so you think you want to build a product
TRANSCRIPT
So you want to build a product...
K.K.Wagh College of Engineering, Nasik, Jan 2016
(An Automatic Back Scratcher)
Rucha Gokhale | IndyRise
[email protected] | @ruchagokhale
Graduated as the first woman Mechanical Engineer from KKW (and quite likely the first from the town of Nasik) in 2000. Went on to bag an MBA from Pune and an MEng from Buffalo, NY. This started me on my career path as an over-educated, underpaid analyst.
I am now a Mom, a Productnaut and a 2-product-strong entrepreneur in New York City - in that order. IndyRise is my labor of love.
Mom, Accidental Entrepreneur, Productnaut...
Swati Paranjpe | Two
From RJEMHS to an electrifying journey of design practice in India & Canada, Swati’s mantra has been to apply the power of design, whether to augment brand equity, create social impact, or get challenged everyday.
Over 15 years, she has worked with leading Design Agencies and Not-for-Profits traversing across traditional and new media to guide premier brands on a journey of superior design. She leads Brand Strategy & UX design at Two.
[email protected] | @swateiDreamer, Activist, Imagineer...
Siddharth Khandelwal | Two
Siddharth’s lifelong passion for art, architecture, movies, and music evolved into TWO, with a vision to build a culture of creative collaboration where design is executed through holistic experiences—a product of diverse skill sets and lateral thinking. Siddharth holds a masters degree in Design from the University of Technology, Sydney. From international apprenticeships to leading design teams locally, Siddharth’s experience over the last 13 years is rich and varied, including large-scale corporate identity programs to FMCG brands, Tech start ups and new media ventures, among others.
[email protected] | @sidd1480
Mountaineer, Dreamer & Imagineer no. 2 ...
Thanks for having us!
The Truth About Startups
There’s a lot of them out there
India has the 3rd highest number of startups (4200-4400)
American Startups in the year 2015
US is the largest startup economy… New York City alone has 10,316 - more than
any single city in the country
And some even get funded… a lot
Most startups begin with seed funding from friends & family
Startups fail often
9 out of 10 startups will fail within the
first two years, some may fail more
than once
Uber
Ola
Paytm
AirBnB
Square
Housing.com
Great startups strive to solve a core problem
The Truth About Building New Products
if you don’t believe in your product, nobody else will
It is a lonely path
no room for doubts, hire
talent from your circle of trust
Small teams, tight budgets
passion
Culture: get your head in the right place
drive pride self beliefcustomer
focus
Waterfall
Start with established principles...
Agile Lean
Then experiment the heck out of them
Build something beautiful
even the ordinary person loves
beautiful design
Eat your own dogfood
using your own product inspires
confidence
less building, more talking
Product development is 80% networking
The Startup To-do List
Develop a reading habit
● A global standard dictionary of acronyms … there isn’t one
● Empathize
● Get to the point quickly, especially when addressing large groups
● Online isn’t in-person, so stop behaving in the same way
Communicate to be understood
● You will be what you visualize, so dream big and then work towards it
● Talk to people who are smarter than you
● Keep evolving
● Make your social media interactions meaningful, people take notice
● Your resume wasn’t built in a day - proactively collect your testimonials
Build your brand
Meaningful participation builds
soft skills
Do something ‘extracurricular’
Find something that you are passionate
about, then go do it!
Begin!
● If you’ve thought it, someone else has already built it: It's ok to pursue micro innovations
● Good products solve problems, technology is only the means to a well-ideated end
● Good products focus on servicing the end user, magical design is a consequence never a strategy
● Find a need to fill, then go above and beyond
Before taking the plunge