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The first #PNSummit – Are you ready to report for BootCamp? Yes, that’s right. BootCamp. For Product Leaders.

It has been a pretty frenzied two weeks or so for us #PNSummit volunteers, but here we are, and we have something to show you and the world. 

But first, what went into it.

We brainstormed. We chatted. We argued. We used all that, and combined that with actual user feedback gleaned from the dozens of Playbook RoundTables, meetings conducted by iSPIRT.

The whole team put their thinking caps on, and the most important question was which was the best format to adopt. To reiterate, we wanted to ensure that every single participant of the #PNSummit can take away not just valuable insights, but stuff they can put to work the very next day. Stuff that’s been home cooked by product entrepreneurs and is enhanced by the flavour of intense brainstorming.

So this was the aim.

We arrived at the BootCamp format.

Why?

We want the people who go through #PNSummit to come out changed. As people, as entrepreneurs, as innovators, as doers. Like the United States’ Delta Force. Very few even get into training. Very few pass out. None of them are ever the same people.

We want to do that, except for entrepreneurs, and with a lot less running and shooting.

The #PNSummit will home in on Product Entrepreneurs, and will lead them through two critical stages of the startup life cycle –

1.       Customer Discovery Hacking, or getting razor sharp on getting paying Customers. Repeatedly. This is the Day 1 event and has cohorts of 20 folks only. Only a 100 Startups will be attending. If you are here, you’d be typically 9-12 months in operation, with a ready product. You have zero customers, or very few maybe.

2.       Scale Hacking. The secret sauce of turning on the afterburners of your jet engine and skyrocket your startup. This launches on Day 2 of #PNSummit and has groups of 20. Only 80 Startups will be attending. If you are here, you’d be doing INR 2 Lacs in monthly revenue, more than a year in business, and have raised (a little) funding.

You can attend any one of the above tracks, depending on where you think you are.

The sessions will be interactive and actual case driven. We are looking at one on one interaction, problem resolution and immediate, actionable, specific insights through learning that you experience.

Which means the people invited to the #PNSummit will be less; this will be a curated group, hand-picked from the many that would want to attend.

And that is by choice. We want it to be this way.

Military boot camps are successful for a reason. Every soldier is given his due; every soldier has to carry his kit and run miles.

We are hoping that with a small group of committed, curated product people, each one of them gets his due, each one of them goes back with answers to his specific questions, and each one has a plan to implement for the next few months.

We are putting together a bootcamp that is special, unique and completely volunteer driven. Volunteers are folks in the same product ecosystem that you come from. You can even connect with them here to know more about #PNSummit. If you want to attend, hurry and request for an invitation right here. If you have been to a iSPIRT Playbook Roundtable earlier, just type “Roundtable” when you fill in “Referred By” in the form.

And yes, you can tweet about this… use the hashtag #PNSummit. We’ll be listening!

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What to expect in the first #PNSummit – 4th & 5th December, Pune

The #PNSummit is going to be an event like none other. Volunteers who are from the Product community themselves, are putting it together and building it on the pillars of intensity, focus and exclusivity (only practicising product professionals attend the PNSummit).

Here’s a quick peek into what #PNSummit is all about

At present, most product companies in India are clustered around two specific life stages:

  • Getting their first 0-10 customers, OR
  • Going beyond their initial 50-100 customers (for B2C one could say 200,000 users). These are also called as being in the Happy Confused Stage (post product/market fit)

It is with these life stages in mind that these two themes have been designed:

Customer discovery hacking – curated by Pallav Nadhani (CEO of FusionCharts)

Customer growth hacking – curated by Bala Parthasarathy (Managing Partner, AngelPrime)

Each of these themes comes with a series of sessions where participants are grouped into circles based on their life stages and will be immersed in an experience of deep discussions, brainstorming and hands-on exercises.

Invited delegates will be grouped into circles based on their life stages and Broadly these circles are:

  • Circle 1  – In Discovery Hacking Stage.
  • Circle 2 –  Happy Confused Stage
  • Circle 3 –  In Discovery Hacking & Just crossed Happy Confused Stage

 

We’re putting together each circle with a lot of effort and each session will be facilitated by an expert in that area. The mode of discussion is expert-facilitated and not expert-advice and that is what will make the discovery process truthful and meaningful!

If you are a product company then you are at some point in the spectrum of  discovery hacking -> product/market fit -> successful product business and are you are pushing yourself to move the next stage.

Reach out to any of the delegate experience volunteers of #PNSummit, Sandeep Todi, Sameer Agarwal, Dilip Ittyera, Seema Joshi, Vijay Sharma, Avinash Raghava,  Aditya Bhelande  & Sairam K to find the right inner circle for you. We’re keen to invite as many companies as we can accommodate, and the quicker we hear from you, the better we can make your experience.