CategoryEnterprise

Implications of GST Bill on Startups

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The much-hyped Goods and Services Tax (GST), after years of stagnation and lack of political consensus, was finally passed in the upper house of the Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, on 4th August this year, almost a decade after it was first introduced in the Lok Sabha in the year 2006-07. It is the biggest indirect tax reform post economic liberalization of 1991. The economists say, a double-digit...

3 Levels of Product Training for growth

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  You have crossed the initial milestone of proving your product has seen some initial success, covered the MVP and now its time for growth…what is one key ingredient for growth ? You are the rockstar founder or product manager…you have the urge to be omnipresent in every customer discussion or support call…you do a good job on this…but it’s a major deterrent for growth as you become the...

Write up the Business Plan !

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Most of us have read the famous story about Jeff Bezos’s cross country trip from New  York to Seattle. Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994, writing up the  Amazon business plan on the way. Jeff’s important advise for startup company or any   company is to write up the business plan. Now if Jeff Bezos has done it, and become one of the most successful entrepreneur in the internet era, why not just do...

The software eco-system in India is still influenced by the services model. Product companies require a completely different mindset, especially when it comes to the programming workforce.

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Infinite Analytics is a predictive marketing and analytics company set up in 2012, by two MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduates, Akash Bhatia and Purushotham Botla. The company has built a real-time personalization platform that learns and predicts by utilizing all available data to match a customer to a product or service. In an interview with ProductNation.com, co-founder Akash...

The Kayako culture – Startup lessons in building organisational values

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How leaving our values unclear started breaking our culture at Kayako, how we fixed it and what we learned. In the early days, a startup’s values and culture — the essence — is very much a reflection of the founding team. These values don’t need to be documented, they usually just are. As new people join the team, the essence will transfer by osmosis. It’s in the air. The essence will be picked...

"Be Prepared to Move Very Fast" Mukund Mudras, CEO & Co-Founder of Heckyl #IfNotNowThenWhen

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In conversation with Mukund Mudras – CEO and Co-Founder of Heckyl – winners of the UKTI ‘India’s Most Innovative Companies To Work With The Best of UK’ 2013.  A brief about the company – Heckyl is a real time data analytics company that brings news, price and fundamental analytics through a single platform called FIND (Financial in News and Data). FIND can be used by a researcher, trader...

Need the right data to make the right decision

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Recently I read a blog post by Mr. Przyklenk, senior manager, digital insights, for TDBank Group. Big Data is the next “BIG” thing, but is this “BIG” thing applicable for everyone, is the “BIG question. Let’s consider TDBank Group, the second largest financial institution in Canada.  They began re-evaluating their customer data when branch traffic declined without a significant increase in...

"Bootstrapping is tough. Most of the time things take three times longer than what we think. The only way to enjoy this journey is to absolutely love what you do. That is what sustains you.” – Rushabh, ERPNext

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Continuing our journey to bring to limelight bootstrapped entrepreneurs from India, we got a chance to speak with Rushabh Mehta, Founder of Web Notes Technologies, a software product company that publishes a free and open source web based ERP called ERPNext for small and medium businesses. Built by a small team of 8 people, ERPNext has more than 250 paying customers and has also been included in...

Need 9 months to get baby out

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One of the pressures and challenges of working on products is to get it out soon – the release. But I often recollect one of the leaders that I have worked with saying “need 9 months to get baby out”. What’s the right time for a product release – Some Considerations? Build for market, not a customer Remember products are not built for one customer, its built for several of them, for a...

Bootstrapping is certainly possible until and unless the business model requires exponential growth in a short span of time, Nikhil Nath – CEO, Knowcross #BootUpINDIA

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Last week I got a chance to speak with Nikhil Nath, Founder and CEO of Knowcross that provides technology solutions to leading hotels of the world in over 30 countries. Started in 2002, Knowcross has built a range of smart and intelligent products that address specific problems of running Hotel operations. From systems that allow Hotel staff to quickly respond to complaints raised by guests...