If you are a B2B startup building an innovative enterprise product, it’s the dream of millions of users that keeps you going in the initial days. Sometimes however, as you acquire early customers and users for your product, it seems that the demands they make and attention they seek is almost distracting you from your dream! And they are not even using the coolest and most innovative features you...
I am one of the founders of HackerRank, formally called InterviewStreet, where we are building a platform for programmers to hone their skills and companies to streamline their recruiting process. Currently we are a team of 66 split across Palo Alto and Bangalore and we have been signing up companies like FB, Amazon, VMWare, Bloomberg, etc. as our customers while simultaneously growing our...
B2B startups usually solve a unique problem that existing enterprise applications do not address. In some cases, they even create a new solution niche as they expand their customer base. As your B2B startup grows and acquires more customers and users, it is critical that the early adoption rate is not only sustained but multiplied. Integrating your new product with the enterprise ecosystem should...
In my past several years of running Themeefy, I have gone through many hiring cycles. Over time I have learnt that there is a particular strategy or set of things, that work really well — especially if you are an early to secondary stage start-up, and want to attract good talent, without necessarily paying a lot. Be clear on who you want — Do you want a CSS / HTML guy ? Do you want a server-side...
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...
If you have had a chance to visit the state of Gujarat in Western India, you have almost certainly seen atleast one of the famed step-wells in the region. Known locally as “baori” or “vav”, there are hundreds of these architectural masterpieces dotting the state. The most famous ones are the Rani ki Vav (queen’s step-well) in the town of Patan and the Adalaj Vav (pictured below) at Adalaj, about...
Keeping with the world cup fever, where No.10 is center of everything for success, thought of writing this post on success of product managers, who are the No.10 for success of products. Here in plan to share 10 tips for successful product management. This is based on my dozen years’ experiences in the function, working in Ramco, Hyperion and SAP, rolling out both successful and not so successful...
With new start-ups coming up on a daily basis, the competition in the market is intense. To be successful in this competitive world, you have to think beyond the ordinary. This is probably why growth hacking has become the go-to word when looking for people you may want to hire! If you can scale your growth beyond a linear curve and find multiple ways to expand your reach multi-dimensionally, you...
HackerEarth is a Bangalore based start-up which helps companies hire programmers. It was started in 2012 by Sachin Gupta and Vivek Prakash, both of whom are alumni of IIT Roorkee. HackerEarth provides solutions for the technical recruitment space – one is an online assessment tool which is used by organizations to assess both internal and external candidates. Another solution acts as an...
One of areas I have focused in many years that I have been involved in building and taking enterprise software products to market is, bridging the code to customer gap. This really is the main reason for success or failure of products. Inspiration Inspiration for many of us building high tech products is offcourse Steve Jobs, and here is his take on bridging the code to customer gap Enterprise...
