Last month, for the first time, I witnessed something really special. Even for someone like me, whose very job and calling is to evangelise this nascent software ecosystem of ours, this was something extraordinary. I’ve been doing this a while, and what happened last month was one of the best feelings I’ve had in this journey. This is what happened: Some of the leading B2B enterprise startups in...
Playbook in iSPIRT denotes entrepreneurial learning meant for Indian software product startups to become world class and be successful. Roundtable is a format of learning intended for startups that have reached a happy confused stage. In this format 8-12 non competing startups are brought together to discuss deeply on a topic that holds them from jumping to their next level.A facilitator, who is...
We’ve done this for two years. It has been successful. But we still felt that it could be improved. We went back to the drawing board. We thought hard about how we could do this better. And we’ve come back with something that will be more powerful, and even more demanding from our product entrepreneurs. #PNgrowth2016 will feature only 50 startups, giving each startup more facetime with the...
The 50th PlaybookRT session was held at Helion Ventures in Bengaluru to brainstorm and understand best practices for positioning and messaging of startup products. This roundtable was led by Shankar Maruwada, who by virtue of his illustrious past experiences as the brand builder for Aadhar and P&G, and being a successful entrepreneur at Marketics ably anchored the deliberations. Twelve...
The most crucial lessons come from looking at the mistakes: those that we make and those that we spot others making. A thought might get triggered by listening to great dreamers like Steve Jobs. But the termination, in terms of realization, implementation and imbibing the essence comes only when you have walked through that journey and declared a new start. Shankar, who imagined and steered the...
On Saturday, December 6, 2014, founders, CEO’s and others from startups based in and around Mumbai met at the office of WebEngage. We were there for the iSPIRT PlaybookRT on Positioning and Messaging by Shankar Maruwada. Below are my notes and thoughts about the event… Identifying and defining your customers Shankar emphasized that the process of developing a positioning and messaging strategy...
As a founder or technologist mired in the day-to-day tasks of product building, it’s easy to get drawn into thinking of your product as a collection of features. But do customers also see our products as a stack of features? Or do they see products as a sum of the solutions that they offer? How do we best translate our offerings into a simple and sticky pitch that piques our customers’ curiosity...
How can these 3 words go together? Experience is all about failing. We’re competing with peers. And who the hell wants to learn ?? Allow me to sell to you – India’s first true bootcamp for Product Entrepreneurs – #PNCamp, happening in Pune in December this year. “…to your context…” – watch this video about a customer. You’ll appreciate...
“99% Practice, 1% Theory”. This was the ground rule laid down for the session by the workshop facilitator Shankar Maruwada at the beginning. Sounds very much like the tagline of a popular softdrink brand that’s No Bakwaas! No wonder it came from someone who has loads of experience in the FMCG space, built and sold an analytics company and has more recently given life to what is arguably India’s...
We are pleased to announce the first Playbook RoundTable for Product Entrepreneurs around Messaging & Positioning. A strong, differentiated & memorable product messaging is essential in creating traction for your product. Effective product messaging speaks directly in the langauage of your target audience. This Playbook Roundtable is brought to you by iSPIRT. One of the initiatives of...
