, it goes quite the other direction on that matter.
While on first look it feels as if operators are making lesser money, with the advent of applications, the opposite is true. Operators have evolved from voice and sms providers, to data providers. They are no longer circuit switched networks, but packet switched networks – and the latter is far more effective and allows for innovation on the applications layer. Idea, Vodafone and Airtel which are the three big players who control close to 75% of the mobile subscriber base in India have doubled their data revenues year on year. In the last 2.5 years, Airtel has made close to 15,000 crores in profit. So the stance that applications are eroding the profit margins is not a fact.

Why is this important to the startup ecosystem?

Net Neutrality isnt a principle by itself, but also one that dictates a fair an open market when it comes to dealing with the internet which is a public property. The ability for anyone to be able to contribute has been the core fundamental on which the Internet is built – and the operators who want to be gatekeepers
with their influence could totally alter the way that goes about.
In case the debates around this topic have been too cumbersome to follow, this picture would help.
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Zero Rating : Airtel and Internet.org

One of the key tenets that the telecom lobby is playing is using the analogy of Toll Free numbers to allow for bigger companies to subsidize the cost of access for certain applications in a network. The simple question we have been asking is, what about startups that might not have the money to pay operators to fight the defacto incumbent who would have paid the operator.

How can you pitch in?

Till the 24th of April, TRAI (Telecom and Regulatory Authority of India) is taking feedback on the 118 page consultation paper that they have put out. The Paper seems heavily influenced by the telecom operators who claim that OTT (Over-the-top) services need to be regulated.
You can send in your feedback to the 20 part question that they have raised, to let them know your thoughts.
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Inflexion – Technology Summit: An evening of insights and observations

I was invited to “Inflexion” an event organized by Signal Hill and iSPIRT. The duo have in the past co-created the report on Technology M&A in India (link) which was very educational, so my interest was piqued and decided to go.

The evening was started by Scott Wieler, Chairman & CEO Signal Hill. He mentioned that $6.9Bn of VC/PE money has been invested in India in last four years (2011-14). However, the M&A value generated is just $1.7Bn. So with a value creation ratio of 0.2x, India is far behind US (3.0x) and Israel (5.3x). This led to the insight that M&A values will need to increase by more than 15x over next 3-6 years for this ratio to catch up to US and Israel levels. My hope is recent acquisitions by Flipkart (Myntra), Snapdeal (Unicommerce), Facebook (Little Eye Labs) and Twitter (ZipDial) – are good trend in this direction, and we will see a lot of action happening in next couple of years. This augurs well for Indian entrepreneurs.

Next came the retrospective by N.R.K. Raman – co-founder of i-FLEX Solutions. Very interestingly his company was probably the first VC/PE backed unicorn in India! They were bought by Oracle for nearly a billion dollars. A lot of i-FLEX’s story was about perseverance and street smarts. We keep on talking about product-market fit – this was a phenomenon written all over i-FLEX’s success. The founders were working in the banking software industry inside a bank (Citigroup) – and understood the inefficiencies of the system. They jumped the boat, separated from the mothership (albeit Citi wrote them their first $400k) – and launched a product that found ready takers in the market. It was not the dramatic high burn, breakneck growth story but rather a well thought out, methodical plan executed with hard work and business fundamentals kind of story.

As the night became young, Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal and YourStory’s Shradha Sharma, stepped onto the stage. Binny said that the one thing keeping him awake at night is “finding high quality talent and retaining them” – interesting to note that the big guys have still the same challenges as newbie startups. As an investor, I feel it is becoming very competitive to hire good talent. That one perfect designer or product manager you have found – chances are will have multiple offers in hand, if not thinking about doing his own startup already. The other big focus area that Binny mentioned was mobile – if you look at the data, I think the writing is on the wall – by 2016 – 80%+ of India’s internet population will access Internet more by mobiles than by desktop and my guess is 60%+ of India’s internet population will have never accessed internet using desktop. So Flipkart’s worries are talent and mobile.

Then Sharad Sharma, iSPIRT co-founder and Governing Council member, delivered a short punchy talk. He explained how small sub $50m dollar exits are the lifeblood of any tech ecosystem. Unless they happen in enough numbers we won’t get Billion dollar exits in the long haul. I learnt that iSPIRT’s M&A Connect program has been instrumental in getting Facebook, Corporate Executive Board, Yahoo, Intuit and Twitter become first acquirers in India! The M&A Connect program is now on a one-acquisition-a-month run-rate and aspires to get to a one-acquisition-a-week rate in the coming years. What an inspiring story of volunteer magic changing our ecosystem for the better!

Sharad then talked about global SaaS startups. They are gaining momentum. He also outlined why software product startups targeting Indian SMEs will be big in the coming three years.

We then broke for drinks and dinner. The book “Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere”, authored by Ravi Venkatesan, iSPIRT Adviser and former Chairman of Microsoft India, was gifted to attendees of the event. It promises to be an interesting read.

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Platform Roundtable in Bangalore on “Global Platform businesses – Are Indian companies poised to win?” by Dr. Peter Evans, Vice President and Sangeet Paul Choudary of Center for Global Enterprise

iSPIRT – co-hosted the first Platform Roundtable to prime the discussion on Indian platform companies’ game plan for potential business disruption that platform companies bring to a sector. It was held on 12th March at the office of InMobi, Bangalore. The Roundtable was anchored by Dr. Peter Evans, Vice President at CGE and Sangeet Paul Choudary, a CGE Fellow and founder of Platform Thinking Labs.

The theme of this Platform Roundtable was to invite leading platform company in India, to come and participate in an open discussion on the title question with a two-fold focus.

  • To drive awareness on global research to platform companies and
  • To ask for India platform businesses support in strengthening this industry practice research

CGE has been tracking the rise of the platform economy as how such are platforms restructuring industries and economies to answer questions like why platforms so disruptive to traditional businesses /industries. To learn about this from first principles CGE has initiated their first global study of platform companies that is analysing platform dynamics in markets around the world. It goes without saying that software is integral to enabling platforms.

Platform1Given iSPIRT’s ambition and viewpoints blogged by an anchor that product offerings, especially software platforms, are not for the faint hearted but such businesses have grown substantially in recent years to become a much larger part of the economy globally, naturally, we had some questions of our own to pose for the CGE’s two leading platforms experts to answer.

Platform economyIs India destined to be player in the emerging platform economy, where single and multi-sided business models are rapidly gaining size and scale in local and global markets? As a player in this rapidly changing digital landscape, do platform companies understand the rules of this game well? What game plan do I as a platform company must understand and embrace to score runs in this match?

In addition to this CGE had certain research outputs and participation inputs that they wanted to share and start a dialogue with Indian platform startups that we wanted to facilitate to improve the overall ecosystem

Benefits that participating Platform Startups were after are

  • Learning from CGE’s analysis & insights of the research work on platforms done so far
  • Ways to participate and contribute to strengthening this understanding of opportunities and constraints that India platform companies face both domestically and internationally

Attendees of the Roundtable:

Attendees of the Playbook roundtable

Company Name Attendee
99Tests Praveen Singh
AngelPrime Amit Somani
Capillary Technologies Pravanjan Choudhury
CGE Peter Evans
ContractIQ Ashwin Ramasamy
FreeCharge Pravin J
Hano Thiyagarajan
InMobi Preetham
Instamojo Akash Gehani
CrowdFire Sid Menon
LetsVenture Sanjay Kumar Jha
Nowfloats Ram Kumar
Olivo India Pvt Ltd Satish Garimella
Oyorooms Ajay Bansal
Platform Thinking Labs Sangeet Choudary
Urban Ladder Sudhanva Rao
webmobi Sachin Anand
Primaseller Mohammed Ali
Vivek Subramanian

Overview

According to statista, the number of crowdfunding platform, one type of two-sided platform, alone exceeded 450 in 2012 worldwide and majority of them were based in the United States and Europe. This is a small drop in the ocean of number of platform companies that serve many needs, beyond crowdfunding, and as such represent huge opportunity that disruptive companies across different sectors and markets are going after.

Rise of the Platform EconomyMost of the tech entrepreneurs have built interesting products to address various market needs in a platform way – where a platform is built using any base of technologies on which other technologies or processes can be built for a group of external producers and consumers can interact to create value.

Platforms = Scale

Platform businesses, unlike typical businesses (say fortune 500 company) scale up and out very quickly and this pace is only accelerating in the past decade as can be seen in the chart below

Market Cap to a billionPlatform companies reach $Billion+ market cap in couple of years now and this is mainly due to network effect of having more users and creating more value cyclically. Tech entrepreneurs, usually tend to measure user growth of a platform as a yardstick instead of thinking systemically, that platform users play different roles. This approach is incorrect.

Producer Consumer - platform economy

  • Users can be classified as producers and consumers in any platform where the value is created by the producers and consumed by the consumers of the platform given both of them are users of the said platform. Platform as a system has the necessary feedback loop that incentivizes the producers as more consumption attracts more production cyclically so value increases over time as network effect dictates. So instead of user growth the right metric to consider is the interaction between producers and consumers in terms of growth and address any interaction failures
  • Platforms scale quickly in time both operationally and in terms of monetization – For instance AirBnB operates in 180 countries and 36000 cities – so does Uber operates in 45 countries and 190 cities. So they are essentially a globally integrated enterprise in terms of design almost from the get go as contrasted with multi-national corporations (MNCs). In terms of revenue, Apple has paid out more to iPhone/iPad App developers (> $10B ) in US than the Hollywood box collection

Systems theory and Network effect

In response to a question on how best to understand this business we should look for systems theory, micro-economics and appropriate metrics Sangeet mentioned:

  • Instead of user growth, which is at best a vanity metric, increase in production per cohort of users is a better metric of production growth. Similarly, what is “inventory”, and how much time does it take to liquidate it, are there are any consumption request failure (think “ no cars available” message in Uber when you as a consumer go to book a ride) are key interaction numbers for platform companies to dashboard.
  • Essentially taking a systemic view, production feedback loop, network feedback loop encouraging producers to produce more and consumers feedback to consume more are platform target measures.
  • Cumulative value of the platform comes from collection, reputation, influence and behaviour data -collectively these act as switching cost to producers who are multi-homing across similar platforms. Business (especially product managers) should accordingly consider platform data acquisition, user behaviour design for cumulative value optimization rather than as point feature set of platform to compete or imitate since network effects are created at the system level but scaled at the user level.
  • Chicken and Egg problem typical of multi-sided platforms can be addressed by looking at network density of a node and the required levels of production over the amount of production per consumer cohort. For hyper-local or local markets (like Uber in a City X) should be solved as chicken-egg problem for each locality and hence will moderate scale.

increase in productionThus platform business have to focus on removing gate keepers to producer-consumer growth, identify new producers to onboard and disaggregate as necessary via tools etc systemically and micro-economists as needed to design/ troubleshoot any supply-demand problems based on the respective platforms model of inventory.

Business Considerations

Sangeet and Peter also outlined certain business considers that this winner-take-all platform models tend to produce:

  • Do not forget the success of a platform business depends on a number of control points that different from the traditional businesses. Starting with producers and consumers who are both external to the platform, the platforms are not like “Pipes” where Supplier to Company to Distributor/Customer model works in this networked environment.
  • The target or objective of traditional sales team is to drive sales of products of the company which in platform business is produced by producers. Even though as a marketplace, the platform captures the commercialization of goods and services in the platform, it is not produced by the company employees which impacts productivity, brand, culture of the company to highlight a few. Practical lessons like AirBnB getting the first “Hosts meetup” to build culture and best practices of hosting were discussed to highlight details to which platform companies needs to pay attention.
  • Also regulatory agencies are taking a close view at the monopolistic nature of the platforms

The discussion then covered into how in India platforms in Travel succeeded versus platforms in e-commerce and transport are facing tough challenges from global competitors. Everyone one chimed in with interesting thoughts and how such instances played/playing out in China vs India.

Conclusion

It was open session with structured discussion among the participants on about how platform initiatives have unique management challenges and how they need to be managed. Practical aspects of the problem were complemented with research on a macro-, global scale. Participants raised questions on the components of platform business and ways & means to grow them across industries, like health, hospitality, venturing and got validated insights!

Core team for Platform Rt

The high level of interest and engagement from all participants was evident as the session that planned for couple hours on a mid-weekday saw almost all registered attendances coming in well before start time in peak Bangalore traffic and lots of questions with a request to form a platform group for discussions and suggestion to have macro-economists available for early stage startups to leverage.. We finally concluded our first Platform Roundtable for 2015 with a promise from CGE that they will share more research with iSpirt and there will be two-way ongoing exchange on the platform matters such as research sharing, platform database creation.

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Why are the benefits of technology scarce among those who need it most?

Indian women and girls washing clothes by hand in a lake in Andhra Pradesh. Photograph: Tim Gainey / Alamy/Alamy

We live in a modern world – modern in thinking and modern in capabilities. Our scientists and engineers and technologists empower us with the future, in the present. The technologies they develop solve problems we didn’t even know existed. As individuals we aspire to stay apace with these ever advancing innovations. With its ubiquity in our everyday lives technology comprehensively occupies and defines our realities. Its presence in our lives assumes a position of great power. Technology is the superhero of our generation.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Currently, the benefits of technology are skewed towards those who can keep up, as opposed to those who need it most. Technology is designed to cater to the luxuries of ready made adopters. In India, a typical urban dweller has even the most trivial of her tasks solved by technology, while a person in a rural setting might struggle to meet some of his most basic needs due to a lack of access. For a superhero as powerful as technology, I think it can do better.

I work in the field of social entrepreneurship and during my career I have come across a number of beautiful examples that buck the trend; Embrace (focusing on infant mortality care); Liter of Light (bringing eco-friendly bottled light to communities without electricity); Digital Green (combining tech and social organisation to improve farming, health and nutrition) and many more. The power of such projects to improve the lives of their beneficiaries is immense. And their power depends solely on technology to solve the problem.

In my own work I have used technology to positively impact the lives of the visually impaired. With a user-centred design intention and with technology as our medium we have been able to work on a number of solutions that allow better access to smartphones for blind and visually impaired people. The fulfilment of giving joy and empowerment has been the motivation; technology has been the super-heroic protagonist.

My experience in the field has helped me understand the significance of technology to increase impact and, as crucially, to understand the interrelationship between impact and sustainability. The more sustainable a project, the greater its positive impact will be. Particularly in non-profit projects, impact tends to scale only up to a point. But as we look at works that scale, a low cost, adaptive and upgradable solution results in easier integration and a longer project lifespan. Technology plays a role not only in terms of the solution but also in terms of the operational sustainability of the enterprise.

Ideo’s elaborate Human Centred Design (HCD) toolkit sheds further light on the relationship between technology, project sustainability and impact. It states the need for a product to be desirable by its users, feasible through technology and viable as a business. In our case, design helped us create a desirable solution in the form of a specialised mobile phone for blind users, feasibility made us refine the solution into an app that addresses the same needs yet can scale at a global level and viability allowed us to adapt a business model that supports development yet keeps the price low and accessible for its intended users.

In this modern age technology plays a central role in building viable solutions that create positive impact. It defines the scale of impact by being a key factor in the sustainability of these solutions. However, in a capitalist set up as ours, there’s room for increased intervention, and thus impact, from technology. It is not yet the Robin Hood it can be.

Sumit Dagar is a social and design entrepreneur working in New Delhi, India. He was made a Rolex Awards for Enterprise Young Laureate in 2012 for his work in the field of applied technology. 

The post was originally posted on The Guardian website.

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Slumming in San Francisco

This blog is written for newbies, entertaining strong thoughts on Entrepreneurship, trying to pin point an idea and figuring out the various business models.

Let me start with “why”; Indian start-up scene is blooming with lot of money pouring into it from all across the world and there is immense focus on technology products; however, dig a little deeper, a clear distinction amongst the products that get funded and the ones that struggle emerges. The 3 broad classifications in the order of difficulty in getting funded in India are:

  • Pure tech products solving/addressing technology gaps (Ex cloud infrastructure, fundamental technologies such as compilers, libraries OS etc.).
  • Tech enabled products addressing the business needs (Ex Accounting software, HR, Customer Service, etc).
  • Consumer products (Mobile Apps, Web etc)

If you are in any of these and are globally focused there is not a reason for you start selling the product/idea from day 1 in US and valley in particular.

Even if you do not have a concrete idea, I would still recommend starting the exploration in here as lot of ideas simmer in the underground in domain specific meet-ups for a while before they get exposed to general public in SFO and then to the rest of the world.

Let us start with basics.

Accommodation:

San Francisco is extremely costly; a bed/bunker in a shared room costs about thousand dollars per month. One obvious option for most Indians is to draw on friends and family in bay area. But I would advice against this due to following.

  • Most events happen in SFO and commute from bay area can be quite taxing and costly especially during late evening when most meet-ups happen.
  • Most bay area folks live a sort of American dream life, which is the least desired environment for people in startup journey.

Airbnb is the real lifesaver in finding a reasonable accommodation. Plan for a budget around 50 USD per day. Try finding an apartment near SoMa (South of Market) area or at least an area where there is a direct access to one of the MUNI lines. This way access to Cal-train (to reach bay area where many VCs and big companies are located) becomes easier. Most start-up events tend to crowd around Market Street, which also has many accelerators and incubators at walk-able distances. Most of these host various domain meet-ups and startup experts. Notable ones among the accelerators that host many events are Impacthub, FounderSuite, Runway, FonderSpace, Startup foundry.

Start-up Community/Co-living Houses: This is an amazing concept started by some successful entrepreneurs. These are big houses which host early stage entrepreneurs who live and work out of the space. Some even have connects with startup eco system. So access to 24*7 start-up talk and getting the inside information from many sources. Flipside is many tend to be very dorm like environment with shared bathroom and kitchen with no privacy. But if you can deal with this, this may be an effective way of hitting the ground running. (More details here )

Be weary of some of the so-called community houses allegedly run by investors and listed on airbnb are not really startup houses but some kind of hostels catering to all sorts of folks. So do some background work before booking. Good ones tend to be taken very early on so plan well in advance before you land.

Commute:

San Francisco public transport is great a combination of MUNI trains, buses and BART trains. Great thing is an 80$ clipper card that would take one from anywhere to anywhere. Uber and Lyft also offer incredibly cheap rides of say 7 dollar to anywhere in San Francisco.

Caltrain is the access to bay area which is an hour commute (Mountain View, Palo Alto, SunnyVale) can be quite expensive with a day pass around 15$ so make sure you group meetings in bay area. Most meeting places in suburbs can also be reached by connecting buses from the caltrain stations.

Car (Renting) is inexpensive as well but finding parking and driving around in San Francisco where most startup events happen can be a tedious task.

Finally San Francisco is very walkable and extremely cycle friendly. One can buy a used cycle for 200 dollars, so if you fit into this mold you will have lot of fun.

Pitches, Meet-ups and Events

Pitch competitions with some prize money thrown in are regular occurrences each month. These are great avenues to get feedback on the ideas and catch fancy of some angels. Few regular ones are PitchForce, SharkTank, Soceity3, ElevatorPitch. There are special events organized by SFAngels as well.

Meetup.com, eventbrite.com, moonbar.com and techcocktail.com are some of the sites to subscribe to get notified of the quality events.

Most events cost around $15-$20 tend to be very practical, first hand knowledge based and one could immensely benefit from interacting with the folks. Majority of the events provide food as well.

Keep a lookout for demo days of various accelerators such as y-combinator, 500startups, techstars, S3 and various others. They should be great way to understand where things are headed.

Workspaces

Most cafes (Peet’s, Starbucks and numerous boutique ones) are good places to spend few hours but specific ones stand out. Workshop café near market and Montgomery offers workspace at $2 an hour. My personal favorite is a spacious, brightly lit by sun and luxurious place to work out of is the “under the dome” in Westfield mall. It is adjacent to “bespoke” a retail incubator and is free with easy access to lot of places in and around Market Street. SF State university library also has lot of public access workspace, which is a great alternative for café.

Photo on 2-16-15 at 12.07 PM

Workspace at Westfield Mall

Some of the incubators and accelerators offer free workdays, which are great places to meet folks and get connected to the startup scenes. Please check the webpages to get specific details.

iSPIRT has recently opened this initiative called Athithi Silicon Valley helping to host (@workplace) Indian entrepreneurs coming to Valley and exploring product ideas. See if you are eligible to apply.

Finally, dealing with it all in a relaxed way

Pace of startup activities in San Francisco can be really overwhelming if you have not figured out a way to deal with this. San Francisco is a place for great hikes, cycle rides and numerous fitness activities. Many places offer free once a week classes. There are great many meditation centers (such as Yoga SFO, SRF, Zen Centers), which offer free group meditation in the evenings.

This is just based on my personal experiences, others who have done this and know better please feel free to add the tips in the comment and we can add them to back to the blog itself.