Tag Archives: product-management

Tech Events this Week: Linux Kernel; Google Dev Hackathon; Java 8; Practical Go; & various startup events

Events, , , , ,

Here is a list of technology events happening in Pune over the next few days. To be informed of these events in advance, you should subscribe to get the PuneTech calendar event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe.

TiE Pune: Unitus Seed Fund Mixer for Startups

  • Date: Tue, 27 May 6:30pm – 8:30pm
  • Location: Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, Ground Floor, Wing A, ICC Trade Center, SB Road

Agenda: Lots of networking plus discussions led by guest speakers:

  • Five Ways to Open an Impact VC’s Wallet & Three Ways to Snap it Shut – led by Dave Richards, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Unitus Seed Fund
  • Learnings & Challenges Faced by Funded Entrepreneurs – with
    • Peter Frykman, Founder & CEO, Driptech; and
    • Kunal R Sachdev, Managing Director, Caravan Craft Retail – New store in Pune!

For more details see: https://em.explara.com/event/tiepuneUSF27may

About TiE Pune

Pune chapter of TiE – A non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, established to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anyone to attend. Register here: https://em.explara.com/event/tiepuneUSF27may

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Geeks of Pune Seminar: Linux System Software Development

  • Date: Wed, 28 May 5:30pm – 8:30pm
  • Location: Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, Ground Floor, Wing A, ICC Trade Center, SB Road

Talk #1: Evolution of Linux Networking Stack

Kiran will talk about evolution of Linux Networking Stack. Main focus of the talk is introduction to the Linux Networking Stack from an application perspective, how networking calls are handled inside the TCP/IP stack and network device drivers. This is followed by brief a introduction to Wi-Fi driver and Networking Stack.

About the Speaker – Kiran Divekar

Kiran has more than 13 years of experience in Linux System Software, Networking and Embedded Systems. He has delivered several sessions on Kernel programming, Introduction to Linux Architecture and more for GEEP and other institutes. Kiran has worked in global corporations such as Marvell and Nevis Networks. He currently works at a Technology Startup. Kiran is recognized for his understanding of Linux Kernel Stack and embedded systems architecture. Kiran has completed B.E. (Computers) from College of Engineering Pune.

Talk 2: Overview of Linux Storage Stack

Mithlesh’s talk would give an overview of the Linux Storage Stack and would cover various layers in the Storage stack. Each of these layer is a wider subsystem. This talk would be restricted only to aspects which directly impact how the IO flows in the Storage stack

About the Speaker – Mithlesh Thukral

Mithlesh is currently working as Principal Software Engineer at Symantec. He has engineered the Linux Kernel Components ranging from Storage Subsystem, Memory Managers, Interrupt handlers to Network stack during last 8 plus years. His interests include improving the scalability and performance of enterprise class products. Mithlesh has completed B.E. ( Computers ) from Pune Institute of Computer Technology.

About Geeks of Pune

GEEP is a non-profit group for software professionals in Pune. GEEP was founded in 2006 by a few Linux enthusiasts in Pune. Since then it has grown to more than 300 members. GEEP mailing list is hosted at yahoo groups. GEEP is also hosted on facebook.

GEEP members guide BE projects for students form various colleges in Pune. We have organized workshops for Linux software professionals and engineering students from Pune. These workshops were typically structured as presentations and programming demonstrations. The presentations were on kernel debugging, kernel developments, embedded systems, networking, module programming and more. Programming demonstrations included module programming examples and booting/programming on an XSCALE embedded board. Some for these workshops were conducted in engineering colleges and Pune university, rest were conducted at companies.

For more information, see http://www.geeksofpune.in/about.php

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. To register, please email or call Praveen Khurjekar, praveen@geeksofpune.in, 9823792621.

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event with the organizers. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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SLP Pune Event: Early Days of an Entrepreneur : The struggle, triumphs, highs, and lows

  • Date: Fri, 30 May 6:00pm – 8:30pm
  • Location: Venture Center, NCL Innovation Park, Pashan Road

The early days in the life of an entrepreneur are the most challenging & uncertain– physically, mentally & spiritually. It’s not a career choice but a way of life as Steve Blank puts it. Join us to hear from Pune’s very own three buzzing startup founders as they share early days in their startup life, their ideas, challenges, pivots, success, highs and lows.

Panel Members :

  • Janardan Prasad: COO and Co-Founder, www.autowale.in
    • An Engineer from IITK, Janardan has worked with Media Labs and then as IT consultant for payment products in North America for several years. He loves Puzzles, Tennis & Travel, while managing Operations, Finance, Products and HR at Autowale.
  • Mitesh Bohra: Co-founder & CEO – www.savetime.com
    • Mitesh Bohra has over 18 years of software industry experience, primarily in the US where he gained a wide breadth of invaluable expertise in strategy, sales, and account management while consulting for companies like: GE, Merck, Disney, and Lockheed Martin. As a serial entrepreneur, his current venture; Savetime.com is a vision to make positive impact in the lives of patient community in India. Mitesh has an engineering degree in Electronics from India and dual MBA degrees from Columbia Business School, New York and Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, California.
  • Sagar Apte: CEO & Founder at www.CarIQ.com
    • Sagar is the CEO and Founder at CarIQ. CarIQ is India’s first connected car platform and was working under stealth mode for the last 18 months. Sagar has over 15 years of experience across diverse domains such as product management, product marketing, sales, support, engineering, and operations.

About Startup Leadership Program

The Startup Leadership Program (SLP) is a highly selective, 80-hour, 6-month world-class training program and lifetime network for outstanding founders and innovators. SLP was founded in 2006, operates in 23 Cities with 1300 fellows & 1000+ startups. SLP Fellows have founded 700+ companies that have raised $400 million, and include breakthrough and award-winning startups like Savored, TomNod, Ixigo, NatureBox, SideTour, Micello, Momelan, Novira, Runkeeper, Sensobi, Shareaholic, Solar Junction, Voicetap and Ubersense.

Website: http://www.startupleadership.com

About Venture Center

Entrepreneurship Development Center (Venture Center) – a CSIR initiative – is a Section 25 company hosted by the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. Venture Center strives to nucleate and nurture technology and knowledge-based enterprises by leveraging the scientific and engineering competencies of the institutions in the Pune region in India. The Venture Center is a technology business incubator supported by the Department of Science & Technology’s National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board .

Website: http://www.venturecenter.co.in

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://townscript.com/ENTREPRENEUR

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Pune Google Developers Group: Hackathon

  • Date: 30 May to 1 Jun
  • Location: Synerzip (3rd Floor, Revolution Mall, next to City Pride, Kothrud, Pune)

Hackathon is going to be a 40 hour event wherein individual or group can build something awesome. This time we have decided to have three different tracks for Hackathon.

  • Build something in cloud and Analytics
  • Choose a product idea from a collection of product ideas and build it.
  • Work on your own product idea.

Unlike in the past, this time we have extended the duration to 40 Hours so that teams will have time to validate the idea they are trying to build. We will also have a panel of mentors and tech consultants present at the event. Participants can interact with them for additional inputs.

About Pune-GDG

Pune GDG is the place for developers to discuss google technologies. Pune Google Developer Group meets on the once every month. Our members are using or want to learn more about developing applications using Google technology, including: – Google Ajax APIs – maps, search, visualization, gadgets (JavaScript), Android – mobile development (Java) – Google App Engine – scalable cloud computing (Python and Java) – Google Web Toolkit – web development platform (Java) – Project Hosting.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/Pune-GDG/events/181020982/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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(Paid) Advanced Excel 2010 Training

  • Date: Sat, 31 May 9:00am – 5:00pm
  • Location: Karve Road, Pune

Advanced Excel 2010 training at Pune, for managers by Alpesh Vasant.

See http://emaila.gtechtraining.in/gacademy/vm.php?m=7&u=d3373e6fb5329b76c60e6a3d64990d3a for more details.

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Expertalks: Java 8

  • Date: Sat, 31 May 10:00am – 1:30pm
  • Location: Equal Experts Office, 4-C, 2nd Floor, Cerebrum IT Park, B3 Kumar City, Kalyani Nagar

After much anticipation & fanfare, Java 8 was released in March this year.

The good news?? It definitely evolves the way you code with Java.

Equal Experts has already started working with Java 8 on commercial projects.

In this session, they would share initial experience of working with Java 8.

Through demonstrations of live code and a hands-on workshop, explore the exciting new features of Java 8 and how they contribute to making your code cleaner and leaner than ever before… 🙂

Workshop

Participants will solve a simple use case with Java 8 where they get to use its new features. They will also understand how they could approach Java programming in a more evolved way

Demo

Apart from live code and also showcase of some production code from a recent projects.

Pre-Requisites:

  • Knowledge & experience of Java programming language… :-).
  • For the workshop, please get a laptop installed with Java 8 and your favourite IDE. Recommended: IntelliJ Idea Community Edition as it has the best support for Java 8.

PRESENTER:

Anil Tarte is one of the most tenured members of Equal Experts India. He has successfully led the development & delivery efforts for many of our greenfield projects. His most recent assignment was on Java 8…

About EXPERTALKS

EXPERTALKS is a series of free tech workshops organized at the Equal Experts office in Pune. See http://www.meetup.com/expertalks/ for more information about the EXPERTALKS meetup group.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/expertalks/events/179983882/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Golang Pune Meetup: Practical Go

  • Date: Sat, 31 May 10:45am – 1:00pm
  • Location: Josh Software New Office, A 13/14 Sunflower Building, 5th Floor, Survey No. 77/1, Mhalunge Baner Road, Baner

Agenda

  • Ankur Gupta (@originalankur) of ThinkLABS, Mumbai (http://www.thinklabs.in/) will talk about their software product written in Go (Think Visual Programming Language – Go Powered Software Showcase).
  • Open discussion with Satish Talim about the first-ever GopherCon in Denver, CO, USA.
  • If anyone else wants to give a presentation, discuss anything about Go feel free to do so.

About Golang Pune Group

Meetup group for developers interested in the Go programming language.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/Golang-Pune/events/181656612/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Pune Open Coffee Club Meet: Marketing Planning for Startups

  • Date: Sat, 31 May 4:30pm – 7:00pm
  • Location: 7th floor, SICSR, (Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, near Om Market, Model Colony)

As start-up founders do you wonder – Why don’t you get right kind of customers? Why don’t you get repeat business? Why don’t you get right price? Why don’t customers refer you? How you get unplanned marketing bills? You know but don’t understand your competition.

To get answer to these and many more marketing questions, participate in this free session.

The topics covered will be

  • What is Marketing?
  • Difference between Marketing and Sales
  • How to plan Marketing for your startup
  • How to execute the Marketing Plan

About the Speaker: Dr. Sachin Bhide

Sachin is a Marketing Consultant and founder of Eha Management Consultancy. He gives marketing advice to entrepreneurs since 2009. He had award winning work experience as an employee in industries like Technical Communication, Information Technology, Banking, and Education for 8 years. He has received excellent Corporate Trainer award. He is an award winning speaker, had received Best Speaker and Best Table Topic Master award at Toastmaster club in California, USA. He is PhD in Marketing Management, he researched nature of IT exports of Pune based selective Indian companies. He has done masters in business administration and commerce. He is a founder of Business Book Readers’ Club in Pune. His articles are published in leading publications like Sakal newspaper and Sampada a monthly publication of MCCIA. His opinions are highly sought after by media like DNA newspaper, ‘Aakashvani’ radio station, and Zee 24 Taas a leading news channel.

About Pune Open Coffee Club

With over 10000 members, the Pune Open Coffee Club is the largest forum for startups and entrepreneurs in Pune. It is an open forum, and anyone can join for free. See the PoCC website for more details.

Fees

This event is free and open to all. Please register here: http://punestartups.org/events/event/show?id=1988582%3AEvent%3A332113&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_event

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

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Tech Events this Week: Beer & Startups; Product Mgmt; Agile; CloudStack; TiEPune

Events, , , , ,

Here is a list of technology events happening in Pune over the next few days. To be informed of these events in advance, you should subscribe to get the PuneTech calendar event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe.

Beer & Business for first-time Founders of Startups

  • Date: Thu, 22 May 8:00pm – 10:00pm
  • Location: Independence Brewing Company, Mundhwa

A strictly informal meet-up ONLY for first generation start-ups. You don’t need to worry about pitches, investors or clients! Simply register and come on down for an evening of great beers and great conversations with Pune’s growing community of entrepreneurs.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: https://www.facebook.com/events/759879417365422/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

(Paid) A Workshop on the Foundations of Product Management

  • Date: Fri, 23 May 10:00am – 5:00pm
  • Location: 5th Floor, A-Wing, MCCIA, ICC Towers, SB Road

With rise of IT product companies in India, there is significant demand to spread awareness, get clarity and enhance knowledge base on various functions and roles of product management – understanding the principals and streamlining the product team. Role of product managers and marketers is evolving rapidly. Industry is striving of good product managers. To address these challenges, NASSCOM joins hands with India Product Management Association to create a long run program on Product Management. Product Management Platform 1, a-day long workshop on various aspect of Product Management function, is the first event in this journey.

  • Module 1: Introduction to Product Management
    • Introduction to Products, and how it is different from solutions and services.
    • Why do Good Products fail?
    • What makes products succeed?
    • What is Product management and Role of Product managers?
  • Module 2: Product Management Process and Life Cycle
    • Overview of product management process
    • Overview of PDLC processes and how to control PDLC
    • What makes a product manager successful?
    • Tips and suggestions for becoming an effective product manager

About the Speaker – Suhas Kelkar

As CTO for the APAC region at BMC Software, he is responsible for driving technical and strategic roadmap of BMC Software products and solutions. As a Director of Incubator Team, he is also responsible for driving incubation and culture of innovation globally for BMC Software. His areas of focus are Business Service Management (BSM) with emphasis on Cloud Computing and Data Centres of tomorrow and Consumerization of IT – adopting be st practices from consumer world and harnessing it for the enterprise. Suhas is also very passionate about the field of Product Management and is the founder and President of IPMA (India Product Management Association) Pune chapter.

Prior to BMC Software, Suhas was Vice President of Product Management at Digité. Over the span of over 17 years Suhas has worked on various software product companies such as Rational Software/IBM, Serena Software and Philips Medical Systems. Suhas has diverse experience of architecting, designing and delivering successful software products. He led the UML Modelling team at Rational before IBM’s acquisition. Later on at Pacific Edge Software, he was responsible for building a market leading, enterprise scale Project Portfolio Management software.

Suhas holds a MS in Robotics from University of Florida and MBA from FIT. He has High Impact Global Role (2012) and Thought Leadership (2013) awards in his kitty.

About NASSCOM

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) is a trade association of Indian Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Established in 1988, NASSCOM is a non-profit organisation.

NASSCOM is a global trade body with over 1500 members, of which over 250 are companies from the US, UK, EU, Japan and China. NASSCOM’s member companies are in the business of software development, software services, software products, IT-enabled/BPO services and e-commerce.

NASSCOM facilitates business and trade in software and services and encourages the advancement of research in software technology. NASSCOM is headquartered in New Delhi, India with regional offices in the cities of Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Kolkata.

Fees and Registration

This event costs Rs. 750 for members of NASSCOM and IPMA, and Rs. 1000 for others. Register here: http://pmp1-pune.doattend.com/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event with the organizers. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

Agile Coffee Talk: Is Agile Fragile?

  • Date: Fri, 23 May 4:00pm – 6:30pm
  • Location: BMC Software, SB Road

Let’s play around the theme – “Is Agile Fragile?” and here are Agenda Highlights:

  1. 20 mins – Meet & Greet followed by setting some ground rules and expectations! (don’t miss this part if you want to get the flow of
    at’s happening here)
  2. 30 mins – Part A – Agile Collaboration Game filled with role plays, discussions and keen observation and learning around the theme
  3. Break for coffee (Carry your coffee to your table)
  4. 50 mins – Part B – Communication Game followed by Group Discussions, and individual experience sharing
  5. 25 minutes – retrospective and close

Facilitators : We don’t have any concept of Power points. The talks are typically facilitated by the learned Coaches of SolutionsIQ. The

Coffee Talks are for everyone to participate and the facilitator will only guide the conversation and activities that the guests want to do

About Agile Coffee Talk

Hosted by SolutionsIQ, Coffee talks are informal gathering of lean and agile practitioners and followers over a Coffee

Our objective is to enable free flow of conversation on topics of significance to bring better ways to think, innovate , develop and work collaboratively. In two hours we cover various topics of interest in facilitated group discussions and activities under a theme. Do note this is a forum for discussions, food for thought and NOT for drawing conclusions always.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://coffeetalk-may-pune.doattend.com

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

Pune CloudStack Meetup: Deployment at TomTom; AMQP/RabbitMQ

  • Date: Fri, 23 May 4:30pm – 6:30pm
  • Location: 7th floor, SICSR, (Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, near Om Market, Model Colony)

Agenda:

  • 4:30pm – 4:45 pm : Introductions, Setting the agenda
  • 4:45pm – 5:30 pm : CloudStack Deployment at TomTom-Gurudatta
  • 5:30pm – 6:15 pm : AMQP and RabbitMQ/CloudStack
  • 6.15pm – 6.30 pm: Networking, Tea and Snacks

About Pune Cloudstack Meetup

This group is for CloudStack enthusiasts – Developers, IT Admins, Open Source Contributors to learn and share knowledge about this popular Cloud platform. This group is interested in Open Source, Cloud Computing, IaaS, Virtualization, Building private cloud with CloudStack, Customizing CloudStack

### Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.meetup.com/CloudStack-Pune-Meetup/events/180713012/

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

About the PuneTech Calendar

Get event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe (free) to the PuneTech Calendar of events.

My Story @TiEPune: Peeyush Rai, Co-Founder and CTO of Canvera. Interview by @aparanjape

  • Date: Fri, 23 May 6:30pm – 8:00pm
  • Location: Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, Ground Floor, Wing A, ICC Trade Center, SB Road

Peeyush is the co-founder and CTO at Canvera.com, where he heads the technology and design services delivery. Over the past 20 years, Peeyush has been involved in building various products and technologies that have helped solve real problems in consumer internet, mobile and enterprise space. Prior to Canvera, Peeyush worked at various enterprise software companies based in the U.S. and also helped build the India R&D centers for a few of them.

Peeyush is passionate about technology, gadgets, photography, sports, startups, entrepreneurship etc. He is an avid runner and has run a few full marathons.

About TiE Pune My Story Sessions!

“My Story – Inspiring Journey of an Entrepreneur”

This program is created to celebrate entrepreneurship and bring stories from successful entrepreneurs in their own words. The invited speakers will share their entrepreneurial journeys and talk about lessons learned, mistakes they wish they avoided, and key decisions that helped make their venture successful.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/tie-pune-my-story-session-with-peeyush-rai-co-founder-and-cto-canveracom-tickets-11644261299

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

About the PuneTech Calendar

Get event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe (free) to the PuneTech Calendar of events.

TiE Pune: Unitus Seed Fund Mixer for Startups

  • Date: Tue, 27 May 6:30pm – 8:30pm
  • Location: Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, Ground Floor, Wing A, ICC Trade Center, SB Road

Agenda: Lots of networking plus discussions led by guest speakers:

  • Five Ways to Open an Impact VC’s Wallet & Three Ways to Snap it Shut – led by Dave Richards, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Unitus Seed Fund
  • Learnings & Challenges Faced by Funded Entrepreneurs – with
    • Peter Frykman, Founder & CEO, Driptech; and
    • Kunal R Sachdev, Managing Director, Caravan Craft Retail – New store in Pune!

For more details see: https://em.explara.com/event/tiepuneUSF27may

About TiE Pune

Pune chapter of TiE – A non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, established to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anyone to attend. Register here: https://em.explara.com/event/tiepuneUSF27may

Please double-check the date/time/venue of the event at the above link. We try to ensure that PuneTech calendar listings are accurate, but occasional errors creep in.

About the PuneTech Calendar

Get event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe (free) to the PuneTech Calendar of events.

About the PuneTech Calendar

Get event announcements by email. Click here to subscribe (free) to the PuneTech Calendar of events, or follow @punetech on twitter

IPMA Event Report: Market Research Using Social Media

Event Report, , , ,

(This is a live blog of the presentation on Market Research using Social Media, by Pinkesh Shah, for the Indian Product Managers Association (IPMA) Pune event. Since it is a live blog, it might have errors, and won’t be as well organized as an article ought to be. Please keep that in mind while reading.)

Background – Why is Market Research Important

Product Management is really about Value management. There are five parts to it:

  • Understanding Value: Understand what the customer wants / care about
  • Creating Value: Build the Product
  • Capturing Value: Making sure that your product is appropriately priced. It is not necessary that you charge for the product immediately, or at all. You might make money somewhere else.
  • Communicating Value: Position your value proposition appropriately
  • Delivering Value: Making sure your product / value reaches the right person. Having the correct Channels.
Pinkesh Shah talking at IPMA Pune

For your next product or product feature, you will have lots of idea. But knowing what will really be the right thing to focus on is difficult. For a successful product or feature, the following pipeline is important:

  • Market Analysis: Choosing what to build
  • Strategic Analysis: Building the product profitably
  • Building the Product: In India we are very good at this step
  • Go to Market: Marketing it Right
  • Sales Enablement: Selling Effectively

The rest of this talk will focus on mostly on Market Analysis.

What does a PM do? It’s more than just requirement analysis:

  • Champions the customer’s context within the organization
  • Define the roadmap for a product, and deliver products that customers will actually buy
  • Master orchestrator of the productization process

Market Research – An Art and a Science

Ways to do market research:

  • Surveys: very few people do surveys. And it is easy to do. The only thing difficult is to come up with good survey questions. But otherwise this is one of the best and scalable techniques for market research.
  • Talking to your sales guys
  • Reading research reports from people like Gartner
  • Ethnography: watching your customers in their natural setting. In Big Bazaar there are always people standing in a corner of the store and observing customers. They spend 8 hours watching the patterns.
  • User research: Bring users in and make them go through use cases
  • Win Loss Interviews
  • Product Advisory Council: Announce a product, as if it is already done. Put out a Google ad about this product that does not exist. Target it for the geography and demographics that you’re interested. And then check who and how many people are clicking on it. Gives you a good idea of whether it is really working or not. Very easy and cheap way of figuring out whether your product is going to work. And you can do it sitting at home in India for any product targeting anywhere in the world

Why is social media is a great tool for market research?

  • Getting real users in a the real world is a lot of effort. Easier to get users online: LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogger, Quora, Twitter, etc.
  • Viral propagation. Truly borderless. And impossible to do without social media even if you have lots of money
  • Asychronous. You and the users don’t have to be in the same place at the same time. Makes it much easier.
  • Figure out who are the influencers

LinkedIn

Great resource. All people in professional settings are on LinkedIn. Hence, for product management, especially enterprise products, this is a great resource.

Very easy to create surveys / polls on LinkedIn and ask questions about your potential future product / features, and get responses from people all over the world. With demographic information from LinkedIn.

You can not only get quantitative results, but also qualitative results and opinions.

In addition, you get to go back and give updates to all those who participated about what happened, what features were included, etc.

Audience Question: What about competition finding out about your product ideas / features?

Answer: This is a problem with all market research. But in most cases, the idea is not the most important part of the product, so it’s OK. If indeed your idea is the secret sauce, then don’t include it in your market research, but in most cases it is no.

Uservoice

If you are a product manager, you must use Uservoice.

Similarly there is CustomerVoice, an Indian Startup similar to Uservoice, but for India.

Facebook likes are not a good substitute for Uservoice. You need really granular feedback, which a “like” does not give.

Landing Pages

A landing page can be created within 5 minutes of creating an idea. Just put up your idea, ask people to register for the beta. At this point, you don’t have a beta, but you can decide whether to create one or not based on the amount of interest you generate.

Online Ads for Validation

Think of a product. Assume that the product already exists, and create an ad for the product. Put the ad out. Target a few important cities and sectors (e.g. Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Chennai). See how many people click on the ad, and from which city and sector. That will give you an idea of how much interest is there for your product, and which geographies and sectors your product should target.

Do not start building a product unless you have done this.

Google Ads are good for validating a concept, but not very good for getting an idea of the people who clicked on the ad. LinkedIn ads cost more, but provide much more details about the click-throughs.

Analytics

Make sure you have Google Analytics installed on all your websites. It is free and gives you lots of data on who’s coming and what they’re doing.

In addition there are paid services (often fairly inexpensive) that do even better.

For example, there is an Indian startup called Wingify that allows you to do A/B testing on your website. If you don’t know what A/B testing is, find out now.

Other interesting websites/products

  • Ask Your Target Market: http://aytm.com – ask questions to specific target groups (mostly US)
  • Sprout Social: http://sproutsocial.com – get social media conversations about various keywords
  • CDC Pivotal CRM – get twitter and other social media conversations of each customer

Parting Thought

Samuel Colt, who invented the revolver, said that his invention was one of the most important things ever. Because, he said, “God made men. I’ve enabled them to be equal.” The person without strength, money, knowledge, can still win if s/he has a revolver.

Social Media is the revolver for product management. Anyone can do it now.

Don’t let this weekend end without sending out a survey.

IPMA Pune Event Report: Experiences in Product Management by Amit Paranjape

Event Report, Featured,

Product management means many different things to many different people, and is in fact quite different depending upon whether the product is new or mature, whether the company is small, medium or large, whether it is an enterprise product or consumer product, and a host of other things. A lot of issues that product managers need to keep in mind, and skills that they need to develop was covered in Vivek Tuljapurkar’s IPMA Pune Talk covered by PuneTech earlier.

Here are Amit’s Experiences in Product Management:

  • Early days of a company
    • Product Management is not a well-defined role or a group or even a person in a small company. Focus is only on sales and development, and product roadmap is decided in an ad hoc fashion.
    • As number of customers, and breadth of solution increases, the ad hoc processes start to break down.
    • Must create a Product Management as a layer between developers and customers. And everybody views this as bureaucracy and added overhead. This can only be done if there is strong backing from someone for the PM role. For example, the development team might get hassled by all the ad hoc requests that come from the sales organization, and will insist that a PM group be created and that all requests are channeled through PM. This is internal change management and it takes time to settle down.
  • Roles of PM in early days
    • Create a process for written specs, well defined test cases and support for QA
    • Be a friend of the development/delivery organization and the sales organization
    • In general, build relationships will all the stakeholders
    • Take over program management of all custom development projects
    • Recruiting product managers – biggest challenge.
  • As the company gets bigger
    • As the company gets bigger, the challenges change
    • Need to start worrying about requirements of individual products vs. the product suite, and solutions
    • Worry about difference between product and solution and module
    • Most of the time, you don’t really know what you’re doing – you’re just trying to do a good job in the face of uncertainties and ambiguity.
  • Products vs. Solutions – the perennial debate in Enterprise product companies
    • A solution is something that solves a business problem of a customer. This is what sales sells to the customer. Solutions can be based on customer industries (e.g. consumer goods, automotive, finance), or it could be based on business processes (e.g. Procurement, Demand Management)
    • A product is a specific piece of technology that engineering can build and which solves some particular problem. A combination of products that work together seamlessly is a solution
    • The reason for separating out products and solutions is to ensure that a small set of products can be used to build many different solutions for various customers
  • Overall Learnings
    • A PM must be paranoid. You need to worry about everybody and everything, because whenever anything goes wrong because of anybody, it ultimately comes back to you. So keep track of what various development teams are doing, what potential problems are. You need to keep track of sales teams, and what they’re promising customers, and how they’re positioning the product.
    • You need to work by influence. The people who can make your life miserable (sales, dev, etc.) don’t report to you, but still you need to make sure that they listen to you.
    • All PMs need to be entrepreneurial in their thinking – jugaad is needed at all times. Because things are always broken or breaking as far as a PM is concerned, problems to be solved, fires to be put out.
    • Blaming others is not the answer. Ultimately the buck stops with PM, so PM needs to solve the problem, irrespective of who or what caused the problem.
    • Relationship management is the key. If you maintain good relationships with various stakeholders, your life will be easy.
    • You are constantly in “sell” mode. You need to convince sales people to do some things, and consultants to do some things, and development to do some things.
    • In a fast growing company, where there isn’t lots of structure, be ready to temporarily take on the roles of development manager, or customer project manager as and when required
    • Make sure you do competitive research
    • Make sure you keep track of customer satisfaction levels
      -Recruiting
    • Recruiting product management people is a challenge
    • Skills required for PM in small companies are different from those required for larger companies. Small companies are ad hoc, with tactical goals, with a narrow focus, and a consultant/developer mindset. Large company PMs are process driven, worry more about long-term strategic goals, have a broader focus, and think more like sales people than developers.
    • Do not make the mistake of hiring “experienced” PMs from large companies for doing a small company PM job. This usually does not work well.

IPMA Event: PM Journey – From Startup to Billion Dollar Co by Amit Paranjape

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IPMA Pune, the Pune Chapter of the Indian Product Manager’s Association, presents a talk by Amit Paranjape, this Friday, from 4pm to 7pm, at BMC Software, Tower A, ICC Tech Park, SB Road. Amit will talk about his Product Management Journey – from a startup to a billion dollar company

Abstract – Product Management Journey – from a startup to a billion dollar company

Amit will discuss his experiences and learnings in product management – from helping set up the first product management team in a small startup like company, to the team’s rapid evolution as the company grew to a billion dollars in revenue, in just a short span of few years. Will discuss various aspects of product management ranging from customer requirement prioritization, development support, customer support, product marketing, industry focus, strategy, sales support, etc.

About the Speaker – Amit Paranjape

Amit Paranjape is a co-founder of PuneTech. He has been involved with several startups in India and U.S. Formerly Amit worked at i2 Technologies. Amit has over 15 years of experience in Product Management, Marketing and Strategy in the Enterprise Software Industry. He has a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering (IIT Bombay) and an M.S. in Manufacturing Systems (University of Wisconsin Madison). His current interests include consumer internet, healthcare and enterprise software.

Agenda

  • 4.15 pm – Registrations and Networking
  • 4.30 pm – Opening Remarks
  • 4:45 pm – Talk by Amit
  • 6:00 pm – Q&A
  • 6.15 pm – Reserved for some exciting session
  • 6.30 pm – Closing Remarks

About IPMA

India Product Management Association (IPMA) is a not-for-profit, voluntary, grassroots organization. IPMA Mission is to Foster Product Design and Innovation and Catalyze Product Management/Marketing Talent in India across software, mobile, hardware, telecommunications sectors in the IT industry. IPMA organizes knowledge sharing and networking forums such as Monthly Speaker Series, Workshops, P-Camps etc for professionals interested in product management and marketing. IPMA operate chapters in major product hubs across India and for more information about upcoming events, visit indiapma.org

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Register here

Event Report: Product Management Challenges Unique to India

Event Report, In Depth, ,

(This is a live-blog of the Indian Product Management Association (IPMA), Pune Chapter’s event on Product Management Challenges Unique to India by Vivek Tuljapurkar.)

What is Product Management

Different people define it differently. At the very least, a product manager is a person who is the “guardian angel” of the product. He gathers requirements from the market, and defines what the features of the product will be. But in some cases, a product manager might have responsibility of the product engineering. In other cases, a product manager might also have sales and support responsibilities. And sometimes a product manager might have full responsibility for a product – including worrying about the business profit & loss (P&L responsibility).

For this talk, we will be using the broader definition of product management.

These are the different types of product management that happen in India:

  • Product Mgmt for an Indian Software Company
  • Product Mgmt for an MNC
    • Only Product Mgmt for the Indian market is done from here
    • Product Mgmt for the global market is done from here
  • Product mgmt for an off-shore customer of an Indian product software services company. (e.g. a customer of Persistent asks Persistent to also do Product Mgmt. for their product.)

The greater the responsibility, the greater the challenges of doing the role out of India.

Product Manager and Geographic Location

The product manager’s location is important in two different ways. You can have easy access to the market (i.e. the customers), or not. And you can have easy access to the development team. If you have easy access to both, it’s ideal. If you have easy access only to the market, you can do outbound product management (creating the marketing requirements document from the market research document produced by the strategic marketing team). If you have easy access only to the development team, you can do inbound product management (creating the product requirements document from the marketing requirements document). If you do not have easy access to both, then you are in trouble.

In India-based product companies, a product manager could possibly do handle all responsibilities: requirements + engineering + sales and marketing + P&L responsibility. However, product managers in MNCs and Indian services companies, only requirements gathering and engineering can be owned out of India. Support to product sales and marketing can happen within the next 5 years, but full sales and marketing responsibility, and P&L responsibility is unlikely even 5 years from now.

Requirements for being a good Product Manager

  • Basic Understanding of finance, technology, development process, sales and marketing
  • Domain Knowledge – otherwise you will not be able to use your judgement to take strategic decisions and add value
  • Basic managerial capabilities – planning and execution
  • Organizational skills – ability to get things done
  • Social skills – building internal and external relationships. Because you need to get work done by a lot of people who don’t work for you
  • Communication skills and listening skills
  • Political astuteness. Many product managers, especially those who come from a technical background, ignore this aspect. Know who is friends with whom, which way the wind is blowing, who is trying to kill your product, and a whole bunch of other behind the scenes work that is happening, so that you can keep the future of your product, and yourself secure.
  • Negotiation skills.
  • Coping with uncertainty, pressure and changing priorities
  • Strategic thinking and foresight
  • Ability to influence, motivate and inspire

You don’t have to be an expert in all these areas, but whatever is missing will hurt you. Figure out which areas you’re weak in and work on improving those.

Engineers as Product Managers

Some of the difficulties that engineers face when they transition into product management roles (and this describes most Indian product managers):

  • Were used to “hard science”: algorithms, formulas, tools, methodologies, structure
  • Too methodical and structured, and have a tough time dealing with uncertainty and amorphous nature of things
  • Enamoured with technology, and want to do technology for the sake of technology
  • Too introverted, and don’t communicate (well) enough to succeed
  • Have a hard time letting go of technology focus and focusing on broader product management issues. (This is basically fear of the unknown)
  • We are too straightforward, and don’t have the political astuteness required

As a result, many engineers (i.e. many Indian product managers) fail at this role and end up doing only inbound product management.

So, focus on fixing these issues if you want to succeed.

Problems with a product management career in India

Typically, for product management being done in India, the role is in a very early stage, and is experimental. The responsibilities are ill-defined and evolving. The person given the job is likely to be from a development background, and is likely to have no exposure to other aspects of product management: like sales, marketing, market research, customer management etc. Further he has no access to customers or to market research.

The biggest problem: Lack of opportunity to learn and practice what you have learnt

In addition, the specific career path for a product manager is not really well defined in India.

Overall, the role is quite risky.

And if product management role does not work out, what happens to you? It is usually not clear whether you’ll be able to go back to your previous role and career path.

As a company, HR should have policies to clarify these issues, so that people feel safe about going into product management.

Getting people to do product management in a software company in India is difficult. IIM graduates don’t want to join as a product manager, but they’re happy to go to a HLL as a brand manager. Which is practically the same thing! So what is needed is that the product manager position in software companies needs to be branded appropriately, ensure that the candidate’s perception of the role is correct, and as before, the career paths are defined appropriately.

The problems are even worse for smaller companies. They cannot afford to pay higher salaries, provide the facilities and amenities. They don’t have a brand recognition, which is important to current and future employees. And smaller companies are also afraid that if they try to improve their branding and visibility, the larger companies will quickly come and poach employees, leading to attrition and major problems before they can hire new guys. Solution: don’t know! This is a tough problem, and it is unclear whether there is a good answer to this at this time.

Advice to new product managers in India

  • Understand and seek clarifications on your role, responsibilities, org structure, and processes. Don’t let unstated expectations hurt you!
  • Be prepared to deal with uncertainties and changing demands regarding your role
  • Seek a sympathetic executive sponsor. A CXO/VP who will help you with tactical challenges, or at least present your case to the decision makers
  • Stay one step ahead of the game. Never stop preparing yourself for a bigger role. Learn new things. Build new relationships with the long term in the mind.
  • Keep thinking about strategic matters. Immerse yourself, but don’t drown yourself in day-to-day stuff.
  • Find ways to exploit your best capabilities to your best advantage
  • Find a way to make a name for yourself. You don’t make a name for yourself by doing your day-to-day job well. Find something else, somewhere else which is dramatic and drastic. Keep watching for those, and if you see an opportunity and grab it. It should cause people to forget all your day-to-day issues, and focus on your big win

Specific skills and techniques

  • Keep a stakeholder mapping spreadsheet. Keep track of all the stakeholders in your project, and which of them is interested in what outcome, and what is the level of friendliness of these people towards you/your product, and when was the last time you had contact with them.
  • Never go public with strong stand, or a new strategic direction, unless you’re sure that it will be received well. Before the important meeting, or the presentation, go and meet some of the key people individually, make your point to them, and ensure that they’re in agreement with you
  • On a regular basis, check whether you’ve been doing anything specific to improve your weak areas. And if you’ve not, scold yourself.

IPMA Event: Product Management Challenges Unique to the Indian Environment

Events, , ,

IPMA Pune, the Pune Chapter of the Indian Product Manager’s Association, presents a talk by Vivek Tuljapurkar, this Friday, from 5pm to 7pm, at BMC Software, Tower A, ICC Tech Park, SB Road.

More details.

Product Management Challenges Unique to the Indian Environment

Indian software industry is experiencing explosive growth beyond its core offering in software services. MNCs are giving their India operations greater responsibility towards product management, Indian software companies are being asked to take additional responsibilities towards requirements management and product management, and the legendary Indian entrepreneurial spirit is in full bloom with many startups looking to launch new products.

The Indian environment, like any other, presents certain unique challenges towards product management. There is much commonality to the challenges that are faced by various types of businesses, whether you are an MNC, Indian services company, or a product startup. This seminar aims to discuss various current and upcoming challenges and also possible solutions and is a must for those practicing or aspiring to practice product management.

About the Speaker – Vivek Tuljapurkar

Vivek Tuljapurkar is a management consultant based in Pune. He has held various positions in the past such as Managing Director of Avaya, CEO of Ruksun Software Technologies, Global Product Portfolio Manager at IBM, and Product Portfolio and Line of Business Manager at Eaton Corp. Vivek has twelve technological “firsts” to his credit, has been an advisor or consultant to numerous governments and Fortune 500 companies, and has taught at various prestigious universities in the USA and India. Vivek mentors startups via IIM-A MentorEdge program and Power of Ideas initiative.

Detailed Agenda

  • 4.45 pm – Registrations and Networking
  • 5.00 pm – Opening Remarks
  • 5:15 pm – Talk by Vivek
  • 6:30 pm – Q&A
  • 6.45 pm – Demo of some cool tools for Product Managers (Knowledge Sharing)
  • 7.00 pm – Closing Remarks

About IPMA

India Product Management Association (IPMA) is a not-for-profit, voluntary, grassroots organization. IPMA Mission is to Foster Product Design and Innovation and Catalyze Product Management/Marketing Talent in India across software, mobile, hardware, telecommunications sectors in the IT industry. IPMA organizes knowledge sharing and networking forums such as Monthly Speaker Series, Workshops, P-Camps etc for professionals interested in product management and marketing. IPMA operate chapters in major product hubs across India and for more information about upcoming events, visit indiapma.org

  • Twitter: @indiapma
  • LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr: Search for “India Product Management Association”
  • IPMA Membership Registration: http://indiapma.org/membership
  • Event Registration: http://ipmapunejune11.eventbrite.com

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here

Indian Product Managers Association Pune – First Meeting 29 April

Events, , ,
  • Are you a passionate Product Manager or Techie who wants to build great products?
  • Are you a Product Manager who wants to network with other professionals?
  • Are you looking to switch over into the exciting world of Product Management? Or simply want to learn the basics of the discipline of Product Management?

The Indian Tech world is full of people who understand services, and even product outsourcing. But the one big thing missing from the IT ecosystem here is the ability to visualize and build great products. And, if things go well for the Indian IT industry, then the most important trend of the next 10 years will be the rise of product companies out of India, and with that, the field of Product Management.

So, if you have any interest in this area, then the Pune Chapter of the Indian Product Managers Association, which is being launched this Friday is the place for you to be.

IPMA Pune Inaugural Event – Details

Vishwas Mahajan, Co-founder and Former CEO of Compulink and member of Senior Management at Glodyne, will inaugurate IPMA Pune Chapter and kick start the Monthly Speaker Series.

Mr. Mahajan will be speaking on: “Made in India .. for Global Markets”

About IPMA

India Product Management Association (IPMA) is a not for profit, grassroots organization. IPMA’s mission is to Foster product design and innovation and Catalyze product management talent in India. IPMA organizes monthly speaker series, workshops and more for professionals interested in product management and marketing. For more information about upcoming events, visit http://indiapma.org

Membership of the IPMA is free at this time.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend, but registration is required. The event will be on 29th April, from 4pm to 6pm, at BMC Software, Tower A, ICC Tech Park, SB Road.

Product Camp Pune: A free (un-)conference for Product Management & Marketing – 1 Aug

Events, , , , ,

What: Product Camp Pune – A Collaborative, User-Organized, Conference (i.e. a barcamp) on Product Management and Marketing
When: Sunday, August 1st, 10am-4pm
Where: Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Map.
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all. Register here

Product Camp Pune Logo
ProductCamp Pune is a free event that will give you an opportunity to meet people involved in product management and marketing. Click on the logo to be taken to the registration page.

The Importance of Product Management and Marketing

Have you ever wondered why some really cool products fail in the market, and some products that seem really stupid succeed? Have you ever noticed that some of the best features of the products you’re working on are hardly used by anybody? Have you ever completely failed to understand the roadmap of your product?

If you have experienced any of the above, you’re not alone. Most people, especially techies, and especially Indian techies, have a very poor understanding of what customers really want, what they need, and what they would be willing to pay for. This is the job of Product Management and Marketing. Most people’s career would improve significantly if they spent some time acquiring this skill, or at least understanding the basics.

Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of the incredibly successful Zynga Games (the creators of FarmVille), has this to say about what skills you should focus on acquiring for career advancement:

If you can be a product manager, you can acquire the experience of acting as a CEO. The skills gained in product roadmapping, prioritizing tasks, interoffice communications, customer understanding, and product marketing are absolute necessities for being an effective enterprise lead.

Similarly, Marc Andreessen, the creator of Netscape, successful serial entrepreneur, and investor points out that “the only thing that matters” for success of a startup is product/market fit. Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. If you don’t have product/market fit, then you’re bound to fail, no matter how great your product is, and no matter how great your team is. With a bad product/market fit, you’ll struggle for years trying to find customers who don’t exist for your marvelous product, and your wonderful team will eventually get demoralized and quit, and your startup will die.

This is a new area for techies in India

For obvious reasons. Most of the work in the software technology sector in India has either been software services for companies abroad (in which case your company has no control over the product roadmap), or product development for companies whose main markets are in the US/Europe (in which case, the people doing product management/marketing are in US/Europe).

However, as the tech industry in India slowly matures, more and more product management and marketing roles are becoming available.

Here’s your opportunity to get started along this path

ProductCamp Pune is a collaborative, user organized unconference, focused on Product Management and Marketing topics. ProductCamp is a great opportunity for you to learn from, teach to, and network with professionals involved in the Product Management, Marketing, and Development process.

And it’s free.

Just register here and show up.