Tag Archives: Technology

Event Report: “Innovate or Die” – Suhas Kelkar, CTO-APAC, BMC Software

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(This is a live blog of Suhas Kelkar’s talk at the SEAP Breakfast Meet. Suhas talked about his experience of building an incubator at BMC Software.)

Background

  • Suhas joined BMC Pune and was given the job of creating an innovation incubator within the company.
  • This was the second attempt at creating an incubator in BMC. A previous attempt had failed spectacularly. The previous one had been started with great fanfare, with a 100 people team, and over time, it went down to 80, to 60 to nothing. With this history Suhas started his incubator with zero employees, and minimal fanfare.

On Innovation

  • Suhas defines innovation as “Ideas to Cash.” This is important. The focus on cash, i.e. revenues, was an important difference between this incubator and the previous incubator, and also other research labs in companies around the world. Invention for the sake of invention, research for the sake of research is something that they definitely did not want to do. The wanted to ensure that everything they do has a direct or indirect revenue impact upside for BMC.
  • There actually exists a document called “The Oslo Manual” which is a set of guidelines for how to do innovation. It is a free PDF that anyone can download, and Suhas recommends that to anyone interested in innovation.
  • The Oslo Manual points out that innovation can happen in 4 different areas Product, Process, Marketing and Organization. Suhas adds a 5th category of innovation: “User Experience”

The BMC Incubator

  • Why does a product company need an incubator? Product teams get bogged down by tactical improvements for existing customers, and the larger vision (beyond 12-24 months) does not get attention. Startups innovate all the time, and BMC does buy innovative companies, but then integrating them into the company is a huge overhead, and fraught with risks. It would be much more efficient to do innovation in-house if it could be made to work
  • The incubator is a separate team who can focus on these issues. It is a small team (about 25 people) compared to the 200 people in just one of the product groups that BMC has. And these 25 people try various different innovative ideas, 9 of 10 of which are bound to fail. But even that failure adds value because that means there are 9 things that the 200 people product team does not have to try out – hence they’re shielded from dead ends and unproductive explorations.
  • The mandate for the new incubator (partially based on lessons learnt from the failure of the previous incubator was):
    • Don’t alienate the product teams – you’ll never succeed without their help and blessings
    • Understand the base products thoroughly. Superficial understanding of the issues, toy applications, will not earn the respect of the product team
    • Frequent communication with the business teams
    • File many patents

  • The Process

    • The incubator takes inputs from:
      • The office of the CTO, which strategizes and puts together a vision. Before the incubator team, the office of the CTO would hand over the long term vision and strategy to the product team, which was ill equipped to handle it. Now, the incubator fits this gap
      • Product Business Units
      • Customers and Partners
      • Academia (what is the latest in research)
    • The idea backlog is looked at by these three teams:
      • The governance team which meets once in 6 months
      • The alignment team which meets once a quarter
      • The execution team which meets once a month
    • The output of the incubator are:
      • White Papers
      • Prototypes
      • Delivery
      • Patents
      • Innovation Culture
  • Challenges for an Incubator
    • How to measure innovation? Number of patents is not a good enough metric.
    • Motivation: the motivation for the incubator and the people on the team must come from within. Creating the motivation, and staying motivated, in the face of 9 failures out of every 10 ideas tried, is difficult.
    • Difficult skill set: the team needs people who are smart, intelligent architects, but also hands on developers, with ability to switch context frequently, understanding the overall BMC vision, ability to sell/market ideas internally, and most importantly they need to be technology as well as business savvy. Finding people like this is a tall order.
  • The incubator only does small projects. There are two kinds of projects: “research” and “prototype”.
    • Research projects which are just 1 person 1 week, where that person is supposed to study something for a week and come back with a report.
    • Prototype projects are just 2 or 3 people working for a maximum of 2 months to build a prototype – not necessarily a shipping product. The prototype should prove or disprove some specific hypothesis, and there is a tricky balance to be made in deciding which parts of the prototype will be “real” and which parts will be simple mocked up.

Future Directions

  • From technology incubation, they want to move to co-innovation, where they work in conjunction with product teams, and customers to innovate.
  • After that they would even like to do business incubation – where the product team is not interested in looking at an adjacent business, in which case the incubator would like to have the ability to go after that market themselves.
  • The Indian IT industry, from humble beginnings, is moving up the value chain.
    • First we were doing cost arbitrage (1990s)
    • Now we have process maturity (2000s)
    • The next step would be to get product ownership, and product management here (2010s)
    • Finally, in the 2020s we’ll be able to do innovation, incubation, entrepreneurship
    • The bottomline is that Indian IT industry should be focusing on taking on more and more Product Management responsibilities

Questions from Audience

  • Q: The incubator needs people who understand the current products thoroughly. Which means that you need to steal the stars from each product team, because you cannot really hire from outside. And obviously the product team is not willing to give up their stars. How do you solve this problem?
    • A: In general, trying to get stars from the product teams is not possible. You wont get them, and you sour the relationship with the product teams. Instead, what works is to hire the smartest outside people you can hire and then make them learn the product. These people are then teamed up with the right people in the product team during the ‘learning’ process. The learning process is still a bit ad hoc and we haven’t yet formalized it, but at the very least it involves doing some work hands-on.
  • Q: What do you answer when a product team asks what is the value you are adding?
    • A: We constantly worry about the value we are adding, and we keep pro-actively stay in touch with the product teams and constantly keep reminding them of the value we add. If it ever happens that a product team asks what value you are bringing, you are already too late
  • Q: How are you engaging in academia, and what else would you like to do?
    • A: Currently, we get interns from academia. This allows them to do look at projects that would not get “approved” as regular projects, because “it’s just an intern project.”
  • Q: Customers are in the US. Product Managers are in the US. And you cannot innovate unless you understand customers and have close ties with the Product Managers. How do you do that sitting in India?
    • The head of the incubator must be the ultimate product manager, and more. First, s/he must have almost as much understanding of the market and the customers as the product manager of the actual product. In addition s/he must have a vision beyond just what customers want, so that they are able to generate innovative ideas. Successful engagement and understanding of Product Management is key to success of an incubator.
  • Q: How do you ensure that the output of an incubator prototype is actually accepted by a product team, and how does the process work
    • All prototype projects require buy-in from the product team and other stakeholders, agreeing tentatively that if the prototype is successful, the product team will actually put that project onto the release schedule. Once the prototype is completed, it is incorporated into the release schedule, and the 2/3 people who worked on the prototype transition into the product team temporarily.

Advantage Pune Panel Discussion: Opportunities for Pune to become an Innovation Hub

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These are a few quick ‘n dirty notes captured during a Panel Discussion that was held as a part of the “Global Conclave: Advantage Pune” event held in Pune yesterday, organized by Zinnov and Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP). The panel discussion was on the topic “Opportunities and Challenges for Pune to become an Innovation Hub”. The panelists were:

  • Bhavani Shankar from Zinnov
  • Akila Krishnakumar head of Sungard India
  • Ashish Deshpande from Google (based in Pune)
  • Kiran Gadi head of Motorola Mobility India
  • Omkar Nimbalkar head of Tivoli Group IBM India
  • Tarun Sharma head of BMC India

Overall, a few themes that most people touched upon were these:

  • Pune isn’t just about software. It has automotive, manufacturing, sciences (for example, NCL), and other things going for it. So it is more rounded than other cities
  • Pune has great climate
  • Pune has lots of educational instiutions
  • Pune is still not as crowded as Bangalore, so growth is still possible in Pune.

Overall, these are the advantages that Pune has for driving innovation.

Here are some additional interesting points made by the panelists:

  • [Akila] Sungard is probably one of the earliest Software Product MNCs to set up in Pune (back in 1993). Pune has 20% of Sungard’s global R&D strength. BFSI is the biggest market for the software sector, and hence a lot of innovation in Pune’s software industry has to happen (will happen) in this space
  • [Kiran] Our Pune center had lower attrition than other cities. This was a huge advantage.
  • [Tarun] 23% of BMC is in Pune. Largest in the world. This gives huge advantages – having many different teams in one location. This is easier to achieve do than in other cities.
  • [Omkar] Pune has an advantage over Bangalore that it still has space to grow. In Bangalore, it is very difficult to find space.
  • [Tarun] Pune definitely has a better perception of quality of life compared to Bangalore. It’s still a small city compared to Bangalore – you can get anywhere in 30 minutes. And the culture and art is great.
  • [Akila] Pune and Germany have had a great relationship, because of the auto industry. Pune has the largest concentration of German companies in India. This is a great opportunity for Pune’s software industry – it needs to leverage this and grow the software market in Europe.
  • [Kiran] The great thing about the Pune Community is that all the different groups (Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP), PuneTech, TiE, Pune Open Coffee Club, Head Start, CSI Pune) all talk to each other and co-operate.
  • [Akila] Pune’s demographics are interesting – lower than average age, and higher than average per capita income. It is easier to find early adopters in Pune, and easier to do viral (i.e., cheap) marketing in Pune. For example, it is not a surprise that it is the gaming capital of the country.

PuneConnect 2011 – Event Overview and Results

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PuneConnect 2011, held on 5th November, was the event where Pune’s
top tech communities (SEAP and PuneTech) and startup communities (POCC and TiEPune) came together to organize an event to let Pune’s startups mix with Pune’s established companies.

PuneConnect Demo Hall Photo
Demo Hall at PuneConnect was overflowing with the who's who of Pune's IT and Startup community

12 Pune technology startups were chosen from about 30 applicants to showcase their products at PuneConnect 2011. The 12 companies selected were: AdMogul, ApplyEzee, BizPorto, CoTrakr, Deja VU 3D, DroidCloud, InnovizeTech, IntouchId, kPoint, ReliScore, Vaultize, and World Without Me.

Short write-ups of the 12 companies can be found here.

All 12 companies got to demo their product to the who’s who of Pune. Senior members of SEAP, and Charter members of TiE Pune were asked to vote for their favorite demos and the top 4 companies get a chance to present at the bitter “Advantage Pune” conference being organized by Zinnov in Pune, in December 2011. Separately, 4 companies were selected to be part of the “Staring Up” show on ETNow, and their pitches were recorded to be televised nationally on ETNow on 15th November.

Companies selected for Advantage Pune

These 4 companies won the top votes from Senior Members of SEAP and Charter Members of TiE Pune, and hence get a chance to get exposure at the national level at the Advantage Pune conference in December where lots of India’s larger IT companies will be present. The winners are:

  1. kPoint
  2. Vaultize
  3. InnovizeTech
  4. DroidCloud

Companies selected for Starting Up show on ETNow

PuneConnect Starting Up ETNow Photo
4 Pune companies, InnovizeTech, ReliScore, DroidCloud, AdMogul were selected to be part of the Starting Up program on ETNow

These 4 companies were selected by the selection panel consisting of Gaurav Mehra, Suhas Kelkar, Moti Thadani of SEAP in consultation with Sudhir Syal of ETNow, and they got to pitch their startup to a panel consisting of Nickhil Jakatdar, Gaurag Mehra, and Suhas Kelkar on a program recorded by ETNow to be televised nationally later.

The winners were:

  1. InnovizeTech
  2. ReliScore
  3. DroidCloud & AdMogul

In this program, InnovizeTech got the top marks from the judges and hence gets a direct entry to the final round of ETNow’s SuperAngels’ show where they get a chance to pitch for a million dollars of funding.

The Starting Up now show recorded at PuneConnect will be telecast on Tuesday, 15th November at 11pm on the ETNow channel. It will be re-broadcast 9pm on Saturday, 19th November, and 10:30am and 7:30pm on Sunday, 20th November. It should also become available on YouTube and PuneTech will post a link to the YouTube video.

Other Media Coverage

The event was very well covered by local and national media. The Financial Express, the Financial Chronical, Business Standard, and the top Marathi newspapers Sakal and Maharashtra Times all carried detailed articles about PuneConnect. Three of the articles mentioned all 12 companies, and one of the articles mentioned ReliScore and InnovizeTech.

Pune Mirror had a half page article on World Without Me as a direct result of being featured in PuneConnect 2011.

Overall, we believe PuneConnect 2011 was a huge success, and we hope to do many more such cross-organizational initiatives in the future.

(Disclaimer: Navin and Amit of PuneTech were deeply involved in the creation, conceptualization and organization of PuneConnect, and are also the founders of ReliScore one of the companies that had applied for PuneConnect, got selected in the final 12, and also got selected for the ETNow Starting Up show. Due to the potential conflict of interest, Navin and Amit did not play any part in the selection process which was done entirely by people from SEAP, TiEPune and ETNow. For similar reasons, non of members of POCC who are in the PuneConnect organizers team played any part in the selection.)

Pune’s Ayojak integrates Cash-On-Delivery payment option in its ticketing service

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Ayojak, a Pune-based company that offers a suite of technology solutions & services for online event ticket selling, conference registrations, payment processing, event promotion, and event logistics, has become one of the first such services to integrate COD (cash-on-delivery) as a payment option for their online event ticket sales service.

As anybody familiar with the ecommerce situation in India is aware, COD is one of the most important forms of payment in Indian ecommerce, since Indians are still not very comfortable with using credit cards online. Thus, offering a COD option almost becomes a must-have for any product or service that is being sold online. Inspite of the fact that COD is an expensive option in general (often with charges of up to Rs. 100 per delivery), it is still the most common form of payment for many ecommerce vendors in India.

In this context, we believe that this announcement by Ayojak would be welcomed by many event organizers and potential customers of Ayojak.

In an article on YourStory.in, Santosh Panda, Founder & CEO of Ayojak explains the thought process behind this announcement:

“We see that close to 45-55% of our users have trouble in booking tickets online through Net banking, Credit cards or Debit cards, sometimes the payment gateway is too busy to respond or the connection is very slow and the browser times out. Because of these various reasons most of the users or frustrated with the online ticket booking experience and prefer the offline mode. Even from our in-house research and analysis and from consumer surveys – we see that the demand for CoD is very high in India, as a major chunk of our population still do not have access to Debit or Credit cards and not to forget the large community of students as well.”

Here are more details of the exact service offered:

Ayojak have integrated their event ticketing & registration e-commerce engine with several logistics solution provider like – FedEx (AFL), GharPay, and Santa Claus Couriers. This tie up will enable Event Organisers to reach the last miles of customer’s convenience and enables users to buy event tickets from the comforts of their home, office or other various locations from across 3000 cities/town in India. For all CoD delivered using Ayojak’s integrated solution, event organizers will be provided with a detailed CoD tracking system and easy, timely and assured delivery of orders. Ayojak has already been privately serving few selected customers to deliver thousands of CoD across India.

PuneTech caught up with Santosh Panda to get a few more details about this new service in particular, and about Ayojak in general.

Are there any other online event/ticketing providers that providers that provide an integrated COD solution? If yes, how is Ayojak’s solution different?

Santosh: There are likes of BookMyShow.com who do this for bigger events only. However with Ayojak, any event (whether big or small) now can avail the COD solution and plan to reach much larger segment of event ticket buyers to pay via cash. Our other competitors don’t have this solution.

What are the extra charges for COD tickets?

Santosh: We are charging 100 rs for delivery less than 1700 rs. For delivery amount from 1701 Rs onward, we charge 6%. The rates may sound higher but if we compare average online charge which is 5%, this is reasonable. Also COD has several complexities such as genuine buyers vs. not, insurance by logistics provider whether money is lost/stolen, support for COD tracking, many such issues. Also COD is designed as part of payment solution suite.

Can you give a quick overview of Ayojak? How is it different from the competition?

Santosh: Ayojak’s mission is to solve 360 degree aspect of an event management. Hence while competitors are focusing on online registration only, we are solving customer’s following pain such as :

  • Payment via online-cash-retail payment solution : Helping event organizer to avail all payment channel and sell it out
  • Promote: Ayojak promotes event heavily in various channels and we consider this as our job. Whereas our competitors don’t provide this as a service or spend time in helping an event get promoted. Ayojak provides promotions like ‘digital marketing, social media contest/content oriented promotion, advertisement on Google Ad/LinkedIn’. We intend to bring more ‘conversion’ oriented solution in coming days.
  • Support: Ayojak provides huge support during an event such as answering event attendee queries, event setup related help if needed, tracking each payment and reaching buyer to help them to select other options, many such. Our customers are very happy with Ayojak support.
  • Product : While our competitors looking event as one type, Ayojak is designed to treat each event type differently. For example a ‘Sonu Nigam Event’ is different from ‘Indian Medical Conference’. Therefore we have developed different apps such as ticketing app, conference app to solve the process flow needed in each type.

Also Ayojak apps are designed keeping the 360 degree principle : Create, Promote, Sell, Support.

Where is Ayojak located. Specifically we’re interested in what part of Ayojak is in Pune, and what exactly does the Pune team do.

Santosh: Ayojak’s Pune team is the prime team, most of our biz/tech decisions/development happens from Pune. Also our key sales & marketing team in pune, although we have freelancers and employees located in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad/Visakhapatnam.

For more information, check out Ayojak.com

Early-stage investment up to Rs. 25L available from Venture Center, Pune

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The Venture Center, a Pune-based Government of India Initiative that helps technology innovators and startups, has instituted a Rs. 1 crore seed fund that they plan on investing in early stage technology startups (or even innovators with just a science & technology idea).

Investment proposals are being accepted upto 30 November 2011.

Here are more details from the Venture Center website:

The Entrepreneurship Development Center (‘Venture Center’ ) recently received approval under the scheme “Seed Support System for Start-ups in Incubators” of the Technology Development Board, Department of Science & Technology to host a seed fund with a corpus of Rs 1 crore.

The purpose of the seed fund is to provide a technology driven startup with the much-needed early stage financial support for deserving ideas/technologies requiring up-scaling and related work.

Incubatees of Venture Center are encouraged to contact Venture Center for further information.

Quantum of financial assistance to the incubated entrepreneur

  • Minimum: Rs. 1 lakh
  • Maximum: Rs. 25 lakhs

The disbursement is normally linked to benchmarks / milestones. Broad Areas to be covered under the financial assistance include:

  • Product development
  • Testing and trials
  • Test Marketing
  • Mentoring
  • Professional consultancy to engage Professors / experts with small firms
  • Filing of Indian/International patents
  • Man power for day to day operations
  • Any other area as deemed necessary and recommended by the Management Committee.

Here is a list of make/break criteria for applicants:

  • There must be at-least one dedicated entrepreneur involved in the venture
  • There must be a formal business plan
  • The venture and the team must have high ethical & professional standards
  • The venture must have a strong technology/knowledge component
  • EHS requirements must be met
  • Key Proof-of-Concept must be demonstrated & must be reproducible
  • The venture must be registered as a private limited company, or must be in the process of registration
  • The amount of funding requested must be less than Rs 25 lakh
  • The entrepreneur(s) must be willing to share equity in the venture
  • The seed funds requested must be for activities such as product development, prototyping, scale-up, developing IP portfolio, test marketing, trials, certification, testing

Applications for the seed fund will be reviewed based on criteria such as (but not limited to):

  • Is amount of funding requested enough to reach critical milestone?
  • Does the venture have a clear, potentially significant/singular value proposition
  • How big/fast growing is the potential market?
  • Are target customers clearly identified?
  • How credible is the technology? (Is PoC credible in the opinion of subject-matter experts?)
  • Are there regulatory/certification/policy risks?
  • What are the sources of sustainable competitive advantage (eg. novelty, patentability, etc.)?
  • What is the quality of the business plan (revenue model, product roadmap, market segments, etc.)?

Typical terms for seed funding:

  • Investment mode: Equity ownership in a private limited company
  • Equity stake for seed fund: 10% – 25%
  • Investment amount: Rs 1 lakh – 25 lakh (preferably, Rs 15 lakh – Rs 20 lakh)
  • Investment to be deployed in instalments, tied to significant milestones
  • BoD representation: 1 BoD seat or 1 BoD observer, with special rights
  • Promoter/founder stakes: Vesting requirements
  • Reporting: Bi-annual presentation to seed committee + Quarterly/annual financials

Application forms can be downloaded here

Business plan templates and other details are available at the Venture Center website

For more information, please contact bdm@venturecenter.co.in

Python, Django, Git, Virtualization and more at Fedora Activity Day 1 – Sept 24

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A Fedora Activity Day (FAD) is scheduled for Saturday, September
24, 2011, 1000 IST onwards at Red Hat office in Pune. The
objective of this FAD is to get any beginner, particularly students,
introduced to Open Source and Linux in general,
and involved in Fedora in particular, in preparation of FUDCon, Pune.

Agenda

Since this is an unconference, the final agenda will not be known until the day of the event, but you can see the agenda for the list of talks already registered. These include:

  • Introduction to Python
  • Introduction to Django
  • Communication Guidelines (on how to use IRC, wiki, mailing lists, etc)
  • Introduction to virtualization in Fedora
  • Introduction to Git – How to manage your love letters using Git

and a bunch of other talks.

Other details

Entry is to this free, but, there is limited seating capacity (maximum 70
people). If you are interested in giving a talk, please include your
name and talk details to the agenda. It is highly recommended that you
bring your laptops (with Fedora) to the event.

In addition to the sessions listed in the wiki, if you would like any
specific topic to be addressed, please contact Shakthi Kannan or
Rahul Sundaram.

The second FAD will be held in COEP on Saturday October 8, 2011.

Fees and Registration

The event will be on Saturday, 24 September, from 10am onwards at Red Hat Software, Tower X, Level-1, Cybercity, Magarpatta City, Hadapsar.

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register by adding your name to the wiki here. You will be required to bring atleast one photo ID (driving license/voter ID/PAN card) to enter the premises.

MCUG Event: Understanding all the technology underlying a hyperlink click

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The MIT Computer Users Group presents a talk by Anirudh Tomer and Toshish Jawale on what happens under the covers when you do something simple like clicking a hyperlink. The talk is at 1:30pm on Saturday, 20th August, in room A203, E&TC Dept. MIT, Kothrud.

About the Seminar:

To see this post you must have clicked a hyperlink, and it would have hardly took seconds to open that. So easy man!!!, but what you didn’t saw was how did the computer made this possible for you.

It all started at your Brain, here is the simple flow of all events that took place in LAYMAN’s TERMS

  1. Brain sends signals to your muscles to move the mouse on link and click on Mouse, your eyes help in that movement and tell brain to click at right place.
  2. Mouse sends interrupt via USB or PS2 to Host Controller.
  3. Host controller forwarded the interrupt to Processor.
  4. Processors sent interrupt to device driver.
  5. Device driver gave control to X server (i.e display server for Linux)
  6. X server gave control to browser
  7. browsers parses that link.
  8. browser contact network card via system calls and sent the request to FB server
  9. Routers take the packet from your network card and gave it to FB server.
  10. FB server processes the request and sends the reply back
  11. Browser gets the reply back and processes the HTML code to display the new contents.
  12. X server updates the video memory buffer with new contents
  13. Monitor reads the new content from that buffer and shows new content at screen, at 60HZ (say)
  14. Eyes get the same signal at 16HZ and send it to brain
  15. Brain processes the information and validates the information, if its the right one.

and all this happened in 1 second parallely, so A MOUSE CLICK IS SO COMPLEX. In this session we are going to cover all this in detail. Since this all started at brain and ends up at brain, we call it Brain to Brain

Who Can Attend

Anyone from this universe and its a free event. Goodies waiting for you as well. So if you are one of those who keeps the passion for understanding HOW STUFF WORKS, then this is a must attend session for you. Suggestions are most welcome

About MCUG – MIT Computer Users Group

MCUG (The MIT Computer Users Group) is a student group started by students and alumni of MIT College Pune, but has now grown to include 500+ members (students as well as industry professionals) from all over India. MCUG conducts various tech activities targeting students of computer science engineering.

GizmoMeet: An event for all gadget fans in Pune

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Annkur writes:

Organized across India by OnlyGizmos.com, GizmoMeet is one of its kind meetup for gadget lovers. Over 250 technology enthusiasts have attended our meetups in Delhi and Mumbai. Coming saturday We look forward to meet you over some coffee at Cafe 1730, Koregaon Park (5.30OM-8:30PM).

So here we give you a sneak peek in to some of the stuff you can expect to see at the GizmoMeet, Pune:

  • Mobile and web apps by various developers
  • Android 3.1 running on the first ever Honeycomb Tablet, Motorola Xoom
  • Mobile OS: Windows Phone 7 Mango Update
  • Super motion gaming device, Kinect for Xbox 3 (Make sure you get your kids coz they’ll love it)
  • The Apple series which includes iPhone 4, iPad and an iPad 2 as well (So look forward to experiencing some great gaming as well as utility apps on iOS)

Well this certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of all the gadgets that are going to be there at the GizmoMeet . We would like to keep some surprises as well.

So folks, mark the 16th of July on your calendars. We hope to see you all there and be part of the experience that was intended only for you and feel free to get along your other tech enthusiast friends as well.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please RSVP on one of these:

FB: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=229957280358469

Twtvite: http://twtvite.com/gizmomeet5

Or, comment on this post: http://onlygizmos.com/gizmomeet-5-pune-we-are-coming/2011/06/

Interview with Mahendra Palsule – Editor at TechMeme

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(Mahendra Palsule is one of Pune’s most well-known people in the technology news / social web space in the world today due to his role as Editor at TechMeme, which is one of the most influential technology news websites. BlogAdda has a great interview of Mahendra where they cover his blogging, his work, personal life and other things. We have excerpted here, with permission, portions of that interview that are related to his work, for the benefit of PuneTech readers.)

Q: 19 years in IT industry and counting. You have been a witness to the fall and the rise of the industry. What have been your prominent observations in this period? Based on these observations and your experience, what changes do you predict in the next 10 years?

A: In the early days of my career, the entire IT industry in India was purely services-based. I always lamented the lack of product-based companies in India. Seeing the proliferation and rise of many Indian product-based companies and startups, is the most fulfilling observation in all these years.

Predictions for the future are always a dangerous game with many unknowns, but here are some I’d dare to make:

The Indian startup ecosystem will mature significantly in the coming years, making life a bit easier for entrepreneurs who undergo a difficult struggle today.
Indian IT outsourcing companies will face significant challenges and opportunities in several areas – getting qualified labor in India, diversifying geographically outside India, capitalizing on the growth of SaaS, etc.
In terms of overall online space, we are already witnessing a shift to a personalized experience. This will only get bolstered further in the coming years, with relevance filtering, giving you an optimal experience in everything you do online.
User behavior online will increasingly tend to share more publicly, leading to continued discussions and concerns about privacy.
User behavior online will increasingly tend to share more publicly, leading to continued discussions and concerns about privacy.
Q: Being a first ranker in college for all the years, is a fulfilling achievement. Can you share some very special moments from your college days that still bring a smile on your face when you think of it?

A: I was once asked by our Electronics professor to take a guest lecture on Multivibrators, in the middle of the year. When I started the lecture, I realized that my class wasn’t following me, because they had not understood what had been taught in the earlier months. So I reverted back, asked them if they knew how a transistor worked. By this time, our class got bold enough to be frank and replied in the negative.

So, I eventually ended up starting with basics of how diodes worked, followed by transistors, and then covering multivibrators over a span of 3 lectures. After I was done, my fellow-students suggested that we get rid of our Electronics professor and just use me instead.

Q: ‘Mahendra embodies the ideal Program Manager I would like to be working with’ & ‘He is one of the best Project Manager I’ve worked with’ is what some of your ex-colleagues say about you. You are now an editor at Techmeme. How and Why did this shift happen? Was it because of your keenness to explore new frontiers and realization that communicating well is your forte or was it something else? How did your friends and family react to this move?

A: The Project/Program Manager role in large Indian IT companies is a stressful balancing act dealing with challenges on three fronts – your bosses, your client, and your team. After 18 years of working in this role on several US & European projects, I realized I wanted a change.

I have always been an avid researcher, with a huge appetite for scanning a multitude of information sources and filtering the best from them. My present job goes hand-in-glove with this innate skill, and makes me think I was born to do this kind of work.

I have a hard time explaining what I do to my friends and family. Initially, they were skeptical, but over time, they’ve slowly realized the fulfilling nature of my work and accepted it. The fact that I work from home is an added benefit.

Q: Your current role at Techmeme is ‘Editor working as a human filter for automated algorithm’. Do you think an automated algorithm, no matter how intelligent it could develop into, can replace the intelligence and editor skills of a human? Also, is it better to ‘crowdsource’ and let users decide the relevancy and usefulness of a story, rather than an editor or team of editors doing it?

For a news aggregator, automated algorithms have limitations that can’t be overcomed.
A: For a news aggregator, automated algorithms have limitations that can’t be overcomed. Gabe Rivera, founder of Techmeme said it in 2008 when Techmeme hired its first editor.

Whether one decides to crowdsource or use an internal editorial team depends on one’s target audience – both models have been used online to varying degrees of success.

Q: ‘Relevance is the only solution to the problem of information overload’, according to you. Relevance is subjective. Do you feel the relevance could be influenced with popularity and things that might not have been relevant to someone would appear like one, just because it was shared by his/her friends or popular personalities? This seems like a constant challenge and it’ll be great to hear your views on how do you think this issue can be addressed and your suggestions for an individual to handle the information overload he faces everyday. You can even suggest tools if you like.

You will find both popularity-based and personalization-based relevance models to continue to coexist in the future.
A: Yes. As I described in the article, relevance is very dynamic and difficult to pin down. There are times when what is most popular is most relevant, and there are other times when a personalized approach is more relevant. This is why you will find both popularity-based and personalization-based relevance models to continue to coexist in the future.

My tips for handling information overload are listed on Quora:

Q: In one of your recent post, you opine that Facebook and Quora should be worried about Google+ but have not mentioned about Twitter, where asking questions, sharing links and speed seems to be the key. According to you, will Twitter not get affected by this? What kind of innovations do you want to see happening on Twitter, to counter any threats from other networks?

Twitter’s 140 character limit will remain its USP against Facebook and Google+
A: Twitter’s 140 character limit will remain its USP against Facebook and Google+. This limit makes it more suitable for sharing links & hence its suitability as a news-discovery network. Twitter needs a better on boarding process for new users and a flourishing developer ecosystem – both of which are weak areas today.

_(Please read the full interview at BlogAdda for more. Also check out the recent PuneTech article about Google+ which features the views of Mahendra on why Quora and Twitter should be afraid of Google+.)

Event Report: “Building Tech Products out of India” with Naren Gupta of Nexus Ventures

Event Report, External Visitors, , ,

(This is a live blog of the event Nexus Venture Partners’ event “Building Global Tech Product Companies out of India” where Naren Gupta, founder of Nexus chatted with Abinash Tripathy, founder of Pune-company Infinitely Beta about the challenges faced by companies trying to build a global product. The other four partners at Nexus were also there. This is essentially a collection of observations made by the various speakers during this event.)

  • Indian companies are good with technology, but we don’t build sales and marketing organizations early. Most engineers think that if you build a great product, customers will be easy to get. This is the biggest shortcoming that needs fixing.
    • Having a sales & marketing person in the founding team is great, but not necessary. Having one of the technical co-founder play a sales/marketing role is really great. Customers tend to trust technical guys more than pure sales guys. And this is a skill that can be learned. Initially, it will be hard, as you will be turned down by a large number of people, but you’ll figure it out. We all know how to do sales & marketing – because we do a lot of that when dealing with our parents, teachers, siblings. We’ve just forgotten to apply those skills in the context of our work.
  • The large markets are in the US, so how do you build a good sales and marketing organization? The best people in the US are both expensive, and hard to find.
    • India now has customers who are willing to pay for tech products. So it is possible now to use India as a test market, and build a small sales/marketing team based on this.
    • Not all sales/marketing has to happen on the ground. You can achieve a lot with the internet and phone.
    • The market of the future is not necessarily in the US. For example, new technologies, the US is a maturing market (i.e. there are legacy products and you have to convince people to migrate) whereas less developed countries are green field markets who are more receptive to new technologies.
  • The most experienced companies in the world are not just building great products – they are building great customer experiences. And experience is everything – from how the customer first hears about your company, how your product functions and makes the customer feel, and afterwards, if there is a problem, how you handle the problem and how you treat the customer. You need to be building great experiences. Example: craigslist is the top classifieds site in the world, but has a not-so-good experience. AirBnB took one small slice of this market, built a great experience around it, and now has a billion dollar valuation. DropBox makes the experience of backup and file-sharing so smooth and unobtrusive.
  • The biggest challenge in building a company is how to build the right culture. Before hiring, Pune company InfinitelyBeta makes prospective candidates build a mini-product and then review that code. Hence their hiring process takes 2 months. But then they know exactly what kind of a programmer they are getting.
  • Pune is ahead of other Indian cities as far as people building or interested in building products. This is probably because Pune has traditionally not had that many software services companies, and it has had some large development centers of product companies (like Veritas/Symantec, nVidia), so the product DNA has thrived more in Pune.
    • Because it is ahead of others in product orientation, Pune is the Indian city that is best positioned to be able to reproduce the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
    • It already has a microbrewery (like Silicon Valley’s Gordon Biersch), so an important component of the valley culture is already here 🙂
  • Currently, top Indian tech universities (like IITs) are quite isolated from the industry. But as more and more product companies start coming out of India, there is likely to be more collaboration between universities and companies. So we should start seeing more of this in the next 5 years.
  • We are getting into an era where fast response to changing conditions is much more important than protecting your intellectual property. Thus building an agile engineering organization is more important than getting patents.
  • You can build a B2C company immediately after college, with minimal experience. But building a B2B company really requires you to have some experience in the industry.
  • Challenges of selling into the SME market in India: Selling products for the SME market is tough for the following reasons:
    • No one has really solved the problem of distribution. Creating a product that SMEs find interesting is not good enough. Creating an efficient system for selling the product to a large number of SMEs remains a challenge. Often the cost of selling a product to a customer turns out to be higher than the income from that customer. And it is sometimes easier to sell to large companies than it is to sell to SMEs (which tend to be very price and feature conscious)
    • Far too many Indian companies in this space are creating products that they think SMEs want, but in reality, SMEs are not really that interested. Finding products that SMEs really want is very tough. Few startup founders have a good understanding of the SME space.