It has been a great, great year here at iSPIRT, and though we have a long way yet to go, we are confident that we are well on our way to get to where we want to be. After all, well begun is half done. But then, there is also the question of structure, not unlike the problem entrepreneurs face they have to scale their business – when the organization becomes big and responsibilities fragment...
“The best way to do something ‘lean’ is to gather a tight group of people, give them very little money, and very little time.” – Bob Klein, chief engineer of the Grumman F-14 program. I first came upon this quote on Paul Graham’s website, and it always intrigued me, the small detail about the money – it could be little or a lot, but money is a factor, and a...
My interest in knowledge management has always been from the perspective of knowledge creation. So, I readily agreed to participate in the CII Knowledge Management Summit this year in a session that focused on this dimension. Ganesh Natarajan, Sharad Sharma and I were together on a panel to explore the potential of, and challenges in, the creation of intellectual property (IP)-based businesses...
Putting up #PNCamp has not been easy. And the task is only half-done. Volunteering is like an open-source movement. You learn a lot, give back, and lean upon all your co-volunteers to make things happen. There is no institution behind it, no big brother, no event manager, no marketing agency. Just volunteer passion. It’s the same energy that put up India’s defining product events in...
Last week, I met Sharad Sharma, an angel investor & the prime mover behind the iSPIRT, a think tank for software product startups. For those who have been into software products, he is a familiar face. We’ve met many times before but this time around, we talked about the dangers of mass entrepreneurship, which I’ll keep for a later post. That’s because I stumbled upon a more pressing issue...
Small $20-30m M&A transactions are the lifeblood of Silicon Valley. Over 400 such transactions happened last year. Israeli companies accounted for over 20% of these transactions. India had only a couple of transactions to speak of. This has to change of Indian has to become a Product Nation. iSPIRT is focusing on this issue through its soon-to-be-announced M&A Connect Program. The...
India is at a crossroads today. Gloom has replaced what seemed to be an unending boom just a few years ago. After a decade of rapid growth led by the services sector, the Indian economy has hit a plateau. While services exports continue to grow and create a surplus in services trade, they only constitute 35% of the country’s total exports and are unlikely to compensate for the deep deficit in...
It was a usual Thursday morning, chaos at the Mathura Road, but once you got on to the 91SpringBoard office, you could feel the aroma of the paints, etc in the new office which is beautifully done and very colourful. Few guys were sipping their early morning coffee and some interactions by entrepreneurs and some folks who usually give gyaan to them:). Few minutes and you could see the geeks...
In recent years the Indian Software Product industry has seen exponential growth in terms of revenue and people. The industry has matured to a state where numerous entrepreneurs have built successful companies that are becoming household names! Our mission this year is not only to inspire and motivate entrepreneurs but to also impart knowledge and grow their skills to become global players. We’re...
Editor’s note: Sharad Sharma and M.R. Rangaswami are co-hosts of the NASSCOM Product Conclave 2011 (November 8-10, 2011), a must-attend event for software product startups. Now in its eighth year, more than 1,200 delegates from 600+ companies are expected to attend. Sharma and Rangaswami share with SandHill readers their insights on what’s happening in this dynamic market – and why U.S. buyers...
