Over the last few months, I have interacted with a couple dozen awesome product startups in India as a part of product roundtables organized by iSPIRT, a non-profit industry group for software product companies in India. The roundtables that were in Pune, Delhi and Ahmedabad included around 8–10 product founders getting direct feedback about their …
Vijay Mallya’s Domino Effect: The Real-World Consequences of Late Payments
(Originally posted here) Vijay Mallya, the Chairman of United Breweries, exited the country on March 2nd 2016 – defaulting on loans worth Rs.9000 crores to 17 banks. The media storm which subsequently rained down upon the Mallya name would befit the crime, if it wasn’t painting an incomplete picture. Given the frenzy and the …
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“Getting traction for Product Startups” — iSPIRT Playbook Round Table | Notes
It was a warm Saturday morning in Ahmedabad and about 15 to 20 people had gathered at CIIE, IIM-A for this closed-door-day-long session where people who’d been-there-done-that were coming in, at their cost, to share (Read ‘Discuss’) their journey and more importantly, engage into a meaningful conversation about problems faced by Product Startups and their …
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DIPP – New Secretary catalyzing the past efforts, for Startup Ecosystem.
Mr. Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary of DIPP in a learning-session with iSPIRT. He formerly headed the Forwards Market Commission and has subsequently served as the secretary of performance management at the Cabinet Secretariat. He has been the key driver behind several reforms including the FMC being merged with SEBI. Mr. Ramesh Abhishek, is the new Secretary …
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Because designers need to know *about* code
This is a about a long raging debate on the process of designing and developing great products. In a recent Medium post, Jesse Weaver said something very simple but powerful — we need more designers who know *about* code. And I agree! Not only because I myself like to experiment with code but also because …
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There is no such thing as a startup culture
As of April 20th, 2016, Exotel is four years and 10 months old as an organisation. In the start-up investor jargon, Exotel is a VC-funded, high-growth start-up. Our home-grown on-demand cloud telephony services, powers over 1000 businesses of all sizes and shapes. Now, if that’s a lot to take in in one go, welcome to …
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Software Patents rigamarole- non-starter for start ups!
Every few years, we witness a fierce attempt to re-ignite the discussion of patentability of software (something that the Indian Parliament had rejected in 2005) by the usual beneficiaries of such a system: the mutli national holders of patent thickets, old system integrators, lawyers, and patent agents. These incumbent holders of patent thickets love to …
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Demystifying Startup Tax
Over the past couple of days, a lot has been written/discussed about the so called ‘startup tax’ and its perceived ill effects on the startup ecosystem. Under iSPIRT’s new initiative, PolicyHacks, I attempt in this note to demystify the legal/tax jargon around this tax and to clarify the proposed rule for the benefit of ecosystem …
Why did I love this Saturday?
I usually start my weekends with an intense workout regimen. This one was also quite intense but in a very different way. I attended the 71st edition of ‘Playbook Roundtable’ on Saturday the 28th of May, 2016. Incidentally, this was my first time at any Playbook event. From the time I received the invite, I …
1 Critical Analytics Mistake
Why some well funded/big companies miss business targets? Companies tend to focus 80% of their analytics effort on analysing “Historic Indicators” versus identifying “Leading Indicators” to grow business. This is biggest mistake I see wrt how some companies leverage Analytics. 3 Examples of how Analytics Numbers should be used: Spot Contrarian Points: Usually, consumer businesses …
Why We Started A Change.org Petition Fighting India’s Late Payment Culture
(Our petition against India’s late payment culture can be found here) The Late Payment Problem We’re going to keep this short. Now that 97% of Indian SMBs were reportedly paid late in 2015, the late payment culture in our business environment has gotten out of hand. Today, India officially carries the longest average payment delays …
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fluxday — the internal task management & productivity tracking app of Foradian is now opensource
A no-nonsense, free & opensource task & productivity management tool for growing startups fluxday was developed by Foradian starting in 2013 and was a critical part of Foradian’s hyper growth and success as a B2B software startup in EdTech space. With a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 323 per cent Foradian was listed in …
Building Ecosystems, Not Just Products
When you analyze successful consumer and small business products, they succeed as a part of eco-systems and not just stand-alone products. Consumers and small businesses don’t buy products, the engage in an ecosystem. Facebook is an ecosystem. It is a network of users, groups, businesses and advertisers. Email is an ecosystem, smartphones are an ecosystem, …
Payment Bank + Technology = Faster Profitability
Something very exciting is happening in India.Several Payment Banks are about to launch their operations with a dream to provide banking & transaction services esp. to millions of rural and semi urban un-banked & under-banked households. This is expected to greatly boost domestic remittances, rural savings & reduce dependency on cash. One of the most important questions these …
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