Launching ProductCast – Podcast of Interactions with ProductPreneurs

Come 2014 and we will launch ‘ProductCast’ – the interactions with ProductPreneurs. These will be in podcast medium and will get to hear from iconic ProductPreneurs on their journey.  Certain to provide inspiration and valuable education based on first-hand experience, these sessions will extend the experiential learning to your mobile device, for your consumption at …

The curse of the horizontal solution or what to do when you think you have the product that can solve Global Warming?

There are many solutions that are targeted at a niche, that solve a specific problem. Selling these is relatively easy. You know the target, you know the problem. The challenge comes with the horizontal solutions, or ones that apply to wide variety of industries and business problems. There is tremendous potential opportunity there and yet …

Learnings From Building A Consumer Facing Web Product

Before we got started with PriceBaba, both me and Tirthesh had almost zero experience of building a product. We are passionate about Internet and web services that create an impact. Building PriceBaba over the past two years has been a learning experience and we have been blessed to have some amazing friends who have guided …

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 …

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 …

Role of a Product Manager

Ensure that the right things gets done in the right sequence A product manager helps a company to achieve its goals by helping customers get their jobs done in an unique and delightful way, and getting customers to payin some form (money, attention, information). Let me elaborate on the key responsibilities encapsulated in the above definition. Getting jobs done: A parent purchases your …

What You Missed at the #PNCamp

In case you are one of those who did not make it to the iSPIRT PNCamp for Product Entrepreneurs at Pune on December 4 and 5, 2013, here’s an overview of what happened during the two-day event.  Over 128 delegates took part in the camp that brought together entrepreneurs, developers and experts under a common …

Startups and Product Managers

Who is a product manager and what does a typical development cycle with a product manager look like? Product managers are often the most overlooked job descriptions in startups. The “let’s hack together” mindset is great but might not scale after a certain point. It becomes imperative that someone is incharge of defining the “what …

What Can Entrepreneurs Learn From Arvind Kejriwal’s Start-AAP?

Aam Aadmi Party’s success in the recent Delhi elections is nothing less than magical and as a geeky analogy, quite similar to a consumer startup hitting 1 million unique users mark in just few months of launch. Arvind is no less than an entrepreneur and AAP is no more than an early stage startup. Arvind …

Product warriors, pick your battles!

The first question that I asked iSPIRT volunteers running PNCamp, the first ever bootcamp exclusively focused on product entrepreneurs in India, was why Pune? They pointed to Dilip Ittyera whose greying strands of hair masks his passion to firmly perch Pune on the product map of India. Later during many conversations, it became evident why …

Announcing the CIO Mentorship Program for Enterprise Product Startups

A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about – 1. What its product is, 2. Who are its customers, 3. How to make money. – Dave McClure As a startup we all struggle either with the Market Fit, the right price for the product and finally the sales. There have been times when we …

A day at the Product Nation Camp at Pune #PNCamp

As someone who has attended many events such as the Nasscom Product Conclave related to Software Products, I was intrigued by the concept of an one-day Boot Camp organized by iSPIRT (Indian Software Products Industry Round Table).  i had earlier attended a mini-Round Table event organized by them in Chennai that was quite energizing to say the …

Breaking the Status Quo: Takeaways from a Revolution Taking Wings #PNCamp

It’s not often I find myself in a roomful of people driven by a shared vision. Inspiration was inevitably seeping in. It took me not more than a couple of minutes to realise that I should count myself lucky as I was in the same room as the bravehearts who were changing the world one …

Three Waves of Indian Software

When I started JamBuster with Suneeta in 2004, I wanted to build a technology management software products company in India.   Little did I know, that we would be part of a three-wave phenomena in software industry in India. The first wave of this is the software outsourcing, now a bit old story, but still …

Premium vs Freemium vs Subscription

For mobile apps, there are three dominant pricing strategies: Premium, Subscription and Freemium. According to a report by app-store analytics company, Distimo, freemium now accounts for 71% of Apple AppStore revenues in the US, up from somewhere around 50% last year, and rising. In Asia, freemium is 90% of App Store revenues. Is freemium always …