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A Day In Radha’s Life @ Innofest ‘15

innofest_logoThe stage is set, I have received my invite to Innofest’15 and look forward to the day with great anticipation. I have just completed my engineering degree from Davanagere, and have received two offers, both through campus interviews. Both seem interesting, and both are in technology, after all thats where everything is today.

And yet! I am not sure if thats where i want to be. You see, i have this dream. I have this idea of creating an instant water purifier pen. You put the pen into a glass or a bottle of water, and electronic pulses instantly destroy all germs in the water, turning it safe. Even a child can drink it. Imagine what it would do to the lives and productivity of all those millions who don’t have access to quality drinking water.

I dearly want to create this product. Do i have all i need to bring it to life? Do i know everything i need to get going? Will my being in Davanagere allow me to reach out to everybody i need to?

Thats when I heard of Innofest, a new grass root movement and festival of innovation. Reverie over, back to the air-conditioned weather of Bengaluru, in an UUla cab from aunty’s home to IISC. Always amazed at how green this city is. And wondering if Bharat, the founder of UUla, uses his own product? Well, i will ask him that as I have signed up for a hands-on workshop with him this morning.

Lots of excited faces. We head to the zone, and are immediately hit by the brilliant arty stuff that decorates the venue. Lovely, innovative, bright stuff, that seems to ring fence the entire venue. There is the torn jeans that Bharat first made his passionate pitch to taxi drivers in Rhennai in.

And that half chewed pencil bears mute testimony to Mansal’s mood as he made the pitch that got him his first 100K in funding. I am pleased to find they seem to be a tapestry of history of entrepreneurship. Hey, they are the kinda cool gang i would love to be a part of. Make a mental note to save all my torn jeans…

See the Showcase zone and the Google Lunar X-Prize contenders, the one and only Team Indus – what a coup it would be if they got the $30Million purse on offer if they put a vehicle on the moon by December 31st? They are the final three shortlisted globally. Who says its all about getting billions of dollars in funding? This is as much about the pride of india as it is the future of India.

A tune. from a flute. Whats that? A youngish dude playing the flute surrounded by ardent fans? Over a steaming kulhar chai with him, I find out his name is Hari Prasad, and he’s trying to create a tourism destination out of every town in india. Do you know each of the 800 districts has its own tourist attractions, customs, food, clothes and artefacts that can be very beautiful? Talk about stimulating conversations, and he’s not too bad looking…

At the UUla workshop- chap sitting next seems interesting, so start talking.. He’s is from Ramgarh- and i immediately ask him, so do you have Gabbar’s autograph?He bursts out laughing…. UUla is so intriguing. Ever heard of a cab company that doesn’t own a single car. I haven’t. So how does it work? Get into the nitty gritties, And guess what, impress Bharat enough to get a meeting with him to present my idea next week. Zowie, things are moving for me.

After the UUla workshop, which clarified a few of my financial thoughts and closed out a few open loops in my mind, i ask Ram what else is there to see. Well, turn out, there’s more, so much more.

For instance, Makerspace which is just behind the main auditorium where I walk towards for the unveiling of the grants. There are some 3D printer demos that seem exciting. I make myself a thunderbolt, like an Indra’s vajra or Zeus- some thing about Innofest makes me feel like “I have the power”.

And the day progresses. And things continue to happen. And i keep getting hit with high after high. Finally, end of day. 100 meetings and 100,000 ideas richer, I head back, abuzz, on a high. Will I be able to sleep? I know not. However, I do know where I am headed. And let me give you a hint. Both of my prospective employers are going to be disappointed.

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Chief Economic Advisor is Infected Positively by the Irrational Exuberance of Indian Product Startups.

Mr. Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of INDIA, has been named as one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine. After stepping into the shoes of Dr. Raghuram Rajan as Chief Economic Advisor, he is also a widely cited expert on the changing Balance of Global Economic power, as it pertains to INDIA & China. He is also the author of “INDIA’s TURN: Understanding the Economic Transformation“. Mr. Arvind specially travelled to Bangalore to interact with software product industry and discuss policy with the the policy team of iSPIRT Think tank.


In the 4 hour meeting, the energy that emerging companies brought out with each presentation was amplified as the discussion progressed. In the end, I must admit that there was a euphoric feeling that this movement of creating public goods with the Social Commons model is really on-to-something BIG!

Not all elements of the session can be reproduced here, but this article is an effort to provide you the important highlights.

2015-05-28 17.36.55What was so Infectious? Its the Mirror Neurons, Stupid! 

In the first session, as it has become customary, about 8 carefully curated product startups which started in INDIA, with audacious aspirations, and which have already made significant GLOBAL impact while still retaining their Indian-ness, presented their stories. Almost every story was about Product Entrepreneur’s who dared to dream BIG, not just from themselves but for leap-frogging INDIA and the world. The Goal set out for the session was to show-case the behind-the-scenes transformation that is taking place in the software Product Industry landscape.

The Irrational choices of many Entrepreneurs were show-cased in their business avatars, as NowFloats, Uniken, Tally, Forus Health, Team Indus, FreeCharge, SnapBizz & Ezetap. While the strategy choices seemed Irrational, the success these business are having today, and the impact they can have tomorrow to reclaim India’s glory was self-evident. The outcome of the session was remarkably different from the goal the session set-out to achieve. What became apparent as the session progressed was the infectious effect it was having on each participant in the room. It was as if the Mirror Neurons from these passionate Entrepreneurs was affecting not just the minds, but it was affecting our Inner Spirit. The Infectious nature of the session’s outcome in many ways mirrored the outcome of these businesses.

2015-05-28 17.37.06What is the Cure? More Infection. Make India Go Cashless.

In a thoughtful next session the discussion moved toward more earthy and material realization of how Technology & Infectious energy of the startups can be leveraged to leapfrog INDIA. This discussion was about how to make India Go Cashless in 4 years. The benefits of going cashless are many. It can expand micro-credit to small businesses in a big way, for even street-hawkers (Thelewalas) to be able to digitally get credit and also seamlessly receive money from customers. Sanjay Jain (iSPIRT Open API Expert Team member, former Chief Product Officer of Aadhaar) and Abhishek (iSPIRT Colunteer, CEO Eko) presented a comprehensive approach and suggested a new Program, Jan Samridhi, for the Government. This builds on the Open API work that iSPIRT has already done (in eSign, UPI and GTSN) and proposed specific and inter-related policy and regulatory changes. The only real way of achieving this is to have more agencies in the Government, the Regulatory institutions and people to participate. So in effect, the cure really is to infect more people with the Spirit of Social Commons. The discussion clearly bridged some the intellectual distance between Delhi and Bangalore.

Advice from the Chief Economic Advisor

Mr Arvind, in his own-words was blown-away with the enthusiastic zeal and business performance of the Product Startup Ecosystem. He however was also clearly in his elements as he carefully constructed the broader picture by taking the various elements from the Individual presentations. Some of his suggestions and advice to the Startup community were as follows.

  • How soon can we marry the Private Entrepreneurial zeal & Public Goods created by such movements?
  • Can we use and leverage the existing products automating, say, Govt Fair Price shops?
  • While mildly chiding Product Entrepreneurs to dream even bigger by including Government, he asked if we can help realize other broader over-reaching goals like Government Technology Platforms for Expenditure tracking?

He even offered to visit Bangalore and participate 2-3 times a month in various such initiatives to enable routine conversations with Policy Makers and Entrepreneurs.

2015-05-28 18.27.33Conclusion

The entire program was highly Interactive, Infectious & Confidence building. It gave a sense that may-be within 4 years we can Make India go cashless. It also re-affirmed the new Paradigm of creating Public Goods with a Social Commons approach (Open source approach). It is important to co-create a digital INDIA, not just with the Entrepreneurial zeal, but by getting Government and Institutional bodies involved as well. These Infectious power-packed dialogs that iSPIRT is fostering will help us rewrite the script of our Nation, and will help us reclaim its lost Glory. We will become a Product Nation soon, it seems inevitable. Be a part of it now. Go ahead, spread the INFECTION, not just the word.

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Finance Secretary – interacts with Product Industry in Bangalore.

Mr. Rajiv Mehrishi promises deeper Institutional Reforms

Mr. Rajiv Mehrishi, Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance for Government of INDIA, is a pro-reforms, vocal advocate of institutional transformation of the Financial System in INDIA. Additionally, he is also  the Secretary, Department of Economic affairs. Mr. Mehrishi and his team – Mr. Manoj Joshi (Jt. Secretary), Mr. Ajay Shah (Head, Macro/Finance Group, NIPFP), Ms. Ila Patnaik (Principal Economic Advisor) and Mr. CKG Nair (Advisor, Capital Markets) – specially traveled to Bangalore to understand the software product industry landscape and discuss ways to make India go cashless.

The 4 hour interaction was at ITC Windsor Manor. It was chaired by iSPIRT Mentor Mohandas Pai.  iSPIRT Governing Council members Bharat Goenka (Tally), Vishnu Dusad (Nucleus) and Sharad Sharma (BrandSigma) were also there along with Fellows Avinash Raghava, Nakul Saxena and Sudhir Singh. Shekhar Kirani who had planned the industry landscape showcase had to skip the meeting to be at his daughter’s music recital.

Showcasing behind the scenes transformation of India

The first session focused on bringing the software product industry landscape to life through a carefully curated showcase of 10 product startups. Each startup is a story of dreaming big about transforming India and the world. The goal of this session was to showcase India’s under appreciated prowess to shape industries and tackle deep rooted problems through its tech startups. The companies that participated in this carefully curated showcase were Ezetap, Instamojo, Capillary, PeelWorks, InMobi, Foradian, Team Indus, Forus Health, OlaCabs and Practo. The session went well and was an eye-opener to the policy makers. It helped them understand the breadth and depth of the emerging software product industry in India. One of them remarked that this was “one of the most awesome afternoons of his life”. They found the session to be “revealing and energizing”.  Everybody felt more optimistic about India’s future after this session.

Making India go Cashless

The next session was a thoughtful discussion on how to make India go cashless in 4 years. It was led by Bharat Goenka and Sanjay Jain (iSPIRT Open API Expert Team member, former Chief Product Officer of Aadhaar). They presented a comprehensive approach and suggested a new Program, Jan Samridhi, for the Government. This builds on the Open API work that iSPIRT has already done (in eSign, UPI and GTSN) and proposes specific and inter-related policy and regulatory changes. This benefits of going cashless are many. It’ll curb black money but will also expands micro-credit to small businesses in a big way.

Tax Friction for Product Startups

The final session was about tax friction for software product companies. Most of these are arise from poor definition of software products within the Finance Ministry. Mr. Mehrishi promised a quick resolution of these issues.

Conclusion

It was a very collaborative and interactive session. It showcased how India has emerged as the 2nd largest software product startup ecosystem in the world. It also brought attention to this new paradigm of creating Public Goods with a Social Commons model (open source model) and how this approach would be instrumental in India going cashless in a short period of time. Mr. Mehrishi and team suggested that deeper institutional mechanisms are required to bridge the intellectual distance between Delhi and Bangalore.

These powerful dialogs that iSPIRT is fostering with key policy makers (e.g. SEBI’s UK Sinha, RBIs Raghuram Rajan) are making a difference. They are helping us rewrite the script of the nation. And they are taking us closer to making India a Product Nation! So go ahead, spread the word.

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RBI Governor Dr. Raghuram Rajan meets Product Startups.

He is a maverick, a reformer, a decision maker and above all the Governor of Reserve Bank of India. The country’s foremost authority in Economics met with Product startups in Bangalore to understand their challenges and also provide useful advise by participating in interactive sessions for close to 3 hours.

2015-02-27 10.23.43
Yesterday, at ITC Windsor Manor, Dr Raghuram Rajan, honorable governor of RBI, along with Industry stalwarts Mohan Das Pai, Sudhir Sethi, MD of IDG Ventures, Shekar Kirani, Accel Partners, Sharad Sharma (iSPIRT), Bharat Goenka (Tally) and many other industry leaders heard the stories of about 10 Indian startups. The idea was to understand the following challenges of the startup Ecosystem

  1. Startups from India Competing with Global Giants with Capital Markets Challenges (like raising capital from Domestic FIIs, listing for IPOs, and other book building challenges)
  2. Startups from India building Software and Technology Products and solving local and domestic problems with the new & developing landscape of Consumer Market Challenges (like changing landscape of payments, pre-payments, recurring payments, etc)
  3. Product Companies like Tally and others from India, empowering small and medium businesses in INDIA to become Digital SMEs for leap-frogging the Indian Economy.

Dr. Rajan, was very forthcoming with his following admissions and suggestions.

  • Some of some of the difficulties in moving money in and Out of the Country (FEMA regulations for example), requires a more coherent set of rules, regulations and systems.
  • He also suggested that all Institutions, need to keep pace with the technological advances, and the need was really to have an Inclusive approach to carry everyone forward.
  • He assured full commitment to the Payments Systems Revolution, highlighting that
    • Payment Banks and Small Banks will be in full steam in about 12-18 months
    • Innovative ideas of White-labeling of BCs (Business Correspondents) via Individuals, Corporations or Registered Companies was actively being discussed.
  • His willingness to open up a dialog with Innovative Companies, where Banks are a purchaser of Technology was also evident in his offer to have more follow-on meeting.

Close to 180 minutes of conversation and showcasing of New Product Startups and Business Houses like Tally from Bangalore. Around 8 companies got the opportunity to showcase and highlight their challenges and directly interface with the Dr Rajan himself. Not all elements of the session can be reproduced here, but below are some of the key highlights and learnings.

2015-02-27 10.24.32Home grown Startups share their Stories with RBI

About 10 Indian Startups which started in INDIA, and which have global operations today, presented their stories not just from a valuation and growth standpoint, but from an emotional and proud-to-be an Indian startup viewpoint. To sum it up, almost every story was about Entrepreneur’s who dared to dream something not only for them, but for INDIA, and today want the Indian Systems (Regulators, Government and Institutions) to reciprocate to their needs. They highlighted their list of issues, the below checklist includes, but is not limited, to the following.

  • InMobi’s Naveen Tiwari, believed that INDIA can be the HUB for solving Global problems and with 39 other startups which have spun-off from INMOBI, it was clear that there is a 10x growth that is possible in the Indian startup eco-system.
  • Uniken a Security startup company with solutions for the Hyper-connected world, spoke about how their solutions have been deployed by Global and Indian Banks, including Bynet Communications. They stressed the need for all Indian Banks to adopt the latest solutions from India Solution Providers themselves which are on par or better than many cutting-edge solutions from outside of INDIA.
  • Fintellix highlighted their Software for GRC Intelligence (Governance, Regulation and Compliance), which are today used by both Indian and Global Private Banks, but they cannot get through even the RFP process of many Public Sector Banks, due to archiac processes.
  • Freshdesk presented a crowd sourced Customer Support Platform for Businesses, Tally Spoke about large scale adoption of their Accounting Software by SMEs (in millions), FORUS presented their home-grown medical devices (3nethra) which could be adopted by Indian Hospitals for 1/3 the cost, and how 80% of issues leading to Blindness can be prevented, while SnapBizz showed how even Kirana Store business owners today could gain improved visibility using the SnapBizz cloud platform.
  • Team INDUS and Deck.in showed, how Indian startups are turning world-beaters with their big ambitions in Aerospace and Enterpsie Software solutions.
  • Bharat Goenka and Pramod highlighted the need for Separation of Concerns between Transaction Enablers (Banks) and Technology Providers. Goenka stressed that Velocity of Growth, is dependent directly on the velocity of transactions.

Insights and Learnings from RBI and Dr. Rajan.

There were many learnings for all participating Startup & Business Entrepreneurs. Some of the key ones are

  • Dr. Rajan believes that for Capital availability & Funding Process for Innovators there needs to be a different RISK Framework that needs to adopted. The existing RISK framework was meant to keep the bad-elements away from the System. The new RISK framework should look at being a support system for Good Innovators.
  • Dr. Rajan also was open to look at enabling PUT-OPTIONs which will provide down-side risk protection for atleast the Investment-value like in WESTERN Contracts.
  • Dr. Rajan however, said we must all be cautious of Back-door debt masquerading as Equity and causing Systemic Harm.
  • Dr Rajan, participated enthusiastically on the following topics
    • Payment Banks / Small Banks and their utility for the Indian Business growth
    • NPCI framework and Payment Systems Revolution
    • Working with FEMA (Mr. Padmanabhan) to resolve difficulties in Money Movements.
  • Other most important advise for Startups were also discussed. To note a few,
    • RBI Governor said India has a decent Capital Chest which provides some Immunity to the Global shocks, however we cannot act in Haste.
    • Today, the need for Inclusive growth were the Unsophisticated Audience can also be carried forward, should be an objective for all innovative solutions.
    • Indian Public Sector institutions should welcome tech-savvy and young entrepreneurs as part of some of their committees.
    • Most importantly RBI can play a convening role for adoption of Innovative Products by Indian Banks.

2015-02-27 10.24.03Conclusion

Overall it is apparent that the INDIAN technology/internet product markets, are in a Golden Moment where Aspirational issues are leading to better RISK appetite among INDIAN Entrepreneurs. It is a new Paradigm where not just startups, but all Institutionals bodies with-in INDIA, need to now collaborate and commit, for supporting each other’s RISKs and Needs. RBI on its part has definitely shown keen interest, and to quote from a fine statement made by Girish, Dr. Rajan, believes that RBI interventions may arrive late, but they will definitely be latest. The Entrepreneur hence must be patient and not act in HASTE.

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Baby steps to an Indian Microsoft

A country well known for its software services now has an opportunity to build world-beating software products.

At a recent corporate awards ceremony, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was crowned as the company of the year. Piyush Goyal, the Minister of State for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy hurriedly stepped up to the lectern after the award was given. He told the assembled glitterati that TCS had promised to give the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) a modern, nay, world-class hospital management system by March 31. In the tentative clapping that ensued I heard a big snort from my right. The scepticism of the gentleman sitting next to me was rooted in the belief gaining ground that bespoke software systems were outdated and presented a sub-optimal choice.

The predicament of enterprise technology clients stuck with archaic bespoke software systems is no longer common. Bespoke software systems fell out of favour 20 years ago. Firms switched en masse to on-premise enterprise software products. They were cheaper, easier to upgrade, and yet extensively tailored to their needs. This shift in the late 1990s created two sets of players: product vendors like SAP, and implementation consultants like IBM Global Services and Accenture. Soon, Indian IT services players like TCS, Infosys and Cognizant muscled into the game and grabbed considerable market share.

Lost in this success story is the narrative about Indian enterprise software product vendors. For instance, iFlex built a great enterprise software product for banks, which Oracle snapped up for a billion dollars in 2005. Kochi-based IBS is a leading product vendor for airports and airlines, and is now big enough for an IPO next year. PARAS, a hospital management product from Bangalore, is grabbing the industry limelight by winning global deals involving hundreds of hospitals.

If the Indian IT industry has benefited from the shift away from bespoke systems, why did AIIMS miss the bus? In general, why has our public sector been so slow to buy enterprise products? Government officials are not to blame for this. Unfortunately, our IT services firms became protectors of status quo in the government sector. While it helped them milk their fading bespoke systems for longer, it also created crumbling government systems and robbed the nascent product industry of a big market. Luckily, the new government has started fixing the issue.

The Growing Shism

Another breed of enterprise product vendors is emerging. Companies like Workday and Salesforce personify this new wave. They offer on-demand products. These require less customizations and work on cloud-based data centres. So, as Workday says on its website, they are a “fraction of the cost of upgrading from their incumbent vendors”. Naturally, customers love these new-generation products. They are called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products. And they are growing like wildfire.

A schism has opened up in the Indian IT industry over SaaS products. The implementation consultants don’t like them, as they need only minor adjustments. They look at them with a jaundiced eye of a traditional bespoke darzi [tailor] looking at readymade clothes. Going from stitching custom pants to doing length adjustments for readymade ones is a gloomy shift for IT services providers. But it’s a boon for our software product start-ups.

In fact, Indian SaaS product start-ups are on a roll. They are even getting begrudging respect from Silicon Valley. When ZenDesk, the SaaS market leader in customer service desk management products, did its roaring IPO earlier this year, it listed six key competitors in its SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission] filing. Four of these – Kayako, Freshdesk, Supportbee and Tenmiles – are Indian! Indian SaaS product players are becoming global category leaders. Zoho, for instance, sells a CRM (customer relationship management) product at $12 per salesperson per month and is the market leader in this mid-market segment. It is flanked by Salesforce in the enterprise segment (at $60 per salesperson per month) and a raft of players, mostly Indian, in the SMB segment (at $3 to $4 per salesperson per month).

This availability of, say, CRM software product at every price point is a big new story in the IT industry. Unlike cars or smartphones, we have never had different software products to cater to every price segment. SaaS has changed this. As a result, everybody can now afford a software product. Hopefully, this time, government policy will build on this new generation and not let incumbents hold things back.

My Cup Runneth Over 

Two other pockets of explosive growth are exciting. One is the much-discussed rise of the digital consumer in India. This has led to the birth of Flipkart, Ola Cabs, Stayzilla, Newshunt and others. The other pocket is less sexy but it’s even bigger. It has to do with software infrastructure.

Old software infrastructure is being replaced at a pace previously unseen and is creating lots of product opportunities. Data explosion is driving endpoint data protection and governance products. Video explosion is driving dynamic ad insertion products. E-commerce growth is driving a new generation of search infrastructure products. Corporate mobile use is driving new agentless Bring-your own-Device security products. Social media is driving real-time social media analytics products. Now here is the punch line: in each of these categories, the emerging global leader is an Indian company! This is an unbelievably powerful development. For instance, Druva, a Pune-based start-up, is the global market leader in endpoint data protection and governance and is set to do an initial public offering in the US in 18 to 24 months.

Daring to Dream

Behind this optimistic turn of events is a new type of a technology entrepreneur. He (and, sadly, its mostly he so far) is unshackled from the restrictive dream of being the world’s back office. He doesn’t think in terms of labour arbitrage. He is a missionary, a creator and disruptor of status quo. And he has a blazing desire to change the world.

Team Indus embodies this spirit. This team is a motley group of passionate technologists that aims to land a robotic craft on the Moon by December 2015. This is literally a moon shot. Not altogether surprising to many of us, this team has emerged as one of the top three teams in the prestigious Google Lunar X-prize!

There are other moon shots in the works. Some are pivotal to developing our defence, aerospace and electronics industries. Others are about building highly affordable software products that will bring competitiveness to small businesses, teaching effectiveness to schools, productivity to health-care centres and new skills to farmers. Let’s not blow this chance. Let’s give these efforts the policy oxygen they deserve.

The country that gave zero, calculus, yoga and chess to the world is dreaming again. It wants to retake its rightful place in the world. It’s not satisfied being a back office for everybody. It dreams of powering the future with its ideas and inventions. It dreams of being a product nation!

This article was first published in Business Today

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How We Got The IT Minister Excited About Indian Product Startups & Made Him Our Spokesperson #UnleashTheEnergy

A behind the scenes account of how a showcase of 11 disruptive startups was put together in just 100 hours!

If you’re reading this, I’m sure  you are a part of the Indian product startup community in one way or the other. And unless you were living under a rock (which is fine, if you were busy hacking away or traveling to sell your product), you wouldn’t have missed that our Hon. IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad was in Bangalore on Tuesday meeting with the product startup community. iSPIRT hosted  the “Conclave for India as Product Nation #1″, an open dialogue between the Product industry and the IT Minister.

What made it all the more special was that the he was the first IT Minister to meet with startups and also that he first met with the startups first before meeting officials from his ministry! The Minister met with the industry leaders, gave a patient hearing to the needs of the product startups and also saw presentations from 11 disruptive startups.

And here’s what the minister had to say after meeting with the startups!

So how did we pull this off? And what if I told you that it was all put together in 100 hours. We ourselves cannot quite understand how everything fell into place! But as Sharad often says, when a bunch of passionate volunteers come together towards a common cause, magic just happens. At iSPIRT, we take our volunteering quite seriously. No wonder then, that we actually have open sourced our volunteer model through a whitepaper to help other communities benefit from it!

 

A text message from Rajan on Saturday morning got me involved. Could we get on a call, he asked. There’s an iSPIRT event scheduled on Tuesday and some help was needed. We spoke and I got to know that there’s an interaction with the IT Minister scheduled on the coming Tuesday. As part of the interaction, we needed to put together a showcase of disruptive product startups to help the Minister get a sense of the kind of impactful work being done and the opportunities ahead. There was list of companies drawn from across various segments and stages, with whom we’d need to connect and get their availability for the event on Tuesday. Tapping into our network of volunteers (many of whom are themselves startup founders and industry leaders), we gathered the contact details of these companies and started reaching out to the companies. These were companies spread across the country and we checked with their founders if they’d be available to present. Based on the availability of teams and the some intense discussion and debate among the Program Managers for the showcase, a short list of the companies presenting on stage was drawn up. The thought process behind the selection of companies was to give the Minister a good view of the breadth (sectors where product startups are making an impact), the depth (companies that have achieved global market/tech leadership) and how far they can grow with sound support from the ecosystem, which includes the government as well. We were immensely privileged to have Mr. Mohandas Pai spare his valuable time for multiple meetings through the whole process and share his inputs on what kind of stories would make the maximum impact.

Product Leaders with the IT MinisterArriving at the shortlist was surely a good beginning. They say well begun is half done. But the tougher half lay ahead! We were already at Monday morning, and within the next 24 hours we had prep up the presenters. Each of the companies were to have a short, crisp presentation with the key points to be covered in under 4 minutes! Shekhar went about this with the precision of a toolmaker, thoroughness of a scientist and the strictness of a school teacher! From putting together notes on what points to cover, iterating multiple times with the presenting companies on their presentations over a sleepless night, to conducting the actual showcase in front of the minister, Shekhar was always on.

(That’s me on the left  trying to get the slides up!)

The event received some very good coverage in the media. Below are some links:

Here’s hoping that achchhe din are indeed ahead for the Indian software product industry!