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21st #PlaybookRT – 13 Sales Mantras for Product Selling in India – Part 1

Last weekend, we had a playbook roundtable on sales(mainly B2B) at the Ozonetel systems office in Hyderabad. Aneesh Reddy from Capillary led the RoundTable. The focus of the roundtable was on sales in product companies. This included early stage sales as well as issues faced during scaling sales. A lot of points were covered and the participants were involved in very lively discussions with almost everyone learning something new from the others experience. So without further ado, the following were the main learnings from the roundtable:

Ozonetel office
1. Sales solves everything. The panacea for all the problems of a startup is sales. Somtimes even a PPT is enough to do sales. This was explained by Aneesh how in their Capillary journey they showcased their to be built product on PPTs to prospective customers and made the sale.

2. Initial sales has to be done by founders. This was universally accepted by all the participants. So every founder has to become a sales person. There is no second way about it. Once you scale to a certain level, you can look at hiring dedicated sales head and building a sales organization.

3. Freemium model does not work too well in India. Get a customer to pay something(maybe even Rs.100). Make the customer also invested in the product. Only then will they give the time necessary for your product and evaluate it properly. Pilots work well, but try to make them paid pilots.

4. In India Push sales work, for outside markets, consultative sales works. In all cases, your sales person should be willing to listen to the customer and understand his pain points.

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Payment Collection

Payment collection is a big problem for SaaS products. Following up every month for the collections is a full time job. Some pointers to help in this are:

5. Quarterly, Yearly payments. See if you can push your customers to pay quarterly, yearly upfront. Give a discount two sweeten the deal. This is ok as you receive the money up front and you are reducing costs on processing collections.

6. Disconnect services. Most participants agreed that disconnection of service works as a deterrent to the customer. Give enough indications/alerts about the pending disconnection and follow up with a phone call for collecting your payment.

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Lead Sources

7. List rentals. Aneesh suggested that buying the list of conference participants gave a better RoI than sposoring some event. So identify some good conferences in your domain and buy the participant list from the conference organizers.

8. Attend exhibitions. Exhibitions in well known places like HiTex in Hyderabad gave a lot of leads to the NowFloats team.

9. Subscribe to local magazines. Local magazines are a good source of business listings as all good businesses advertise in local magazines. Build your list by mining this data.

10. Employ a good PR agency. Once you are at some level of scale, it makes sense to employ a PR agency. The PR agencies have good contacts in the media and they will get you good coverage. Though, they may not directly get you leads, they will help in brand recall, hiring and fund raising efforts.

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Inside sales:

11. Start with a 2-3 member inside sales team. Aneesh was of the strong opinion that inside sales is the way to go for B2B sales in India. Start small and monitor the team closely.

12. Invest and be patient. Sometimes, it takes around 3-4 months for an inside sales team to show some traction. be invested and be patient. Things will slowly pick up.

13. Team composition. One combination could be 1 data collector and 2 tele callers. Try different approaches and see what works best. To get started, you can out source the process, but that may turn out costly.

In the next part we will look at some metrics that will help us monitor sales.

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Agility Flexibility For Software Product

[ There is an interesting discussion in ProductNation on Customizable Product : An oxymoron which triggered me to write this post]

I find many people use these words interchangeably. However the distinction is important and source of value. Agility can be engineered with proven techniques and best practices. With advancement in software engineering there is convergence on the tools and techniques to achieve agility and it may no longer be a source of differentiation but a necessary feature. Flexibility on the other hand requires deep insight into diverse needs and types of usage and done imaginatively can provide great value to users and be a source of competitive advantage.

The online Merriam-Webster     dictionary offers the following definitions:

Flexible: characterized by a ready capability to adapt  to new, different, or changing requirements.

Agile: marked by ready ability to move with quick easy  grace.

In Software product context it may be more appropriate to define agility as the ability to change things quickly and Flexibility as the ability to achieve a (higher) goal by different means. So ability to value Inventory by different methods like FIFO or LIFO or Standard cost is flexibility. The ability to change commission rate or sales tax rate quickly (generally by changing a parameter in a table of a file and avoiding need to make code changes) is agility.

There is a range or scale ( 1 ..10)  of agility. Making changes in code esp 3rd generation languages like Java, C# is the baseline. Using a scripting language like Javascript , Python may be less demanding then compiled language but it is still not as agile as most users expect. Most users would rate it simpler to update a parameter in a file or a simple user interface like a Excel type spreadsheet as simpler and faster. Changing logic by using a If-Then type of rule base is in-between. Simpler then coding but more complex then table updates.

You should have picked up some inter-related themes here. Complexity or need for skill in making changes to a scripting or Rule engine . Need for easy to use interface to make the changes. Need for relatively easy and error free method of making changes. If you need to update ten parameters in ten different places or change 17 rules in a  If-Then rule base it may not be as simple and is less agile .

Most modern Software products are fairly agile with scripting, table based parameters and rule driven execution engine. The use of style sheets in generating personalized User interface, specialized components like Workflow or process management engines etc also provide agility.

Flexibility is a different beast. Layered architectures and specialized components for workflow, rule execution and User experience can make it easier to accommodate different ways to do the same things. They make it easier to make the necessary changes but they do not provide flexibility as such. End users do not value the potential flexibility of architecture but the delivered functionality. This is a major problem. Even Analysts from Gartner , Forrester do not have a good way to measure flexibility and use proxy measures like number of installations or types of users ( Life Insurers and Health Insurers or Make to order or Make to Stock business).

Flexibility is derived from matching the application model to the business model and then generalizing the model. I will illustrate with a concrete example. Most business applications have the concept of person acting as a user ( operator) or manager authorizing a transaction. So a clerk may enter a sales refund transaction and a supervisor may need to log in to authorize this refund. The simplest ( and not so flexibly) way to implement this is to define the  user as clerk or supervisor. A more sophisticated model would be to introduce the concept of role. A user may play the role of clerk in a certain transaction and a supervisor in another.  Certain roles can authorize certain types of transactions with certain financial limits. So user BBB can approve sales refund up to 100,000 INR as a supervisor. However BBB as manager of a section can initiate a request for additional budget for his section. In this BBB is acting as a clerk and DDD the General Manager who approves the budget extension request is acting as a supervisor. This model is inherently more flexible. It is also not easy to retrofit this feature by making changes to parameters or If-Then rules. If the Application does not model the concept of Role all the agility in the product is of little use. Greater flexibility can be produced by generalizing the concept of user to software programs. So in certain high volume business a “power user” can run a program which can automatically approve a class of transaction under certain set of control parameters. This “virtual user” is recorded as the approver on the transaction. The application keeps a trail of actual control parameters and power user who ran this “batch”.

Flexibility comes from a good understanding into user’s context and insight into their underlying or strategic intent. Business and users will vary the tactic used to meet their intent based on context. Consider a simplistic example to illustrate. I need to urgently communicate some news to a business partner. I try calling his cell but to no use. I would send a SMS ( India) but if a US contact ( who are not as yet fans of SMS or Text) leave a voice message on his phone or send a email. A Smartphone that allows me to type a message and send as SMS or email is more flexible then one where I have to separately write the email or the SMS.

Frequently Software designers and Architects generalize all types of changes as extensions. They are not interested in understanding intent and context of usage and want a horizontal generic solution to all changes. This leads to overly abstract design with extension mechanisms to change logic, screens and database and reports. In essence to develop a 4th generation programming environment or Rapid Application Development Environment (RAD) . These help by making programming easier and faster but are no substitute for understanding user’s context and designing the application architecture to match and exploit them.

Users relate to a product which speaks their language and seems to understand them. They also get excited and impressed when they see new ways of doing their business and improving their revenue, reducing cost and improving customer satisfaction. Most managers want to make changes incrementally. So ability to “pilot” changes to a smaller segment of users, customers and products while continuing in traditional way with the larger base is of great value. That is ultimate flexibility.

Flexibility is not a mélange of features haphazardly put together.  I have seen many service companies developing “Flexible Product” by adding every feature they can see in other offerings. Invariably this leads to a mythical creature which does not work. If you put a Formula 1 Race engine in a Range Rover chassis with a Nano steering  and Maruti wheels you have a car which does not drive!! A Formula 1 car is intended for maximum speed and acceleration that is safe while a goods carrying vehicle is intended for maximum load carrying with optimum cost of fuel usage .

Delivering Flexibility requires heavy lifting in developing a good understanding of user’s domain, their intent and context. It adds value by simplifying the feature set and matching users intent and context.. If we can use our imagination and understanding of technology trends and capability to provide more then users have visualized we can lead them to newer ways. Leadership is an important way to differentiate your product. Invest in doing this and reap benefits.

Guest Post by Arvind Tiwary

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Being Lean: Being Flat: Being Beautiful!

In this blog we look at the ever changing dynamics of organizations today, especially product organizations in India. Implementing lean and agile practices have become common practice across the enterprise, let us look at some examples and see how some organizations are changing.

• In a three year product company somewhere in Bangalore, there were 25 people out of whom 18 were managers.
• In Hyderabad there is a product company of 1000 people where there are 15 levels of management that was found.
• Culturally too Indians often prefer positions of power. The higher you are and the more people that report to you, the more important you are deemed socially and organizationally.

Such organizations over time start collecting waste. The seven wastes as per lean

  1. Defects
  2. Overproduction
  3. 
Transportation
  4. 
Waiting
  5. 
Inventory
  6. 
Motion
  7. 
Processing

In organizations like the ones above excessive process and meetings cause delays resulting in a lot of waiting. There is no clarity often to people on how what they are doing is fitting the big picture. Hence there is too much inventory of features, too much process overkill. Most product companies end up releasing a typical product over a one year life span.

On the other hand start-ups suffer the reverse syndrome. They often have one person initially who has a dream and one person whose job is to convert the dream to money. In between there are many smart people and they figure out a version one of the product. Very soon most start-ups crumble due to not having any formal structure . This has resulted in newer practices like Lean Startup popularised by Eric Ries.

Organizations in the new era are in the business of delighting customers, are consciously making an effort to move towards shunning the centralized tall hierarchical structures and instead work towards building a structure that’s flatter and decentralized and one that promotes self-organized groups, with interchangeable members, focused on smaller projects. With an objective to get closer to the market and act faster, this change is not just happening to the start-ups but it is being welcomed by some of top companies of the world!

This does not mean complete loss of control. Take the case of Skype a well- known provider of telecom services. As they started growing bigger they got into issues of confusion and waste.
In all these cases lean practices and principles come to make a huge difference to the effectiveness and overall customer satisfaction of and customers and employees. One common mistake organizations do is they do not know when to not add more features to the product. Due to this delays happen and nothing ships.

A Global consulting firm known worldwide for its business consultancy went agile and implemented many of the lean principles. In this organization in New York and New Delhi now there are really large open rooms and no more manager cabins. The director sits opposite to the help desk person often.

An American Bank, one of world’s largest and also having a technology organization, is no different and when we walked into their facility in Chennai you do see an impressive site, where all the senior and junior members are seated together. The team navigated though the organisation challenges and politics to create an award winning cash management/liquidity solution based on agile development and testing practices.

SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services , a leading Agile consulting and development company has an flat structure and everyone sits in a large open room. The company is as flat as it can get and no one tells the members of the organization what to do! There is no micro- management. Instead each member knows the value that he/she will bring as a part of the organization and works at his/her own space and independence and on projects and activities that they like and add value to.

All are encouraged to use titles they like as titles are not what is important here, it is what you know and how you help others to become like you.

These are not tactics or techniques to save costs or make money; it is a way of thinking, it is a way of living and growing as an organization. It is not about building an organization only but also scaling to the next level with lean.

Lean as a practice was popularized by Toyota and has been followed by manufacturing industry for years. Agile practices on the other hand have been popularized by the industry. SolutionsIQ along with many other volunteers across India are hosting a 200 people conference where lean andAgile practitioners from manufacturing, automobile, services and start-ups community are coming together to discuss, debate and learn together the art of building awesome products that create lasting impressions on your customers just like Skype, IPhone or Facebook

Don’t miss your chance to learn, speak and listen to the global experts in Lean and Agile Thinking.
Be there at the Lean India Summit 2013 in Bangalore, on the 15th and 16th of November at Vivanta by Taj, MG Road, Bangalore.

Guest Post by Vibhu Srinivasan

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The first #PNSummit – Are you ready to report for BootCamp? Yes, that’s right. BootCamp. For Product Leaders.

It has been a pretty frenzied two weeks or so for us #PNSummit volunteers, but here we are, and we have something to show you and the world. 

But first, what went into it.

We brainstormed. We chatted. We argued. We used all that, and combined that with actual user feedback gleaned from the dozens of Playbook RoundTables, meetings conducted by iSPIRT.

The whole team put their thinking caps on, and the most important question was which was the best format to adopt. To reiterate, we wanted to ensure that every single participant of the #PNSummit can take away not just valuable insights, but stuff they can put to work the very next day. Stuff that’s been home cooked by product entrepreneurs and is enhanced by the flavour of intense brainstorming.

So this was the aim.

We arrived at the BootCamp format.

Why?

We want the people who go through #PNSummit to come out changed. As people, as entrepreneurs, as innovators, as doers. Like the United States’ Delta Force. Very few even get into training. Very few pass out. None of them are ever the same people.

We want to do that, except for entrepreneurs, and with a lot less running and shooting.

The #PNSummit will home in on Product Entrepreneurs, and will lead them through two critical stages of the startup life cycle –

1.       Customer Discovery Hacking, or getting razor sharp on getting paying Customers. Repeatedly. This is the Day 1 event and has cohorts of 20 folks only. Only a 100 Startups will be attending. If you are here, you’d be typically 9-12 months in operation, with a ready product. You have zero customers, or very few maybe.

2.       Scale Hacking. The secret sauce of turning on the afterburners of your jet engine and skyrocket your startup. This launches on Day 2 of #PNSummit and has groups of 20. Only 80 Startups will be attending. If you are here, you’d be doing INR 2 Lacs in monthly revenue, more than a year in business, and have raised (a little) funding.

You can attend any one of the above tracks, depending on where you think you are.

The sessions will be interactive and actual case driven. We are looking at one on one interaction, problem resolution and immediate, actionable, specific insights through learning that you experience.

Which means the people invited to the #PNSummit will be less; this will be a curated group, hand-picked from the many that would want to attend.

And that is by choice. We want it to be this way.

Military boot camps are successful for a reason. Every soldier is given his due; every soldier has to carry his kit and run miles.

We are hoping that with a small group of committed, curated product people, each one of them gets his due, each one of them goes back with answers to his specific questions, and each one has a plan to implement for the next few months.

We are putting together a bootcamp that is special, unique and completely volunteer driven. Volunteers are folks in the same product ecosystem that you come from. You can even connect with them here to know more about #PNSummit. If you want to attend, hurry and request for an invitation right here. If you have been to a iSPIRT Playbook Roundtable earlier, just type “Roundtable” when you fill in “Referred By” in the form.

And yes, you can tweet about this… use the hashtag #PNSummit. We’ll be listening!

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You’re Not Fully Utilizing Social for your Business

Sure, your business has a Facebook fan page and maybe you even have a Twitter handle. Congratulations! You’re now one of hundreds of millions of people using social media and odds are, your business is getting lost in the shuffle.

If you’re not fully utilizing social for your business you’re missing opportunities. Here are a few ways your business is a big Fail Whale (if you don’t understand the reference you’re not fully utilizing social!) and some things you can do to fix it.

Facebook:

Your business has a fan page, not a business page, right? A fan page allows you to be more dynamic in your branding efforts and there are all kinds of cool features your business can use to gain recognition. Not only should you have a page, you should be adding content daily. Whether it’s status updates, photos, or likes, you need to be active on Facebook.

Additionally, you need to be sure you’re giving and not just taking on Facebook. Engage with your fans, “like” other businesses and in general, reach out twice as much as you release new content. The key to effective social media marketing is building an audience slowly, and Facebook has the biggest audience.

Features to use: Promoted Posts, offers, dynamic header image

Twitter:

Your Twitter page should look as polished as possible and you need to spend some time getting more followers. Don’t buy followers – simply start following and engaging with other Twitter users and you’ll slowly add to your numbers.

The worst thing you can do on Twitter is be too promotional. As a rule, keep promotional Tweets to a minimum and concentrate instead of building your brand by Tweeting relevant industry posts, news stories, and editorial opinions. Don’t hesitate to post pictures and remember, you should be Tweeting multiple times a day!

Features to use: Retweet, reply (talk directly to customers), promoted Tweets

Pinterest:

If your customers base skews heavily female, you need to be on Pinterest. Make sure you’re posting photos often and your photos are high quality and show the brand in a professional light! If you’re more into authenticity and grit, use Instagram instead. On Pinterest, your branded content needs to be useful. Offer recipes, tips, and photos of ways people can use your product or service they may not have considered.

Be sure you spend time following other people’s boards, as well as other companies’. And don’t forget to spend time Pinning things to your own account that help fill out your brand identity. Not everything you pin has to be from your own company’s website!

Features to use: Like, repin, “Boards to Follow,” Pinterest app

YouTube:

What do you mean you’re not making YouTube videos? YouTube gets over a billion hits PER DAY. Mobile is big here, so keep your videos short, unpolished, and imminently usable. You should tie your YouTube channel in with your Google+ account to help with overall SEO and you should be posting often, about once a week if you can.

Features to use: Analytics, promoted video, cross-promotion with sites like Buzzfeed

Whatever you’re doing on social, you could be doing more. The more time and effort you put into social media the more benefit your business is going to get out. And remember: social is a two-way street! You’ve got to interact with other people and brands, too, and not expect everyone to come to you. Social only works when you engage.

Guest Post: Ryan is a product manager at BizShark.com, with 5 years experience in online marketing and product development.  In addition to web related businesses, he also enjoys the latest news and information on emerging technologies and open source projects.

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Lets Not Lose the Reason and Season for Products

One of the long running debates in the Indian technology entrepreneurial world is whether India will ever engender global product companies or will it be destined to be a purveyor of services and a consumer of products and solutions that are imagined, created and marketed by others. As in most things, and especially true for India, there has to be a reason and there has to be a season for anything to occur. So what has occurred? What’s the reason? What’s the season?

What has occurred and is occurring with increasing velocity is:

  • Services companies are passé.  Almost all companies being created today are products or solutions (ie services around a core product offering)
  • These companies are largely to be found in the telecom/mobile domains utilising SaaS/cloud based delivery. This isn’t surprising since telecom/mobile are global scale, scope and market opportunities in India; SaaS/Cloud based companies can inexpensively cater to the world leveraging expensive and complex infrastructure built by others.
  • Talent from global tech companies or even from overseas is coming together to capitalise on these opportunities.

While these are heartening developments, what is more interesting is the opportunity ahead-  across each and every sector of the economy.

What’s the reason though for all this?

Increasing competition, awareness, technology adoption, and the like are beginning to convince more and more companies, across the board, of the importance of investing in technology to drive efficiency, productivity, quality and indeed competitiveness. Technology for all practical purposes today is all software: from vehicles to logistics to hotel, bus and airline reservations to rocket launches to banking to fraud detection to communication to education to anything-else-you-can-imagine! India is beginning to realise that it can be a market on a global scale for solutions as each of these sector s is plagued by colossal global sized problems.

Why is the season right?

Without the right season, no fruit would ever ripen. The season, in this case, is the environment:  enormous numbers of youngsters – aspirational, aware, impatient, confident, unafraid, educated, driven, the growing presence of avenues for these youngsters and their supporters, backers, service providers – investors, mentors, partners of all kinds– to experiment.

The collision of the reason with the season is accelerating this process at an increasing pace.

But before we all start hyperventilating, it is useful to remember that India, despite being the world’s largest producer of milk and in spite of being a milk surplus country, isn’t known around the world for its milk products! There’s a lesson in there somewhere right?  And as a country, we’re known to grab defeat from the jaws of victory with unfailing regularity and precision.  Some important points to keep in mind:

  • Most of the young product companies, especially those that have the connections, are either considering or already have set themselves up as overseas entities. Why? To escape from the mind-numbing red-tape, to enjoy operating freedom, for reasons of branding, protection of intellectual property, to get the benefit of taxation, investments and exits.  Is this desirable? If not, shouldn’t there be policy mechanisms to ensure that the reasons for seeking overseas domicile are minimised? When all countries are laying out red-carpets for companies to come to their shores, why are we intent on driving away those we have?
  • Local branding and awareness generation: Are there sufficient role models for Indian customers? Is it a matter of pride for the country if a world class “Made in India” product is used? What can and should be done to make this happen? Examples from what Taiwan and Korea did are relevant here. Remember, branding isn’t advertising. It is the delivery of a promise, consistently.
  • Industries that are global scale in India eg  defence or where India offers unique challenges eg retail and distribution? Co-option of stakeholders to build world class solutions in these areas is a possibility.
  • India, one would imagine, is ripe territory for the creation of unique voice based products and solutions, given the illiteracy, proliferation of languages and accents. Yet there’re no solutions here. Education – quality video over low bandwidth lines – can be a gamechanger. What about offering cloud based mobile apps for managing businesses for the large number of SMBs?

There are obviously opportunities and possibilities. But without the coming together of like-minded people driven by the desire to effect change across industry clusters via policy, awareness generation, branding, crafting solutions to solve Indian problems, the season to ripen fruits will pass.

This is a season where the coming together of young people, using technology, knowledge, research, engagement, drive and passion, are driving large changes in the way democracy and politics are practised for the better in the Indian nation. Surely, building a product nation is far simpler? Are we all up to it?

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Gandhigiri to the Software and Technology Entrepreneur!

Many of us in the software industry, for more than 2 decades have not only been the direct beneficiaries of the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991, but we also pride ourselves for creating an industry that today supports the livelihood of millions of software engineers, bpo executives and call-center operators. But have we done enough, could we have done better?

India is today struggling with C.A.D (current account deficit). Simply put, we import more than we export. Some people argue that we have gone back to 1991, in effect, all the glorious 22 years which we think we have created have some how evaporated. If we had spent the past 22 years creating Indian software products, could we have not today exported more than just services, based on labor arbitrage? In fact, I would say its largely because we did not think ourselves as a ProductNation. We became pseudo-intellectuals, happy with the easy money flowing into our economy.

Good thing is we can still learn from our legacy. 300 years of British colonial rule, and all the well educated software industry professionals, fail to understand that we are no different than our fore-fathers. Its quite fascinating, and really important to see the parallels outlined below. As software professionals and business owners, its time for us to introspect and learn a little bit of Gandhigiri.

Economic Impact during British Raj

Any chapter from our history books will have paragraphs which read like this…..

Indian Economy was transformed into a colonial economy whose nature and structure was determined by the needs of the British economy.

India supplied all the raw material required for Britain’s Industrial needs, especially the cash crops like jute, cotton, iron ore, silk, wool. In-turn, became the ready market for Britain’s large-scale finished products which were also cheaper than Indian finished-goods, since they were mass-produced, for e.g. the ready made shirts, pants, sweaters, machines,etc. The economic policies of the colonial government was to reduce India to a feeder economy to Britain’s industrial base and hence with out any domestic policy support, the cottage industries within India were destroyed systematically.

Added to that, the zamindari system also meant all profit accruing out of the agricultural sector went to the zamindars instead of the cultivators. High revenue demands and rigid manners of collection forced peasants into the clutches of the moneylenders, who were controlled and financed by the colonial government’s banks. Expanding population put greater pressure on viability and sustenance, and as there was no corresponding domestic development of both urban and rural infrastructure, the economy collapsed and India became a poorer nation. Britain’s policy of trade ruined India’s urban and rural industries.

Economic Impact from 1991 to 2013…

Indian Economy was transformed into a “global” economy whose nature and structure was determined by the needs of the US/Western economy.

India supplied all the raw material required for America’s IT/software needs, especially the cash crops like software engineers, creative designers, app developers, analysts, bpo executives and call-center operators. In-turn, India became the ready market for America’s large-scale finished software and technology products, which were also cheaper than Indian-finished goods, since they were mass-produced with patent protections, for e.g. the Office software, ERP software, Accounting software, Routers, Switches,etc. The economic policies of the Indian government was to reduce India to a feeder economy to America’s Technology and Software base and hence with out any domestic policy support, the local software industries within India were destroyed systematically.

Added to that, the funding eco-system also meant all profit accruing out of the software/technology sector, went to the venture-capitalists instead of the entrepreneurs. High revenue-multiple demands and rigid manners of exit-funding forced software entrepreneurs into Mergers or Acquisitions by American companies, or to the clutches of the Angels and VCs, who were in turn controlled and financed by PEs or LPs from America. Expanding population put greater pressure on viability and sustenance, and as there was no corresponding domestic need for software/technology in both urban and rural industries, the economy collapsed, the FIIs fled, leaving India poorer. India’s own policy of trade for 22 years, ruined India’s technology and software industry.

Conclusion

Well, do I have to take a pessimistic approach and assume that this how its going to be? Should we wait for another Mahatma to lead the new movement to becoming a true Product Nation? An emphaticNO. Gandhigiri to the software and technology entrepreneur provides the vision and direction, so we don’t have to go down the same path our forefathers went. We need to be the change the world wants to see. Lets go and create the change, and let initiatives like iSPIRT and ProductNation be the inspiration through which we can channel our aspirations and ideas. Happy Gandhi Jayanthi to all!

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‘My innovations are aimed at improving Rural Healthcare’

WHAT are the majority of Indians working abroad worried about the most? Obviously, their parent’s health back in India! Rajendra Sadhu, founder of Vyzin Electronics was also going through similar emotional dilemma. Whenever his parents had health issues, Rajendra had to rush back to India to look after them. He was worried that medical emergency can strike anytime, hence was desperate for having a monitoring service or device that would help avert any medical disaster with his parents.

‘Necessity is mother of all inventions’, although a cliché, again proved right. Rajendra thought of a very innovative solution, which he later named ‘VESAG’, to remotely monitor his parents health. What’s incredible is not that Rajendra thought of this device but what’s more amazing is that no one had thought of it before.

In March 2010, Rajendra conceptualized a remote monitoring device that could be ‘worn like a watch’ and would help track the vitals of the user. Moreover, in case of an emergency, the device would also trigger an emergency response mechanism to avail immediate medical help. The concept was novel, hence, Rajendra patented it and immediately started working on building a prototype.

Rajendra has masters in IT from Vijaywada and MBA from Rutgers University, USA and worked for more than 10 years with Verizon Wireless. He got so fascinated by his remote monitoring device idea, that he decided to quit secure job and invested all his life’s savings into this project. The prototype ‘watch’ was ready within 8 months and the concept was widely appreciated.

Vesag ‘watch’ is a wearable device and works as an information gateway. It interacts with all other Vesag devices such as Oximeter, ECG, heart-rate monitor, blood pressure unit, etc. and sends health parameters using mobile technology. All the information is then integrated and uploaded to the cloud for remote health monitoring. Information can be verified by the primary care doctor remotely and can provide appropriate feedback. It can be also used as a mobile-based personal emergency response system.

In March 2011, Connected World magazine ranked ‘VESAG’ as No 1 Connected Health Devices in the world. Rajendra is also the winner of DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Award.

Now, Vesag devices are sold in over 15 countries, Rajendra says “Our solution has received phenomenal response. Every day, we receive multiple emails, especially from caregivers saying Vesag has completely transformed their lives. Our device gives mental comfort especially, to non-working women who can now step out of their house with a belief that their elderly family members are secured and monitored.” Rajendra further adds “various people have now found multiple innovative applications of VESAG systems e.g. Parents use these devices to monitor their children while some BPO employees are using Vesag as it offers them a sense of security and access to emergency services when coming home late at night.”

Encouraged by the success of VESAG watch systems, Rajendra felt that he should develop a solution especially aimed at pregnant women from remote areas as many of them have hardly any access to primary healthcare and monitoring. Hence, Rajendra conceptualized and developed a very small, portal Fetal Doppler unit intended for detecting and recording the fetal heart rate (FHR). It is applicable for use in clinics and homes, and can be conveniently operated by patients themselves. Rajendra says ‘Often, when pregnant women feel that the baby is not kicking, they visit a nearby clinic or primary doctor, who could be miles away. With our Fetal Doppler, pregnant women can check FHR even at home without visiting the doctor. As the Fetal Doppler can also be integrated with Vesag watch systems, automatic alerts can be set depending on the FHR readings. ‘My innovations are aimed at improving Rural Healthcare’

Moreover, now Vesag has also developed a ‘Fetal Care Plan’. Based on primary information, Vesag portal will calculate the trimester and deliver SMS messages to pregnant women regarding the precautions they have to take during the period of pregnancy thereby decreasing the maternal deaths and perinatal mortality.

Although, VESAG solutions are inexpensive, they might still be a bit expensive for rural Indian population. Hence, Rajendra is currently piloting a project whereby individual devices are placed at a Panchayat office or with ASHA workers to check the health of all the villagers with special emphasis on pregnant women. Rajendra says “Innovations at Vesag are aimed at improving rural healthcare. Our watch can be shared by 99,999 patients. Villagers can be given a unique ID number; they can wear the watch after entering their unique ID number. This transmits their health information to doctors and can prove a fantastic diagnostic tool when there aren’t hospitals or doctors in close vicinity. Moreover, even rural hospitals can use one set of watch and Fetal Doppler on multiple patients.” says Rajendra.

All innovation by Rajendra are now geared towards remote health monitoring, especially aimed at rural setting. His mission is to target this sector as hardly any innovations are currently happening and requires a totally different approach. Rajendra wishes to ensure that his technology benefits all sections of the society.

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Top 10 reasons why NASSCOM Product Conclave is #unique this year #NPC2013

1.       Speakers who you will not be able to hear any other place in India. While most other conferences will get you the name-brand speakers or practitioners from India, we went far and wide to get you Rahul Sood (head of Microsoft Ventures, founder of Voodoo PC and entrepreneur), Orna Berry (SVP of EMC, a very successful entrepreneur and Charles Phillips (CEO of Infor, previously at Morgan Stanley and board of directors at Oracle) and 4 more high quality speaker who will not be speaking at any other event in India.

2.       The global business and startup #quiz – the funnest session on the planet. If you are a startup junkie and have a knack for trivia, team up with fellow entrepreneurs and participate in the global startup quiz.  This session promises to have you learn the most useless of trivia, but those that you cannot forget.

3.       The largest gathering of payments experts in India in one place. The #payments track is hosting the top 10 investors, companies, entrepreneurs and innovators all working on sharing with you opportunities in payments in India.

4.       Enough talk, more demos. 25 of India’s best mobile applications, SaaS solutions, a few robotics and hardware companies and very early stage payment companies will demo their solution live to give you a flavor for building awesome applications. Some of them will be launching for the first time.

5.       Open your eyes to the largest opportunities in the biggest markets. For those looking to startup a new company or those already in their own startup, NPC features the large opportunities and the future of Automobile technology, Salesforce application platforms & medical software technologies.

6.       The funniest two technologists will share their top secrets to being spontaneously creative and funny while still being in your startup. Twitter celebrity Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) and Blogger Krish Ashok (@krishashok) will take you through their recipe for building great stories and still keeping your mind fresh.

7.       One word – BitCoin. Even if you don’t know what it is, or are an expert miner you will see for the first time in India any session on the future of this digital currency. NASSCOM product conclave will feature the session on giving you an overview to bitcoin and its implications on the future of currency.

8.       The best 3 workshops on Design – for the design oriented developer by Intuit, on the design of mobile applications by Source Bits and the design philosophies of award winning designers from Cleartrip.

9.       Networking with Angel investors from the world over who have invested in startups from India – and are looking for interesting opportunities. Early stage angel investors from Singapore, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland, London, Indonesia and Sri Lanka will be there at NPC. This is the only conference where we are providing a more structured means for you to connect and talk to them about your startup.

10.    The most advanced topics on sales – from making a move from an engineer to a sales person, to the best way to split your base and commission compensation for sales professionals. There’s also a workshop on getting started with your inside sales led by 2 folks who have grown from INR 0 to INR 50 Cr. in revenue. The track also features startup sales managers who have grown their sales teams and will share their hands-on knowledge of how to hire and manage sales people in India.

This year’s NPC promises to help you learn from your peers, get inspired by successful entrepreneurs and network with the right folks to help you build great products- you gotta be at NPC this year.

Register now.

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We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning!

In India retailing of jewellery is undertaken in various small and large jewellery shops. Whether the retailer is a large shop in metropolitan areas or a smaller rural shop, the adoption of Software and IT both for back office operations or for business growth, is almost negligible. Why has the change not occurred?

On September 22nd 2013 at Royal Orchid Central, Bangalore, some of the most inspired minds from the Jewellery Industry and the Software and Technology industry had the opportunity to go on a journey of inquest. Are there gaps in the Jeweller’s perceptions about the benefit of Software and Technology? Do Jewellers have the right external eco-system to enable them to overcome the barriers to adoption? Are Jewellers happy with whatever Software and Technology they have used and adopted so far? Is there fire in the belly of every jewellery business owner, to objectively seek answers to these questions, or do we have to ignite a new spark?

More than three hours of engaging, entertaining and educational experience. A 100+ jewellery retail business owners got the opportunity to interact and seek answers to many of the questions from industry leaders Shoaib Ahmed, President of Tally Solutions and full-time fellow of iSPIRT (Indian Software Product Industry Round Table) and Mr. Ramesh Davanam, Secretary, Jewellers’ Association of Bangalore. Not all elements of the seminar can be reproduced here, but below are some of the key highlights and learnings.

Making of the Event – The key ingredients

We at SchemesCentral set out to answer many of the adoption related questions about 10 months ago, so that as providers of Software Platforms and Information Systems to the Jewellery community, we empathize with the jewellery retailers, understand their real pains and provide solutions that best address them.

What is required for the transformation of the Retail Jewellery Industry? As owners of family businesses, do retail jewellers realize that change is inevitable? If yes, then what are the real barriers to adoption? What can catalyze the endogenous change within business owners as individuals? These were some of our fundamental questions.

Almost in parallel, nearly around the same time last year, iSPIRT, through its SAI (Software Adoption Initiative) has gone through a similar journey and had put in place a transformative guide that enables all jewellers (whether retail, wholesale or refiners) to become informed buyers of Software and Technology. Sometimes, an entire industry, as a complex collective, can get into a state of equilibrium/inertia, and will need an external shock, to enable radical transformation. Such an external shock is enabled by new policies, new structures and new leaders. In our casual conversation with Mr. Shoaib Ahmed, what occurred to SchemesCentral was that, iSpirt was clearly addressing the exogenous change. What are the factors that can enable the exogenous change in the entire ecosystem, as a collective?

When we marry the two, what is the outcome? A framework that encompasses

  • Focused Solutions for changes that are needed from within, as individuals & business owners and
  • Broad Solutions for negotiating the external factors that influence the whole ecosystem.

It was this dichotamous synergy that gave SchemesCentral the confidence to organize the first seminar in close collaboration with 2 industry associations. The Jewellers Association of Bangalore (JAB) and Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable (iSPIRT).

The idea for the Seminar was concieved less than 3 weeks ago and Mr. Ramesh Davanam, Secretary of JAB, was the first one to give his complete vote of confidence. It was whole-heartedly seconded by the President of JAB, Mr. G.V. Sreedhar, and very ably supported by the members of the association. Within the next week, we had the theme for the Seminar in place, “Enabling Retail Jewellery Businesses to grow exponentially”.

After having invited more than a 100 jewellers, reserving the venue, and working through more than 3 hours of engaging content for the session, we were anxiously hoping that we hit the right chords. Then another magic happened, Mr. Shoaib Ahmed volunteered and gracefully accepted to be part of the Seminar too. And with his natural charm and flair he was also clearly the man-of-the-match on the Seminar day.

Event Unfolded

22nd September 2013 in Bangalore witnessed the beginnng of a new journey. As the session commenced and the clock began to tick, more than a 100 guests and delegates, crowded the pinewood hall. With a full-house, the audience were treated in the 1st session to a new way of thinking, to first as individuals, transform themselves. The intention of the session was to motivate them and nudge them, into accepting certain realities like,

  • The reach and power of the internet,
  • The benefits of engaging with the connected consumer and
  • The implications of being in an Ecosystem of Technology partners.

By the start of the 2nd session, most retail jewellers started to open-up and wanted very specific focused answers to all their software and technology challenges, trust being the most important of them all. It was at this moment, a couple of testimonials from iSpirt and an inspired talk by Mr. Shoaib Ahmed, encouraged them to further explore answers to most of their problems.

In the final session the SchemesCentral.com platform as an idea in-itself, gave the delegates very specific focused answers on their challenges for maintaining and tracking payments for Jewellery Savings Schemes, it was only but natural for them to understand that there is now a community of software developers and partners, just within their reach, in their own neighbourhood, who are willing to help them in their quest for business growth.

Conclusion and Takeaways!

If we tell our customers about our solutions they might forget, if we show them they might remember, if we involve them, they will understand. So start your seminars or workshops today. The Key-takeaways from the Seminar on 22nd September are,

  • If you have a revolutionary software product or platform, seek avenues and opportunities and reach out to established institutions to collaborate and grow.
  • There is fire in the belly of every business owner to grow his business and break new boundaries, jewellery retailers are no exception.
  • We in the software community have to find both endogenous and exogenous ways to nudge them and motivate them, so that we can catalyze the spark within them to become a wild-fire for software and technology adoption.
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How does an Ecosystem need to help itself? The Zensar way of doing it!!

As part of the iSPIRT ProductNation initiative, we work together helping product startups to connect to the enterprises to find, build and utilize the synergies and in the process helping the product startups as well as the enterprises have a inclusive growth. As part of this initiative we are very proud to bring in such a TechShowcase organized by Zensar Technologies from Pune.

When we approached Ganesh Natarajan of Zensar, he was more than happy to make this happen. Later we worked with many other heads at Zensar and we were astonished really at their eagerness and the hurriedness and for a second we were confused at the speed of execution. We have so far never seen this sense of urgency from a large enterprise. Anyways we got around 73 applications for this coveted TechShowcase and Zensar as promised chose the top 10, which makes a lot of synergy for their offerings and for their customers.


Last Saturday (Sept 8 2013) they flew us all the ten companies to Pune and the startups had to do a double presentation – one in front of the executive council and the other in front of the tech council. To be frank we were amazed at the preparations at Zensar with the kind of welcome we got, the setup, the welcome boards, the executive & the technology council being ready and on time considering it was a Saturday and it was a long weekend, and of course the goodies we got. Just amazing!! I think if Zensar is anything to go by the discipline and sense of urgency and the diligence they showed they have a great future for sure!!

Thank You ZENSAR – we appreciate all your efforts and your hospitality – from iSPIRT as well as all the participating companies.

Here is the list of 10 companies that Demo’d @ Zensar (& in the order they presented)

    1. Germin8 – Mumbai based company, which works on big data analytics on social media mainly that is text based. They started in 2007 and they mainly target Marketing and Corporate Communications team in an organization.

 

  • TriggerO – Delhi based; working mainly in the Rewards & Recognition space and employee engagement via Social. Their tag line is “Recognition is Social”. They provide smart analytics about employee engagement as well as ROI.

 

 

  • GoDB – Chennai based; started on 1999; Creates vertical focused mobile apps, which come with scalability and security, and is based of their platform and their main focus is on FMCG, BFSI and Retail verticals.

 

 

  • Kreeo – Bangalore based; Started in 2007; Helps share knowledge within an enterprise like what you do in the social outside. They call it a Collective intelligence and a unification platform for enterprises.

 

 

  • Seclore – Mumbai based; Started in 2007; they work in the space of information security policy based. Their tag line is security not at the cost of collaboration.

 

 

  • i7 Networks – Bangalore based; Started in June 2012; they work on the space of BYOD security; Their sweet spot is 100% Agentless device discovery, fingerprinting and health-check and then denying infected/malicious devices from connecting to corporate network.

 

 

  • Teritree – Bangalore based; Provides social commerce platform

 

 

  • Knowledge Foundry – Bangalore based; Advanced segmentation and profiling to target Ads and helps run smart campaigns and helps ecommerce with tools with Amazon-like recommendations.

 

 

  • Vondasoft – Mumbai and Bangalore based; Scans multiple social media for your relevant brand, filters data based on many attributes and provides the true social image metrics for your brand.

 

 

  • MeshLabs – Bangalore based firm; has a text analytics platform. Listens to all stake holders and unlocks the hidden value via text analytics.

 

As next steps, Zensar will shortlist those companies that they and their customers will find value to take them to their customers. We are sure this will be a huge value to the selected startups and ofcourse for the whole ecosystem. Can we have some more bigger companies doing the Zensar way?

We would like to thank Kumar Gaurav, Vice President at Zensar to lead this initiative with the support of Ajay Bhandari, Chief Corporate Development Officer, Sanjay Marathe – Head, Strategic Services Unit and CTO, Krishna Ramaswami – Senior Vice President, Healthcare Vertical & Global Infrastructure Management Business, Lavanya Jayaram – Head – Marketing and Sales Enablement & Vivek R Sarnobat – Marketing, for their support.

We also feel that these kind of events can be a huge boost to the whole ecosystem as well as a win-win proposition for both service comapnies which now can innovate and provide services that make a difference to their customer while the product companies can benefit hugely as their biggest problem today is not the product development itself but taking them to market. These kind of partnerships and differentiated solutions will help both and in the end help customers to get better, innovative and faster solutions.

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Why we won’t have a Steve Jobs from India

Two copies of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs have been on my bookshelf for close to two years now, but the size of the book deterred me from starting to read it. I didn’t think I was ready to read 570 pages about the enfant terrible, particularly after I heard that the book had several instances of his petulant and downright bad behavior. So, I must thank my colleague and friend Sourav Mukherji for giving me the impetus to start reading it. And, I was not disappointed. In fact, I spent two whole days immersed in the book, literally gobbling every word in print (yes, I still read books the old-fashioned way!).

As I was reading, one question kept popping up in my mind – could we have a Steve Jobs from India? The immediate trigger came from a recent interview in Mint with legendary tech investor, Vinod Khosla, in which he said that the environment for entrepreneurship in India is improving, and we could see a Facebook or Google in the years ahead. I have asked similar questions earlier, most prominently in one of my columns in Outlook Business.

What made Steve Jobs “Steve Jobs”?

I guess I don’t need to list Steve Jobs’ accomplishments here (Isaacson lists eleven instances where Steve’s products transformed industries! – see below).

So, let’s jump forward and take a look at the man himself.

Steve had some distinctive characteristics: A keen sense of aesthetics; an eye for detail; an intuitive understanding of what makes for an outstanding user experience; a belief in simplicity and minimalism; an obsession with getting things right, even if that took more time and considerably more resources; a very strong and highly polarized opinion about anything coupled with the ability to change his opinion if convinced; strong self-belief; showmanship; ability to communicate and connect with an audience; the ability to “distort reality,” to make people think they could do “impossible” things in crazily ambitious timeframes; the perspective to combine art and technology to create well designed, high technology products for (a relatively affluent?) mass market.

Where did these attributes and skills come from? Was Jobs simply born with them, or did he develop these along the way? And, what external influences played a role in this process?

The Source of Steve Jobs’ Genius

Isaacson’s book offers some clues:

Steve Jobs’ (adopted) father Paul Jobs re-conditioned old cars and then sold them. He had a workshop at home where he spent hours in various mechanical activities. Paul also built anything needed for their home, from cupboards to a fence, himself. Steve learnt the importance of craftsmanship and focusing on the details from Paul. Steve’s obsession that whatever is invisible to the customer should be as perfectly designed and executed as what is visible had its origins in Paul Jobs’ attitude towards his own work.

Steve’s practical bent was helped by his early exposure to Heathkits (“do-it-yourself” kits for electronic products and amateur radios), membership of the HP Explorers’ Club, and an electronics class at school where students were encouraged to tinker around with a variety of electronics components. An area in which Steve exercised his ingenuity was in playing pranks on fellow students and teachers, leading to several punishments by his school. Jobs’ first “business” came from trying to “fool” the telephone system into making long-distance calls for free by simulating the tones that routed signals on the phone network, and then selling the box that allowed him to do this. (The box itself was designed by Steve’s friend and Apple co-founder, Stephen Wozniak, as were many other gadgets including the Apple II computer).

Steve had a spiritual side to him from an early age. This appears to have been partly driven by his endeavor to come to terms with his biological parents giving him up for adoption, and partly was a function of the times – Steve was a teenager in the late 1960s, a time of great political and social ferment in the US. This was the time of the anti-Vietnam protests, an interest in Indian spirituality and culture. This is when Ravi Shankar became famous, and the Beatles embraced Mahesh Yogi!. Steve spent several months in India connecting with different spiritual leaders, and this was the start of a lifetime interest in Zen Buddhism. His belief in simplicity and minimalism, and his ability to maintain a laser-like focus on a few priorities had strong links to this interest.

Isaacson quotes Jobs as saying, “I began to realize that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis” (p. 35).

Steve dropped out of college after a year because he didn’t like the regular routine and the mix of subjects he had to study. But the college allowed him to continue to attend courses of his interest for some time. It was during his stay at Reed College that he developed his lifelong interest in calligraphy (which played a big role in the graphics capabilities of the Macintosh), and took basic courses in design.

Why India won’t have a Steve Jobs

Very few of us in India do things with our hands. “Brahminical” India consistently ranks the brain and intellect over the hands and creative skills. So much so that even people from traditional craft backgrounds want to flee to white collar vocations. How many of us grow up with a workshop in our homes? No Paul Jobs-like inspiration is likely in our immediate environs…

Most Indian families would shudder at the kind of unstructured experiences that a young Steve Jobs had. Hanging around in another country for months in the quest of a spiritual experience? I can’t imagine anyone I know allowing their children to do that. And this is not a financial issue. So many of my friends and acquaintances are spending upwards of $200,000 educating their children in the US or UK. But they would go apoplectic if their children were to take a “break year,” let alone get an unstructured experience of the Steve Jobs type.

I was recently chatting with the fellows at Ashoka University’s Young India Fellowship (YIF)  Programme, an exciting postgraduate, liberal arts / critical thinking-oriented education initiative created by my good friend Pramath Raj Sinha. I was surprised to learn from many of them that they had a tough job convincing their parents that YIF was a worthwhile investment of their time! Recently, one of my acquaintances, a senior manager in a leading multinational decided to cycle from Bangalore to Hubli – by his own account,  his mother and brother made a considerable effort to dissuade him from doing any such thing. I am sure everyone has heard similar stories or faced related experiences…

Our whole system pushes people towards conformism. A good friend, HR head of a leading multinational, proudly told me over dinner recently that HR is good at getting people “in line.” And snuffing out enterprise in the process?

Are things changing? I was enthused to read about Akhil Mohan, a young student, who has become a passionate advocate of conservation after an interactive trip with the Bishnoi tribe in Rajasthan. But, how many of our young students get exposed to such experiences?

Conclusion

Of course, Steve Jobs’ success was not due to his individual genius alone. He grew up in the right place at the right time – Silicon Valley in the late 1970s was the centre of the personal computer revolution. As Amar Bhide pointed out so eloquently in The Venturesome Economy, customers in the US have shown a proclivity to try out products from unknown entrepreneurs that is perhaps unmatched elsewhere.  The US is certainly a more conducive place to do business than India – in Isaacson’s book, you won’t come across a single one of the typical constraints that a company in India faces. Steve’s colleagues and employees at Apple, Next and Pixar seem to have put up with a lot of his bad behavior, and I am amazed that in a country as litigious as the US, he got away with all this without a significant lawsuit against him

But it seems clear to me that as long as we cloister and mollycoddle our youngsters, and prevent them from having a wider range of influences and experiences, our chances of ever producing a Steve Jobs from India are very dim indeed.

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Indian Entrepreneurs & The Happy Confused Stage

Last week, I met Sharad Sharma, an angel investor & the prime mover behind the iSPIRT, a think tank for software product startups. For those who have been into software products, he is a familiar face. We’ve met many times before but this time around, we talked about the dangers of mass entrepreneurship, which I’ll keep for a later post. That’s because I stumbled upon a more pressing issue, particularly painful to the Indian entrepreneur: The Happy Confused Phase. I’ll try and paraphrase some parts of the discussion here with a few additions of my own.

What is the happy confused phase?

The happy confused phase comes after the entrepreneur has discovered his customer and found a product market fit. Ideally, a startup would now be ready for the growth execution phase. But in India, the happy confused phase takes over. In mature markets, after finding the product market fit, an entrepreneur hires a team to execute. In India, you can hardly find the right talent (for various reasons). So then, it is up to the entrepreneur to train the existing team and the transition takes longer than you would imagine. This in-between phase, is called the happy confused phase.

Implications of this stage

“The execution team is hard to find in most cases and you end up retraining existing staff to do execution,” Sharad says. This is time consuming. Unless you cross this happy confused phase, most Indian VCs won’t fund you despite having found the product-market fit. Indian VC’s won’t come into a deal too early because they have their exits which is time bound in nature, to take care of. Running out of money is one of the many things that can go wrong in a startup.

Who can help?

Accelerators can help. But there is another problem here. Accelerators in India are time based. Which means, when they run out of time, they have to send the startup away. This is one reason why you would have started hearing of “accelerator horror stories.” After time runs out, many will promise you support but it is flaky at best.

A four month acceleration period is hardly enough in Indian conditions. There are exceptions to this. However, the general idea is that accelerators, especially the ones that take equity in the company, must be stage based.

Mentors can help. Mentors in the same industry as yours, who can help you with deals, are very valuable. They can also help you find talent and customers. However, as veteran Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla pointed out at his talk in Bangalore, “It can’t be people who are sideline cheerleaders who have never taken risks.”

Focused events like Uncafe or Playbook Round Tables by iSPIRT can also help. These events help speed up learning. Peers and people who have been in your shoes can help you learn faster. The important phrase here is “ experiential learning,” and not “startup event.”

Conclusion

The existence of the happy confused phase is not the only issue that Indian product entrepreneur has to deal with. With Indian startups, the discovery phase is longer than usual as well. An informed product entrepreneur who is aware of these issues can hack his way through these stages better than his uninformed peers.

If you’ve been in a similar situation and have found a clever way out, leave a comment or write a guest post for us.

Reblogged from NextBigWhat – Post Contributed by Jayadevan

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Events Landscape 2.0

About four months ago, most of the core volunteers that had built NASSCOM Product Conclave into a successful event gracefully handed over the keys for NPC’13 to a new team. Thereafter, in an effort to address the remaining gaps in the product ecosystem, multiple initiatives were born. Playbook Round Tables was one of them which has been immensely successful right from the word go. They have already brought unmatched experiential and peer learning to 120+ product startups.

Playbook Round Tables are an example of small, highly-curated, nation-wide events that are hyper focused on specific real-world problems most product startups face. Back in 2009, and I know it’s hard to picture this now, NPC was reimagined just along these lines. We saw it as the specialized version of the mega event of those times – the TiE Entrepreneurial Summit. In fact, we kept the format as-is and just populated it with very product-centric and highly curated content. This clicked and NPC went on to become the mega event that it is today.

Now, the wheels are turning again and further specialization is happening in the ecosystem.

UnPluggd, DEMO, etc. have become places where early stage angel and VC investors get together to hear curated entrepreneurial pitches. This category came to life when the self-help volunteer community created Proto.in.

Now the same powerful energy is at work in building another specialized event. This will bring many global CIOs in front of dozens of curated startups. Watch out for more about this important event in the coming months!

There is another fundamental shift afoot not just here, but all over the world.

Community powered learning is becoming the new norm. This trend has been in the works in our ecosystem for years. A wonderful example of this is The Fifth Elephant, a three-day workshop and conference on big data, storage and analytics, with product demos and hacker corners.

Early next week an important new community powered learning event will be launched. This will take the Playbook Round Tables to their logical conclusion. It will be a 2-day “learning orgy” (yes, that is an acceptable phrase now!) for practicing product entrepreneurs where they’ll fluidly exchange knowledge about playbooks. It’ll be a transformative experience. To maintain high quality of peer learning, it’ll be invite only! Somebody who is already attending will need to pull you in.

Defying economic gloom, Indian Product entrepreneurs are gaining confidence.

They are now reaching out to eclectic groups beyond their immediate ecosystem in The Goa Project. They are taking a bit of Bangalore to other countries with Startup Festivals. The self-help volunteer community is on a roll. In the next few months, you will see the event game go up one more notch.

We are now creating open-source based “public goods” that small buyers (e.g. jewelers, tier 2 manufacturers, etc.) can use to drive their own learning programs. The initial pilots have gone very well. And these are leading to some powerful partnerships with trade associations. So, together with our new partners we are planning to rapidly grow the pool of informed software product buyers. We are talking about delivering our “Be an Informed Software Product Buyer” sessions to, not thousands, but hundreds of thousand small businesses in India.

There is lots of new stuff on its way.

Step by step, we are fixing critical product ecosystem gaps on our own using the pay-forward model. We, the self-help volunteer team, won’t rest till India becomes a Product Nation!

[Thanks to ThiyagaRajan, Avinash Raghava, Bala Parthasarthy, Pallav Nadhani, Sridhar Ranganathan, Vijay Anand and Kiran Jonnalagadda for reading drafts of this and suggesting improvements.]

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Part 2: Emotionalizing the software products .. Uh…what?

The first step: build customer empathy

Microsoft built test tools in Visual Studio 2005 to address a virgin test market worth about USD 3 billion at the time. However, the product met with little success and did not create much excitement in the test community. A later in depth observational research of testers to see how they work—what’s their workflow, what tools did they use, what’s their contextual environment, revealed that more than 70% of the testers did manual testing. Most of the time they worked on one test case at a time. Their tools were manual – Microsoft word, excel, white board, paper. For many of these testers, Visual Studio became sort of a four letter word.  They would complain- why are you making me do this? You are making me think like a developer!

In contrast, the test tools in VS2005 were automation based API testing tools designed for specialist testers like Microsoft SDETs. They were optimized for complex testing that required setting up a suite, a plan, a configuration, and all these things that were super-flexible and powerful.  Test tools were like the Swiss army knife that could solve many problems many different ways. But to the average tester, it was impossible to get started and if one ever did, hard to use.

In short, majority of testers worked very different than the programmer testers within the company and elsewhere. It was really a case of lack of customer empathy. The team initially failed to recognize that testers outside could be entirely different beings from a Microsoft tester. After an expensive lapse, they identified a new tester persona named Ellen and released a test management environment for them in the form of Camano with VS 2010.

The cause of this lack of empathy is the curse of knowledge that software developer suffer from. They just know so much more about technology that they can’t see from an average real life users’ point of view. Microsoft software engineers did not understand majority of software testers. Possibilities of software engineers not understanding lay users are far higher.

It is important that the people behind technology products, as Tim brown, author of Change by Design, puts it, could see the world through the eyes of their customers, understand the world through their experiences and feel the world through their emotions. That is the essence of empathy.

Empathy is about knowing your customers deeply, in fact better than they know themselves. Product managers I meet recount how they are trying to do this through surveys, focus groups, usability studies, customer visits and conjoint analyses. But they are missing the point. All this data are meaningless without empathy.

So how can software developers factor in customer empathy in the software products?

One, change focus from feature driven, technology driven or competition driven product development to customer focused product development.  Features often creep into products because management wants it or competition has it or because it is technologically cool. Shun these practices totally and make all your product processes customer-centric.

Two, develop strong understanding of your customer and make them center-piece in all your engineering and product decisions.  Give face to those single word descriptions of customer segments. Develop personas. Put them across your office to remind developers who the customer is.

Develop customer insights beyond the obvious. Only then you have a chance to differentiate and be a winner. Use open questions and empathic listening when talking to customers. Do not stop at asking customers what they want. Customers often can’t articulate what their needs and wants are. They often learn to live with current reality thus killing all useful feedback they could give you. We have all seen people writing passwords on their palms, chaining their bicycles to the park bench, using all kinds of objects as door stoppers and so on. Such consumer needs become latent and never get surfaced in any questionnaire or interview.  Customers are too occupied with their current business to be able to paint great future scenarios. They are no experts to tell you what will be a successful product in the future. Go live with them (ethnography), observe them going about their tasks in their natural habitat. Use empathy map to capture what the people in observation said and did, your interpretation of what they thought and felt and inferences of what their pain points are and what they desire to gain.

Three, stop developing features. Start developing scenarios. Scenarios are short stories told from the customer’s point of view that explains their situation and what they want to achieve. Scenarios describe the journey to a happy ending. Scenarios help shift focus from technology and mere use cases to customer. Remember, human brains are hardwired to understand stories. If you can’t tell a story out loud and have it make sense, you’re probably missing something. Make scenarios the heart of your product. Don’t ship a product with a broken heart!

Four, develop and live by a set of clear user experience (UX) principles. These principles help you make decisions that deliver a product with a clear point of view. An example of experience principles from Windows 8 (details available on the web) includes – pride in craftsmanship, change is bad unless it is great, be fast and fluid, solve distractions not discoverability, reduce concepts to increase confidence, win or lose as one.

Five, develop clear scenario success metrics. Test your scenario to this metric. For example a metric could be –

1)     UX performance – did users successfully complete this scenario? How long did it take?

2)     User perception – were users excited, frustrated, satisfied or annoyed while completing the scenario?

3)     Functional test – does the scenario function as per specs?

Empathy approach to designing winning products has an underlying belief – it’s better to build a product that delights a small segment of users than to build one that targets everybody but doesn’t really nail it for any of them. There are countless examples of products like iPhone and OXO kitchen tools that are a roaring success with customer segments beyond what they were originally designed for.

Steve Jobs once said, “It is not the customer’s job to know what they want.” That’s absolutely right. It is yours.