iSPIRT works to transform India into a hub for new generation software products, by addressing crucial government policy, creating market catalysts and grow the maturity of product entrepreneurs. Welcome to the Official Insights!
If I were a Cobbler it would be my pride.. The best of all Cobblers to be.. If I were a Tinker, no Tinker beside Should mend an old kettle like me.. The above poem defines vertical SaaS to a T! When I got an invite from iSPIRT that there was going to be a …
Continue reading ““Vertical SaaS” Deep Dive #PlaybookRT in Bangalore”
(Also posted on LinkedIn here). I’m a big fan of the “Lean startup” movement. Steve Blank, Ash Maurya and others have done amazing work around innovative, startup companies. Two of my most recommended books in this area are The 4 Steps to Epiphany and Running Lean. I strongly recommend every founder read these. Shockingly, most haven’t! …
Continue reading “You may have a viable product but do you have a viable business?”
SaaSx4 is here! It is an event for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders. Generally, event invites to entrepreneurs focus on why it is imperative to network and learn at the event. SaaSx is different though. Here are 5 reasons why you shouldn’t attend the event! You hate criticism! SaaSx is all about learning. The …
Continue reading “5 reasons why you should NOT attend #SaaSx4”
You’ve shaped up your business idea to flag off. You have a pool of talent believing in that idea and lined up with working prototype with feedback. Now, it’s time for funding to take your idea to concept to design to product to a successful business. Depending on the idea, startup projects can be particularly …
Continue reading “From Bootstrapped to Angeled : Is it your idea or product ?”
Note: SaaSx is an invite only event, for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders. Are you ready to push beyond SaaS survival? Are you all set for Chennai on March 17th? The SaaS world is changing. Niches are breaking out, the number of SaaS startups is increasing by the day. Competition is fierce and being SaaS …
Finance minister had announced during budget 2016 that place of effective management (POEM) will determine if a company is resident in India or not. Accordingly, this was notified in Finance ACT 2016 as under. The details of what will determine the place of business rules was not decided in the Finance Act 2016. The POEM …
Continue reading “Place of Effective Management (POEM) of a business”
In an explosive SaaS market with entries from all over the world, survival is not enough. “Survival is not Enough” is the theme of #SaaSx4, scheduled for 17th March in Chennai, and like last time we are heading to the beach. 🙂 SaaSx is a community for SaaS founders by SaaS founders, so if you are just contemplating …
Continue reading “Survival is not enough if you are a SaaS founder in India”
Who am I writing this for: people who are building or managing a Customer Success function. What’s my key point: your CSMs need to provide value, and for that it’s better they specialize based on industry (or business-type) versus round-robin or regional distribution. Our experience with the Hubspot CSM When we bought Hubspot as our marketing …
Continue reading “Why No One Responds To Your Customer Success Managers”
We spoke to couple of Indian product founders (who went through M&A or strategic investments) and friendly lawyers to extract advice on tips that they will keep in mind when making their next deal. Two key things emerged Unlike a product sale where the value to different buyer is roughly the same, in case of companies …
Continue reading “Startup Playbook for Potential Strategic Partnerships”
When I started out as an entrepreneur the journey was fueled by big dreams that were perhaps a bit too daring. It wasn’t smooth sailing and early days were tough. Life in a startup is dotted with challenges that can be overcome only by sacrifice. Bootstrapping required a lot of restraint – both professionally and …
Of the various hats I have worn all these years – Founder, Sales guy, Deployment Specialist, Level 1 and Level 2 Support, DevOps, Coder, Cheque depositor – I have come to realize I was a Product Manager all along – right from the get go. Putting a label on what you do is extremely important. …
When you say “reduce SaaS churn”, most people will immediately imagine tactics like drip email campaigns, great onboarding, customer marketing, gamification and automated alerts when users show signs of leaving. But this post is not about tactics. This post recognizes that users are smarter than any of the cute tricks we can come up with, and …
Continue reading “A Framework For Building SaaS Products That Don’t Churn”
As an eco-system builder, I’m always challenged with finding more Founders to contribute or help other early stage Founders. Normally, successful people have very little time to contribute and many a times, there is no formal platform which allows them to engage on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, our eco-system has many fake mentors and founders …
Continue reading “Announcing #BeyondFounders – Connecting Entrepreneurs in need with Doers indeed.”
iSPIRT volunteers build public goods inspired by open-source Linux and Wikipedia. Our volunteers are selfless, committed and conflict-free. They are animated by a burning cause. One such cause is about creating technology platforms that will help make India a Product Nation. Building a successful country-scale technology platform is hard. And doing this as an open …
I missed the 4th anniversary celebrations of iSPIRT in Bangalore today as my father has been unwell for the last couple of weeks and I have been avoiding travel. I thought it will be good to refresh my memory by reading up some of the old emails and also share the journey of the 9 …