They (you’ll never know who these wise people are) say, well begun is half done. If you ask anyone connected with iSPIRT, I’m sure all of them will agree that we’ve definitely begun well, but definitely not on the ‘half done’ part!
That definitely doesn’t take anything away from the impact iSPIRT has had in the short period that it has been in existence. From organizing India’s first bootcamp #PNCamp, conducting over 23 PlayBook Roundtables across segments like Sales, Marketing, Product Management, driving a focused initiative on driving M&A opportunities for Indian startups to even driving a policy intiative to work with the government and its organization, iSPIRT has indeed created a strong impact in the Indian Product Startup ecosystem with over 300 companies impacted and over 220 product entrepreneurs touched.
And the reason those involved with iSPIRT – Founders, Fellows, Mavens & Saarthis won’t agree with the ‘half done’ part is because they believe there’s a lot more to be done in the coming years.
On the other hand, it is quite hard to imagaine that so much has been done only one year of iSPIRT’s founding! To mark this occasion, a get together of all those connected with iSPIRT was organized last Saturday in Bangalore.
The well-attended event saw participation from various sets of people associated with iSPIRT and from across different spectrums of the product startup ecosystem. In attendance were iSPIRT Founder Circle Members, iSPIRT Fellows, Mavens & Saarthis, representatives from iSIPRT’s partners for different initiatives, key people from the investor community and the media as well. iSPIRT’s anniversary party provided for a good reason for the different stakeholders to come together for an evening filled with great conversations & fruitful interactions.
There was an interesting twist at the beginning itself. At the entrance, each participant was to pick up a card and write their names on it. The card also had a pledge that they’d take towards promoting & helping Indian product startups by ‘paying it forward’. One would then write their names on it and hang it to the ‘tree’ in the center of the room. On the way out, one would pick up a random card (of course, ensuring that it’s not one’s own) from the tree and then connect with the person whose details are on the card! That’s a pretty nice way of getting people connected and having them know one another.
The evening began with each participant introducing themselves and sharing how they’ve been associated with iSPIRT and their experiences and learning. This brought out very interesting perspectives. There were ‘customers’ of iSPIRT – those who had benefited from the various initiatives of iSPIRT, there were ‘angels’ (Founders Circle Members) who were looking to help other startups grow by making their valuable resources available to other product startups and there were the iSPIRT ‘team’ members – Fellows and volunteers who firmly believe in the ‘pay it forward’ philosophy. There were also those from the media tracking product startups who shared their views on how iSPIRT has impacted the ecosystem
Awesome energy, signs of a path-breaking product revolution, great bunch of ‘karma yogis’. Happy Birthday #iSPIRT! pic.twitter.com/zoAzo0AKGN
— pankaj mishra (@pankajontech) February 1, 2014
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Oh, and that was quite a nice cake!
The conversations gathered pace as the introductions happened and the participants stepped out to the lawns to launch the fire lanterns. It was quite cold and there was a slight breeze because of which the lanterns wouldn’t light up easily. But entrepreneurs being entrepreneurs, they wouldn’t give up so easily. We did manage to launch quite a few lanterns and it was quite a sight to see the lanterns float high in the sky! Reminded one of Sharad’s blog post – Fireflies Lighting Up The Sky!
Dinner, drinks and some more conversations followed! It was an evening well spent – reminiscencing about the wonderful year that iSPIRT completed, meeting interesting people from the product startup ecosystem & having interesting conversations with them and going back with a stronger resolve to do our own bit to indeed transform India into a ProductNation!