Idea, Products, Innovation

great place to work!

2011-05-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

What does it take to build a great company / place for each & every individual you would hire?

I think, above question is on every lead / manager / exec of the company -- is there a simple answer : No

Few things that I would like to share -

Walk-the-talk -- do it yourself, to show / set the example of how you want the organization has to be
Listen to people -- have the say from each person in the company
Measure people, for they have been brought on-board for -- keep the expectations set with the person, clear at time of hire & use it for subsequent reviews
Integrate people / teams -- break silos in the organization & ensure.. people go along together
360 degree -- attempt for having an open 360 degree feedback to every person on the company, it would help people get perspective from others

Do leave your comments... if you have suggestions / feedback.

-Bhaskara

GoogleTV for emerging markets...

2010-10-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

GoogleTV can be good for emerging markets (to India, for sure) - as number of households with DTH Set-top boxes are higher than Broadband subscriber base & the power of delivering internet (both text & video content) will be a great way to make people become net literate... I know the GoogleTV, may not be aimed at personal consumption of internet on TV & more targeted for family / group viewing, but it could well be the way to market in India.

Now, is there at an alternate way to make the solution available... for India - as the GoogleTV enabled Set-top boxes might be at least 4 - 5 yrs away from being affordable to Indian consumers.

I think yes, using streaming internet as video technology by the DTH Companies... could it be considered as one of the VAS in STB to open any website page & browse the content?

Challenges... adoption of MHP Standards in STB & percentage of compliance is key!

Goods & Service Tax in India, scope for new product?

2010-08-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

New Products / Innovation can happen, when we see a gap in the industry or because of some major policy changes introduced by the government, this was explained by Surya Narayana (Head of NSRCEL, IIMB Incubation cell for entrepreneurship) in a idea pitch meeting at NSRCEL. I think, one such major policy change is happening in Finance domain of India - Introduction of GST (Goods & Service Tax) from April 2011.

I'm not an expert in Finance domain & my knowledge of implications on process (invoicing / taxing) is less, but from the extent of debate / deliberation going on between state & central government it is going to be a major shakeout of existing procedures. Also, one of the first few Indirect Tax Codes that will have state & central government share of the tax amount.

Who are best suited to create a product that might help companies / finance auditors / government? - putting together a team with best of brains from Finance Industry (Chartered Accountants, specialized in Indirect Tax Codes) & IT Industry… can help brainstorm / conceptualize a solution that could be proposed as a solution to companies / auditors / government to enable GST transition.

Is this best suited for bigger IT companies or can start up participate? - there is definitely an advantage for big established product company to venture into this, because of government pre-conditions on existing revenues, strength of company etc (as part of any eGovernance Project bids), a startup can definitely participate indirectly through a big IT company (for government projects) or consider a pure retail play by building a next generation billing / invoicing software that provide GST compliance for the businesses.

I have been following GST thread for a while, looking out... if any IT startup, jumps into this - likely there are few startups into it already!

Good luck!

-Bhaskara

Banks & Khaayal Aap Ka?

2010-06-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, if a customer gets a good experience after visiting a service oriented shop / establishment - then there is a high probability it's a owner run shop, but in today's world of organized retail / chain of stores… you will mostly run into employees of the company & their attitude to offer a good service… seem to be less - is it because, it's hard to measure by their employers & employee care least about it?

In such scenario - ICICI Bank in India has taken a brave step to project as if their employees care, a whole lot more about their customers at the bank - is this too ambitious for becoming successful? It might look like, but it's a great move at setting higher standards in public eye & pushing / motivating their employees to reach the new high

My personal experience of visiting ICICI Bank… thrice over past 2 weeks, has been below par experience of my interactions with the bank associate at the counter. I wish them good luck to reaching up to levels projected in their "Khaayal Aap Ka" Advertisement campaigns.

Well educated & service industry employee needs to put smile & courteous approach towards their work, irrespective of the first impressions of reading the customer who walks in at the counter & their mood at the given moment.

-Bhaskara

Is your idea a parasite?

2010-05-17T01:27:00.000-07:00

As a startup (or person with an idea) with plans to build a New Product, need to evaluate if the developed product has to depend on some existing product or service for it to be made operational or succeed in the market. The degree of dependency should be well analyzed & right kind of partnerships or discussions with potential companies should be made… at every stage of new product development.

I'm using the word "parasite" here for the ideas that completely dependent on other service / product for their existence, for example - several ideas or applications dependent on Twitter , in open consumer or enterprise space. In the consumer world (like Twitter or Facebook), the eco-system nurtures other ideas to grow around them as it only makes them look even stronger & the parent will extend benefits to favorable ideas within the eco-system.

Let us debate the potential approach to tackle the "parasite" situation in enterprise space & dilemmas a startup would go through in reaching a decision:

Selection of the right company / product to keep as base to build the sample (use specifications) for your idea. Should this be based on personal interest of the founder among the marker players?
Right time to present the idea to the company - is it too early to explain at the stage of conceptualization, because of the likely chance of the company doing it in-house, after rejecting your partnership?
Seeking the advice of valuable advisors for your idea - seem to be first step, that would help in validating of the idea. Preferably a person who might be in non-exec position of the company or a retired individual. Also, an option is to seek help from critics or reviewers of the industry to signup as advisors?
Lastly, getting the required product specifications (before speaking with the company) to start research or build your product around it… is a tough challenge. One option, could be to make a key hire as founding member from the company to your startup?

I don’t have any right / wrong answers to these questions, throwing open to think out loud… as I find myself in such a situation, sometimes.

-Bhaskara

IPL3

2010-04-09T00:07:00.000-07:00

It's summer & it's IPL time… probably IPL is getting hotter than summer hotness in India, by the year. Several people have written about valuation of IPL as brand, money making machine, best timeslots for advertisement, way it's pulling even non-cricket lovers etc, - all these are true… I'm only going to talk about macro situation that helped IPL (as a business) & raise few questions.

I think few people may know, ICL by Subhash Chandra was the first to introduce the cricket league in India & ONLY reason he failed was because of "authority" from BCCI - warning any players joining ICL league to be dropped / not allowed into official India team to represent the country. This authority of BCCI, is the macro condition that helped IPL (as a business sense) to build a similar league… and snubbed ICL. Is BCCI a government body? NO, it's run as a trust with big money in coffers that attract the politicians & big names from heading the body. I have only seen one person from government questioning the way IPL is being held by BCCI… that's MS Gill, Sports Minister - stating the conflict of interest from internal BCCI folks, either owning / representing as IPL Franchisees & potentially manipulating the rules to their favor?

Don’t get the feeling that I hate IPL / being a sour grape… I'm happy India & BCCI has been innovative in creating such a great event… that directly & indirectly generated so many jobs, money flow apart from opportunity for the youngsters to play at such competitive levels. But, I'm only questioning… what has IPL given back to community of Cricket or Sports in general? Few ideas to suggest…

Upgrade the stadium facilities to state of the art, so people can really enjoy watch matches from stadium & not just double the ticket rates every year
Build new cricket stadiums in smaller towns - have we not seen lot of talent coming from smaller towns? With better infrastructure… we should see more talented players?
Shouldn’t BCCI nurture & support other sports along? - instead of just selling all the AD Revenue to commercial - can they spare few minutes to encourage other sports or events?
Can IPL associate with a noble cause? - AIDS Awareness, by sharing the implications of AIDS or sharing story of an affected person... before every match? I know it may not sound good to hear sad things... but we need such measures to curb growing AIDS in India

I have seen startup companies adopt philanthropy as part of company culture from start, that has helped them give something back to community as they grow & make space for themselves. For a business like IPL, in India… there are several such noble causes that IPL can associated with or the franchisee owners? If only, the authorities open their eyes.

IPL is great… I enjoy watching RCB matches, once in a while during weekends - have a great summer & enjoy!

Thanks
Bhaskara

Branding Reliance in retail space

2010-01-24T03:16:00.000-08:00

I have recently seen Reliance opening 2 of their stores in same building - next to each other, Reliance Digital Express & Reliance Fresh!

I know there are several companies (Ex: Sony) using single brand or name for multiple vertical / sectors & been successful, but this attempt (or you can say arrogance) by Reliance seem too difficult to accept, a not so purist brand observer like me...

Let's take a contrary example of Future Group, they own several brands in apparel, durables vertical (BigBazzar, eZone, HomeTown) & each one of them have been branded separately and have seem expressing WOW, when they are told that they all belong to a single parent company.

Approach taken by Reliance, tend to set higher expectation (if delivered by 1 of their retail unit) across multiple verticals of Reliance - that would put pressure for similar quality performance (irrespective of the margins from that vertical) but with approach taken by Future Group - they have the luxury of adjusting the frills, performance, quality of each vertical based on the margins they make.

Can we wait to see... Reliance withdrawing from these non-core business of theirs - some day!

-Bhaskara

teething problems...

2010-01-03T05:42:00.000-08:00

Every new product, profession or thing we start doing... would have teething problem? - is it because we are so used to working with old products or routine that make us think, there is something wrong with this new one?

What are the means to reduce this teething problem?
Try to have a trial or walk through of the product or service - by an experienced person or best thing, get a trial for few days.. so you can have both old & new for a while, before you jump into using the new product or service.

-Bhaskara

Is it lack of law & enforcement?

2009-11-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

Can the HUGE difference between developed & developing countries - be attributed to lack of law & enforcement? (apart from the other aspects of economy, population etc) - let’s take couple of examples find the differences & analyze if these could be solved with better law enforcement:

Town Planning -

Developed countries have a great town planning - that would ensure there is no compromise on width of the road, number of house in a street, standard dimension of plot / house

Isn't this a case of proper law & ENFORCEMENT (is more important than law) - as even in developed countries we establish some form of law / rules & regulations around town planning - but they are brutally abused because of lack of enforcement (more in detail later)

Traffic Control / Management -

Same as above - developed countries have much more organized movement of traffic, adherence to rules - if broken would mean serious consequences

Developing countries - have some laws, but the enforcement is poor or even the authorities break them (don’t set by example)

Enforcement - why are the developing countries weak in implementing the law to the word?
I could think of following reasons - some of them are because of financial constraints, but some are easy to avoid

Respect by law safe guards towards the law / rules & regulation is low - either they are not educated well enough about the law or they are aware & ignore it
Authorities have too many other things to handle - tend to compromise on the law enforcement
Lack of second level of review or check on enforcement authorities - should there be a second level of check on the enforcement authorities to make sure they are not being lenient on the law enforcement
Lack of funds to enforce - you need sufficient funds to enforce the law & they are short in many cases, could this be solved if government considers the cost of enforcement as part of an initiative, so sufficient funds are allocated?

Wish, we have younger generation specialize in government / constitution law & enforcements to help make it stronger & reduce the mediocrity in law & enforcements.

-Bhaskara

Challenges in B2B product launch...

2009-09-14T02:19:00.000-07:00

You think launching a new product or innovation in B2B space is easier? ready with a detailed industry gap analysis, found an opportunity & come up with a solution to fix the gap? It also sounds easier compare to B2C products, because there are less number of people to pitch your product, take to market, go live!

YET - B2B products are as harder to launch & be successful, I have tried to list a few... based on a recent research that we have done in B2B space:

Current Process - are you changing the existing process, that business are using currently? for them to adopt your product - if yes, think again... might have an uphill task in convincing the potential customers
Savings - is your pitch mainly on cost savings to the business? be sure that you have done a complete research & understand is the cost line item you are replacing is on the top 10 of the cost line items for the business
Payment Cycle - assume you will be a paid product for the businesses, you should be aware of the payment cycle of the businesses in the industry - helps to know what is the money needed for WIP & be ready for such a cash flow
Literacy of People - are the target users in business literate with the tools or technologies you are using or proposing? if no - then you might waste & break your head with people not willing to learn or use the tool
Industry - last, but an important one... is the industry you are targeting shown a sign of adoption or willingness to look at new products, open for change, backed with legal (formal or informal) compliance to ethical practices

I still think B2B market has better chances of succeeding on innovation, profitability & target revenue realization... rather than living in virtual money or valuations of B2C market (at least for the tech companies)

-Bhaskara

Target Users for Social Media Marketing

2009-09-05T03:52:00.002-07:00

Internet Users are the target for social media marketing; snapshot of 2009 online user metrics in India is as given in section below. Social Media Marketing is about finding the genre specific vertical or website that can provide the target users to position the product / service.

India Online User Metrics

47 million people online, regular users reaching 38.5 million
4 million users access internet on mobile phone
4 out or 5 online users are 19 - 35yrs
91% of regular online users - search or buy online
20% have bought online in past 1 year

are they mass or class users for your product?
Social Media users are your quality / class users that you want to reach & communication the message, it’s not yet a mass media in India – because of the much smaller user base on internet compare to TV, Radio etc., It can help you reach students in Bangalore, who are passionate about movies – a focused smaller set of people that have a higher chances of receiving the message & considering to purchase or recommend to other users.

how is the conversion ratio of aware consumers to purchase?

Traditional Media has a smaller conversion ratio in consumer consideration to purchase funnel, because the nature of advertising is mass, we need more impressions to reach the target awareness stage of the product & achieve the required recall rate. Social Media can provide a higher conversion ratio, if the right social media channel is chosen for communicating your product / service message. Also, it’s a shorter cycle of money spends – as the performance metrics of the campaign can be viewed on a daily / hourly basis & corrective actions can be taken quicker than traditional media.

Right selection of online channels to promote your product / service can yield good return on investment, social media marketing is an emerging trend / topic in advertising industry - that has gained a significant share of advertising in US Market... but in early stage of use (only limiting to technology related products / services) in India.

-Bhaskara

What is Social Media Marketing?

2009-08-17T00:47:00.000-07:00

This is the first in series of post about "Social Media Marketing" - we will cover the basic definition of social media marketing, how the media differs from the traditional media... that we are aware of & used extensively for marketing currently. In subsequent posts, we will understand the suitability of social media marketing for India market.

Wikipedia: “Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures.”

Marketing has been inside-out (one way) approach – to broadcast the product message to the consumer with & expect the user to listen, consider purchase of the product. Social Media Marketing is use of media that is capable of two way communication, engage consumer in a dialogue, hear their review comments, spread your product message among their network – along with increase in product sales, you would also get feedback from consumers.

Traditional Media

Television, Radio, Print are the traditional media, currently used for marketing the products / services, characteristically it adopts the “law of few” (scarce resource) that leads the products / services to fight for limited media available to broadcast their message, pricing. Demand to Price elasticity is driven by the quality of the program on the media.

Social Media

Internet & Mobile Phones are the two main constituents of Social Media and it differs in availability of scale, does not have the problem of few, less elastic demand curve compared to traditional media. Specific / narrow target user social media channel can be found or created to market the product, a new channel creation has lower entry barrier.

Bing is favorite rest of world... other than US?

2009-07-21T19:51:00.001-07:00

Is Bing catching up as "decision" sorry, the "search" engine of choice by people all over the world? Looks like yes as per this non-scientific poll by Time.

Interesting only US State that is in blue, for Bing is Iowa, all other states have a "leading" Google choice as favorite search engine.

Rest of the world's 81% liking for Bing, makes Bing the winner in this non-scientific post.

I Personally love Bing search - it gives me the results I need & in a structure format that makes me easier to navigate to the destination... not having to spend time wasting to look for my destination on the map (may we say the search results page on web is a map?)

The coolest thing that I like on Bing is the "new image" for every day... that keeps me informed about a remotest island that I never heard or some interesting facts of a place that I have lived in or visited.

I'm not a microsoft fan, but a supporter of innovation, new products, early adopter... I truly believe Google is suffocating as search engine & will be getting into catchup mode, if they don't change soon.

Wait... I thought people in US were early adopter's, but why are they stuck with Google, while rest of the world has embrace Bing?

-Bhaskara

AD theme in recession...

2009-07-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

US and probably most countries in the world is going through a tremendous change during these recession times, what used to be unique product based positioning & marketing... is moving towards advertising on "price" - price based competition is the one of the first consideration for advertisements, below are some examples of TV Ads...

Subway - $5.00 footlong sandwitches
Hyundai - Offering $1.49 /gallon gas for the entire year
KFC - $5.00 for chicken, side & drink
GM is becoming "green" from the traditional blue.. to give a new message
Chillis - $20.00 3 course menu for two people
Walmart - continues to give the message of everyday low prices

and every street has at least one store in NY, has one of the following boards...

going out of business
everything is 80% off
buy 1 get 1 free

How does the world of advertising change in these recession times?
First thing that happens in time of recession for advertising is cut in budgets & change of positioning & message for the product to something more valuable, less price, better over the competition etc,

How do you innovate in advertising your product?
It should be back to basics...

a. re-think the competition for the product, as because of new macro-economic conditions the marketplace might have changed, could be competing with a #6 company in the market

b. understand the new value of your product in the recession, new economic conditions might mean different to your consumers...

c. change your advertising strategy, start with a clean slate in the communicating the message to the consumers

the list can keep going to innovate, position and marketing of the product.

-Bhaskara

Adverisements claim that cannot be verified

2009-06-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Indian Advertisement industry seem to be taking quick & dirty approach towards gaining traction & improving sales... Horlicks used to keep "high standards" for their advertisements, but off late seem to have given up & taking an easy route by using some health reasons or facts (that cannot be verified) for advertising the product.

Regular Horlicks:
Horlicks runs this ad as showing in a school the kids were made in two groups & only one group was given Horlicks, while others regular milk... showing after 6 months, kids taking Horlicks were stronger, sharper & taller. This AD was accidentally telecasted in UK by Nepalese Channel & GSK got into legal tangle with UK government and had to ban the AD:

Youtube Video of Banned Horlicks Ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PzL0bIdFYg
News in UK Media - row over Horlicks Ad: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080646/Row-ad-Horlicks-makes-children-tall.html

Why can't the advertising council in India watch out for such ADs that don't make sense & ban them, instead of letting them use false promises to sell their product?

Womens Horlicks
Jan 2009:
Horlicks launched their Womens Horlicks with a nice advertisement, showing how women are busy at work & home taking care of others, forget to take care of themselves... I really loved this launch & I thought it was giving the right message - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWvolkt-FH4

June 2009 :
Horlicks has now launched a new AD for women horlicks that show, one in three women are suseptible to weak bone related joint pains or fracture & recommend them to drink Horlicks. How are the going to prove this point? Is it this easy to make claims about health that does not even require a research backing & detailed explaination... before ADs are approve?

ps: Sorry, could not find a video of this AD on web.

What is the bad in these ADs?
These brand are lacking a long term strategy, perspective & creating advertisements that is creating some form of scare or inferiority complex, if you don't use the product... it only helps people to bond with it, until the deficiency is covered & then people will move on.

Brands should rather consider giving the positive message about the product in the AD, encourage people to relate with the product to their real life.

-Bhaskara

Idea: Webmail, read receipt?

2009-06-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Has there been a time, you sent out a blast email to 100's of your friends or colleagues (mostly to their personal id's - webmail) & wondering, who all read the email?

It seems to be a simple solution that Y!, GMail, Hotmails of the world can implement, by using the same concept as GoogleAnalytics does to keep count of people who have visited a website. Let me describe this in detail below... (hope GMail developers read this & implement :))

1. Every Y! or GMail user should have an ability to enter their GoogleAnalytics (or similar tracking software) code, that should report their email read metrics

2. Email Compose - should have an option, "Do you want to know, if the receipient read the email?" - this option can be chosen by users, who need it

3. Y! or GMail - read email web page (that displays the email), should use the GoogleAnalytics solution, with the senders code

4. GoogleAnalyics - Javascript code will take care of sending the reader analytics, that can be later analysed by the sender on his Google Analytics account.

Good idea... do comment, if you think was a stimulating thought!

-Bhaskara

Data Provider Partners...

2009-05-26T07:01:00.001-07:00

If you are building a new software product, say "changing" the way a certain industry works from being manual to be automated, one of the biggest challenges is to show the value in the product to prospective buyers. It's a chicken & egg problem - "no proven data, hence no customers - no customers, hence no data"

I have been thinking about this & found one possible approach to solve this... read along & give me your comments.

Design / Architect the product using as much possible inputs from the industry experts, do user interviews, work in the domain for a while (if you don't have exposure) etc
Build a prototype to show, while speaking to the industry veterans, it helps in sharing the idea / concept much easily - than just speaking about it
Customers may not signup, because of lack of confidence right? Try to engage them as "data provider" partner, collect all their current manual data & upload into your system
Anonymise (remove the company name, demographics etc) the data - as much possible and use this as base to run through various business flows, make sure the software is working as expected
Also - use the data collected (anonymous) as suggestions or boundary conditions data to new or trial customers (whom you have been finally able to convince to come onboard) - they would be happy to see, that system is providing some guidance!

It's not the complete solution, but a possible approach that can be useful for enterprise products.

Thanks
Bhaskara

Open Office, is a good alternative!

2009-05-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

After using Microsoft Office products for the past 10yrs, I recently started using "Open Office" products in my personal laptop... it's been impressive, able to do pretty much most of the document creation, editing in open office as I have on MS Office.

It provides compatability with MS Office documents & seem an easy transition path, options & toolbars available is different, less in OO - but it's only a matter of time you would get used to it.

It breaks your rhythm from doing the same thing over in MS Office, go ahead & give a try to OO...

-Bhaskara

Next is what? for DVR, TiVo or PVR (as called in India)

2009-05-10T22:35:00.000-07:00

I love the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) from TataSky+, television viewing experience has changed & hardly watch any movie or programs with commercials... PVR them & watch it later, still waiting for an unlimited storage or external harddisk facility. But... apart from more storage, what could be next in this space?

PVR a favorite program, share it with other friends or families - digitally connect different PVR's & ability to browse the recorded programs & play back?

Watch a favorite program together with friends? - Invite other members, whom you think would like to watch the program, invite them to see with you - watch together, even if you are miles away?

Create your own video & share to your grandmother or relative far away? - extend the same recorded sharing experience to sharing user created videos, to far away relatives, friends... broadcast those cherished memories of your family with your loved ones!

As Samsung say's it... "Next is what?"

-Bhaskara

Idea : Recycling Plastic Bag

2009-04-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

Thinking green in the week of "World Earth Day"

We all use plastic bags - from grocery, apparel, utility store etc... but very few of us recycle them in India. Only way a plastic bag is probably recycled now is through some separation of plastic bags that are thrown into the waste & % of this recycle is very low.

Here is an idea to improve this situation in India, at least to start with metro regions...

Make recycle quality plastic bags, that can be branded to the retails needs (Spencer, Foodworld etc)
Print a text on the bag, if the user "returns" these cover back into a designated collection points - he would get around INR 25p or 50p (depending on value of recycling)
Put up collection points, that would have "recycle bins" at the retail outlets or tie-up with city corporation & setup at Post Offices or government buildings
We will need smart machines that can accept "clean" - recycle quality covers, count them & dispense money back for the user

this seems a noble way of giving something back to the environment... looking forward for people in this domain of plastic bags, recycle experts to validate this & take it forward.

-Bhaskara

Now, this is called "after sales support"...

2009-04-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

I ride an electric bike "Yo Speed" from Electrotherm (http://yobykes.in/) for the past 11 months, I have been happy with the purchase decision & love the bike... doing my bit to save the environment. First week of April, I got a call from the dealer saying... "sir, we have a free service & could you leave your vehicle for service" - I thought it was a routine free service they give within the first year, but was surprised with the free service that was done to my bike... they had replaced some of the vehicle parts with new one...

front fork
front wheel rim
brake pads
stand for the bike

these parts are at least worth INR 2000.00 or above, for a bike that I purchased for INR 36K, this is a pretty good "after sales" to upgrade the old bikes with new parts... really impressed with this company. We have several other companies in India that don't even come to 10% of this level of "after sales" service... which is a sad story, companies need to understand a "happy customer" means they have a higher NPR score! and higher chances of free advertising by the users of the product.

-Bhaskara

Innovation, G20, Entrepreneurship...

2009-04-07T23:28:00.000-07:00

I'm back after a long silence, to share few web resources that I think would be a good read:

1. Interesting model for "Engaging Individuals in Idea Management" (new product development) - "The ORCHID Model" - Observer, Ringmaster, Creator, Helper, Inquisitor, Doer - http://www.imaginatik.com/site/pdfs/Imaginatik%20WP-0503-1%20The%20ORCHID%20Model.pdf - this white paper explains the individual styles of the people & how to build the teams for creating successful products.

2. Interesting blog resource from the CEO of Imaginatik, some of his posts are thought provoking - http://markturrell.wordpress.com/ - read the posts on "Enterprise Crowdsourcing", "Stepping Up" - he basically writes in the space of innovation

3. About current state of the Economy, ET Columnist MK Venu's - has written some great articles over the past few weeks, links to some of them are below:

a) G20 & Epidemic of over production - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/MK-Venu-G-20-and-Overproduction/articleshow/4368049.cms
b) Innovative Ideas required to spur economy - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/MK-Venu-Innovation-must-to-spur-eco/articleshow/4273779.cms

4. Crash Course on Economy & current state by Chris Martenson - http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-1-three-beliefs

Hope you find these resources useful... do reply back with your thoughts to me.

Thanks
Bhaskara

Being Innovative...

2009-02-06T00:07:00.000-08:00

While thinking on topic for this post, innovation was the first thing that came to me... here goes my thought process for possible steps to be an innovative company in building products or services!

Research...
Spending good amount of time with people or institutes that do research could be one channel to give food for the brain to get out of the mundane, regular things & look outside the daily life. Is this easy to get hold of people in research to partner with them? No - but sufficient study or preparation and then approaching them to help with their research is a good way to go. Pick the area of interest - it could be anywhere from psychology to high technology, identify the top researchers or organization, make your top 3 or 5 people from that list to approach... then write or meet them with your offer to help or extension.

Patents...
There are several patents that have scope for minor modifications or enhancements & register them as a new patent or build products around them, again the starting point is same - know your area of interest, start digging all the registered patents in this domain (now Google has patent search service - http://www.google.com/patents) - study, understand, talk to the vendors or manufacturers of the products around the patent (there could be some that are not commercialized also) .... then build an add-on or modification to this patent. Enhanced version of proposed patent, could be registered again as patent to ensure that you are not authorized for this enhancement & would not face any legal issues. Now you have a good patent backed product to build, that can hopefully give you competitive advantage for a while or an entry into the market.

Imitative...
Imitative products or services is the top route taken by new ventures to enter into the market, some idea - that has succeeded in west, may not work in east - but people do not even look at their market or research before jumping in. In my opinion the success percentage for new ventures is less than 25% in imitative products or services & this seems like a reasonable percentage to give a try... backed with good amount of market research study & analysis. Again in this path - first consider the option of tie-up with original company or group that you are imitating from, if you think there can be a win-win for both the parties.

Think BIG & don't settle for just another idea or product... if you build a company, it should make a difference to the employees, community & people involved!

-Bhaskara

Idea : Creating commercial free radio channel...

2009-01-29T04:26:00.000-08:00

Are you music lover & hate commercials on the radio channel? then... read on, have an idea to build a product to solve this!

Solution:
Add-on channel on radio, that would buffer songs / music from all other channels & deliver a commercial free music, with ability to use "next", if you do not like a particular song!

What we will need?

Multi-Channel Tuner component
In-memory buffer to store last 10mins of music from each channel
Music analyzer that can differentiate between commercial & music / song
Pick next random song / music, after the current song completes

Process / Implementation
Using the multi-channel tuner component, tune into all available radio frequency music channels in the region & buffer the streaming music from each of the channel for a duration of at least 10minutes. Build a music analyzer component that can differentiate between commercials & actual song / music, this would be a core logic on the backend.

User tunes into this new commercial free channel, then we pick one of the random channels content, pass it through analyzer & skip to the beginning of the song... if a commercial break comes after this song, then we repeat the process & pick any other random channel for the song... you might have guessed by now, it would be live FM transmission played by this channel, but delayed by 5 or 10mins, which is ok... we don't really listen to LIVE music on Radio!

Next Steps?
Several next steps... to make this idea into reality... below are some of the top few, if you are interested in this - drop in your comments or send me an email!

Review, if this is better to be done as complete software on backend & broadcast another commercial free channel on FM? or create a custom physical add-on that can be attached to any radio?
Research about any other similar real FM mash-ups like this already?
Legal angle / issues with this? would FM channels object for content being buffered & re-broadcasted? they really don't own the content... should be fine?

-Bhaskara

Book Review : Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish...

2009-01-19T01:52:00.000-08:00

Inspiring book - "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish", it's a book that covers the story of 25 IIMA grads who took the entrepreneurial path for building some of the big companies in India, stories are pretty inspiring & wakes up the entrepreneurial spirit in you... if it's sleeping :)

Check the book website @ http://www.stayhungrybook.com/

-Bhaskara

Crunchies 2008 Winners...

2009-01-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

Crunchies 2008 has some interesting winners for this year... like Microsoft making into the list, competition in mobile apps has been strong...

1. Best Application or Service - Google Reader - http://www.google.com/reader/view/
2. Best Technology Innovation/Achievement - Windows Live Mesh - https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/default.aspx
3. Best Design - Cooliris - http://www.cooliris.com/
4. Best Bootstrapped Startup - GitHub - http://github.com/
5. Best Enterprise Startup - Amazon Web Services - http://aws.amazon.com/
6. Best International Startup - eBuddy - http://www.ebuddy.com/
7. Best Clean Tech Startup - Project Frog - http://www.projectfrog.com/
8. Best Gadget - iPhone 3G - http://www.apple.com/iphone/
9. Best Mobile Startup - Evernote - http://www.evernote.com/
10. Best Mobile Application - imeem mobile - http://www.imeem.com/
11. Best New Startup of 2008 - Friendfeed - http://friendfeed.com/
12. Best Overall Startup - Facebook - http://www.facebook.com

Read more on Crunchies site @ http://crunchies2008.techcrunch.com/

Few questions to think / ponder about:
1. What are the learning's to take from these startup's that have won the award? is it their business model? team? funding? - behind their success...
2. How many years will social networks dominate? Facebook is the winner for second consecutive year & FriendFeed being the new startup
3. Is Google Android giving any serious competition to iPhone? will they be able to get the required adoption by mobile manufacturers?
4. Can Windows 7 introduce any new products for startup category next year?
5. Looks like India based startup's did not even make into final nominees, are we being innovative enough?

-Bhaskara

Bangalore Entrepreneurs Meetup

2008-12-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

Interested in meetup on Entrepreneurial discussions in Bangalore? Look no further than "Bangalore Entrepreneurs Meetup" - we meet every month for an hour of group discussions on various topics on Entrepreneurial topics.

Go ahead & sign-up yourself @ http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/925/

-Bhaskara

Comparing physical & online shopping experience...

2008-12-19T20:40:00.000-08:00

Can we learn something by comparing the behavior of people in a physical brick & mortar store with their online behavior, what are the things we can compare ?

Shopping Cart - number of items a person puts in a basket, removing them off before buying, items they remove at the billing counter
Duration - amount of time a user spends his / her time in the store & online?
Footprint vs Site usage - number of user entering the store vs visiting the site online

Trends between online & offline can be compared, we can use this comparison in various means - one of main usage could be to make usability improvements on the site to ensure online conversion is higher.

-Bhaskara

Research Paper : Performance Persistance in Entrepreneurship

2008-12-10T23:17:00.000-08:00

Found this interesting research paper from Harvard, read in detail... when you have time!
URL: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-028.pdf

-Bhaskara

Future of iPhone Apps

2008-12-10T23:07:00.000-08:00

Currently the iPhone apps are standalone, which means a FaceBook or Google app or a video recorder (on Jailbreak phone) work in silos - they cannot latch onto some other application or features of the phone as an add-on.

Imagine...

How nice to have an iPhone app that would see the last number you dialed & suggests you to save into your contacts, if that does not exists already.
Adding MMS capability to SMS, sadly Apple has still not launched it

Time to think ahead!

-Bhaskara

Idea : reducing traffic offenders in Bangalore

2008-11-29T01:32:00.000-08:00

People breaking red lights or going in opposite directions in one-ways is higher in Bangalore these days & our city also seem to take top spot as "worse" traffic managed in Asia now... can we build some products to help our traffic department manage it better / efficiently?

One of the idea that came to me was... build a small camera gun that is wireless enabled & can take picture on pointed vehicles, upload the date / time & photo of the offender to the central server, one such device given to all traffic constables... could help catch the people red-hand while breaking the rules.

Idea... requires a combination of physical device & software, I'm ready to conceptualize further, if anybody else interested to team up!

Share your thoughts on this...

-Bhaskara

How to step on the Accelerator of New Product Development?

2008-11-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

I found this very interesting research article that provides tips on how new product development can be done with time to market in mind... following aspects has been researched in this article:

Experience of the developers
Physical proximity of the team members
Dedication of the team members
Role of Senior Management

Read the full research article @ Wharton site

-Bhaskara

Is new product innovation recession proof?

2008-11-10T09:26:00.000-08:00

Probably most written topic, after hearing so much of negative / bad news on paper in recent few weeks... its my turn to put this on the blog.

No, it is not - recession is going to hit the innovation to certain extent, the probability of raising big money for extensive research & development will be tough in this market...new companies would have to manage with frugal funding on engineering & research, hard to think innovative - on limited budget, will be forced to cut corners or make quick decisions.

Who will success in such recession market?
People / companies who build in-house or partnerships for research based on long term innovation strategy, obviously people would have to work at less / no pay for months to build the product & hope to succeed when market bounces back, then comes the pay day!

Good luck in sailing through tough times.

-Bhaskara

What is lacking in G1 phone by T-Mobile?

2008-11-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

One of my colleague recently got the G1 Phone in India, much anticipated first Android phone in the market, in my opinion it lacks following as compare to iPhone:

1. Overall packing of the phone - physical look & feel, UI look & feel - it seem to enter in as just another phone & only special from technical perspective that it's the first phone using Android OS

2. Lacks features that are unique to the phone, like iPhone's resizing by 2 fingers etc

3. Mixed branding - phone seem to have too many company name on it, HTC, T-Mobile & Google, this would be sending confusing message to the users

4. iPhone ends up having upper hand for better packing & putting the product features in front / over the back-end technology.

I would keep iPhone above G1, not because I own one...

-Bhaskara

Can Product vision be co-created along with stake holders?

2008-09-18T02:37:00.001-07:00

Yes, that would be ideal - a group is likely to provide better framing of the product vision / mission than an individual. It's a challenge to come-up with a vision statement for the product & as a group who are closely involved in the product, as stakeholders - investors, founders, sample set of consumers. Vision is essential something that the product should achieve & something that should make sense to the end users, in this regard framing this along with stakeholders seem to be good approach.

-Bhaskara

Why is it hard to create success on consumer based products?

2008-09-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

It seems easy & quick to get an idea on the consumer facing web products, but it is tough to monetize & make it successful, below are some of my thoughts:

1. How do you attract the user to your site & retain them?
2. Create repeat visitors & keep them on your site?
3. Generate page views in 100s of thousands or millions
4. Invite user to join the network, away from their current networks?
5. Ability to have unique value proposition to the product is a challenge

-Bhaskara

BarCamp Bangalore #7 - is being planned...

2008-07-29T02:07:00.000-07:00

I'm back after a long break on my blog, vacation & work has kept me busy... wanted to begin with an announcement that BarCamp Bangalore - edition #7 is being planned currently & the tentative dates for the event at Aug 23 & 24th, for more checkout BCB site @ http://barcampbangalore.org/wiki/Main_Page

- Bhaskara

iPhone - creating client app kind of UI for safari browser (web)

2008-05-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

On my exploration to build client application for iPhone, I started looking into the internal API's of iPhone SDK, at least seem to be lot more learning on Objective-C, Cocoa, iUI etc before I could make a dent into writting my first iPhone client application... but found a short cut / alternative approach for building iPhone client application look & feel on safari - WebApp.net, I would like to use this post to provide some quick tips on using WebApp.net.

WebApp.net / WAn - is simple collection of CSS, JS elements that help create iPhone client kind of look & feel application on the safari browser:

Simple & easy steps to create your app looking like a iPhone app on the safari
Use of div & CSS to make the HTML elements similar to iPhone client app controls - like textbox, radio option, list etc
Use a single HTML or page - for all the sub-pages of the web application, so that it loads fast & does not have any delay in loading subsequent pages
Sample works well on Firefox browser for testing on desktop before testing on iPhone

That's it - for now on iPhone exploration, hope to write more frequent on iPhone application building ASAP.

-Bhaskara

Innovation - transformations in new age?

2008-05-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

I will write a detailed book review in later post, but this is only quick summary of new book from "CK Prahalad" - "the new age of innovation"... amazing book that is backed with 3+ yrs of research by CK Prahalad, his books are a treat to read & flow of the book is excellent... I finished 30% of the book in one read tonight, will be finishing it in one or 2 more sittings.

Book is about 2 new concepts "N = 1" & "R = G" - a new theory for competition & innovation that companies should perform in the new age:

N=1 - concentrate on 1 customer at a time & look at how services or offering can be customized to meet each customer need, co-create the value with each customer

R=G - Companies will have to face the resources being global & build the process, operations to handle these global resources

It is a must read book, get your copy today! for more on this book visit - http://www.newageofinnovation.com

-Bhaskara

Being Entrepreneur @ Employed Job?

2008-05-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

Do you have to start your own enterprise to be an "Entrepreneur"? Answer is a NO - being & displaying the entrepreneur is all abut the attitude, which can very well be demonstrated even being on an employed job... do you think it would be any good - if everyone of us started an enterprise, then who would be your customers or employees?

Few attitudes in my opinion that are important to demonstrate your entrepreneur skills on your employed job are:

Ownership & Accountability - Important attitude for an entrepreneur, is to demonstrate the ownership & accountability, if you start a new enterprise you will be owner for everything - but when you are employed - you need to ensure that you take complete ownership for the functions or projects that you head, in other words you be the CEO for your group. You do not have to start a new enterprise to become a CEO, you are the one - for the group that you head... just go beyond the basic day-to-day duties & assume the role of a CEO

Lead without Title - Interesting concept that I read in Robin Sharma's "The Greatness Guide" - basically it means, you do not have or need to have a title to take actions or lead or make decisions - as long as the acts or decisions are within company policy limits & you are making an impact on the end customer. Ex: you have a customer requesting for something urgently to be done - go ahead & make a decision to put the required resource & get it done, if you are unable to get the required approval from your boss in-time, what is important that you touched a customer, made him happy & meet his expectations.

Execution & Completion - Important aspect to any assignment or job that you own, need to ensure that you are providing more than 200% to the job, perfecting on your execution everytime, ensure that items taken-up see the end of the tunnel & do not get killed or dropped in-between. Very powerful & essential aspect, to learn before you eventually start a new enterprise - so take your working job as a ground to horn or build your skills

Making an impact to end customer - touching the customer & creating value to end customer is important, "customer is boss" (interesting chapter on this in Don's - Wal-Mart Way) - you should demonstrate your entrepreneurial skills by ensuring that you think "how" & "what" act of yours will keep the customer satisfied & go in that direction - do not take the route of... "I have finished what customer initially asked for" - I don't care if that does not help him anymore.

Awareness of impact on your acts on company performance -
above all... in any acts or actions that you take, it is very important that you are operating within the limits of boundaries that company has established, ensure the required targets or margins are maintained in any actions that you take, there is no value - if you keep a customer satisfied at the cost of affecting company revenues for a long time

Master the above list... then you are good to head on to start your enterprise, while on a working job, use the time & resources available to make maximum use of the same!

Thanks
Bhaskara

iPhone SDK vs Android

2008-05-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

This is a short post, talking about initial set of differences that I have observed so far, I will probably present this in a matrix format in my subsequent post - but here is a quick one:

Language - Objective-C vs Java
iPhone SDK requires you to be a pro on Objective-C language, the custom language Mac OSX developers are traditionally used to, as against Java based language for Android - this difference may lead an abundance of users available for Android programming as again lesser percentage of people for iPhone SDK

Device - to play with vs only emulators
iPhone developers have the advantage of creating the app, running it on their iPhone for testing it & playing around with the app as against Android programmers will have to wait for a while before the 1st handset with Android is released

Compilers - Apple vs Multiple
Apple will be the sole compiler for iPhone SDK, which may avoid any confusions around versions or flavors of the SDK, hope Android also remains like that & not become like C Compilers that got created back in C days & developer had to worry about compiler internals for his programs

Dev Environment - Mac vs Anything
iPhone SDK is only available for Mac & not for windows or Linux, this in my knowledge is a strategy used by Apple to increase Mac penetration into enterprise domains, forcing CIO's to purchase Mac's for development purposes. Android as against iPhone SDK is java based & can be built on any platforms

-Bhaskara

How consumer based products become an instant success?

2008-05-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

All products start small, humble, with minimal traffic on their sites... facebook, myspace, linkedin - all started with few hundreds, thousands of users before it became millions - in this post, I wanted to share how typical growth trend looks to be for a consumer product.

Usually the traffic jumps in multitudes of 100x, for example - if this week traffic was 100 unique visitors, it could easily become 10,000 unique visitors next week or in next month... it is very important for the product to be ready for this sudden jump in traffic, you will not have time to go down, bring down the site, redo the web front or backend to handle the new found traffic - the winner is who... expects this sudden jump in traffic & just waiting for that to come, if you take the route of... "let the traffic come, then I will solve my scalability problem" - then you may be too late - as the users who may see your site slow or unresponsive because of heavy traffic - will never come back & it will start spreading negative word about your site & chances of getting such a traffic again will be hard or impossible.

Lesson... if you think the site is for millions of users & you want it to be scalable, build it that way - there is nothing like, I will build it to handle current load, will solve the scalability problem later.

-Bhaskara

Top 10 things for product manager to build the product right!

2008-04-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Below is my take on top 10 things a product manager should consider as part of product development -

Understanding Market Competition & Needs: #1 thing for a product manager is to ensure that he understands the market space for the product, aware of the competition in the space to ensure that product features planned are couple of notches above than current players
Road Map: Needs to have a clear Road Map for the product, if he is not sure - then should request a priority list from the entrepreneur or top guys & create the feature road map
Product Specifications: Specs, specs... high level specs for each feature needs to be put in-place & where ever needed detailed set of use cases should be created
Release Milestones: Product manager should work closely with engineering or dev manager to get a clear understanding of release milestones & ensure they meet the business needs
Co-ordinating with other groups: Ensure all stake holders of the product, like end users, administrators, marketing etc are communicated & they are preparing the integration points
Domain Expertise: If the product manager himself is not a domain expert, then he / she needs to ensure that required domain expertise is acquired or hiring is done for having an in-house domain expert
Check-points: Product manager needs to have a constant check point with the dev manager to ensure that planned milestones are going to be hit (or slipped) & perform appropriate communication to other parties who are involved
Integration API: Products in current generation mostly co-exist (or start like that) with some existing products to piggy back on the user base for the jump-start, product manager needs to understand the complimentary / associated products that could be used along with this product & look for integration points
Consider focus group testing: One of the essential aspects to the success of the product is to ensure that end users "understand" & "get" how to use the product, it would be a great thing to perform one round of focus group testing before the "beta" launch of the product to get the quick user feedback & address them
Avoid being greedy on features: Product Mangers should resist being greedy on adding features to the product, limit them based to meet the business needs & avoid going overboard & trying to add everything in first milestone or development iteration

Let me know your opinion.

Thanks
Bhaskara

iPhone user in India since Jan 08...

2008-04-24T01:47:00.000-07:00

I have been an iPhone user in India on Airtel network for the past 3 months & I wanted to share my views on how iPhone has been & what I love the most:

iPhone has been a huge upgrade for me, being a Nokia 2100 phone user
Love the Email, Camera & Calendar features on iPhone
Amazing interface & not found any usability issues in the product

Looking forward for the iPhone 2.0 - that would provide active sync with MS Exchange!

iPhone definitely is a great product in the cell phone space, waiting to see what cool features will come out from Android platform in order to compete with iPhone.

This post is the first in series of iPhone, I will be writing further posts on comparison of iPhone SDK & Android... currently experimenting them!

-Bhaskara

Experience from my first BarCamp session

2008-04-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Apr 19th - BCB6 was my first BarCamp Session - I did not go with lot of expectations, but with inquisitiveness of how the event is organized by the community - overall I think it was a great organization by the community / leads of BCB chapter folks... kudos to the team!

From CoreObjects we visited BCB6 with an intention to do 1 presentation, but we did 2 sessions (second being impromptu), I will share my experience on how these 2 sessions went -

Session #1 : Challenges in building technology products
This session was presented by my colleague Rajesh Sheshadri, his was the first session for the day in "Startups & Demo" category - the main idea for this presentation was to stress on how a vision to build a product can get very obsessive from a technology perspective & lead to delays or wastage of efforts... Rajesh started off well with an intro about the session explaining the evolution of the product over the past 2yrs. He faced some challenges while presenting this session, few folks in audience started questioning the core need for such a product & why or how it would be successful - which was not really the point Rajesh was trying to drive... I think if the audience were little mature to allow speaker to stick to his topic & speak about it, would have been great!

Session #2 : RIA Story - Building RIA using OpenLaszlo
I should thank Mrinal & Panduranga for squeezing this session on OpenLaszlo in between their series of sessions on RIA. I met Mrinal during lunch time, introduced myself as a person with OpenLaszlo experience - he requested me to share my experience of working with OpenLaszlo. My session was a quick 20mins one, below are the highlights of how RIA sessions went -

Parts of discussion started looking a marketing pitch for the technology, which could have been avoided
Constant comparison of RIA with HTML was not required - which was also rightly raised by a gentlemen in the group
Flex, Silverlight - lacked demonstration of real time application, if they could have demonstrated live full fledged RIA products - it would have been great
Some of the members in the audience were in a pre-conceived notion about Flash - like existence of Flash player is taken for granted - we should have spent some time talking about can every & any kind of product need RIA?

Overall... I enjoyed my 1 day visit to BCB6 - I do intend to visit again on their next edition!

Thanks
Bhaskara

RIA - what are the side effects, that are usually ignored?

2008-04-14T03:09:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to make the interface rich, different, colorful & cool from UI perspective - usually following issues are faced by RIA products:

Initially loading time of the product is too high, that tends to drive away the potential users from using the product
Memory footprint of the application increases over a period of time as end users are on the product, this tends to make the application heavy & less responsive
In an attempt to build the web interface that consumes a generic web service or API response data XML, that is built to return global or data more that what is needed... this heavy weight returned data tends to slow down the UI
Lack of eye for detail by developers tends to make compromise on the look & feel or style guides of the product - this should be avoided & the scope for deviation from original guidelines

See you at BCB6 Event to interact & discuss more on this topic.

-Bhaskara

BarCamp Bangalore 6

2008-04-14T02:58:00.000-07:00

6th of BarCamp Bangalore is happening at IIM Bangalore, lots of interesting sessions being planned for this edition - checkout the sessions page

I'm a co-presenter for a session at BCB6 titled - Maturity of RIA Technologies for commercially deployable products : A Case Study

My next few posts will be around this subject area to be an evangelist of RIA technologies & adoption for creating commercial products.

-Bhaskara

I don't want to sign NDA...

2008-04-07T09:52:00.001-07:00

I don't want to sign NDA, I generally only do NDA after I hear & interested in your idea

When was the last time you have heard this from a prospective investor or partner that you are looking for your venture?
I'm sure many times, doesn't that sounds stupid & meaningless to sign the NDA after you have heard the idea / story & value proposition of a product? why can't people (who think they are smart) understand that NDA is required to start disclosing the information from an entrepreneur's head.

In my opinion above attitude of possible investors or partners is leading to following -

Entrepreneurs stops looking out for help & tries to build it himself
Idea tends to remain in entrepreneurs head - as there is nobody to listen / help & take it forward
Entrepreneur rather thinks keeping it to myself is better than leaking it & others benefitting from it

What should entrepreneurs do in such a situation?

Look for the credibility of the person you were planning to share the idea - try to provide teaser info about your product idea, do not share any digital documents - only provide high level overview & if interest is generated... then proceed with NDA & sharing of critical documents
Don't waste the idea by keeping it in your head... if the options are less for partnership, go ahead & share the idea... go for it - entrepreneurship is all about taking the risks

-Bhaskara

Imitative Innovation...

2008-04-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

IT boom in India till recent few years back was only limited to outsourcing & service offering by firms or individuals in India... recent couple of years we have seen several products being built in India that are imitating the products from US market, which is ok & good - nothing bad about it, but when we imitate need to keep following in mind:

Is the product that we are bringing into India, suit our culture & needs of people?
Is India market ready for such a up-scale product?
Customization of the concept / idea to Indian market needs to happen & not just simply copying over

Few examples of imitative products are in the space of - job, shopping, comparative shopping portals & social apps like social shopping, social networking.

-Bhaskara

Creating entrepreneurs at college!

2008-04-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

I recently bought this book "Billions of Entrepreneurs - India & China" by Tarun Khanna (may be I would not have bought - If I had seen the size of the book), still not read completly... not sure what I'm posting here has been mentioned in the book or not, but this idea of creating entrepreneurs at college level & nurturing them to be innovative & build companies... has been in my thoughts for sometime, never executed on it.

Why start at college?
Penetration of IT & ITES jobs in India has become so much that students who would not have still finished their studies would have 1 or more jobs in hand, I think this trend of early job offers for students in college could be curtailing the innovation that could have been created by some of the brightest minds

What can we do?
Build a network of colleges & collect the top 50 students from each of the college - these 50 students from each college (say even if we manage 5 best colleges) could form a group of 200 or 250 smart kids... these bright kids from across colleges could be trained on innovation / self thinking, we could ignite a thought in them for one day in becoming an entrpreneur?

Isn't above idea something good & physical than simply duplicating posts in our blog? :)

Interested, contact me... we will form the network & build this next generation "entrepreneur kids"!

-Bhaskara

Why new software products fail?

2008-04-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

We have seen several new software products fail & in my opinion below are some of the major reasons for failure -

1. Failure to perform a reality check - Every entrepreneur who comes up with a product feels that his idea is the next big thing to happen & dreams of all possible cash flow / financial projections & is so excited - does not look down to see the earth... jumps into going ahead building the product. Limited opinions are taken from other people in the industry or who are currently in the market space, such entrepreneurs are so passionate & secretive about their product idea - they do not disclose the details for guidance or mentoring from veterans.
2. Market is not ready for the product - this is a case of product is & is trying to solve a real problem in the industry / market space, but the product is little early for the market & consumers are not ready for this kind of a product. Some of the products in this category could be changed for current needs by simplifying few things in the product or limiting the number of features in the product.
3. Market Space is crowded - this is "me too" category, entrepreneurs forget to analyze the current players, they also underestimate existing players features / ability & thinks version of the product (solving a problem) is better, efficient & unique. Products in this category are like mushrooms keeps growing & the single big motivation for a entrepreneur in building these products is the sight of his company being acquired some day by a big player in that market space.
4. Idea is great, but product is not usable - Quite a few of the new products fall into this category, products in this section manage to innovate & avoid above 3 categories - but when they build the product they seem to take lot of serveral shortcuts, compromise on the usability / UI of the product, tend to concentrate too much on the product launch date or internal core algorithm of the product - but fail to realise the end usage of the product is the usability / ease of use for the product

Are our entrepreneurs being devils advocate to see above possible issues that may come-up & be ready to build great products?

Thanks
Bhaskara

Collaborative Commercial Ideas

2008-04-05T05:56:00.000-07:00

We have seen successful products built in the open source model, if we can categories, the open source products into 2 major buckets:

1. Free Open Source - products that are built by community & offered for free usage by the members & there is not really any $ profit considered by the developers of the community. These open source products fall into various categories - development tools & technologies - example: Hibernate, tools & utilities - example: RealVNC. Overall this section of the open source products are not built for making money

2. Open Source, but commercial business model around it - products in this section are started as open source, the code & product is built using the community help or built by few smart guys & make it open for the community (this case is more), these kind of products are made open source help in fixing bugs & to get the backing of community. Commercial aspect of the product will be achieved by one of the means - add-on feature, technical support etc. Jboss is a very good example in this category, that was so popular as open source / commercial mix - it was acquired by Redhat group for $$

What I'm proposing is a concept to use the power of open source / collaboration & ability to build an idea into a successful fully commercial product, below are the aspects involved -

Group / Community is created for discussion of ideas in selected space or domain
Community is closed network not really open - but folks in this community are invited or join with an intention to collaborate on an idea
Community is bound to NDA conditions & not allowed to take away the idea to build separately
Idea is hardened or collaborated by the people in the community
Required PoC's & initial demo's for the product are built by the group
Commercial grade software is built with the help of each & member in the group

Result... each member of the community will hold equal share / equity in the new product that is being built, each member takes on different roles / ownership to take the idea forward. Used the power of community & collaboration in building a commercial grade product, which could help members in the community to retire from their full-time jobs!

Sounds... interesting, we should explore this!

Thanks
Bhaskara

Rich Internet Applications - an overview (White Paper)

2006-09-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. RIA's typically transfer the processing necessary for the user interface to the web client but keep the bulk of the data (i.e maintaining the state of the program, the data etc) back on the application server.

Typically RIA's:
Run in a web browser, or do not require software installation
Run locally in a secure environment called a sandbox

RIA can be light weight on client side, if built using javascript based technology & could be heavy weight (require client side software), if it uses Java or ActiveX control to deliver the rich UI.

If you are interested in a white paper that compares different technologies & software involved in building RIA, contact me at bhas4@yahoo.com for a copy of the white paper.

Executive Education in Management

2006-03-19T23:39:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for executive education in Bangalore?

IIMB is the best place for executive, check it out at www.iimb.ernet.in. Checkout the "Executive Programs" menu.

For IT people, I would suggest -
1. Managing People in Software Projects
2. Strategic Leadership Workshop for IT Companies

General Management -
EGMP - Executive General Management Program

Portal Server & Portlet

2005-11-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

What is portal server?

Aggregates the content for a page from different modules & renders
Provides options to personalize the content viewed on a page
User can also change the layout, look & feel that suits him the best

When is it good to go for portal servers?

When you have several modules on your web page
Each module can be deployed as a portlet & provide option for the user to pick & choose the required portlets

Available open source portal servers

Pluto
http://portals.apache.org/pluto - Pluto is the Reference Implementation of the Java Portlet Specification. The current version of this Portlet specification is JSR 168 1.0 Portlets are designed to run in the context of a portal. They are written to the Portlet API. Pluto implements the contract, the Portlet API, between portlets and portals. Pluto is a portlet container

Jboss Portal Server
http://www.jboss.com/products/jbossportal - JBoss Portal provides an open source platform for hosting and serving a portal's Web interface, publishing and managing its content, and customizing its experience. While most packaged Portal frameworks help enterprises launch Portals more quickly, only JBoss Portal delivers the benefits of a zero-cost open source license combined with a flexible and scalable underlying platform.

JetSpeed-2
http://portals.apache.org/jetspeed-2 - Jetspeed-2 is the next-generation enterprise portal at Apache. Jetspeed-2 offers several architectural enhancements and improvements over Jetspeed 1.0. First, Jetspeed-2 is conformant to the Java Portlet Standard and will provide a standard mechanism for the deployment of portlets. Second, Jetspeed-2 has matured to a more scalable architecture featuring multi-threaded functionality. Third, Jetspeed-2 is decoupled from several legacy open source projects. Fourth, Jetspeed-2 is based on component architecture.

eXo
http://www.exoplatform.com/portal/faces/public/exo - The eXo platform is a powerful Open Source - JSR 168 compliant - enterprise portal built from several modules.
Exo is based on innovative tools, APIs and frameworks such as JavaServer Faces, Pico Container, JbossMX and AspectJ

Liferay
http://www.liferay.com/ - Liferay is a leading provider of open source enterprise software, Liferay Portal Server supports many different application servers and servlet containers. Liferay Portal Enterprise requires a fully compliant J2EE application server whereas Liferay Portal Professional can run in a simple servlet container. Liferay portal server supports Resin Application Server.