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Why Indian IT product companies grow slower than companies elsewhere?

Indians are loved world over due to their intellectuality, hardworking nature and their unparalleled ability for Jugaad (an innovative fix or a simple work-around of complex problems). Generally speaking, Indians are doing wonderful job in technology sector and why technology sector alone, it’s across the board now. Many of the world’s largest enterprises have Indians as their CEO’s who are driving high growth for such mammoth organizations e.g. Pepsico, Mastercard, Apple. Mind you, size tends to slow down the growth due to increased complexities.

Global economic expansion and rise of Indians on global map is a boon for India as a whole. It has certainly helped securing unique identity for India on the world map. Despite all this, why Indian Product companies in IT sector are not able to grow to their fullest potential? Why after a certain point these companies call it a quit or struggle to keep up pace of growth? Let’s discuss

I have been associated with Indian IT product companies from the last 8 years at least. The size of these companies has been in the range of 20 Million – 300 Million. With little experience in dealing / working with various product companies following are my general observations (not specific to any company I worked with).

  1. IP Vs Marketing – IP is heart for any product company but what are the rules of the game? Shall they continue investing heavily into developing / enriching their IP’s all the time? What is more important for them at different point in time of their lifecycle? This is a tricky question and finding a balance between business and IP creation could be a never ending debate and obviously THE most difficult question for these companies to answer themselves.

If you look at the IT products originated from western world and with specific mention to Israel, I have few observations to share:

  1. They develop the IP considering present and future (Not so Distant hypothetical future).
  2. Test it, Test it and Test it so that it does not fail (I know few of you must be smiling while reading this J. We all have restarted our computers every time it stopped responding)
  3. Sell, Sell and Sell as much as they can before finding the right balance between efforts required for IP management and marketing.

On the other side, Indian entrepreneurs (Btw most of them started by technocrats and not by sales gurus – Please note) are so passionate about IP that they tend to postpone the problem of selling the software. IP gives immense pleasure and satisfaction to an extent that all the policies, strategies, growth plans, creative energy, board room discussions and even canteen discussions revolve around IP – This is what killing them softly 🙂

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Baby steps to an Indian Microsoft

A country well known for its software services now has an opportunity to build world-beating software products.

At a recent corporate awards ceremony, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was crowned as the company of the year. Piyush Goyal, the Minister of State for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy hurriedly stepped up to the lectern after the award was given. He told the assembled glitterati that TCS had promised to give the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) a modern, nay, world-class hospital management system by March 31. In the tentative clapping that ensued I heard a big snort from my right. The scepticism of the gentleman sitting next to me was rooted in the belief gaining ground that bespoke software systems were outdated and presented a sub-optimal choice.

The predicament of enterprise technology clients stuck with archaic bespoke software systems is no longer common. Bespoke software systems fell out of favour 20 years ago. Firms switched en masse to on-premise enterprise software products. They were cheaper, easier to upgrade, and yet extensively tailored to their needs. This shift in the late 1990s created two sets of players: product vendors like SAP, and implementation consultants like IBM Global Services and Accenture. Soon, Indian IT services players like TCS, Infosys and Cognizant muscled into the game and grabbed considerable market share.

Lost in this success story is the narrative about Indian enterprise software product vendors. For instance, iFlex built a great enterprise software product for banks, which Oracle snapped up for a billion dollars in 2005. Kochi-based IBS is a leading product vendor for airports and airlines, and is now big enough for an IPO next year. PARAS, a hospital management product from Bangalore, is grabbing the industry limelight by winning global deals involving hundreds of hospitals.

If the Indian IT industry has benefited from the shift away from bespoke systems, why did AIIMS miss the bus? In general, why has our public sector been so slow to buy enterprise products? Government officials are not to blame for this. Unfortunately, our IT services firms became protectors of status quo in the government sector. While it helped them milk their fading bespoke systems for longer, it also created crumbling government systems and robbed the nascent product industry of a big market. Luckily, the new government has started fixing the issue.

The Growing Shism

Another breed of enterprise product vendors is emerging. Companies like Workday and Salesforce personify this new wave. They offer on-demand products. These require less customizations and work on cloud-based data centres. So, as Workday says on its website, they are a “fraction of the cost of upgrading from their incumbent vendors”. Naturally, customers love these new-generation products. They are called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products. And they are growing like wildfire.

A schism has opened up in the Indian IT industry over SaaS products. The implementation consultants don’t like them, as they need only minor adjustments. They look at them with a jaundiced eye of a traditional bespoke darzi [tailor] looking at readymade clothes. Going from stitching custom pants to doing length adjustments for readymade ones is a gloomy shift for IT services providers. But it’s a boon for our software product start-ups.

In fact, Indian SaaS product start-ups are on a roll. They are even getting begrudging respect from Silicon Valley. When ZenDesk, the SaaS market leader in customer service desk management products, did its roaring IPO earlier this year, it listed six key competitors in its SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission] filing. Four of these – Kayako, Freshdesk, Supportbee and Tenmiles – are Indian! Indian SaaS product players are becoming global category leaders. Zoho, for instance, sells a CRM (customer relationship management) product at $12 per salesperson per month and is the market leader in this mid-market segment. It is flanked by Salesforce in the enterprise segment (at $60 per salesperson per month) and a raft of players, mostly Indian, in the SMB segment (at $3 to $4 per salesperson per month).

This availability of, say, CRM software product at every price point is a big new story in the IT industry. Unlike cars or smartphones, we have never had different software products to cater to every price segment. SaaS has changed this. As a result, everybody can now afford a software product. Hopefully, this time, government policy will build on this new generation and not let incumbents hold things back.

My Cup Runneth Over 

Two other pockets of explosive growth are exciting. One is the much-discussed rise of the digital consumer in India. This has led to the birth of Flipkart, Ola Cabs, Stayzilla, Newshunt and others. The other pocket is less sexy but it’s even bigger. It has to do with software infrastructure.

Old software infrastructure is being replaced at a pace previously unseen and is creating lots of product opportunities. Data explosion is driving endpoint data protection and governance products. Video explosion is driving dynamic ad insertion products. E-commerce growth is driving a new generation of search infrastructure products. Corporate mobile use is driving new agentless Bring-your own-Device security products. Social media is driving real-time social media analytics products. Now here is the punch line: in each of these categories, the emerging global leader is an Indian company! This is an unbelievably powerful development. For instance, Druva, a Pune-based start-up, is the global market leader in endpoint data protection and governance and is set to do an initial public offering in the US in 18 to 24 months.

Daring to Dream

Behind this optimistic turn of events is a new type of a technology entrepreneur. He (and, sadly, its mostly he so far) is unshackled from the restrictive dream of being the world’s back office. He doesn’t think in terms of labour arbitrage. He is a missionary, a creator and disruptor of status quo. And he has a blazing desire to change the world.

Team Indus embodies this spirit. This team is a motley group of passionate technologists that aims to land a robotic craft on the Moon by December 2015. This is literally a moon shot. Not altogether surprising to many of us, this team has emerged as one of the top three teams in the prestigious Google Lunar X-prize!

There are other moon shots in the works. Some are pivotal to developing our defence, aerospace and electronics industries. Others are about building highly affordable software products that will bring competitiveness to small businesses, teaching effectiveness to schools, productivity to health-care centres and new skills to farmers. Let’s not blow this chance. Let’s give these efforts the policy oxygen they deserve.

The country that gave zero, calculus, yoga and chess to the world is dreaming again. It wants to retake its rightful place in the world. It’s not satisfied being a back office for everybody. It dreams of powering the future with its ideas and inventions. It dreams of being a product nation!

This article was first published in Business Today

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The future is here: Indian product companies are potential global giants

Every year I speak at a dozen events – both within the country and outside. These events range from ones around entrepreneurship and startups to ones purely around technology. There is, however, one common thread at all these events. At home, I meet many young product companies that now operate on a global scale and overseas I increasingly bump into entrepreneurs who have set up a product company with a global footprint.

It will not be an exaggeration if I say the era of dominance by Indian companies has started and we will see young, smart, technology enabled product companies use their imagination and information to operate on a global scale.

What has changed over the years – the biggest factor is the Indian entrepreneur’s ability to think big. About 5-10 years ago an Indian entrepreneur would want to create a niche business that would create a good amount of wealth for himself. An Indian entrepreneur now thinks differently where he wants to create a big billion dollar business that straddles continents. They want to create a dominant business and dominate globally. A startup today does not aim to be a $100 million business, but dream to reach a billion dollars.

And is it easier to do so? Theoretically the answer would be a big yes. It is easier to start a company, especially in the technology domain, and have operations across the world. Many are now starting with the world in mind and in fact during their initial days India may not be the launch market for them. There are examples of many startups that prefer to start in the US and then look to spread operations here.

The reason behind this can be attributed to a phenomenon that started about a decade or two ago. The business process outsourcing (BPO) and the services industries like Infosys and Wipro led to a lot of food for thought over the years. Enterprising individuals were not content with being mere back office providers. As global systems and processes became pervasive at work places, many stated seeing clear opportunities that could be addressed. These individuals were some of the early pioneers of Indian product companies operating and addressing global needs. Starting product companies and not services suddenly became the vogue as factors like labour arbitrage took on a new meaning. Today it is a question of skill arbitrage where product companies are developing technology that are world class and price competitive.

The second reason behind the increasing appetite to operate on a global scale is because of professionals returning home from an overseas stint. When I started Rate Gain after returning from the US, I could see some clear business opportunities. While I was unsure if it would work out, I knew serving the world from India was possible. For entrepreneurs like me and many others, the fear and apprehension of dealing overseas do not exist. There is a strut in our step and a confidence that we are second to none.

A large part of this is also due to the successes of Indians abroad. From the investing companies to top executives at some of the largest MNCs, Indians are now where it matters. A large Indian investing community abroad and forums like The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) and Indian Angel Network (IAN) have helped tremendously by opening doors.

This is now having a cascading effect. For people with an entrepreneurial ambition, there are clear role models to follow. Companies like Druva, ours (Rate Gain), Zomato, InMobi are hugely successful and changing the status quo. The startup ecosystem in the country is maturing with a healthy mix of angel and venture investing and a good idea can now be converted into a sustainable company. The Indian market may be large and lucrative, but the opportunities multiply when operations are on a global scale.

The global outlook at an early stage works well for a startup. Not all would be successful and there is every likelihood that there will be more failures. However, the penchant to create multinationals is the first step to create billion dollar companies. In the years ahead as technology reduces the barrier to entry and democratizes opportunities, startups going global would be the new norm.

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#MadeinIndia Cloud telephony and IVRS

The market has been abuzz lately with cloud-based applications and let us admit it, there is more to come.The industry is adopting Cloud based solutions like never before and start-ups are cashing on this technology.One such cloud based technology which is fast gaining its hold in the Indian market is Cloud Telephony or IVR solutions. Now you can conveniently do away with those PBX, IVR, wires and other hassles associated with the traditional on-premise telephony applications. Cloud Telephony can conveniently be used to manage incoming calls, and as virtual receptionist.
cloud telephony ivrs madeinindia
We have done a thorough research to find out the best players in Cloud Telephony in India and here is the list in alphabetical order for you:

Big V’s YOCC
Big V is a Cloud Telephony Company based in India that offers ‘Simpler Affordable Telephony Solutions’ to small and mid-sized businesses. YOCC offers the business houses their Own Call Centre empowering them to base their entire communication system on an automated, single number.

CallHippo

CallHippo implements cloud computing into the world of telephony. Our platform allows deployment of a flexible telephony network, wherever an internet connection is available. We aim to replace the desk phones with soft phones, eliminating the complexity of setting up a phone system.

CallNet
The software requires no setup cost or hardware cost. It offers various products like Smart Receptionist, Smart Call Center, Smart Toll free, Click to call, and Smart fax.

CloudAgent
CloudAgent offers simple Open API for CTI, CDR and Dialer and you can integrate the software with your business systems for an end-to-end customized and optimized process performance. An added benefit offered by CloudAgent is Off-the-shelf integration with various CRM, Helpdesk, and Analytics products.

DialStreet
DialStreet is also a popular choice with a number of features like IVR Studio to record or upload your IVR recordings, integrated analytics, live view to see who exactly is calling you and who is talking to them from your end, large selection of numbers to choose from, API Integration, call recording, forwarding, conferencing and voice mail.

Exotel
Exotel offers  modern Cloud Telephony solution with top features like IVR, Call Recording, Reporting, SMS and many more. It also provides a suite of tools to manage all your sales, marketing and customer care channels, from dashboard with price starting from just INR 1750/month.

IVRGuru
The software offers virtual phone number, B2B lead generation, employee management system, customer lead management and verification, lead grading and lead distribution, interactive voice response and CRM/ERP solutions.

Knowlarity
Funded by Sequoia Capital and Mayfield, the company has its presence in 65 countries. Knowlarity has its headquarters in Singapore and in India, it has offices in Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore. Its flagship products, SuperReceptionist and SmartIVR, can process over a million calls an hour.

LeadNxt
One of the leading cloud telephony company of India, LeadNxt offerscentralized, open- ended &cost-efficientcommunication system through cloud based telephony applications – IVR, Custom Flow Calls, Call Recording, Call Tracking, Voice Mail and more.  It offers varying pricing structure with its silver, gold, diamond and platinum rate cards.

Mcube
MCube is a cloud based integrated communication platform that delivers an array of powerful automated call management applications such as Business Helpline, Virtual PBX, Call Tracking and telephony integrated marketing automation tools such as Lead Management and Support Management.

My operator
One of the top Call management system by VoiceTree Technologies Pvt Ltd provides IVR on cloud telephony, EPABX on Cloud& Toll free number for business with pricing starting from just 3000 per month.

NTS
Headquartered in Udaipur, Rajasthan, with presence in New Delhi and Guwahati, Niche Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd offers telecom consultancy services to both Public and Private sector organizations in India. The company specializes in providing Computer Telephone Integration (CTI), IVR Systems, Voice Portals, Hosted IVR Solutions, building dynamic database-driven custom Web sites, Web-Voice applications, E-Commerce and business Web site solutions.

OzonetelKooKoo
Kookoo helps you to build business communication infrastructure using web languages. With an option to pay as per use, Kookoo’s monthly rental varies from Rs. 500 to Rs. 2500. The software allows you to build telecom applications, IVRs, office PBX and outbound campaigns.

SparkTG
Founded in the year 2002, Spark Technology Group Inc provides excellent hosted IVR and integration services. Key services offered are development of custom advanced inbound/outbound IVR, contact center solutions, natural language understanding, content management systems, data transformation, and legacy system integration.

Ziffy
Ziffy offers a starter plan at a monthly rental of Rs. 699 with a call rate of Rs 1.4 and a professional plan at a monthly rental of Rs. 2000 and call rate of 99 paise per minute. The software offers various features like automated welcome message, IVR, virtual number, toll free number, two way sms, call recording and forwarding and many more.

The article has been created with the help of Cloud Telephony and Virtual IVR Analysts at SoftwareSuggest.  The list is not comprehensive and you can mention as comments the software missed by us.

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Indian Mid-market SaaS companies: Forging a new path to disruption

SaaS has changed the competitive dynamics for Indian enterprise software product firms, putting them on a level playing field with their western counterparts. It has opened up new market segments, notably the small and medium sized enterprise market, whose requirements are different from those of large global 2000 businesses. These customers demand products that are less complex, plug-and-play and come at a lower price tag. This has pushed product companies catering to this segment towards a light-touch, virtually enabled model, dramatically reducing the need for close customer engagement, large field sales force, and elaborate implementation – all of which traditionally put Indian companies at a disadvantage.

Leveraging this wave, a new generation of Indian software product firms such as FreshDesk, FusionCharts, KissFlow, WebEngage, RecruiterBox and others have started to emerge. This has created an important disruptive force in the mid-sized enterprise market. What is also interesting is that, in their pursuit for a light-touch model, these companies have evolved a unique strategy to define the product, market/sell the product and engage with customers. This iSPIRT report discusses the three core tenets of their strategy – Digital immersion, Desk marketing/selling and Cloud-based customer engagement.

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Innovate on the Product, Not on the Business Model

Entrepreneurs from Bangalore had no problem driving into Chennai amid a tense political situation in Tamil Nadu. There was an air of expectation and enthusiasm on the part of more than 15 entrepreneurs who had come in from Bangalore and Mumbai, apart from Chennai itself, to listen to Girish Mathrubootham, Freshdesk CEO and founder, for the Playbook Roundtable on Scaling a SaaS business. Colourful wall graffiti greeted visitors at the Freshdesk’s vibrant office, which itself exuded energy.

A condensed version of the discussion is given in form of a Q&A.

Girish from Freshdesk

What should I focus on in a SaaS business?

The No. 1 success for your business is your product and it is key to your sustenance in business. You should know what matters to your business. Innovate on the product but don’t change your business model. Look at businesses that are in the same domain as you are or businesses that sell to the same kind of customers like yours. Adopt their business model. Copying business models is not a sin. Tweaking the business model may not be good in the long run. 37Signals started charging credit card subscription only when the merchant bank refused them monthly subscriptions as the bank felt the business is new and could fold up in any time. Such business model changes happen by compulsion and not by design.

How should I go about marketing the SaaS business?

Forget affiliate marketing. It works only for impulse buys and in an e-commerce environment. Success, if any, is not scalable. Only Constant Contact has achieved success with affiliate marketing.

Guest blogs with linkbacks to your product site is a good idea.

Positioning and lead generation are key to marketing. Trigger e-mails is just a drip marketing tool and not scalable. Killing welcome e-mails increases response rates. Getting your e-mail to land in the target’s inbox is crucial and it shouldn’t get into Promotion box in Gmail.

Text-only e-mail with no images and links works best. Attention-grabbing subject line and shortening the length to four to five lines assure greater response rates. Remember, mails are read on mobiles. So keep it short.

Instead of a uniform pitch to customers, talk to them to understand their problems. Then your demo should provide a solution to their problems. Customers at times get confused if you run through your presentation and may not connect with how the product or the features will solve their problems. Be specific.

Make your demo educational for the customer. Say something new and which the customer doesn’t know. It will earn you respect and might convert to sales.

Freemium has two groups. In one, after a trial period, you charge for the product right from the beginning. In the other, there are a free version and a paid version of the product. Nail down which works best for your business. Any number of free trials is not going to hurt your business. Leaving money on the table is a good idea. Because the customer might buy after a long time. Patience is a good trait.

Track the customer from their first visit to your website and determine the pattern of how customers find you. This is called visitor fingerprinting. Then you know where to focus upon.

Trade shows. Do they help? For small companies, they may bring some branding and don’t expect too much ROI from events. What works best is a personalized presentation to your target customer. Do your homework and create customized presentations. This might convert to sales.

Attendees at FreshdeskGenerally, personalize across presales, sales, and marketing. The response rates are 25%.

[Read Marc Benioff’s Behind the Cloud.]

[Watch Gail Goodman of Customer Contact’s video “How to negotiate a long slow SaaS ramp of death”]

Webinars? Webinars are good. All the more good if there is an expert on the topic speaking and it offers something new. Make the webinar having some educational value for the audience.

PR – Be in the news constantly. Hire a good PR agency and avoid scamsters promising hell a lot of things (say, one-page content on you in a magazine that has access to thousands of targets in a domain). They wouldn’t be suitable for your business. Churn out good stories often. Reach the people who don’t need you now. Seed them for the future.

Segregate your marketing function into a campaign team and a content marketing/product marketing team.

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Flipkart – Lessons for “Make in India”

Disclaimer : This article is entirely based on my reflection on what I read in the media

It was exciting and encouraging to experience the marketing campaigns of Flipkart’s billion dollar day and painful and demoralizing to witness pitfalls. I completely empathize with Sachin and Binny who had to write an unconditional apology letter to angry consumers while “celebrating” the victory in round #1 over Amazon, to keep their troops motivated.

Lessons for “Make in India"

The biggest question for me about the big billion day was : Is it a flop-show for Flipkart or is it a success ? Is complete acceptance of failure a sign off greatnes ? I felt apologizing and celebrating success at the same time is a concrete evidence of mediocrity

In any case, there are significant lessons to be learnt from this which is a classic case of gaps between intent and experience, plan and delivery.

We all know the investment and effort that goes into building such a market / consumer momentum for a day like this. We also know the lost image, lost investment, lost opportunity and above all the lost pride due to a result like flopkart. Why did this happen ? Here are my takeaways on the top reasons behind the gap between intent and experience, plan and delivery

  • Inadequate / incomplete anticipation / visualization of what is going to happen on the Big Billion Day. From the load on server to the demand for different products were mis-judged including the peak load at the time of start.
  • Poor coordination in the cross functional team in executing the project: Basically, the left hand was not aligned to what the right hand was doing. The eyes and feet were not coordinated with the brain etc.
  •  Poor workmanship / quality of delivery: from merchandiser to product manager, from project manager to developer, every person fell short in delivering what was expected. Every single gap in delivery contributed their share to the poor experience result.

Basically, every single person who worked on the project would have felt they did their job perfectly well but the end result was a not a success.

The lessons we should learn are very simple : Each one of us must visualize, simulate and experience the customer engagement in our mind while we create a product or service. Each one in the team including suppliers and vendors must collaborate deeply and engage passionately to ensure  the customer engagement visualized can be delivered 100%. When so much is at stake, the load and stress test must be done to ensure systems can withstand the load. Finally, when it comes to each of our own deliverable, we must ensure we deliver 110% and leave nothing to chance

Few other questions I was asking myself repeatedly but could not get an answer. Some of them are, If such thing has happened in a well funded US company, would heads roll ? Are heads not rolling in India because we do not have depth in leadership in the ecosystem ? Is stringent accountability a necessity for Make in India to succeed ?

Only if each person in the team is 100% committed to deliver customer delight, experience vision for customer engagement, execute and deliver on the plans – greatness is guaranteed. Every slip between the cup and the lip gets exposed. I strongly feel, these all are essential for Make in India to become a reality.

Cheers
CEO & Founder
GoFrugal Technologies

 

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Gandhigiri to the Software & Technology Entrepreneur – Part II

Gandhi and Customer Centricity

The progression of Economic activity as it stands in the Global Economy today has accelerated from commodities->products->services->experiences->transformations. (Pine and Gilmore)

Today we are already in the Experience Economy (Its Apple like experience, its not apple like products), but as professionals we are still grappling with how we build Products, let alone scaling the Economic activity to be staging experiences and guiding transformations!

While I am not an economist in any regard, and I do not understand the nuances of all industries and their current economic function in India (Are we building products? Are we providing services? or just plainly selling commodities?), its imperative that I comment on only Software and Services.

Before doing that, on the Gandhi Jayanti day, I would like to introspect what our Father-of-the-Nation tried to teach us, by emphasizing on making our own Salt, our own clothes with the Swadeshi Movement OR with his services at the Sabarmati Ashram. Essentially he articulated with his actions what our present day government is campaigning for “Make in India”. How did Gandhi understand the evolution of Economic activity more than a 130 years ago?

Because Gandhi was more customer centric a 100 years ago, than we are today. He empathized with every person, much better than we did. Let me quote the now cliched Gandhi’s quote on Customer Service “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”

Customer is more important

Empathy By Design

Come to think of it, our entire Indian Cultural ethos is based on Empathy. “Karuna” is the foundation of almost every teaching in our country. Indian institutionalization and Orientation has Empathy by Design. Then how is it, that we have failed to reciprocate to the needs of People? Why is it, that we have not built products, services, experiences that cater to the needs/wants/aspirations of people, when there is Empathy by Design in our culture?

Tough questions to answer universally or generally. However focusing on Software and Services, I think we have become too focused on Systems, Processes and Technology, rather than addressing the concerns of people. We have gotten too-carried away with Western philosophy of Professionalism, which emphasizes a lot on Systems, but empathizes little with people.

Let me give you a more concrete example. High exploratory and high mortality nature of software projects is like an Industry Standard. 9 out of 10 software initiatives don’t go anywhere, seems to be an easily accepted norm. All the cash-rich service majors in IT/ITES industry have not re-deployed their capital to building an Indian Apple today, because they seem to have accepted that Software products have a 9 in 10 chance of mortality. However what they have failed to realize, is all Lean Methods today propose Customer Development first, rather than Product Development. Build it and they will come, is almost an era of the past. Every Agile and Lean technique today is about keeping the Customer-centric view first and rapidly building tools, products, services, etc which empathize with the needs of people.

Making in INDIA

India however has a renewed emphasis on the Swadeshi movement. Its now called Making In India. Every body is now encouraged to make their products in India. However, I would like to draw your attention to Gandhi’s philosophy again, which has found a new meaning, with the Lean and Agile world. Customer Development is more important than Product Development.

Let me go a little further, the first realization all product entrepreneurs need to have is this “Customer is the Product”. Your product is just a medium/abstraction through which, you continuously develop your Customer. Stop fiddling with the Features and Benefits. They are the HOW and WHAT for your Customer. WHY the customer does anything with you and your Product, is essentially what we need to understand.

Making In India, is all about making the Customer or Consumer in India happier, healthier and wealthier each day. Do you have a plan for this? Why should you think about Making in India, is it only for Export? Well, here is why. All new ideas, new software product ideas are imperfect ideas, and need to be tested locally, and refined continually, before we can think of exporting. India today lacks any credible domestic infrastructure or support, to even make little bets, so ideas never go past their imperfect states, and hence never attain Global Standards. So, lets make and try it here first.

Mahatma Gandhi

Conclusion

We are a country blessed with Empathy by Design. We are a nation which puts Emotions ahead of Professionalism. We are a nation that believes in Darshan (of all deities). Truth is, Customer is the first GOD. So, fellow Entrepreneurs, if there is one Gandhigiri that we need to learn, it is to do a full-darshan of every customer, their needs, their wants, their aspirations. We now realize Consumer Development is as important, if not more important than Product Development. Is’nt it then, not automatic, that building a Consumer-Centric Nation, is the first step to building a Product Nation. Lets go and create this 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!

Be the Change

Read the Part 1 here Gandhigiri to the Software and Technology Entrepreneur!

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Looking for business leads? Want to be seen among the top level CXOs and decision maker? @CeBITINDIA

The premiere edition of CeBIT in Asia is all set to get off to a very strong start. From 12-14 November over 600 companies spread over 9 topic clusters will showcase global enterprise technology innovations. 200 of these 600 exhibitors are international companies who are completely new to the Indian market. iSPIRT is a key strategic partner to CeBIT India and together the goal is to showcase India as a Product Nation both in Bangalore this year and Hannover in 2015. With a clear focus on IT.BUSINESS.100% the event invites Enterprise Technology Buyers with a clear B2B focus. As per the latest forecasts received from the organisers, the event, will garner close to 25,000 visitors. CXOs, IT Resellers, MSMEs and Government Officials from State and Central Ministries form the majority of the visitor base. The focus end user sectors for the event are BFSI, Automotive and Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Education, R&D and Hospitality.

Want to Win the CeBIT Challenge? Here’s your opportunity

“If you are a start-up, then +91 is your code to connect with seasoned entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, mentors and accelerators and win a chance to showcase your ideas to a global audience at CeBIT 2015, Hannover, Germany.”

Technology, as the industry of choice for many of today’s start-up businesses, attracts investors and venture capitalists, and has enormous payout potential. While the appeal of launching a tech start-up is easy to understand, some entrepreneurs fail to cope with the unique risks they face being in the competitive world of technology. This is where +91 comes in.

The genesis of +91 lies in the Start-up Village that was started at CeBIT Hannover as an international initiative for digital pioneers, innovators and ground breaking start-ups. Initiated over a decade ago, the Start-up Village has since been supporting outstanding business talents and their exceptional business ideas, providing them with a platform for dialog, and therefore stimulating and accelerating innovation in the field. 

CeBIT INDIA

Business Technology +91 Start-up Challenge is being organized alongside CeBIT INDIA – Asia’s leading Business Technology and ICT Procurement Event will be held from 12-14 November 2014 at BIEC, Bangalore. CeBIT India needs no introduction. With the aim of showcasing New Perspectives in IT Business, India’s first CeBIT will cover the key IT trends of Cloud Computing, Strategic Big Data, Enterprise Mobilily and Social Media.

Along with its large exhibits, CeBIT India will also feature a series of engaging conferences, workshops and seminars by global thought leaders like Vishal Sikka CEO, Infosys and Mark McDonald Global MD, Accenture at their CeBIT Global Conference. You can download the brochure for +91 Start-Up Challenge for CeBIT India here

PLUGGED IN:  

Along with CeBIT India, a Consumer Electronic Show for consumers called PLUGGED IN will be organized, parallel from 14 – 15 November, 2014 at BIEC, Bangalore. Consumer Technology +91 Start-Up Challenge will be held at PLUGGED IN

PLUGGED IN is the largest consumer gathering and showcase of consumer electronics & technology in India! It is is a comprehensive convergence of all stakeholders in the Consumer Electronics & Technology sphere to engage, educate and entertain consumers like never before. It is a platform for new product launches and showcase of game changing technologies in the consumer technology industry. For more information visit the PLUGGED IN website. You can download the brochure for +91 Start-Up Challenge for PLUGGED IN here

iSPIRT SaaS Pavilion @ CeBIT India

With a view to showcase India’s product strengths, CeBIT India has partnered with iSPIRT to create an exclusive SaaS display. The organisers have built a smart all-inclusive package, which includes fully built and functional display space, central meeting area facilities and prime space on the CeBIT India show floor. In recognition of our partnership with CeBIT, iSPIRT members on the SaaS pavilion are offered a preferential participation rate. In addition to the SaaS pavilion, CeBIT and iSPIRT will work closely together to showcase product innovation in the +91 zone. Please don’t miss the opportunity and contact the CEBIT India team(Mls(AT)HMF-India.com) at the earliest, who will provide you details information on the challenge. You can find more information about the SaaS pavilion here.

WHAT DOES A START UP GET?

  • Showcase & Market:  An exclusive opportunity for start-ups to showcase and market products to their customers at +91 Start-up market
  • Workshops:  Exclusive access to workshops conducted in the +91 Zone by industry experts covering the core business aspects-Marketing, Finance, Operations and more.
  • Mentors: Interact with the best minds in the industry on one-one basis, receive valuable suggestions & feedback to enhance and add value to your business.
  • Network & Interact: An opportunity to network with fellow entrepreneurs, angel investor and venture capitalists, accelerators, experts & support programs, as well as interact with 25,000+ business visitors of CEBIT India & Plugged In
  • Attract investments:  With investors coming from all domains of thetechnology ecosphere, you get the best chance to attract investment.
  • Visibility: visibility through extensive media coverage and promotion across all mediums

AND WIN AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOWCASE YOUR PRODUCT AT CEBIT IN HANNOVER, GERMANY.

WHAT NEXT? 

Participation for CeBIT India +91 Start-up Challenge is limited to only 50 Start Up companies and PLUGGED IN +91 Starts-up Challenge is limited to 25 Start Up companies. Please don’t miss the opportunity and contact the CEBIT India & PLUGGED IN team(Praveen.Nair(AT)HMF-India.com) at the earliest, who will provide you details information on the challenge.

 

 

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Cloud Based #MadeInIndia Accounting Software

Cloud based Accounting Software are becoming increasingly popular for small and medium business. There is no hassle of installing it, the data is safer on the cloud and the costs works out to be much less for the multi user version. India, has managed to produce quite a few efficient cloud accounting software. Here is the list of #MadeInIndia cloud accounting software. (In no particular order) 

Reach Accountant: Reach business automation software was instituted with a vision to empower proud owners of innumerable business establishments in SMB’s and MSMEs sector in India.  It has established itself as an effective tool to the Business owner in driving Business Growth, by offering absolute control, ease of functioning and remote accessibility of Business with no limitation on number of users leveraging the cloud technology.

Reach  software in a quick time since its inception a year back  has established itself as  reliable and  bespoke solution provider to service business, sales & service business, Point of sales, assembly manufacturers, trading & distribution business, and retail business. Reach software offers modules spread over accounting, inventory, purchase management, CRM, POS billing, Invoicing, e mail management and so on so forth. It is enriched with unique features like auto sync of bank transaction, Mobile App and e-tailing add-ons/ project management plug ins, establishes it as a one of the top software in the online software space. State of the art features backed by futuristic technology and competitive pricing makes the offering from Reach Accountant a truly “Value For Money” proposition.

Reach was also awarded the “Best Internet Retailer of the Year-2013”  by ET Now. Reach accountant enjoys strong assistance from Sequoia Capital – a renowned global venture capital firm, being the key investor to the company.

ProfitBooks: ProfitBooks is an online accounting software designed specially designed for Indian businesses. The software has a simple interface, which can be operated by business owners. ProfitBook helps Business owners to stay on top of sales, expenses and banking transactions. Entrepreneurs can focus on profitability, can easily find out high value customers, top selling products and other meaningful data. It works perfect on smartphones and tablets too. With its simplicity and affordable pricing, ProfitBooks aims to put top end technology in the hands of Indian SMEs.

Cloud-based-accounting-software-softwaresuggest

Zoho Books: Though Zoho Books is a product made in India, the company focuses on the international markets. They have one of the most popular offering in the world market because of their low price as compared to their competitors. Zoho has a flat pricing of $24 per month for unlimited invoicing, unlimited users. The software can also be integrated with Online Payment gateway which works out which works out to be a boon for small and medium enterprise selling online. It is one of the few software to provide a powerful API to connect it with other software you many want to use.

ZipBooks:  ZipBooks one of the latest entrants to cloud based accounting software list. It is an Ahmedabad based company named Accusol Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The company has priced at Rs 4999 for a year. The software focus on Accounting, Inventory, Sales and Purchase management. The product will soon have efficient CRM features, to keep up with the growing trend of automated marketing.

AccountingGuru: AccountingGuru.net is an inventory, invoicing & accounting software.  It provides a simple single login mechanism to create and access multiple companies.  It allows you to invite your staff and accounting professionals with exhaustive user permissions.  Accounting professionals can login with one login id and will be able to manage and serve multiple companies easily. AccountingGuru.net excels in Branch/inventory/sales invoice management.

AccountingGuru is by Veersoft Solutions which is based out of Bangalore. The basic version of this software is priced as low as Rs 2400 per year. Its users find customization of printable invoices formats as one of its best features.  There is a separate print designer module.  The companies can brand the invoice with their own colors and themes with a little help from a website designer.

If these accounting software don’t meet your requirements, you can talk to our software analyst at SoftwareSuggest.com for suggestion on software that can fit your requirements.

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Product Camp brings hot product topics to the fore

Product camp is a unique event format where attendees get to drive the agenda. It is borne out of the bar-camp or un-conference movement that started in US and spread to other countries across the world a decade back. Traditional conferences do not allow attendees to provide inputs to the agenda. P-Camp gives them a direct opportunity to create the agenda, choose the topics and the speakers.  Product camps have spread in popularity across the world.

The next P-Camp, hosted by eBay/PayPal and supported by ecosystem partners iSPIRT, NASSCOM and OCC is on Sunday September 7th 2014, starting 9:30 am. Anyone can register for FREE.

This is the third product camp happening in Bangalore, organized by IPMA, and only the fourth in India. Here is a peek into the agenda that is still shaping up on indiapma.uservoice.com with top 4 voted topics.

Product Camp

These are the issues that the community is grappling with and would like to learn more from others who are doing it really well.

This Product Camp is seeing a total of 23 topics proposed by the community. 23 is a healthy number and the highest we have seen so far.  However, due to limited time only the top 9 will be chosen. The P-Camp organizers including the team at eBay/PayPal have pulled out all stops to ensure a smooth and fun day that includes lunch and beverages for hundreds of eager campers, surprise goodies and office spaces for break out sessions.

Attendees also get to meet and hear from Ravi Gururaj (NPC Chair) Ram Narayanan (GM eBay/PayPal) and Piyush Shah (VP of Products, inMobi) as well.

So, this Sunday, forget the malls and TV and the couch. Instead, camp out with your product guys and gals at the eBay office in Bangalore.

 

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Raja the Raja ! We miss you!

Dear Raja,

Rajendra RajaWe have collaborated on many blog posts in the past but we are struggling to shoulder the burden of this one. People say you are 63, but you worked like a 23! You didn’t care what people thought about your views – you boldly put them forward. You worked for a large company but you cared for the success of innovation in smaller startups. While your mates were fighting for their promotions you were fighting to promote the eco-system. When everyone is having hard time adapting to change, you learned twitter, facebook and what not, with the curiosity of a teenager. While everyone safely choose an MNC product, you took the risk choosing Made-in-India products within your organization and also forced your network to follow you. You saw no boundary and went across NASSCOM, Ignita, iSPIRT with the only goal of building a solid ecosystem. It is hard to merge companies but you easily united iSPIRT and Ignita. When people hesitate to accept friends requests in FB, you made us part of your family by including us in your 60th anniversary celebrations. You are great friend to all of us and we miss you! Raja the Raja !

With limitless love and affection,

Akshay Shah, Avinash Raghava, Dilip Ittyera, George Vettath, Lakshman Pillai, Nari Kannan, Purushothaman K, Sharad Sharma, Suresh Sambandam

 

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How We Got The IT Minister Excited About Indian Product Startups & Made Him Our Spokesperson #UnleashTheEnergy

A behind the scenes account of how a showcase of 11 disruptive startups was put together in just 100 hours!

If you’re reading this, I’m sure  you are a part of the Indian product startup community in one way or the other. And unless you were living under a rock (which is fine, if you were busy hacking away or traveling to sell your product), you wouldn’t have missed that our Hon. IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad was in Bangalore on Tuesday meeting with the product startup community. iSPIRT hosted  the “Conclave for India as Product Nation #1″, an open dialogue between the Product industry and the IT Minister.

What made it all the more special was that the he was the first IT Minister to meet with startups and also that he first met with the startups first before meeting officials from his ministry! The Minister met with the industry leaders, gave a patient hearing to the needs of the product startups and also saw presentations from 11 disruptive startups.

And here’s what the minister had to say after meeting with the startups!

So how did we pull this off? And what if I told you that it was all put together in 100 hours. We ourselves cannot quite understand how everything fell into place! But as Sharad often says, when a bunch of passionate volunteers come together towards a common cause, magic just happens. At iSPIRT, we take our volunteering quite seriously. No wonder then, that we actually have open sourced our volunteer model through a whitepaper to help other communities benefit from it!

 

A text message from Rajan on Saturday morning got me involved. Could we get on a call, he asked. There’s an iSPIRT event scheduled on Tuesday and some help was needed. We spoke and I got to know that there’s an interaction with the IT Minister scheduled on the coming Tuesday. As part of the interaction, we needed to put together a showcase of disruptive product startups to help the Minister get a sense of the kind of impactful work being done and the opportunities ahead. There was list of companies drawn from across various segments and stages, with whom we’d need to connect and get their availability for the event on Tuesday. Tapping into our network of volunteers (many of whom are themselves startup founders and industry leaders), we gathered the contact details of these companies and started reaching out to the companies. These were companies spread across the country and we checked with their founders if they’d be available to present. Based on the availability of teams and the some intense discussion and debate among the Program Managers for the showcase, a short list of the companies presenting on stage was drawn up. The thought process behind the selection of companies was to give the Minister a good view of the breadth (sectors where product startups are making an impact), the depth (companies that have achieved global market/tech leadership) and how far they can grow with sound support from the ecosystem, which includes the government as well. We were immensely privileged to have Mr. Mohandas Pai spare his valuable time for multiple meetings through the whole process and share his inputs on what kind of stories would make the maximum impact.

Product Leaders with the IT MinisterArriving at the shortlist was surely a good beginning. They say well begun is half done. But the tougher half lay ahead! We were already at Monday morning, and within the next 24 hours we had prep up the presenters. Each of the companies were to have a short, crisp presentation with the key points to be covered in under 4 minutes! Shekhar went about this with the precision of a toolmaker, thoroughness of a scientist and the strictness of a school teacher! From putting together notes on what points to cover, iterating multiple times with the presenting companies on their presentations over a sleepless night, to conducting the actual showcase in front of the minister, Shekhar was always on.

(That’s me on the left  trying to get the slides up!)

The event received some very good coverage in the media. Below are some links:

Here’s hoping that achchhe din are indeed ahead for the Indian software product industry!

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The Most Important Technology Trends of 2014, According to Gartner

Leading market analysts issue their latest technology trends every year. Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company has defined the top 10 technology trends and drivers that will be strategic for Indian organizations in 2014.

134459715These technologies can impact an organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives. Implementing business process improvements, revenue growth through differentiated products and services, and business expansion are the top business priority areas of investment for Indian organizations.

Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for Indian companies in 2014 include:

Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics

The BI, analytics and performance management segment is the hottest software market in India, fueled by IT prioritization and expanding business buying centers. A competitive business environment and economic conditions are also forcing enterprises in India to focus on using fact based decision-making tools to rationalize costs and time for businesses.

Mobility Solutions

Mobility in enterprise has created a huge opportunity for IT leaders to reduce costs, increase productivity and enable smooth business transactions. Swift growth in the prevalence of mobile devices, a decline in their price, and falling data plan costs have the potential to completely transform some business models.

Cloud Computing

Although still in its infancy in India and other emerging markets, cloud adoption is increasing. Led by infrastructure-as-a-service engagements in the data center, disaster recovery and storage areas, there is a broad range of providers that target large organizations as well as SMBs. This fast growing adoption by a diverse range of organizations has catalyzed providers to invest in high quality data centers and innovative cloud infrastructures, as well as a portfolio of cloud-related offerings such as security, communications and managed services.

 Social Media and Computing

Social media in India has seen exponential growth in the recent past with enterprises using it for customer support and customers using it to offer opinions. A growing number of enterprises used social media to connect with their customers and for marketing campaigns in 2013 and social media is playing a pivotal role in Indian politics with the government and political parties increasingly using it to connect with citizens

Machine to Machine (M2M)

The M2M market in India is in a nascent stage but growing rapidly. Indian enterprises driven by demands to improve agility and productivity are evaluating the use of M2M-enabled solutions.

 Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD)

In India, server-based computing, which is also referred as “hosted shared desktop” or “terminal services,” is seeing more adoption. More than 80 percent of desktop virtualization implementations are based on HVD. Organizations are only looking at desktop virtualization from the point of cost requirement, and they overlook other benefits such as full data backup, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) support, extended hardware life cycles, security, compliance and anytime-anywhere access.

 Personal Cloud

Adoption of cloud computing in India is currently limited to the private cloud. Organizations are focused on protecting their applications located in enterprise app stores, as well as the content on employees’ personal devices used at work. Tablets are becoming the first-choice user device and this form factor’s explosion is creating device ubiquity. Users are creating their own personal digital ecosystems with their own sets of apps, games and media. Content is starting to shift to the cloud but, in the future, the cloud will become the primary storage for personal content, and local versions of the content will exist only as staged or cached elements.

 The Internet of Things (IoT)

The IoT delivers tangible value to enterprises through the ability to better utilize remote assets and creates business cases in three key areas – operational technology (OT), digital supply chain and customer interaction.

 Collaboration Technologies

Collaboration technologies (otherwise known as workflow management or team collaboration) consist broadly of – real-time electronic meetings, content delivery, desktop and application sharing, text chat, group document markup with electronic whiteboarding, security and remote control. More advanced features include integrated voice over IP, file sharing, videoconferencing, content archiving, media streaming, feedback and polling. Real-time collaboration technologies not included in the Web conferencing category include instant messaging and stand-alone audio conferencing.

 3D Printing

In India interest levels in 3D printing are slowly picking up and this is reflected in the increased presence of providers in the 3D printing space. Because of the country’s large population base, high volumes and low cost requirements, 3D printing is expected to take off rapidly and revolutionize industries as diverse as aerospace, consumer goods, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and the military. 3D printing has the potential to radically transform design, manufacturing and the supply chain model in India.

According to Gartner, while Indian companies may be keen to invest in new technologies, there are still barriers to full-scale adoption including business readiness, a lack of capacity for organizational change and low levels of IT funding. Implementing business process improvements, revenue growth through differentiated products and services, and business expansion are the top business priority areas of investment for Indian organizations.


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14 Ways to Emotionally Engage users with your Product

Most conversations with entrepreneurs and product managers who want drive engagement and bring viral features to their products are answered as ‘We will gamify our product through features’. This post is about clearing some nuisance around the topic of gamification in products.

Gamification has nothing to do with building features. In fact, even Product Management has nothing to do with building features. It is not a rocket science, product managers usually figure out the ‘building features’ part of it with time and experience.

“People don’t buy products. They buy better versions of Themselves.”

So how do you ‘connect’ users with your product? Not through features, not through gamification, but by triggering certain emotions with your users.

Gamification = Getting People Emotionally Engaged with Product.

Below are some of the most powerful emotions people have along with few examples that will help you figure out how get users to emotionally engaged with your product / startup.
PS: The number of emotions could be more, I have referred to only 14 here.

1. Expression

Expression – People love to express themselves. Enable it.

Products that allow users to express themselves:

  1. Tumblr
  2. Twitter
  3. Facebook
  4. Medium

Products that allow users to express themselves anonymously:

  1. Secret
  2. Whisper
  3. FML

Tip: ‘Expression’ is used as a core use-case in product.

2. Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment: People love getting acknowledged. With interactions & endorsements.

Help people getting acknowledged. They love it!

  1. LinkedIn – Recommendations & Endorsements are social acknowledgments which users love.
  2. Twitter – Retweets and Replies on tweets are great way to be acknowledged.
  3. Facebook – Likes & Comments are acknowledgments to status messages users shares
  4. Quora – Upvotes & Comments is acknowledgment to your answers.
  5. Tumblr – Love & Reposts are acknowledgments to you posts.

Tip: ‘Acknowledgments’ lead to ‘User Notifications’ which further lead to Engagement. Always build features that enable acknowledgments in products that use ‘expression’ as use-case in product.

3. Exclusivity

Exclusivity or Privilege: People love being privileged. Make it exclusive.

Make it exclusive. No one likes the feeling of being left out.

  1. Gmail – Gmail invites were exclusive to few users. People were ready to buy invites off Ebay.
  2. Quora – Only existing users can invite new users.
  3. Pinterest – Users need to apply for access. After few days they were granted it.
  4. Mailbox – Users were in queue to get access to the app.

Tip: ‘Exclusivity’ works best for initial referral program for driving sign-ups.

4. Being Cool

Being Cool: People want to be Cool. People want others to know they are Cool.

Make your users look cool when they share your product.

  1. Frontback – Share a snap along with a selfie. Lets users be cool.
  2. Vine – Short cool creative videos.

Tip: ‘Being Cool’ will help you drive sharing on Social Networks.

5. Nostalgia

Nostalgia: People have memories. Sweet Memories. Remind them about it.

Remind users about some of the best times they have experienced.

  1. Timehop – Complete product is built around Nostalgia. Reminds users of special moments from the past.
  2. Facebook – 2014: Year in Review videos
  3. Twitter – 8th Anniversary: Which was your first tweet.

Tip: ‘Nostalgia’ helps get back old users and revives their interest. Can be only used once in a year on special occasions.

6. Curiosity

Curiosity: People want to know. They fear on losing out. Keep them curious.

Keep users curious. Keep them looking for more.

  1. LinkedIn – The feature ‘who viewed my profile’ tries to keep its users curious, and engaged.
  2. Twitter – Catching up with Timeline, mostly is the fear of losing out.
  3. BuzzFeed / UpWorthy / ViralNova – All try to trigger curiosity of readers through their post titles.

Tip: ‘Curiosity’ in products helps you increase repeat usage.

7. Competitiveness

Competitiveness: People love to compete with others. Creates a sense of achievement. Make it happen.

Drive users to compete with friends / others.

  1. Foursquare – The leaderboards between Friends was a great way 4SQ ensured people kept checking in.
  2. Quora – The feeling of ‘I have a better answer’ or ‘I can answer this question in a better way’ keeps driving engagement.
  3. Fitbit – Leaderboard that tracks your fitness with friends.
  4. Hackrank – Programming challenges.

Tip: ‘Competitiveness’ leads to greater engagement. Though its novelty in private group is lost after some time.

8. Stay Organized

Stay Organized: People love to organize things. Organize everything. Make it happen

Give users stuff that they want to sort / organize. Keep them busy.

  1. Pinterest – Lets you organize pins / interests/ stuff you love.
  2. Evernote – Organize all your notes.
  3. Wanelo – Organize fashion stuff. Ask girls how much they love doing this.
  4. Calendar / Contacts – They are always in a mess. Its a never-ending struggle to organize this. Google Contacts & Google Calendar help you keep them in place.

Tip: ‘Staying Organized’ helps your users spend more time in your product. It soon becomes a habit.

9. Importance

Importance: People love to feel important. Its about them. Their identity. They want to show off.

Make your users feel important about themselves.

  1. LinkedIn – My professional achievements., that is how a user sees it.
  2. Twitter – My views. My opinions., that is how a user tweets.
  3. FourSquare – Checkin is telling the world – I am here.
  4. About.me – This is me. This is my identity.

Tip: ‘Importance’, everyone wants to be important. The product usually ends up being shared, talked about – and results in others wanting to do the same.

10. Authority

Authority: People love to display their authority on a topic. Give them opportunity to do that.

Help create authority for users. Users want to be acknowledged as influencers by others.

  1. Quora – Authority by Topics. Asked to Answer is being authoritative.
  2. StackExchange – For programmers.
  3. HackerOne – For hackers.
  4. Hacker News – For Geeks.

Tip: ‘Authority’ is the importance others in a community or forum assigns to select users. Users want to be acknowledged as being authoritative, it helps increasing engagement and spending time on the product.

11. Visual

Visual: People love stunning visuals. Its a powerful emotion.

Visuals create impact in product. Don’t miss on it.

  1. Instagram – Personal Emotions.
  2. Flickr – Professional Emotions (yes unfortunately for Flickr).
  3. 500px – Photography community.

Tip: ‘Visual’ is a substitute to all unsaid emotions. Use well when your product is build around pictures and photographs.

12. Freebies

Freebies: People love Freebies. Badges. Credits. It all works.

Freebies work. Make use of them correctly.

  1. Quora – Credits users get when other upvote their answers.
  2. FourSquare – Badges for Check-in.
  3. Uber – Credits to Refer Friends.
  4. Facebook / Twitter / Google – Regularly use Advertising Credits to on-board new advertisers.

Tip: ‘Freebies’ – use it only for one purpose. Can be used for activations, sharing or driving engagement. Use it for one use-case that can measured.

13. Money

Money: People want to make Money. People want to receive Money.

Money is one of the strongest emotions. Portray it positively.

  1. Google Adsense – Opportunity for bloggers, individuals, publishers to earn money online.
  2. PayPal – Receive money from anyone.
  3. Elance – Get paid for free-time work.
  4. Kickstarter – Raise money for your projects.
  5. Gumroad – Make money by selling digital goods.

Tip: ‘Money’ – Receiving Money / Making Money is a positive emotion. Giving away is negative.

14. Sex

Sex: People want Companions. People want Dates. People want Sex.

Keep it simple, keep it safe.

  1. Tinder – Helps you find date.
  2. Match.com – Helps you find date.
  3. OkCupid – Helps you find date.

Tip: ‘Sex’ – It is more about selling the Hope. Keep the product simple. Don’t over engineer.

Concluding Notes:

When you build any feature, try to trigger a emotional engagement with user. If you are in early stage of your product development or in process of making your product roadmap, spent some time with this methodology – 15 Steps Towards Building a Great Product.

When it comes to including emotions in your product, ensure the following:

  1. Use max 2-3 emotions per product.
  2. Gamification is not about building features. It is about emotionally engaging a user.
  3. Don’t exploit users. Be subtle. Be good.