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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 least and hence i signed up for the Camp that was to be held on 4th December at Pune.

Unlike the Conventions/Conclaves/Conferences where we pay and get to listen to industry stalwarts, the design of the PN camp was radically different.  Interested professionals were first required to apply to Product Nation and if selected were asked to pay the Camp Participation fees.  Selected participants were then divided into 4 groups called Cohorts and each cohort of about 12-15 members had 4 sessions with facilitators on various topics.

The cohort that i was in huddled together and worked as follows:

a.  Session 1 with Rajeev Srivatsa of Urbanladder as the moderator on ‘Experiments never killed anybody’:  Each of us shared our Vision, Target Segment and the Problem we sought to solve and got instant feedback from the others.  This was an enjoyable session where we really got to know the space where the others were operating and could contribute from our experience.  We also critically looked at the assumptions we were making at this stage and designed experiments to either validate or invalidate the same. We ran out of time but managed to sneak in a working lunch to do justice to the objectives of the session.

b. Session 2 was on “Picking your battles” and this was moderated by Shashank of Practo.  Each participant talked about the reason why they started whatever they had started and examine if there was an emotional connect to it.  The proceedings were enlivened by personal shares by Shashank, Kunal Shah of Freecharge and Avlesh Singh of WebEngage .

c.  Post lunch session 3 was a presentation by Kunal Shah titled ‘Shameless is the new sexy”:  I was personally inspired by Kunal’s perseverance, never taking no for an answer and his chutzpah.  The discussion went tangential for a while when there were objections to some of his tactics on moral and ethical grounds.  Overall an enjoyable session

d. Session 4 where participants belonging to cohorts 3 and 4 were in a session by Harshit Desai of Indigo on ‘Business Design’:  I volunteered to represent my table of 6 and in the process was grilled by the others on various aspects of my personal and professional life as part of the session.  Along with 5 others who represented their tables, I stood in front of the room and all of us were treated to opinions by our table-mates about what we were good at.  This session was about careful profiling of the user so that the solution can deliver the appropriate results.

After these sessions, we were together treated to a presentation by Manav Garg of Eka Software on his journey.  It was really refreshing to know about his early struggles and the ways he overcame them.  this was followed by Q&A and a small quiz (I won a milestone replica for answering a question correctly) and it was all over.

For a first time, this was a great show and i want to congratulate everyone involved in it especially Avinash Raghava and his team of volunteers.  I also met some people like Jay Pulur of Pramati, Sandeep Todi whom i have only spoken to or written to earlier.  Thanks to the event, I have also gotten to know a few product startups like Levitum, Shimbi, Taxeeta,Teedback, Opsftware,  extraaedge,happyvisitor, Effect works,  Cordiant who are doing interesting work.

This would not be complete without expressing a few suggestions for an improved performance the next time around.

a.  The cohort members can be a homogenous lot either in terms of their target segment focus like B2B or B2C or as a vertical if there are sufficient numbers.  this would lead to more focussed discussions and questions and minimize dilution.

b.  For a Camp like this, 4 sessions is perhaps too many.  I would have liked to have 1 pre-lunch and another post lunch to be able to do justice to the discussions.

Overall, a different and a great experience!

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Dont Take Usage For Granted

Buying vs usage: I read a mention of usage rather than just purchase and it is a very valuable distinction. Let’s focus on that and go deeper in it.

Buying does not necessarily lead to usage and I’m being generic here, spanning genres of  products.  Let’s look at a simple and very common example of a purchase that seldom leads to usage.  It is the vacuum cleaner at residences.  All of us have a desire to keep our  homes clean and so when we see an ad or see a demo of how this gadget can contribute to a clean house, we buy it.  Touch your heart and answer “How many times have we used it  during its lifetime?”.  We in fact have two, one local and another of foreign origin bought when we were abroad.  Both of them are gathering dust (pun intended) in the loft.

Let’s look at another purchase of running shoes, bought with a very good intention of staying fit and healthy.  Branded ones like Reebok or Nike cost quite a bomb but we do not pay much attention to it.  To buy it is very easy but to use it calls for getting up early in the morning, cleaning up, wearing a suitable attire, wear the shoes and go for a jog or  for a run, all of which is quite tiresome even to think of, leave alone doing consistently.

Human beings are a creature of habit and we carry our personal tastes and preferences to our work as well.  So when we read about a productivity enhancement tool that appears relevant to us, we jump in anticipation of lesser work and more results.  Then we go in for a CRM or SFA with mobile modules as well in addition to other bells and whistles.  Mind you, I’m not talking of SaaS or non-SaaS in this context.

And then reality sinks in.  Most of us do not even have a decent database of our customers or an established sales process and so it takes a while to get them on and map them to the software.  Assuming, we do that diligently, it calls for Management focus and emphasis to keep it going on a daily basis.  I’ve worked with bosses for whom reviews mean only one thing: chewing up people whenever they feel like and I’m sure each one of us have had such superiors who had their own whims and fancies.  People need to be trained and re-trained.  And when it is month-end or quarter-end, all hell breaks loose and everything is given a go-by including the systems.  And by this time, the champion of the application would have left or moved elsewhere and then it dies a slow death.

Vendors like us have a big  role to play in getting our products used regularly and that starts with the ease of use within the application, training, support and hand-holding in the initial phases, regular follow-up, introduction of new facilities to name a few. Now the SaaS lobby will cry in joy and say that all that is inbuilt n SaaS and more so because our existence depends on people using our apps regularly.  While there is some merit in that argument, it presupposes that people stop subscribing if they do not use regularly, which is flawed inherently.

Look at the newspapers that we subscribe at home or office, the post paid connections for mobiles, broadband, cable TV or DTH connections for example.  If we look at the usage (which incidentally we never do), we would find that it is probably 10% or even worse but still we continue to subscribe to them, with a hope that we will do so sometime in the future, when we have the time and leisure (which we will never have).  And let us remember that it is our personal money that we are being so casual with. What to say about spending organizational resources which are anyway budgeted for?

There would be a review only when there is a calamity or a huge resource crunch and even then the cuts would be symbolic like replacing clean towels in the wash rooms with low quality unbranded tissues, reducing the number of coffee / tea per employee per day  or downgrading the transport facility from cabs to mini vans.  Rarely would someone do an audit of the usage of the on-demand apps and demand that the subscriptions be stopped.

So let us not be under the illusion that in-premise software is merely a sales or purchase transaction whereas the SaaS model is relationship-driven. The converse is also true because it is about the philosophy of the vendor not the delivery model.

I’ve worn my pads and abdomen guards in anticipation of a mounted attack!!

Post Contributed by Badri Narayanan V S, NRich Software