ProductNation Archives - Page 17 of 28

02/01/201416/01/2014

Announcing InTech50 – A showcase of 50 Innovative Product Companies to Global and Indian CIOs, Product Company executives, Investors and Analysts

InTech50 is a showcase of some of the most promising software products created by entrepreneurs from India. A panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Venture Capitalists, and Product Leaders from previous successes will decide the fifty companies that make the cut to InTech50 selection criteria. These chosen companies will receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale their offering to the global markets.

So Why InTech50?

The founders of InTech50 truly believe that the Indian start-up ecosystem is on the cusp of explosive growth—in innovating for the enterprise, society, and for social causes that will alleviate the quality of human life. We bring global experience, wealth of knowledge in dealing with global markets, and true enterprise-level insights to help these companies scale their vision.

InTech50 provides these entrepreneurs with a platform to showcase their innovations to folks who are visionaries in their own way and have the knack of seeing possibilities very quickly. The platform will create possibilities that we can think of but more importantly it will create a network that will evolve in ways that we cannot predict in any way!

Why apply?

InTech50 will help software product companies enter global markets through our network of early adopters, partners, co-innovators and investors. Our platform helps your company with exposure to these powerful members of the ecosystem in your geography—India!

Winners of the InTech50 are acknowledged as the most promising in their space, and receive every effort—from product strategy, UI, product marketing, sales and global partnership—all designed to help them succeed in massive scale.

Please visit www.intech50.com for further details on who can qualify.

When and where will it be held?

Intech50 will be held on Apr 9th and Apr 10th @ Bangalore, India.

How much does it cost?

It is absolutely free for applying. 50 companies will be shortlisted by the Advisory Board comprised of global and Indian CIO’s, product company heads, venture capitalists, and analysts. The selected companies will need to pay a fee of Rs. 25,000 to cover expenses for two attendees. Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event. So what are you waiting for, go ahead and apply, the last date is 31st Jan 2014.

01/01/201401/01/2014

iSPIRT wishes you a Happy New Year!

Since our inception a year ago, we have been relentlessly working toward the cause of creating an amenable ecosystem for software products development in India. We greatly appreciate your support in helping us reach where we are in such a short time.

We have done a great deal over the last one year to implement and achieve our goals and the pursuit of our vision is our primary and unwavering focus. Whether you have been an iSPIRT member or are just following us, we want to assure you that our first priority is to serve the cause of software product industry in India.

As we welcome 2014, we are both proud and grateful for all we have achieved thus far with your invaluable support – be it in terms of ideas, inspiration, guidance or feedback and look forward to our mutual successes in the future.

With best wishes,
The iSPIRT ProductNation Team

30/12/201330/12/2013

Common Questions about Founders

Is there a right age to become an entrepreneur? Any age is a good age. The founders of Microsoft, Google, Facebook started their companies when they were very young. Steve Jobs, who founded Apple at an early age, continued to show amazing entrepreneurial capabilities in his second stint at Apple which began in his 50s. Young professionals in their twenties have amazing energy, and understand the pulse of today’s generation. They can conceive products that others with set thinking cannot. The young have no fear of failure. In the thirties, one has a good blend of work experience, drive, network of contacts and knowledge of the business. Those in the forties and fifties have significant experience, busi- ness connections, understanding of the market, and financial security to risk a start-up. A younger entrepreneur may be more hands-on and seek mentors to provide a guiding hand and connections. Someone older might operate more like a Chief Mentor and get a young, smart team to execute.

Is it necessary for an entrepreneur to have some experience? Is it better to get this at a small company or a big one? The right experience in technologies and domain related to your idea can be a significant advantage. Learning happens in any sized company. By working in an early stage company, you will have lived the pressures and dynamics of building a product ground-up. You understand the importance of being flexible and adapting the product based on early user inputs and competition. At a larger company, you will have experienced a mature organization structure, with different teams focused on specific objectives (engineering, support, sales, marketing and operations). You understand the importance of collaboration, brand building and continuous product innovation to stay ahead of the competition.

Should the founders develop a product related to their previous job? You must be very clear about the terms of the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) signed with your previous employers. Any work, including, but not limited to research, algorithms and source code, that you did for your employers, belongs to them. Even information such as client and employee lists, salaries, contracts, is con- sidered highly confidential. When you exit the company, do not take away anything related to work, whether in printed or electronic form. If you are a relatively senior person in the company, and start a new endeavour in the same space, your previous employer may keep a close watch. This is especially true if your company becomes their competitor. It is best to pick an area that leverages your technical expertise, but is in a different space from your previous company. Maintain a document that is a dated record of how you conceived and built the product. This will enable you to file for patents or contest any legal challenge. NDAs generally restrict any solicitation of employees for at least one year. If several founders worked in the same company, ensure that you did proper suc- cession planning and your exits were non-disruptive. It is best to maintain good relationships with your previous employer. They are part of your professional network, and they could come handy in the future.

Does it help if the founders have worked together for some time? This can be a significant asset. You will have experienced pressure situations together, and learnt to understand each other’s approach and thinking. There is mutual trust and no ego issues. It is good if the founders have relatively complimentary skills and temperaments, but with shared vision and ideals.

Is it okay to include family members amongst the founders or the key team? It depends on whether you want to build a professional organization or a family run business. If the former, any relation or friend should be included purely on merit, meeting the same criteria that you would have from any other founder or hire. Involving a close family member or friend has its merits and pitfalls. A significant advantage is that you know the person, perhaps share a close bond, and have mutual confidence. However, family members and close friends often have in-built expectations from each other. These may be in conflict with deci- sions that need to be taken for the benefit of the organization. At times, other employees may perceive, rightly or wrongly, that family members were granted extra privileges or favours. While many successful companies have been founded by related individuals, there are equally spectacular examples of feuds in family owned companies.

Should the founders and initial team work from a founder’s home? Working from home is fine in the initial days while the prototype is being built. It helps if part of the home can be set up as a small office. However, it is best to shift to an office once there are more than 3-4 people. Working in a start-up means long hours and stress, and separating home from office is important. Home should be a place where you can unwind and leave the cares of work behind.

Reprinted from From Entrepreneurs to Leaders by permission of Tata McGraw-Hill Education Private Limited.

18/12/201316/12/2013

DNA mysteries of Products and Services

It has been an interesting coincidence on the last few occasions in different discussions and industry forums I participated in, they have attracted a good amount of the classic “Products and Services” in IT deliberation. As such, this is not a new debate. It is common to see patrons from the products world root for it by generating IP and for the services gurus illustrate how they are able to tailor deliveries as per customer need to make good revenues.

In the various roles that I have been involved in be it front line sales, to working with target customers, to addressing markets through the channel, or driving product management for products of different types right from enterprise to small and medium businesses that are deployed on-premise or delivered as a service; I have realized it is more than “this versus that”. At the face of it, running “product or services” businesses largely seem to be two different ball-games. They do have different DNAs. However, in addition to the different focuses that are essential on some aspects; these also involve some common influences that need to be capitalized upon. And no, it doesn’t end there. An important element of success viz the customer expectation is undergoing an interesting shift. A customer increasingly expects…a solution! They are neither looking for a product or a service in isolation, but instead for a solution that delights and delivers timely value. In this post, we will explore the characteristic differences—the DNA differences between IT products and services; and some common factors that have a bearing on the business opportunities and performance.

The landscape—A holistic view

Let us start with a holistic look at some key characteristics of what constitutes a product and a service. The marketplace typically includes an offerings continuum. At one of the two ends are pure-play products and at the other pure-play services with combinations in between. It can be illustrated as below:

The DNA differences—A closer look

If we take a deeper look and closely evaluate this in context of IT products and services, around which this post is primarily focused, it involves some common influences, but with distinctly different DNAs to run both businesses. The evaluation of key indicators across these businesses includes consideration for common factors, but with different approaches. For instance, both product and service type of offerings involve evaluation and use of technology, assets and resource planning, cultural bearings and so on. A comparison of DNA differences for some key indicators is included below:

Common influences—A quick digest

As we can see, there are some distinct DNA differences. For instance, meeting a market need versus single customer requirement; transactional approach versus relationship driven, internally focused culture and processes versus tailored to customer. At the same time, aspects like technology, people, and processes are the common influences that can either enable or inhibit effectiveness in either model. They serve both as an opportunity and a challenge! The previous section has covered how the approaches vary across indicators. Let us now briefly assess the common aspects that can greatly influence outcomes.

Technology: Technological advancements are constant. With every technological paradigm shift, right from main-frames to distributed systems to the cloud, with the change in technology capabilities available, businesses have looked at methods to leverage these for maximum benefits. So for a provider, irrespective of the nature of business, they have to constantly find ways to stay abreast of technological advancements to be in a position to lead the market or advise a customer with right solutions. For instance, if we take a look at one of the hottest shifts around SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), it is not prudent for either product or services companies to ignore those. Products need to evolve to cater changing customer preferences, interaction methods and deployment models. This is not just limited to product companies. These shifts need service companies to ensure their offerings weave these in to truly to ensure customer delight in-line with newer preferences.
People: One of the most significant contributors to the success of any business is the people assets they have. Knowledgeable, motivated, productive and enlightened workforce is needed for runnnig both products or services successfully. Ensuring the workforce it kept current with the market and technology demands and on the soft side ensuring they’re productive is of paramount importance. This of course is an obvious one. But going wrong with this could have the entire game go south even if all else is right.
Process: Processes are a great tool any company can have through which preferred frameworks can be pressed into action for a more consistent and repeatable outcome. These could be applied to internal focused activities like training and development, knowledge sharing, documented development methodologies (e.g. Agile, etc.), sales methodologies and so forth. Processes can help with managing OpEx for both frameworks. Similarly, they’re applicable even to external focused aspects like processes to demonstrate thoroughness of approach, for compliance and so forth. How far to adapt really depends on appetite and culture; which varies from company to company.
Success factors: While the measuring metrics might differ across lines of business, it is a fact that there is no better way to walk towards success than to be driven by results that ensure customer success and delight. This is an essential metric to keep track of that cannot be overriden or ignored in either business.

Looking at all of above, one can think of products and services as two separate circles having distinct DNA differences with some overlap of common influences. All of these put together, put organisations in a position to meet the need of tomorrow. Let’s take a look at an illustration that highlights these put together:

The Ultimate structure—Solutions shift

At the same time, given the economic challenges, the markets becoming buyer markets, general shifts in buying patterns, need to respond to businesses faster, and need to demonstrate value and return on investments (ROI), the focus is increasingly on the “customer” than just a product or a service that is up for offering. Customers today carefully evaluate every penny being spent. They expect to realize value from investments faster. Customers are tired of siloed approaches either by just having a product deployed and not having a working solution, or having a solution frame-work, but the underlying products not being stitched to deliver the value the customer expects from the investments made. Gone are the days where companies could deploy a product and take months or even years to tweak it to customer need. Or suggest a service without having their own skin in the game when it boils down to technology or products involved. Customers today expect product companies to not just deploy a product, but to provide a working solution tailored for their needs. Customers today expect services companies to have the required levels of expertize, coordination and relationships with involved products and technology stacks, to effectively tailormake a solution to meet their needs faster. They do not expect the ball to be dropped in either of the cases to have prolonged deliveries. Customers today are looking for working solutions. Customers today are looking for faster realization of value. Customers today are looking for a positive experience to respond better to business needs rather than being tied up with large IT projects. They need to be delighted—truly!

The shift is really towards using products and services together effectively to deliver effective solutions. Irrespective of their primary DNA, every company will need to evaluate how they can work out the entire DNA strand to have a solutions structure!

17/12/201316/12/2013

Fireflies lighting up the sky

Some years ago, Infosys and Wipro put Bangalore on the global map. Now, Bangalore is once again marching ahead. It is creating a new kind of technology ecosystem, which is culturally different from what exists today.

Today’s tech-ecosystem is about a few ‘hathi’ firms doing IT Services. Metaphorically, this is about manicured lawns, straight rows of carefully planted flowers and an occasional oak tree. In contrast, the new ecosystem is about hundreds, nay thousands, of small tech product startups. It evokes the image of a vibrant forest with fast running streams, wild flowers and bamboo shoots. If you think of the current ecosystem as a cathedral, then the new one is a bazaar.

Behind the cacophony of the new tech ecosystem are two powerful trends. The first one is about Software as a Service (SaaS). Gone are the days of buying big servers, expensive software licences and bulky implementation services. Increasingly, business software is just rented and used by employees much the same way you and I use Yahoo mail. This seemingly small shift has momentous implications.

Since a software company doesn’t need an army to sell and deploy its business application anymore, size is not an asset; focus is. So a plethora of small single-minded startups have emerged. And some of them like Zoho, InMobi and Fusion Charts are making waves around the world.

The best days are still to come. SaaS is spreading like wildfire. Doctors’ offices are using it for less than a price of a Café Coffee Day latte. Apartment complexes are using ‘ERP’ type SaaS business software for Rs15 per apartment per month. Lots of small companies in Peenya and Okhla are using world-class payroll and leave management SaaS business software for Rs10 per employee per month.

Basically, SaaS is going into nooks and crannies where no business software has gone before. Just like mobile phones brought telephony to the masses, SaaS is bringing useful business applications to all SMBs. Indian startups are at the forefront of this emerging revolution.

Complementing this SaaS trend is a grassroots movement for strengthening the tech ecosystem. Gone are the trade bodies; in its place have come in volunteer-driven think tanks and communities like iSPIRT and HasGeek. Much like the Aam Aadmi Party, they use bottoms-up participation to fuel a collective process of creating public goods that everybody consumes.

Entrepreneurs help other entrepreneurs by putting their winning (and even losing) playbooks in the public domain. All this is inspired by the amazing success of the open-source movement that created Linux and Wikipedia. Based on all this, a new glow is visible. Look out for the fireflies lighting up the sky.

09/12/201309/12/2013

Stay Classy! – 8 Rules for 21st Century Marketing!

As this article is being written, possibly one of the greatest Viral campaigns EVER is being rolled out for the movie – Anchorman 2 – The Legend Continues set for a release date of December 18th, 2013!. It’s a sequel to the 2004 movie Anchorman, a stinging parody of 70’s and 80’s ego maniacal TV anchors in the US!

Stay Classy! – is the catch phrase he signs off his newscasts. This also sets the stage perfectly for what it takes to do Marketing in the 21st Century, especially for product companies!

This trailer already has 4.6 million hits as I write this!

The interesting thing about this campaign is that Will Ferrell, the actor who plays Ron Burgundy has been in character for about a month now and has done various things like do a whole series of TV ads for Dodge! Like this one that already has 3.6 million hits on YouTube. As a Brand Ambassador he, surprisingly, says dumb things about Dodge but that makes these ads funny, watchable, water cooler conversation and word of mouth material! (The ads are hits in Canada as well as The Globe and Mail attests from Toronto!).

He goes in character to late night talk shows like this one, promoting a fictitious book he wrote about how to survive a prison riot and has a testimonial written by himself on the top of the book!

Or when two days ago he showed up as Ron Burgundy and hosted a whole 30 minute local Newscast at a local TV station in Bismarck, North Dakota as a co-anchor saying the same dumb things his character would in the movies but in a real live newscast!

What’s the point of all of this? – The last week or so, they have been getting free public relations worth billions of dollars, all of these being covered breathlessly by every channel and every newscast in the US! That’s Marketing in the 21st Century – Blurring the lines between media of every kind – network, cable TV and Social Media like YouTube, not to talk about these links being tweeted and re-tweeted by everyone that finds these things funny!

Jerome McCarthy’s four P’s – Product, Place, Price and Promotion still capture accurately ALL the different aspects of Marketing but how people make it relevant for the 21st Century is pretty interesting and worth the attention of Product Companies! Here are 8 rules for 21st Century Marketing:

1. Making the most creative use of Social Media

Most product start-ups these days are aware of and use Social Media like facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Tumblr, Pinterest extensively and that’s precisely the problem! You become part of the noise. How do you stand out among all this noise? You do something creative and unusual like the Ron Burgundy campaign above! And it takes a heck of a lot of creativity to come up with stuff like that (may be not to that scale given the nature of many start-ups) and execute for a small start-up. However, you would notice that the above campaign still relies on the inherent virality of social media and word of mouth! The 21st century has made it possible even for a tiny start-up to go viral and get the publicity it needs, if their campaign is interesting and at the same time achieves the end goals they shoot for!

2. Exploring the use of Big Data for your 4 Ps

Big Data with respect to product start-ups has much less to do with the size of the data than with your use of it. Do you have data on the Audience, Channels, Content and Yield for your marketing efforts? Audience has to do with understanding your own customer segments. What channels have been effective for you? What Content among the different types of content you use to promote your product has been useful for you? What has been the most cost effective ways in which you have been able to convert or maximize the yield for your efforts? What price points have yielded what kinds of conversions for you? Do you have the data and the charts to track these? It’s never too early to get started with these kinds of efforts!

3. Checking out unusual and creative avenues for learning your customer needs

Are you trolling reviews of your Competitors’ Products yet for ideas on what your customer needs exactly? What do they say is lacking in them? Those are precisely what you need in your product! facebook or Amazon was not the first company in their categories to make it big! Having someone already in the same market as you should not be a deterrent! Here’s The Amazon Whisperer , an amazing example of how a few people built a multi-million dollar company just reading Amazon product reviews looking for the words “I wish this product had….”, then making that product in China and selling it in Amazon to begin with and then expanding to other channels!

4. Using all the 21st Century Creative options available to you for marketing

The 21st Century has made possible the most creative uses of Graphics, Sound, Movement captured in videos with just smartphones or tablets. They can be made with professional quality with editing software. Your prospect base may have access to broadband at home and if not, very likely, at work! Are your marketing efforts making creative use of these new possibilities? Most product start-ups may have a demo video of their software recorded with screen capture and a voice, up on YouTube. How many of them show a real user telling you their story and show you how their tool solves your problem? Watch this video of a Biometric Identification System in use! Notice how they talk about problems, benefits, problems, benefits, problems, benefits! This is not a Ron Burgundy type funny video but I bet it talks *VERY EFFECTIVELY* to their prospects! So where’s your video that talks about the problems your product addresses and the benefits it brings?

5. Making your content customer centered and not YOU focused

A blog is a must for every product startup – or so they think! It is very useful to convey very broad discussions about the problem you are trying to solve when you don’t have a product ready as yet and you are in say, stealth mode! However, the game changes completely once your product is out and is in use. Not many may be as interested in your technical esoterica, as they are about the problems you are addressing and the benefits your solution brings! The 21st Century has made available such a huge glut of content in many different forms and people have only a sliver of their time each day for all of them, if at all! The content needs to be interesting, current and relevant for them to spend more than a few seconds! Turn them off with your own tech talk, they may never come back again!

6. Having true conversations with your customers, not just one-way communications from you!

Are your Social Media conversations anything like this? They are talking about the untimely death of actor Paul Walker of the Fast and Furious movies.

Redbox defines itself as being in the entertainment business and so sprinkles its facebook presence with conversations like the one above – relevant, timely and engaging! No matter what your product is, there is always a larger business you are a part of and having conversations like the one above is possible if you are creative enough! Resist the urge to talk about your new releases or features all the time! The 21st Century is all about interactions and this is a good example of what those are!

7. Exploring all of the 21st Century Pricing options available to you

With the ability to keep track of demand and supply at any time, it is possible for some products to be priced with Variable Pricing or Dynamic Pricing! This may not be applicable to all software products but the question of Free Trials vs Freemium Vs Nothing Free Pricing may be possibility with most start-ups. All of them are subtly different from each other, they need to be discussed in detail with respect to your own product, may be A/B tested before choosing one over the other!

8. Creating enough compelling calls to actions to your prospects

Calls to action can be for a variety of things you want your prospects to do – Sign Up for a Free Trial, Request a Case Study, Sign up for a Freemium account and show them a version with limited capabillities, etc. Here are some fine examples of such Calls to Action! And, here’s an interesting article on how to go about designing some, step by step!

The 21st Century has seen the proliferation of variety of new devices like smartphones and tablets. People engage in social media more extensively at home or at work. They are also very handy for anyone making pictures and videos of professional quality. Big Data and Cloud Computing have enabled the collection, analysis and use of massive amounts of data for many uses including marketing. There are many more inexpensive options for cash strapped product start-ups to explore creative ways to do marketing. It’s time to take full advantage of them!

You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free. – David Meerman Scott, marketing speaker

04/12/201306/12/2013

Bangalore: 30th Nov 2013 | Design Thinking round table with Eskild Hansen

On a typical Saturday morning in Bangalore, a small group of design practitioners and product folk got together at the Fusion Charts office in Koramangala. They were attending an informal round table discussion on the topic ‘Design driven innovation to help make the world a more beautiful and pleasurable place.’

As part of a design tour being organized by the Danish Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eskild Hanson (a prominent Danish designer) was visiting Delhi and Bangalore. Members of iSpirit, Indian designers and design thinkers were invited to meet and engage with him on areas of common interest.

Eskild is a part of the Danish government strategic think tank that is developing and strategizing the ‘Danish Design Society.’
His previous workplaces include CISCO and Coloplast.
At CISCO, Eskild was responsible for establishing their first European Design Center in Copenhagen and during this period helped bring a fresh air to their previously ‘boring and bulky’ Wireless Routers. He won a Red Dot in 2011 for one of his designs.
More about his work at www.eskildhansen.com

Here are a few pictures capturing the event:

Participants introduce themselves at the start of the event

Eskild talks about a trend in executive roles – CCO (Chief Creative Officer) / CDO (Chief Design Officer)

Making a point about the importance of competing on factors apart from price, features and technology. (COMPAL and Quanta Computer – Virtually unknown – but producers of most of the worlds laptops!)

Technology as an ‘enabler of innovation’ (As opposed to ‘driver of innovation’)

: User Research – A tool to drive and validate innovation.

The interactive session was a great forum to hear each other’s thoughts on topics related to design and design thinking.
It also gave participants an opportunity to learn more about the Danish Design approach and their innovation related initiatives in India – www.icdk.um.dk.

To know more about the session, check out this sketch note created by Rasagy Sharma, an NID student – https://twitter.com/rasagy/status/407165458303836161/photo/1/large

04/12/201302/12/2013

Enterprise Sales, Product Market Fit and Partnerships: Learning from the 23rd iSPIRT Round Table

Vivek from iCreate facilitated yet another juicy round table with lessons learnt ‘from the trenches’. While this article provides a distilled summary, it cannot do justice to in-person learning. I strongly encourage you to attend the next iSPIRT round table.

Vivek started off by saying that there is no silver bullet. Every product exists in its specific market conditions. Different things work for different products in different domains. Nevertheless, there are certain fundamental themes that are commonly applicable.

The fundamental problem typically during the early days of a startup is lack of clarity of what are we solving and for whom (in other words – “Product-Market fit”). Articulating this clearly is the first thing a startup needs to get right.

Spend some time answering the two questions below and ensure that all of your team is on the same page. Otherwise, it will be like the classic story of six blind men describing an elephant in completely different ways.

WHO AM I?

I am better than ____ (existing way of solving the problem)

For ________ (what problem)

Because _____ (differentiation)

As a result of ____ (your secret sauce)

Answer this for your product. This manifests in your strategy, marketing communications etc.

WHY BUY ME?

Create a sentence with 10-15 words. I am better than X because of Y and solving the problem of Z.

Articulate this clearly and crisply. Otherwise, you are confused and it is also confusing to your customers.

Without clarity, you knock on a lot of doors and have lots of meetings, but with no results. This can be very frustrating.

Domain Knowledge

It is very important that you have a very good understanding of the domain in which you are playing. Depth of problem understanding is a must.

Do you know who the buyer really is? It is not enough to say company C is the customer. Who exactly in the company is your customer? Why should the user spend time to understand your product? Why should the user talk to you? What is his/her role? What are their motivations and fears? What is their procurement process? Are you sure you qualify to pass those gates?

You need to have differentiation in your product with respect to your competition. It can be things like premium domain knowledge, completeness of the solution, cheaper pricing etc. You should be clear about your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and articulate it to your team and prospective customers. The differentiation should be outcome-based and not based on things like technology stack.

People pay a premium for completeness. Plus it is easier to understand. And we can show the value to the user. E.g. architecturally, well designed modules are all fine, but from the customer point of view, he needs to see a complete use case coverage.

There is a popular Hindi saying “Jo dikha hain, wo bikta hain” (meaning “only what can be seen can be sold”). It is tougher to convince with words. Ensure you can clearly demonstrate the value of your product in action.

Pay close attention to your problem space and understand the dynamics. For example, in banking domain, the customers are married to existing platforms such as SAP, Oracle etc. So when you make technology choices, ensure that they work with the incumbent platforms.

Product Market Fit

Product market fit is critical. Have a plan to get to product market fit as fast as possible. Danger is you might run out of money, so get to product market fit fast. iCreate was providing services and used these revenues to fund their product development. This way they had a longer runway to get to product market fit.

If you need to educate the value of your product, then there is a segmentation mismatch. Better to find a market place where they see the value clearly and it is more about demonstrating your value. If you have to explain why they should use your product, then product market fit is not there.

In your universe of market place, there will be big clients, small clients and medium clients with different attributes. Do not try to solve the problem for everyone. Pick your initial target segment as narrow as possible and play there. Pick a demographic where the user sees the value immediately and get them to start adopting. You can later expand to other segments when you see success.

Qualify your market segment and leads. If they don’t have the problem, don’t spend time with them. You will see a glimmer of hope everywhere, but you are not going anywhere. This will give you a false sense of accomplishment and is a dangerous situation to be in.

Having a vertical offering works better than a horizontal offering (i.e. applicable to everyone in the world). Having a generic mother of all products means multiple stakeholders need to be convinced and the message also gets diluted. It is better to choose a specific problem and completely solve it. You can sell faster and also sell for more and get customers faster. For example, iCreate had a generic solution which took 9-12 months to close the deal. With a single point solution, the time reduced to 3-4 months.

As a startup, you want to do several different things, but you don’t have resources. You need to make the hard call and pick the 1 or 2 things you want to pursue. Platform to solve N problems takes 2 or 3 times more time than solving 1 problem. An amorphous offering is more dangerous and takes more time.

Another example that was shared was of a language translation product. They struggled to find market fit for their generic language translation services. Then they verticalized it to retail segment where their product translated customer messages to native language and vice versa. They were able to then go and penetrate this market segment.

As a startup, it is challenging to verticalize a horizontal offering due to resource constraints and the temptation to have a large market size, but this needs to be done.

Finding the first customer willing to use the product is a big challenge. Be prepared for a long grind, and it can be a very frustrating experience. Sometimes it can take a long time to get the product market fit (several months). However, you should keep an eye on whether you are making progress or the product is not viable as a business. You need to introspect if you are getting product-mismatch feedback. Set clear goals and metrics. Don’t go by sentiments. You have to be dispassionate. Come up with some objective metric such as “The way for me to validate X is Y”.

If founders can’t sell, nobody else can sell. Look at the offering instead of finding a sales guy.

Every company needs one or two key inflection events change the trajectory completely. You also need some luck to get your first break. Try to get top marquee client vs. a small client. Marquee client also helps in marketing and validation and others will have lesser resistance to trying your product.

Product Merit is a must. In addition, try to show up where your customers hang out e.g. have stalls in conferences.

The next big challenge is getting the first paid customer. Then, you need to get your first referencable customer.

You need to inculcate champions among your existing customers. They will also tell their peers. This is critical during early days. Investors and prospective customers want to talk to existing customers.

Creating a Sales Team

Look for partners or non-founding sales ONLY after getting product market fit and messaging right. Till then, the founders should be the sales team. In iCreate, pre-investor stage sales team was zero.

Initial sales guys that you hire should be comfortable with the ambiguity of startups.

Hire folks who can put ‘skin in the game’, aligning with wealth creation (e.g. ESOP) or a percentage of revenue. Incentives also work – for example, “If you get $X revenue in Y months, you will get a car”. Make the incentives outcome based and not effort based

In India, typically R&D budget is much more than the sales budget, but as you get traction investment in sales should increase. One rule of thumb is to have 60:40 (engineering to sales) during growth stage. In US, mature companies have R&D costs around 15% of revenue and 50% of revenue is invested in Sales.

If the sales team is sub-optimal, firing early is better. You might make mistakes, but it is liberating when you fire a misfit as you can focus on important things better.

Without raising money, growth can be slower. If you raise money, growth is much faster. Raising money for growing is a very good idea.

Partnerships (Distribution and SI)

First, have a story to sell. You put in initial effort to get initial customers in your target geographies. Then attract partners using these success stories.

We discussed two kinds of partnerships.

Distributor – who just resells your product.
System Integrator (SI) – who resells your product along with implementation or other services.

In every market, nuances are different e.g. private vs. public banks, different geographies etc. You need to figure out which kind of partnership is suitable to your product.

In mature markets like US or Hong Kong, you can sell direct and may not partners. US is a great place to do business, as you get quick and clear feedback – positive or negative. If they see value, they will buy. However, the sales cost in US is expensive.

In emerging markets, people want in person meetings and they do not say yes or no immediately. This can lead to mixed signals and longer sales cycle.

In geographies like Africa you might have to work with local partners. Your direct sales may not work. In general, East Africa and West Africa need distribution partner to set up meetings. Then your sales guy has to do the work. Look at sector focused players e.g. computer warehouse in Nigeria, Simba in Kenya.

Middle East and Africa are brand conscious – they don’t want to go with small startups.

In mature organizations, SI plays a major role and has a lot of influence on decisions. Evangelize both with SI and clients. Once SI sees a win for your product, they will want to replicate that in similar contexts.

Be generous with commissions to your partners. Once they see the money, they’ll show more seriousness. See if your partner can make commitments to gauge their seriousness. The commitment is not necessarily in money terms only. For example, ask if the partner is willing to send their employee for training on your product to your location.

It was observed that strategic discussions with SIs not as fruitful as tactical ones. If there is an immediate opportunity, SI and you can have a meaningful tactical discussion. Strategic level discussions might give you a good feeling, but not much might come out of it.

Channel partners need to see a clear way of how and how much money they can make. Find a channel partner who already has a user base of stakeholders of your interest. To find out, look at other players in your space and which partners they are using.

Remember that your product is just an additional product for your channel partner.

Partners want to look at value addition, not just cost or feature arbitrage. Partners compare your deal with existing big names to see if they get to benefit more by pitching your product.

Partners need to be given all intelligence on a platter. They don’t want to spend on learning or figuring out. They don’t want you to experiment at their cost.

Some participants were worried that brands from India might have to first fight the battle of perception of being an India based company. But feedback was that it might be an issue in the beginning, but once you get traction and the product has merit, this problem is not insurmountable.

Government tenders is a complicated process. You need to be proactive about positioning your product even before tender process.

Product Positioning

There are different stakeholders in a B2B context – could be the CEO, IT Manager, or VP of a business unit. All of them are looking at different parts of the problem (one might be looking at cost savings, one might be looking at value delivered by the product and another might be looking at maintenance costs). Create your message for each stakeholder.

For your product positioning, consider the following:

For the points of your differentiation, reinforce in your messaging.
For points of parity with competition, highlight them.
And for points of despair, mitigate or downplay them.

From your client’s point of view (particularly in large enterprise context) “he will never get fired for hiring a well-known brand. It will be risky for him to try a startup’s product”. Reduce the risk for your client and also demonstrate differentiated value of your product.

Proof of Concept

Instead of free proof-of-concept (POC), ask for conditional order. This shows commitment and also the buying process will start early. In B2B context, the process can be quite long. If the POC is not successful, the order can be cancelled. If you can get a paid POC, that is the best. Free POC can be a waste of time if the person driving the pilot does not have buying authority.

Advisors

It is good to have an advisory committee of domain experts. This is good for validation. You can never be an expert in every area, so have advisers. Typically, you meet them once a month or once a quarter.

There are three common models for compensating advisers:

Free. They like your passion and are willing to give you advice from their experience. But this can be good only for some time. Otherwise, you will start feel guilty about taking their time for free.
Stock options. This is better as they will benefit when you benefit.
Payment for their time. This is the standard consulting by the hour model.

Conclusion

While there is no silver bullet that works in every scenario, there are certain fundamental aspects that are common.

Unfortunately, a lot of learning is experiential. And it will take time. You’ll do wrong things but when you navigate, you can course correct earlier by having the knowledge from those who have tread this path before you.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Tweetable tweets

The first problem a startup must solve is product-market fit. Everything else comes later. Tweet this.

It is very important that you have a very good understanding of the domain in which you are playing. Tweet this.

People pay a premium for completeness. Better to solve one problem completely than N problems partially.Tweet this.

Jo dikha hain, wo bikta hain (“only what can be seen can be sold”). Tweet this.

If you need to educate the value of your product, then there is a segmentation mismatch. Better to find a market place where they see the value clearly. Tweet this.

If founders can’t sell, nobody else can sell. Look at the offering instead of finding a sales guy. Tweet this.

Tactical discussions with System Integrators are more fruitful than strategic ones. Tweet this.

02/12/201302/12/2013

iSPIRT invites you to participate in the Indian Software Product Industry Survey

As you know, the Indian software product industry is still in its infancy. Your active involvement is essential to nurture and grow this industry and realize our collective dream of building a product nation.

This survey is the first step towards developing a systematic and accurate understanding of the Indian Software Product Industry landscape. The data from this survey will enable iSPIRT to work effectively with various stakeholders (software product companies, government and venture capital) to build a strong software product ecosystem.

This survey has been developed by iSPIRT in collaboration with Prof. Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning of Stanford Graduate School of Business. The data collected will remain confidential and solely with iSPIRT. Any report generated from this data will be on an aggregate basis and individuals and companies will not be named. Should you have any questions about the data or its usage, please reach out to me at vardhini(at)ispirt.in

In this survey, we are asking you to provide basic information about your company, your hiring issues, as well as your funding and ownership structure. You should expect to spend about 20 minutes to complete this survey. We would appreciate that you answer each of the questions in the survey, except for those that are marked optional. We understand your time is valuable and we truly appreciate your participation.

We would be happy to share the survey findings with you. Please participate in the survey online at http://bit.ly/Product_Survey

29/11/201328/11/2013

What is win or loss means in the game of enterpreneurship

I have been interacting with various startup teams over the last several years, predominantly around ideation, product-market fit, funding, scaling, and strategy aspects of the companies. Before I was an investor, I spent a lot of time around product creation with two successful startups in the Silicon Valley and managing business in a large Internet company. In recent times, I have been spending a lot of time on the board of several Indian companies who are starting to scale. Over many years of this engagement with startups, I have come to believe in few things, and one of it is what I call “Rules of the Game”. The sporting analogy is deliberate, as I use it throughout this article.

The Rules of the Game

In India, most of the founders get into their entrepreneurial journey with very little preparation and knowledge. In fact, it looks like most of them jump in based on how their friends have done or the founders in the company they work have done. Some of the serial entrepreneurs are starting to plunge in their second attempt, much more prepared and know a lot more about how the game of entrepreneurship is played. However, most of the entrepreneurs haven’t thought through the rules of this game, especially, the difference between a win, a draw and a loss in the game of entrepreneurship.

What is a win, draw and a loss?

Most of the entrepreneurs start their journey with an intention to solve a problem that they have identified is important and useful. If one has setup a small company with a tiny team, has solved the problem well and has great number of customers, and customers are paying, the game is already looking interesting for you. If you are making profits, and you are paying yourself a market salary, and you are self sufficient with enough room to grow, make no mistake about it, you are winning the game.

If you have raised money, built a great team, an outstanding product, a defensible growing business and you know how to take the company to profitability, and you are geared towards an exit or have already done, you are a role model. This is definitely a BIG win.

On the other hand, you invested time and effort in building the product out, you made attempts to find product-market fit, you learnt how to market, sell, and support customers, hired few good team players, and overall you have done every thing possible. However, you come to know that the business model is not viable and you cannot service customers within the budget. After all fixes to business model, if things don’t change you may decide to shut down and look for your next gig. From my point of view this is definitely a “draw”. It is draw because in the process, you have learnt a lot of things around entrepreneurship; the rules of the game and you come out very strong in your next gig.

A loss is when you are caught in a rut. You have built some sort of a solution, you have few customers, but they are not very happy. You are not able to scale the company as the product-market fit is not yet accomplished and at the same time you have just enough revenues to pay your bills and manage your employees. You know at the bottom of your heart that you can continue the way it is for several years, but you don’t see a big change. This is a classic “loss”.

I’ve always believed that the loss is where you don’t want to be, because of the uncertainty about which direction you need to take. Conversely, a draw can be bounced back from. Everything you’ve learnt and gone through is invaluable. You’ll be a far better entrepreneur the next time around.

But is there a better way to learn, to get the experience of the win, draw, loss without actually playing the game? That would be brilliant, wouldn’t it?

Ideation vs. Execution

Of course there is a better way to learn. In fact, there are reams of startup literature out there; the best of them are free, actually, and your first step should be to read them and read up on your domain as much as you can. In fact, I have even counseled people to do nothing except read for a month before getting into the game. Read interviews of very successful entrepreneurs and grasp around “why” they were successful. What was the context under which these folks operated and how they tuned their operations to be successful against others is a great learning. This knowledge is out there. You just need to take it and apply to your world.

However, most of the time, reading and understanding isn’t going to be enough. Reading about it and executing it are two completely different things. This is where the value of the ecosystem and mentoring becomes very useful. A mentor can take all that knowledge you have imbibed and help you translate it into meaningful, decisive actions in your context. And again, the quality of such mentors matter. A mentor who makes a business out of ‘guiding’ startups is not a mentor. An excellent mentor is very articulate, keen observer, and some one who has gone through their own iterations of their idea, started a company, learnt every thing possible about their customers, and eventually was able to scale the company. Your best bet is to find such mentors and interacting with them is of significant help.

In a fledgling software product ecosystem like ours, finding enough successful mentors to support many of our startups is very tough. This is where, I see the value of efforts like the inaugural #PNCamp. Throwing in just-started practitioners with experienced practitioners and having them help each other is in my view, the best thing that can be done to push the ecosystem to accelerate faster. I am hoping that many other such practitioner lead hangouts happen in the country to boost our eco-system to next orbit.

Looking at the agenda and participants of #PNCamp, it looks like there will be an incredible amount of exchange of practical knowledge among attendees and also bit customized as each session being small (around 20 folks).

If you want to see an example of practitioner-lead-mentor, see the movie “Miracle” based on the real-story of US Olympic ice-hockey team winning against the invincible Russian team. The credit of the win goes to the player who turned coach; Herb Brooks who guides and empowers the team for a win that no one thought was possible.

All the best for the #PNCamp and thanks to Sairam for putting this together.

26/11/201326/11/2013

In Product Management, It’s All About Location, Location, Location!

Over the last few months, while talking to a range of Indian and Global tech companies, I noticed an interesting trend in the determination of location for key functions, specifically product management.

Global MNCs: During conversations over the last few months with some North America based technology MNCs, I observed that a lot of them plan to create product management functions for local markets and ensure better insights by placing the product managers in the local markets. By this, they plan product functionality and global roadmaps accordingly.

Most people who have worked with global MNCs will, time and again, have observed that products are not created for Indian (or emerging) markets. Most product managers continue to design products for their home markets (typically the more mature markets), with limited focus on local market insights.

India Based Product Companies: In a majority of these companies, more so the startups, senior management executives are either based out of, or are relocating to their largest markets (read North America, maybe South East Asia). The logical reason is to be close to the key markets and customers.

The rest of the functions (operations, product management and engineering, service delivery, shared services), continue to be based in India.

And this is where I started thinking about the ideal location for product management.

Typically, Indian product startups focus on building a customer base (and credibility) in India, and once established, extend to more mature and higher revenue markets e.g. North America. As they expand, they locate their sales teams there, but continue to have their product management teams based in India.

Extending the logic of creating products suited for the key markets, shouldn’t product management at Indian product companies be based in the potentially largest markets? The refrain often is that they cannot afford to have product managers based out of the higher cost markets.I recognize that there is no easy solution, and companies choose different approaches to manage this.

Location Options	Typical Company	Advantage	Challenge
Located with Development	About 50-60% of companies, Indian and Global	Ensure that the product development matches product definition	Not enough market exposure for the product managers
Split between Development and Market locations	Taken by SI firms, where the product manager travels specifically for large opportunities	Balance between development and market needs, being an effective bridge	Customer meetings are for closures, not for discovery – thus, not able to really get deep proactive insights into the market
Extended Product Management teams in the market	Taken by about 15% of companies, having an advanced roadmap	Get market feedback and also be able to effectively engage with the development teams	Presales / solution responsibilities are pushed onto local product managers, limiting market feedback and insights
Located in the Market	About 5-10% of companies (mainly Global)	Capture direct and deep market feedback to ensure product truly meets market needs	Limited engagement with the development teams

My belief is that while there may be no one answer, it is fundamentally linked to the stage the company is in, and the ability to effectively capture market feedback into the company’s product management teams.

The Location Matters

For product startups, however, it becomes extremely critical to get the right market insights (on an ongoing basis) so that they can actively differentiate and continue to retain their market edge as compared to some of their better entrenched competitors. Having local market feedback could well be the key differentiator that could help them build and deliver significant value to their customers. And could result in the long term growth and survival. When one evaluates the employee costs of keeping the product management function in the key markets against the opportunity costs, it becomes apparent that the benefits derived can easily justify the investments. However, the choice of the right product manager is also critical, otherwise you may end up getting pre-sales and reactive insights, which is not what the goal is.

Of course, an extreme option could be to follow Dogbert’s advice:

Look forward to your insights on approaches that have worked for product companies across multiple markets.

25/11/201325/11/2013

90 minutes at #PNCamp and the PR Engine cheatcode is yours

“There’s an empty slide in your deck reading user acquisition, which follows the slide showing hockey stick adoption. We’ll grow virally! Three words that fill up the slide nicely. Relying on virality as a standalone source of user acquisition is fatally flawed to begin with.”

That’s Sangeet Paul Choudary at his usual best. He probably said that a hundred times over, yet Startups continue to falter when it comes to understanding user growth and PR. The two are distinct, but underlying is a common trait, that about being remarkable. Have you extracted the remarkable ideas from your product and turned it into a PR opportunity? Or you think you are remarkable and still don’t get noticed?

Meet Sangeet Paul at PNCamp.in as he dissects the PR and Virality code step by step. It’s 90 minutes of pure adrenaline rush as you realize what can now be in your reach.

25/11/201324/11/2013

MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra on bowling, resilience and going against common sense

Deep Kalra is the founder and CEO of India’s leading online travel company MakeMyTrip.com. Founded in 2000, the company is now the largest e-commerce business in the country and listed its shares on NASDAQ in August 2010. Prior to founding MakeMyTrip.com, Mr. Kalra has had corporate stints with GE Capital, AMF Bowling Inc. and ABN AMRO Bank. He holds an MBA (PGDM) degree from IIM, Ahmedabad and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Read on to find out about the true test of an entrepreneur, the importance of knowing dhanda at a startup and going against common sense.

[Innovate Delhi] You believe in turning what one loves doing into a business model. How did you figure out what you love and turned that into India’s leading online travel company?

[Deep Kalra] For all entrepreneurs you have to focus on something that you love. But it definitely took me three jobs to figure out what I loved – I worked in banking, I worked in a very entrepreneurial role at AMF Bowling and I worked for GE Capital. Between these three roles, I figured out that I enjoyed the untrodden path. I was excited by stuff that had not been done before or at least not been done before in this part of the world. My second role was very entrepreneurial and I enjoyed that the most despite the fact that it was not financially a success. But I really had the time of my life which made me realize that I rather be doing my own thing.

What did the failure at AMF bowling teach you? How important do you think failure is in an entrepreneur’s journey?

AMF Bowling was a game changer in my own mind in terms of approaching different problems. Here was a problem that had not been thought about – How do you sell a family entertainment center around bowling which had not existed before? Addressing this problem was a learning curve in doing dhandha which is different from corporate business. Overall, it was a good learning experience in terms of a start up and solving problems that had not been solved before. It was also very personally fulfilling to me and I didn’t want to give it up. In hindsight, common sense would have dictated that I called quits within a couple of years but I worked with AMF Bowling for four years. So it also taught me that I can keep my head and chin up during a period when things are not working.

How is doing dhanda a unique challenge in itself? I read that you have bribed repairmen with bottles of rum to fix rat chewed cables. What challenges does the Indian entrepreneurial space pose and how do you deal with them while ensuring that you don’t lose sight of your larger goals?

I didn’t make a habit of bribing repairmen with alcohol but did so some unconventional stuff! The important lesson is that in the first many many years an entrepreneur should be ready to do anything and everything. And a lot of people are not. It’s better to start your entrepreneurial journey earlier than later because you have lesser hangups. At the same time, there is something to be said about good work experience. I don’t know what is a good amount. For me it was 8 years. But some entrepreneurs have never worked for someone else. I would recommend, especially in the Indian context, to work for a couple of years in a good company. It will help you later in life- you want to hire good people, you want to keep them motivated, you want to do the right things. I don’t think any amount of education prepares you for those kind of decisions.

In the initial years, an entrepreneur spends most of the time doing non-core business because you don’t have a team. And in India, things take longer. But hopefully with more interest and infrastructure in this space, the processes will get shorter. For instance, its getting easier to hire good talent. A startup is no longer a very unusual career. As an entrepreneur you have to be an excellent seller because you are selling all the time. Even if you are not doing the traditional selling of your product, in the early stage you are selling to get good talent. You are selling your story, your company all the time. You have to convince people to give up their great job at GE Capital or a think tank or Unilever etc to join one’s company. And then you need to sell to raise money. Each time you go out to meet current investors and potential investors, you are selling without realizing. And you have to work harder to sell your story in India because there are fewer startup success stories here.

You have clearly done a great job of selling to potential hires, MakeMyTrip has consistently been ranked amongst the the Top 10 “Great Places to Work for in India” by The Economic Times in the last four years. What is the culture at MakeMyTrip that make it such a great place to work?

The culture at an organization is related to the founding team or founder. One of the titles that the founder carries through life is Head of Culture. The founder has to walk the talk. I think it really comes down to passion and personal values of the founding team. Because then you end up hiring people for values. Then you start percolating down those values among similar minded people into a “culture” or whatever you want to call it. Over time it becomes established and you can talk about it.

In your corporate and entrepreneurial journey, how do you think the Indian entrepreneurial space has evolved and what are the most promising trends today?

There has been tremendous change in the last 3-4 years. The quality of entrepreneurs is improving. People have a much better overall view of what they want to do and what they need. There are lesser and lesser people who want to do something that’s cool. So folks are coming in for the right reasons. I love that there has been a great increase in the amount of angel funding that is available but there is big gap between angel and early and Series A and Series D deals. You can get your first round of capital fairly easily if you are an individual with a good plan but you have to be ready to perform in the next 12 months to get your Series A.

Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught or are entrepreneurs born?

I think its largely inherent. When things are going well, anyone would rather work for themselves everything else be equal. But that is typically not the case. Everything else is not equal. Let’s say you are going to make 50% of the money. Then what is it that you really want to do. And I think that is the test for if you want to be an entrepreneur or not. And yes, entrepreneurship can be taught but I think entrepreneurship has to be learnt more than it can be taught. And you learn it on the job. Ultimately, if you are happy being on the job, everything will work out.

If you were a judge at Innovate Delhi, what would be the top three qualities you will look for in an entrepreneur?

Agility and flexibility is one. There is a fine line between stubbornness and resilience. You have to believe in your idea but also be practical enough to make changes as you go along. You have to be wired analytically. I don’t know of any other way to run business. Creativity is important but if you are not fundamentally analytical then you will end up making decisions that are sub-optimal. And the third one is being a very good people’s person. It goes back to culture and teambuilding and it is something that comes to entrepreneurs naturally.

This blog post was written by Sonal J Goyal for Innovate Delhi Entrepreneurship Academy. Innovate Delhi is a three-week long academy that works with aspiring entrepreneurs to hone their skills in innovation, team-building, and strategy. Applications are due on 1st February. Apply at http://www.innovatedelhi.com/apply/

21/11/201321/11/2013

Design and its New Role in Innovation – A Round Table led by Eskild Hansen (Nov 26th, New Delhi)

Eskild Hansen will lead a discussion with prominent design thinker in the NCR on ‘Design and its New Role in Innovation.’

Eskild Hansen is one of the most talented Danish Designers on the Scandinavian landscape. Just turned 40, he has already been in leaderships positions at Cisco and Coloplast among others after having worked with other leading global design firms. At CISCO Eskild was responsible for establishing their first European Design Centre in Copenhagen and during this period helped bring a breathe of fresh air to the previously ‘boring and bulky’ Wireless Routers. He even won a Red dot in 2011 for one of his designs. You can read more about his work at www.eskildhasen.com.

Eskild is also a part of the Danish government strategic think tank that is developing and strategizing the ‘Danish Design Society.’ Invest in Denmark, a part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is bringing him to India on their 2nd Design Tour between 25th and 30th of November, 2013 and are offering the members of iSpirit and opportunity to engage with Eskild on common areas of interest. A new development has been the opening of a Danish Innovation Centre in New Delhi and Bangalore (www.icdk.um.dk).

Eskild is also very excited and eager to work with Indian companies for his private design consulting company.

15/11/201315/11/2013

Sachin Tendulkar has Retired. Can we now convert a Cricketing Nation to a Product Nation?

All Institutions seek to influence the behavior of people. Nasscom Product Council and iSPIRT today, are associations, which as Institutions are seeking to influence the consumption and production behavior of Software and Technology offerings in India. Our nation is in a dire need of grass-root level, production of value-added goods/services/experiences and its consumption. As articulated previously in Gandhigiri to the Software Entrepreneur, the industry and market developments further command that we dig deep and bring our Nation back on track to be known as Incredible India.

Can iSPIRT influence the mindset of an entire nation towards Products via Education and Information? What initiatives are responsive to the needs and aspirations of a budding young India? Are we in unchartered waters?

No, we are not in unchartered waters. For the past 24 years, one man showed how he can influence the behavior of a Nation. Every time he went out to perform his duty, the nation watched. But alas, all good things come to an end. If there is one silver-lining with Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar’s retirement, it is that now, we can all focus on doing our jobs.

However, can we work with the same level of passion, intensity and commitment as the master-blaster? There is a lot we have seen about the Internal motivations and abilities of this man who mesmerized the nation and we all just indulge in the religion of cricket, when he is playing. But how many of us realize, how BCCI the Institution behind Cricket in India, has had an equally important role to play.

What role has BCCI played in influencing the behavior of the Cricketing Nation? Are they not the ones that control the entire apparatus to influence? Are they not the Institution that responsibly influences cricket lovers, and have they not effectively done it in a sustainable way? The answer is an emphatic YES, and its anybody’s guess. What are the lessons we can learn from BCCI?

Lessons from BCCI – Creation of the GOD of Cricket

Let us look at some basic things which BCCI does brilliantly.

Crowd Sourcing and Talent Recognition: Players from all over the country are crowd sourced, and are carefully curated and recognized for talent.
Incubation and Mentoring: Provide Academies where the talent, can then get nurtured to a product-offering and help them attain international standards.
Organize Marketplaces: Enable opportunities for the product-offering to be show-cased – Whether it is the One Day matches, IPL, Champions League or other matches. Each Match Venue is an Offline “marketplace”, and each match streamed is a Virtual Marketplace, either on Television or on the Internet.
Create Winning Products and Sustain them: Whether it is Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, Dhoni, Kholi, make sure there is a steady supply of “heroes”
Maintain a Monopoly: Kill Competition (this strategy however is questionable and debatable).

So, what can we learn from BCCI? Do we focus on the Structures, the Processes and the methods that they have employed to institutionalize the religion of Cricket? No. Focus on people. The key takeaway is, Sachin was once a consumer of Cricket, just like all of us. He was later transformed into a Product by the exogenous support of an Institution, and of course with his endogenous hunger, hard-work and determination.

We now understand how both the internal motivations of Sachin, and the external support of BCCI captured the imagination of nation. We now know how a game meant for amusement, became a religion universally adopted by the length and breadth of the country. We now understand how Sachin became the GOD of Cricket.

From a Cricket Pitch to a Startup Pitch

How do we go from a Cricket Pitch to a Startup Pitch? How do we become a Product Nation from a Cricketing nation? How do we find the GOD of Products? Do we not have enough Entrepreneurs who are as hungry, as dedicated and as hardworking as Sachin? In fact in our field, we have both Men and Women who can become the God of Products. Can an Institution like iSPIRT not influence the same level of commitment and passion towards building and selling products, like BCCI did for Cricket. Yes it can!

There is nothing new in the idea of influencing a Nation. But there is certainly something new in what we know about, how best to do it. Lots of research and studies, especially in behavioral economics and behavioral science show that approaches based on Education and Information do not actually work as well as intended. Education is a two-way street, only 50% of the work is done by the Provider. The other half, which is the art of Internalizing the Information and Education, and putting it into everyday practice, is still at the behest of the Consumer, which is where mostly the approach of Information and Education fails. How do we nudge people to complete their end of the bargain? How do you enable India’s transformation into a Product Nation. Has our own BCCI not shown a better way?

Undoubtedly it has. But first, as Entrepreneurs, each of us need to have a burning desire to become the God of Products. Each of us need to take our imperfect skills/ideas to the field everyday and test them out. Each of us need to play with our local teams, our local communities to build a grass-root movement towards becoming a product nation. Each of us need to learn the spirit of team-play and the benefits of camaraderie. Each of us need to get Involved. When we all do, we will recognize that the external support from Institutions are available to Influence us.

How do we go and get Involved?

Crowd Sourcing and Talent Recognition: Today we have enough startup pitch sessions, hackathon competitions. Take your skills and ideas there, participate and get recognized.
Incubators and Mentors: Just like cricket summer camps and bootcamps, there are camps conducted by many bodies. Product Nation itself is running a boot camp in December. Have you registered yet?

There are some systemic gaps, which I am sure Institutions will quickly enable. Infrastructural Interventions are much easier than Motivational Interventions.

Organization of Marketplaces: Whether we choose the IPL format, Champions League format or the One-day format, we need marketplaces.
Creating the GOD of Products: We need to build and sustain our heroes, who draw, inspire and influence ordinary people to become GOD of products.

Conclusion

The true products of a Product Nation are not the Routers, Switches, ERPs, Office Softwares or Productivity Softwares. The true products are the people who believe that we can create a Product Nation. True products are those you perform on a Startup Pitch, with the same intensity that Sachin played on a Cricket Pitch.

Inform me and I might forget, educate me and I might remember, Involve me and I will transform, is the mantra. The Cricketing Nation found its GOD of cricket in Sachin Tendulkar. Can a Product Nation find its GOD of products, like Steve Jobs? If you get Involved, its only a matter of time!