Walt Disney drew the mouse in 1928. That’s 86 years ago ! And until recently, cartoons were for kids. Pixar made adults fall in love with Animation. And pay for it. It started in 1995 with Toy Story and recently evangelists like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg have set new standards with content like …
First 10 of the 50 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India
InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, that recognizes most promising software products by India’s entrepreneurs, is pleased to confirm the first set of 10 selected products from over 200 nominations. The elected products that represent inspirational and pioneering concepts in software will be showcased at InTech50 , a two-day event to …
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On that age old debate, Bootstrapping Vs Venture Capital
“The best way to do something ‘lean’ is to gather a tight group of people, give them very little money, and very little time.” – Bob Klein, chief engineer of the Grumman F-14 program. I first came upon this quote on Paul Graham’s website, and it always intrigued me, the small detail about the money …
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The Chief Irritation Officer – Why Product Companies Need A Customer Champion
This is a true story – one that taught me a very useful lesson. I hope you will find it useful on your journey as well. In 2000, Adobe launched InDesign 1.0 to critical acclaim. With its modern code-base, fresh UI, transparency and powerful text engine, finally here was a challenger to the dominant Quark …
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8 Lessons for Start-ups from Genghis Khan!
I could not put down Conn Iggulden’s five volume, historical fiction series on Genghis Khan and his successors all the way up to Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson. Genghis Khan was of course, brutal in his conquests and annihilated those that opposed him. It was the 13th century and building empires was the name of the game at that …
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Key Takeaways from the 25th #PlaybookRT at Bangalore – Sales for Startups
The 25th playbook roundtable held last week (01 March 2014) brought together about 14 startup practitioners to discuss and gain insights on some of the challenging aspects of Sales in product companies. This roundtable was hosted at Accel Partners office in Bangalore, and was led by Aneesh Reddy, from Capillary Technologies. In a span of …
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OpenSource: The Most Underused Strategy by Indian Software Product Companies
Open Source has been quietly making its mark. Kickstarter just completed a billion dollars in crowdfunding. A lot of the work funded via Kickstarter is licensed for public use. Because the initial capital is pitched in by lots of people, the creators have a lot of incentive to give it back to the people. The …
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Why Startups are opting for Ruby to build their MVPs
“By the time that product is ready to be distributed widely, it will already have established customers”~ From the pages of “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries. It is essentially true that by the time you finish building your product completely, your customers are already looking for something new! Demands of your customers change in …
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Customer Acquisition Models for a SaaS businesses
Software-as-a-Service is paradigm shift for the software industry. The most profound impact of SaaS is on the software businesses revenue and cost models and therefore the cascading impact it has on the way the business is organised. Customer Acquisition for a SaaS business therefore requires a complete re-think. Since you are not going to get …
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iSPIRT – CeBIT partnership to drive Software Adoption in India
iSPIRT signed an MOU with CeBIT India organized by Hannover Milano Fairs India Pvt Ltd, the Indian subsidiary of the Global JV Company HMG (Hannover Milano Global). With iSPIRT’s partnership with CeBIT India, iSPIRT opens more opportunity to grow the software development industry in the country and encourage the right policy environment towards product entrepreneurship. …
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What is your company’s IP Score?
In the scramble to get to market, protecting the IP of your invention sometimes takes a backseat. This is a mistake and one that can have potentially damaging long-term effects. In this article we examine how developing a proactive IP Strategy can mitigate IP risk for a startup. Startup Priorities Most startups begin with a …
Can we build IP-based Product Businesses from India?
My interest in knowledge management has always been from the perspective of knowledge creation. So, I readily agreed to participate in the CII Knowledge Management Summit this year in a session that focused on this dimension. Ganesh Natarajan, Sharad Sharma and I were together on a panel to explore the potential of, and challenges in, …
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The Three Design Elements for Designing Platforms
What does the traditional world of manufacturing have in common with the way networked platforms work? How can a basic understanding of factory design help us change the way we think about designing internet platforms, marketplaces and social networks? I’ve written previously about the distinction between pipes and platforms. If you haven’t already read it, you …
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Building that 1-Click magic in your Product
Many startups struggle when it comes to building features for their product. Their product road-maps are a list of features they plan to include over next 6-9 months; once they are built out – its a feature mess ~ too many things to do that leaves the user confused. This does not stop here., entrepreneurs …
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We do Cross-Border Investments! Domestic E-Commerce and E-Retail too! Nexus Venture Partners #ThinkInvestor
ThinkInvestor is iSPIRT and ProductNation’s new initiative to serve as a catalyst between Venture Capital firms, Angels, Angel Networks and Entrepreneurs. It is to go beyond brochure ware and dig deeper into the whole life cycle of a typical investment; from introductions, funding, styles of on-going engagement, to exits. And in the process, capture their views on global …