How should Indian entrepreneurs think about hiring and scaling teams in Silicon Valley? What are the thorniest hiring challenges? Who should the first hires be? How can founders scale culture globally? To focus on this topic, iSPIRT organized its 2nd Bay Area playbook roundtable– “Building a supercharged team in Silicon Valley”. It was moderated by Jaspreet Singh, Founder and CEO of Druva, a...
Tax on Services procured from foreign service providers Startups and SMEs in a digital world use many services from across the world. Skype, Google ADwords and hosting services from foreign hosting providers are some examples. So also are the online services of consultants, designers, content writers and developers etc. There is a service tax required that apply on many such services. Many people...
There is today in many countries a proliferation of new digital credit services. These have been especially prominent in mobile money markets in sub Saharan Africa. The poster child has been M-Shwari out of Kenya; though there are a burgeoning array of new varied services in many places. The signals of deep interest from India are strong and India Stack may well position this market for an...
I began my entrepreneurial journey in December 2014. The incidents of 2014, when several cases of child molestations were reported in Bangalore’s schools, had spurred me into trying to do “something” about it. The key to keeping children safe in schools is to ensure that the people who work with them have a good track record. In the past, this was ensured by word of mouth. But Indian cities today...
On Independence Day, we at Product Nation have an important announcement to make. This one was a long time coming, as we tried to classify, clear up, and target our efforts for the product ecosystem better. This update is mainly focused on the Playbook pillar, one of iSPIRT’s key initiatives, and will have effects on other fronts as well. We are reviving some of the initiatives; to others we have...
Japan introduced ‘Zengin’, a real-time money transfer mechanism in 1973. Thirty Seven years later, NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) introduced IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) in 2010 as the first real-time 24*7 money transfer mechanism in the country. In-between PayPal launched money transfer by just knowing a person’s email ID in 1999 and now in 2016, India is about to make UPI...
Ease of doing business – Some new additions in Company Incorporation rules Ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has announced the Companies (Incorporation) Third Amendment Rules,2016. The set of announcements made will replace or change the the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014. There are about 12 changes announced in the notification published at MCA website here. However, the...
ESOP another Stay-in-India checklist item gets MCA nod Ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has recently relaxed sweat equity issuance norms for startups. These new relaxations are for limited to Startups recognized by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). The announcement will immensely help startups. For startups not recognized under DIPP, there is not change. The new...
This write-up should be read along with the previous blog – The Value Added Service Providers in Cloud Telephony. These blogs help us to accumulate the progressive development in discourse on policy for this segment of Industry. It is important for our common understanding and help Software product industry innovating in telecom sector in general and cloud telephony in specific terms. The...
Increasing penetration of smartphones, Aadhaar-linked bank accounts and a host of powerful open and programmable capabilities is set to create the ‘WhatsApp moment’ for Indian banking. Once in a while a major disruption or discontinuity happens which has huge consequences. In 2007, the internet and the mobile phone came together in a whole new product called the smartphone. This phone, with its...
