A broad sweep of the first day of the NASSCOM Product Conclave gives rise to emotions of a day that rose in energy, stayed sober at the reality picture,
and then gave a reason for cheer as the day drew to a close.
On the shore of Big Blue ocean breakfast session opened up the world of possibilities for Indian product technology. IBM-mers Peter Coldicott (Chief Product Architect), Robert High (IBM Fellow in IBM Watson), and Daniel Yellin (Enterprise Mobility Chief Engineer) perhaps gave a thunderous opening. What products can do and how it can envelope the whole world in its embrace was shown by these three IBMmers. While Robert High showed his project of deciphering human language to understand behaviour to solve people’s problems, using huge chunks of articles data to arrive at solutions for health problems using NLM and cognitive science techniques, Peter Coldicott took “Smart” control of the cities, traffic, commerce, and manufacturing to usher in a Smarter Planet. These two endeavours redefine the role of technology in solving the outstanding problems of humanity and governments. For example, Smarter Traffic will help you negotiate the city traffic by understanding how traffic is regulated and data on what’s real on the road. Daniel Yellin’s mobility solutions through apps would reconfigure enterprise functioning. While IBM is engaged with the whole planet (as it seems to be), Indian product entrepreneurs are just sensing the opportunity on the horizon.
Sharad Sharma’s passionate opening in calling product entrepreneurs transformers of the society gave a sense of purpose beyond the lure of money that gets one to business. His even bolder prediction of product software eliminating poverty gave rise to cheer. “The product entrepreneurs will rule” proposition put product technology on a pedestal. NASSCOM President Som Mittal’s emphasis on the enabling role of NASSCOM by its various initiatives such as it entering into an MOU with SIDBI for risk capital funding of SMEs promised hope. M. Rangsami’s Westward view (or call it Silicon Valley view) of Indian product landscape becoming affordable for millions gave it a mainstream leaning, given that still product entrepreneurship languishes for lack of attention save a few niche communities and select media coverage.
This glorified image was enhanced by Naveen Tiwari’s three mantras of building a billion dollar company. InMobi’s commanding success ranking next only to Google in mobile advertising is a reason for celebration of Indian product entrepreneurship. His trillion ads making $2 billion business impact was transporting us to a dizzy world of big numbers. And the global reach of InMobi in 165 countries employing people of 28 nationalities, less than half of them Indian, gave it a healthy gloss. “We take pride that this company is out of India,” said Naveen, taking with him the aspirations of more than 1200 plus delegates, a major chunk of them product entrepreneurs, to a dizzying high.
The Reality
Soon the hopes that rose high with the keynotes, especially the exuberant one by Tim Paries of Yahoo! on design, surrendered to the reality of so much work left to be done to reach where IBM is today probably taking control of the planet through technology. Product business for Indian SMB market is not VC-fundable, said Pari Natarajan of Zinnov backed by data. The potential user base dramatically shrinks when reality calculations are added. That comes to something like 2000 users in the leather SMB microcluster, for example. Pivoting is not an easy task given various factors such as motivation of employees and financial health of a company. It is a tough and hard decision that product entrepreneurs need to make. “Pivoting is like changing a punctured tyre in a moving vehicle,” said Ashish Kashyap of Ibibo.com, reflecting the real challenges in changing directions of a company.
The failure unconference session by Dorai Thodla attracted a sizeable number of participants willing to pour out. If you started counting failures of product startups, maybe that would make you feel depressed. The rate is high but that’s changing. Product entrepreneurs are evolving to treat failure as a hiccup and move ahead by pivoting or reinventing. The ecosystem is playing a stellar role in holding the entrepeneur’s hope. The sense of issues debated at the unconference as cofounder leaving, developing product before testing the market, and taking care of finance well ahead showed the maturity level of product entrepreneurs in understanding the rough and tumble of this journey. In a typical session like this, a few would have huddled together to exchange views and that’s what Dorai expected. But the huge turnout was a surprise to him but hidden in that was the aspiration of the product entrepreneur to learn from failures that characterizes the entrepreneurial journey.
Raghav Sood, a 15-year-old 10th grader, is the hope of the future. Along with him Thrisha, a 11-year-old, ruled the stage as Archana Rai, the Economic Times journalist, engaged them in a conversation, another novelty to this year’s program. Raghav has now uploaded 8 apps on the Android platform, has authored a book about augmented reality in Android (another book signed up for user interface), and is founder of Appoholics, Inc. What Raghav has done could be dismissed as a genius among a million but if you watched the media closely, reports of teens developing apps are finding a noticeable mention. Some come on the surface and that’s what we think. This holds immense hope for the future as product technology will grow to occupy a prominent position in the Indian technology space in the time frame of 15 years that Sharad Sharma predicted. Together with an army of young entrepreneurs who would have tasted success with app development in their teens, there is a possibility for a robust growth of the Indian product space. Girls like Thrisha, who is developing an app, also lead to your thinking of women playing a greater role in the future. Women delegates were seen in good numbers and that should be an indication of the interest of women in this space.
Founder to CEO
Naeem Zafar gave a realistic account of the role of CEO in his engrossing presentation with a humour embellishment on how founders should be prepared to become CEOs. This transition is perhaps the difficult phase for a founder of an enterprise. But beyond a scale, the founder should make way for an executive better equipped with skills to take the company forward. In this discussion, Prof. Zafar dwelt upon the challenges of a CEO and the focus.
In my view, save the sessions where I did not have an opportunity to participate, the product space has become less inhibiting to test, more
supportive to grow, and, given the holistic dimension of ushering in a better world that IBM has shown the way, it is the future for the world of
depleting resources.
Contributed by Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy, Product Ecosystem Enthusiast