Somewhere along my long software engineering career, I sat one more time rolling my eyes and clucking mentally that one more product is about to become a series of applications! We are about to create multiple code line monsters that will be demanding and expensive to maintain! Yet, this is what happens in reality in most “Product Companies” that start out with the greatest of...
Today, I was watching Moneyball, the movie for the third or fourth time! Every one of those scenes and dialogues was a lesson in recruitment that every product startup could use! I have used them and they have worked for me in fantastic ways! What better way to learn lessons in startup recruitment than watch a highly enjoyable movie with fantastic actors like Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill! Having...
ThinkInvestor is iSPIRT and ProductNation’s new initiative to serve as a catalyst between Venture Capital firms, Angels, Angel Networks and Entrepreneurs. It is to go beyond brochure ware and dig deeper into the whole life cycle of a typical investment; from introductions, funding, styles of on-going engagement, to exits. And in the process, capture their views on global and local trends...
Dear Raja, We have collaborated on many blog posts in the past but we are struggling to shoulder the burden of this one. People say you are 63, but you worked like a 23! You didn’t care what people thought about your views – you boldly put them forward. You worked for a large company but you cared for the success of innovation in smaller startups. While your mates were fighting for their...
ThinkInvestor is iSPIRT and ProductNation’s new initiative to serve as a catalyst between Venture Capital firms, Angels, Angel Networks and Entrepreneurs. It is to go beyond brochure ware and dig deeper into the whole life cycle of a typical investment; from introductions, funding, styles of on-going engagement, to exits. And in the process, capture their views on global and local trends...
As this article is being written, possibly one of the greatest Viral campaigns EVER is being rolled out for the movie – Anchorman 2 – The Legend Continues set for a release date of December 18th, 2013!. It’s a sequel to the 2004 movie Anchorman, a stinging parody of 70’s and 80’s ego maniacal TV anchors in the US! Stay Classy! – is the catch phrase he signs off...
Users of enterprise software marvel at the ease of use of facebook, twitter and gmail on their mobiles, tablet computers and desktops! Then they wonder why their enterprise software should not be as easy to use or at least be available from their own devices. The CEO wonders why she cannot see the company graphs and charts in vibrant colors on her iPad at home on her sofa, while watching TV! This...
Too many choices make your customers just stop with browsing. They don’t buy and move on! So if you have too many looky-loos and not enough purchasers, you may be giving them Choice Overload! Too many Free Trial users and not enough conversions? Choice Overload may be one of the problems in that case also. Whether you are an e-commerce business or designing a user interface, you may be...
When you see Yahoo offer $1.1B in cash for Tumblr or it pays $30M for Summly, the reactions around the world range from kudos to the founders and initial investors, to “I’ll have some of what they are smoking”! But most of the time, there is some sanity behind all that madness but there have been times when it has been more of insanity as at the peak of the Dot.com boom, in the...
Enterprise as well as Consumer Software is moving fast towards a Software As A Service (SaaS) model. Who would not like paying a per user, per month charge as opposed to doling out huge amounts of money for licenses upfront and paying 16 to 20% Annual Maintenance Charges year after year! But the short history of SaaS companies is already full of companies that grew too quickly, or chose the wrong...
