ProductNation caught up with Akshay Shah, founder and COO of iWeb Technology Solutions to understand how they have been successful in serving the Indian SME market. Akshay says that the ability of their company to provide customizable business solutions at affordable prices is what has led to their success. Read on… What was the main trigger to start the company? The journey leading up to...
Why every start-up needs a repeatable & scalable sales model?
Start-ups in their mid-growth stage are usually faced with an inflection point, where they find themselves standing in the middle of a transition – from having a bright product idea endorsed by a handful of people (usually investors & early customers) towards a scalable solution that can be sold to anyone. Geoffrey Moore’s work in the book titled ‘Crossing the Chasm’ is pertinent...
M & A – The most preferred option to grow in uncertain times
It is a typical Monday 9 AM! Ready to kick-start another challenging week! Fine day in Chennai !! Not so hot like a typical Chennai climate. But, for first generation entrepreneurs it is an ordeal to pass thru weekly pressures of Cash flow, Attrition, New business and opportunities etc. etc. This experience is collectively described as “Monday Morning Blues”. The growth dilemma There has always...
Oogwave gained insights from CIOs at the 8th #PNMeetup
5 CIOs/Mentors, 2 startups showcasing their products, 12 good listeners and a rainy Noida morning at Adobe campus. We had a different setting this time, 15 minute of product demo and 60 minutes of quality one-on-one with the CIO community. We had two startups – Gaurav Jain, Founder & CEO of Oogwave & Vikram Bahl, Founder & CEO, Yavvy who got mentoring/guidance on their product...
Sell in the US from India or establish a beachhead abroad?
If you asked me this question five years back, I would have said unequivocally that you have to establish a presence in the US if you want to do business here. My thoughts on the subject have changed. I believe the answer is, it depends. Let me explain. Since it is the risk-reward equation that tilts the scales in favor of one vendor over another, we have to start out by thinking about how the...
What's my next Product Going to be? A Product Ideation/Extension Toolkit
You have your first product and it’s a success. Success only brings more demand from prospects, clients and customers for features that are not yet in your product. Some of them are not interested in all the features you have in your product but seem to use only some odd features. Or they have found a totally new use for your product that you have not yet thought of, as yet! As an...
Leveraging Customer relationships as a Product Manager
There have been epics written on ways businesses should be: Identifying customers Acquiring new customers from competition Retaining customers Cross selling and up selling into existing customers Leveraging Customers for expanding business For a Product Manager, who has to deal with many internal and external entities, Customer is by far one of the most business critical entities that he has to...
iSPIRT Playbook Roundtable: Positioning and Messaging – Lot of it is common sense!
If your grandmother does not understand your message, then you might as well not communicate is the crux of what was discussed during this Roundtable facilitated by Shankar Maruwada and Nandita Sinha. This roundtable discussed the ‘What’ of the positioning and messaging and not the ‘how’ of the positioning. There was very little theory except perhaps setting the context and the entire session was...
“Envision, Evangelise and Execute”: Connecting with Satyajeet from Cleartrip #PNHangout
We recently had a chance to catch up with Satyajeet Singh – head of Cleartrip’s mobile solutions, on Cleartrip and his take on the role of a product manager in Cleartrip, here’s what we learnt: Cleartrip has been an early adopter of m-commerce in India. How have you been involved in taking Cleatrip’s mobile offerings from a MVP, to the product that it is today. How did you ensure it was...
Enabling Product Managers to manage Product Experience
In my last post, Product Manager, or Product Experience Manager, I described the disparate features and experiences that got broken in SiteZ and made the case that product management team should be responsible for overall product experience. In the final post of this series, I will present my views on how product management team should manage experience so that such issues can be minimized or...