We are planning to release research findings every month week as part of our startup support program at the Microsoft Accelerator in India. There are about 50 different topics that we are curious about and are consistently doing research to find out ways to help our accelerator companies perform market research, target early adopters and focus on getting more customer traction. This series is...
This time, we feature Cardback a Delhi based startup, focused on helping today’s retail consumers discover the best deals and offers available on their credit, debit, loyalty and prepaid cards across merchant establishments. Its first product, also by the same name, is a location-aware mobile app that is currently in public beta for Android and in an invite-only phase for the iPhone. What...
Pricing is a mix of art science. Most product startups have a hard time figuring out their revenue model (freemium or, paid only) and what they should charge. If you chose freemium, you have to be careful that cost of incremental customer is low and it will be great, if this customer also helps spread the word about you. On the other hand, if you choose paid, you run the risk of having minimal...
The buyer had told you that they were in the market for exactly what you were selling, and the timing couldn’t be better. The pricing was right and your solution met all the buyer’s needs but lo and behold the sale did not happen. Has this ever happened to you? If you are like me and many others, you have been in this situation before. Why does this happen? I had thought long and hard about it...
In my previous blogs, I wrote about how differentiation is a must and even wrote about how Bob Wright and Raj Shetty spoke about the differentiation @ NPC-12. Ok now comes the most critical issue of “yeah I understand differentiation but how do I do a valid differentiation rather than doing for the sake of doing”. Let me give me an example to showcase the issue. I want to start a tooth paste...
From the beginning, we at Ozonetel had always wanted to build a platform. Initially, we did a VXML platform with off the shelf hardware. But VXML was not sexy enough and there were not a lot of takers. So in 2010, we did a pivot and built our own custom hardware( PRI cards) and built KooKoo and top of it. KooKoo was our attempt at Telephony Platform as a Service play. Once KooKoo was opened to...
I started writing about Thinking Big and it is turning out to be a serial topic! As Indians, technical stuff comes naturally, business thinking comes naturally, but creativity is a touch-feely subject that many of us are not that comfortable with! We usually give it lip service and move on to more important stuff like coding or making sales calls! You ask most Software Product Entrepreneurs about...
Several events in the software world during 2012 will have a notable impact on the industry for years to come, according to SandHill’s industry observers. Some are striking enough that our panelists think they deserve an award. What software event that happened in 2012 will have the most impact over the next two to three years? Lincoln Murphy, founder and managing director, Sixteen...
Jay Pullur is the founder and CEO of Pramati Technologies, software and services company based out of Hyderabad. The company recently announced that it’s enterprise social collaboration software platform — Qontext — had been acquired by Autodesk, the maker of design, engineering and entertainment software. Jay’s career in the software industry spans 25 years, and his primary interest...
What does a tech-product start-up need initially? It is not money, not more people to join the team according to me. It needs validation, feedback, users, inputs and all of this comes from Real Customers like you & me. If a product start-up gets real users, customers who engage in day-day usage of the product, they automatically become the following: The Product Manager, The Well-wisher, The...
