I met Avinash a few weeks back to share details about zest.md, and to discuss some of the challenges which we are facing. Avinash, helped me to understand a lot of issues better, and invited me to be a part of the #PNMeetup to discuss it with a larger group. To be honest, I was apprehensive initially, but seeing the conviction with which Avinash said that it would help us, I agreed and I am so...
What is Financial Inclusion? Financial inclusion is the delivery of financial services & products to sections of disadvantaged and low income segments of society, at an affordable cost in a fair and transparent manner by regulated mainstream institutional players. The term “financial inclusion” has gained importance since the early 2000s, and is a result of findings about...
I have written previously about how to evaluate accelerators and choosing the right accelerator since there are so many of them these days and also about what the goal of an accelerator is. I wanted to share somethings that entrepreneurs should expect from an accelerator from a perspective of a startup founder. I think the best thing that has happened is that so many accelerators have opened in...
Dr Raghuram Rajan, Chief Economic Adviser to the MoF, GoI, was the chief guest at the IIMB convocation this year. I had the privilege of meeting him briefly before the convocation started. We talked about jugaad, Indian industry’s innovation capabilities, and which companies stand out on the innovation dimension. One question that Dr. Rajan asked was something that I have thought about...
Accelerators are in the business of creating Startups – or atleast taking the first bet. Its a startup of startups; Which means, everything they talk about as risk, in venture capital nicely gets bundled up and will get put on the head of what is the accelerator. Going back to the basics, Now depending on which accelerator you are involved with, there might be two or three key milestones...
CEO and Co-Founder, Sapience Analytics, Shirish Deodhar, is pleased with the market response to their first software product, Sapience, and says their objective is to become the default standard for Automated Enterprise Effort Visibility and Gain Sapience Analytics was set up in 2008, as a software products company. It was formed by four serial entrepreneurs, who had come to realize that the...
From being the protagonist of an Adoor Gopalakrishnan national award winning movie to a graphics trainer, from a book publisher to a printer, from services to products, our guest today has been there, done that. Meet Vish, the MD of Logical Steps. ProductNation: Hi Vish. Welcome to Product Nation. Let us begin with your story. Vish: I was born in an entrepreneurial family. My family ran a...
As many of you know, Avinash Raghava is a persuasive individual. So when he approached me first to write for Product Nation, after some hemming and hawing, I agreed. On a recent call, he told me that nice though my writings have been so far, he was hoping I could help our readers with specific issues related to entering the US market. He is absolutely right and I will start looking to him for...
InSync Solutions Ltd. provides ecommerce solutions for online retail businesses. Many software services companies in India are evolving to products companies. Atul Gupta, founder and managing director of InSync Solutions Ltd., describes how InSync made this transition. SandHill.com: When did you launch InSync as a services company, and what led to the switch to a products focus? Atul Gupta: We...
If today a survey in done in schools across India and students are asked some questions like, What are your favorite hobbies or pastime? What do you do after going back home from school? What do you do during holidays? You’ll get all sorts of answers but ‘Entrepreneurship’. Even worse, if the following question is also included, Have you heard about the word...
