Connect with us

Archives

The Board Level Discussions in The Us That are Affecting #Startups in #India

Published

on

Board Level Discussions

Over the last 4 months I have been able to talk to over 30 Chief Innovation Officers and VP’s of Marketing or Technology who are customer’s of Microsoft. These have been largely 30-45 min sessions, followed or preceded by a 30 min call. The main purpose of these session is that “Innovation” and “Disruption” are now a board level agenda.

A brief, but short history. Innovation has always been about a major “theme”. During 1960-80, inside out innovation was the mantra. People were carrying books from Peter Drucker – Innovation and entrepreneurship and every person in the large company was asked to suggest ideas and help the company be more innovative.

Innovation Peter Drucker
Innovation Peter Drucker

Then between 1980-2000, the Japanese innovation and optimizing manufacturing, measuring outcomes and building networks were critical.

Japanese Innovation
Japanese Innovation

In the early 2000’s the Blue Ocean strategy took shape. The concept of “Outside In” innovation, talking to customers and having customers drive the innovation process became the vogue.

Blue Ocean Strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy

From 2010, Clayton Christensen’s book on the Innovators Dilemma is the most quoted book by innovation teams. The idea of “disruptive innovation” is in its peak.

Innovators Dilemma
Innovators Dilemma

So, if you are in a large Fortune 1000 company, you look at startups like AirBnB and Uber and get concerned that these and other companies will “eat your lunch” and change your entire industry with software and technology.

Which is why you see a huge spike (year over year) in the number of new corporate venture capital teams.

CB Insights Corporate Venture Capital Deals
CB Insights Corporate Venture Capital Deals

There are many tactics that larger companies are using to foster more innovation:

1. Starting offices in Silicon Valley, even if you are a mid-west retailer.

2. Opening a new innovation, analytics and venture funding organizations.

3. Partnering with startup accelerator programs to engage with early stage startups.

4. Starting your own accelerator program, even for a baseball team.

5. Announcing API’s that are available to startups to build applications on top of – even for government.

6. Running hackathons for Epilepsy to help learn about new ideas startup entrepreneurs come up with.

7. Partnering with your competitors to support startup innovations.

All of these and others, are a reaction to the extreme disruption that software, technology and mobile are causing to other larger, more established companies in all industries.

In talking to most of these Innovation officers, though I get a sense that they are “trying lots of things” to see what sticks.

What they are finding is that:

1. Silicon Valley is more expensive and hiring there is a big problem. Competing with Google, Facebook has many of those companies rethink that option.

2.  Innovation is now dispersed in China, India, Israel and other countries as well. Over 50% of the “unicorns” are from outside the United States.

3. Unless they go deeper to learn with the startups, they are unable to change the internal culture, which is where most of the work needs to happen.

Which leads them to India, particularly.

Many of the executives are keen to tap into the talent pool in India, but are concerned about high prices (what a surprise) and also attrition rates.

Most are trying to understand if they need to open Innovation and startup center’s in India instead of the valley.

So, for B2B, enterprise startups the next few years would be great with many of their target customers “coming to India” to source startup, instead of the startups that have to travel outside to get customers.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Archives

Creating Artificial Constraints as a Means to Innovation

Published

on

By

Artificial Constraints

Many of the entrepreneurs I know have created new innovative startups thanks to real constraints they had. For example, I was hearing AirBnB’s Brian Chesky, on the Corner Office podcast and he mentioned that when he and his cofounder were trying to get some money to get started and the only way to keep afloat was to “rent” their air bed they had in their room. That, then led to Air Bed and Breakfast, which is now AirBnB.

This was a real constraint they had – no money to “eat” so they had to make it happen somehow.

I have heard of many stories of innovation where in the protagonists had real constraints of either financial, technology, supply, demand, economic, social or any number of other characteristics.

The interesting story that I have also recently heard of how Facebook has “pivoted” from being a desktop offering to getting a significant part of their revenue from mobile is how they were given the arbitrary constraint of only accessing Facebook via the mobile phone.

So there are ways that you can create “artificial” constraints to force innovation to happen.

Most larger companies and some smaller ones as well, have to constantly find ways to create artificial constraints – to find a way to innovate and be more be a pioneer.

While some constraints are good – lack of funds at the early stage for example and lack of resources, there are entrepreneurs that are stymied by these constraints and those that will find  a way to seek a path to go forward.

I think this is a great way for you to think about innovating in a new space. If you have constraints, find a way to use it to your advantage.

Continue Reading

Archives

The Great Mobile App Migration of March 2020

Published

on

By

Mobile App Migration

Over the last few weeks as many in the world have been in lockdown, there has been a temporary “mobile app migration” happening. There are new apps downloaded and they replaced existing apps on the “home screen”.

While some of these apps are likely temporary use, for e.g. I have 6 “conferencing apps” – Zoom, Uber Conference, Webex, Google Hangouts, Blue Jeans and Goto Meeting. That is because of the many people I have conference calls with – each company seems to have chosen a different web conference solution.

Other apps seem like they will have staying power – Houseparty, for e.g. which has games, networking and video conferencing all built into one app to keep in touch with friends and relatives.

Houseparty

The apps that have moved away from my “home” screen, which I expect will come back once the crisis will be behind us include – Uber, Lyft and all the airline apps from Delta, Alaska and United.

Continue Reading

Archives

Perseverance with the Ability to Pivot on Data: 21 Traits We Look for in Entrepreneurs

Published

on

By

Perseverance with the Ability to Pivot

There are 5 key inflection points I have noticed which makes founders question their startup, to either make a call to continue working on their startup, pivot to a new problem or quit their startup altogether.

It is at these points that you really get to know the startup founder and their hunger and drive to be successful. I don’t think I can characterize those that choose to quit as “losers” or “quitters” because of many extraneous circumstances, but there is a lot of value that most investors see in entrepreneurs who face an uphill part of their journey to come out on the other side more confident and stronger.

These five inflection points are:

  1. When you have to get the first customers to use and pay for the product you have built after you have “shipped” an alpha / beta / first version. Entrepreneurs quit because they have not found the product-market-fit – because the customer don’t care about the product, there is no market need, or the product is really poorly built, or a host of other reasons.
  2. When you have to start to raise the first external round of financing from people you are not familiar with at all. Entrepreneurs quit because while it is hard to get customers and hire people, it is much more harder to get a smaller set of investors to part with their money, if you do not have “traction”, or “the right management team” or a “killer product”.
  3. When you have to push to break even (financially) and sustain the company to path of being self sufficient. Entrepreneurs quit at this stage because they have now the ability to do multiple things at the same time – grow revenues and manage costs, and many of them like to do one but realize it is hard to do that without affecting the other. So, rather than feel stuck they decide to quit.
  4. When you have to scale and grow faster that the competition – which might mean to hire faster, to get more customers, to drive more sales, or to completely rethink their problem statement and devise new ways to grow faster. Entrepreneurs quit at this point because they are consumed by the magnitude of the problem. They overassess the impact the competition will have on their company, give them too much credit or focus way too much on the competitors, thereby driving their company to the ground.
  5. At any point in the journey, when the founders lose the passion, vision or the drive to succeed. Entrepreneurs quit a these points because they have challenges with their co founder, they don’t agree with the direction they have to take, or encounter the “grass is greener on the other side” syndrome.

While I have observed many entrepreneurs at these stages at  discrete points in time, I have also had the opportunity to observe some entrepreneurs in the continuum, and I am going to give you my observations on 3 of the many folks I have known, who, have quit.

Perseverance separates great entrepreneurs from good ones
Perseverance separates great entrepreneurs from good ones

One went back to college to finish his MBA after getting a running business to a point of near breakeven, another found the business much harder than he originally thought he would and got a job at a larger company and the third was just unable to have the drive to go past 11 “no’s”‘ from angel investors.

Over the last 8 years, if I look at my deeper interactions with over 90 entrepreneurs, who I would have spent at least 100+ hours each, I would say that of the 24 people that are not longer in their startup, the one thing that stands out among the ones that persevere is that it is not “passion” or “vision” at all.

It is the inherent belief that they are solving a problem that they believe is their “calling”. They also don’t believe that there is any other problem that’s worth solving as much, even though there may be easier ways to make money.

So most of my questions of entrepreneurs to test whether they will pivot or quit are around why they want to solve this problem (which I am looking to see if they know enough about in the first place) versus any other one.

The answer to that question is the best indicator I have found to be the difference between the pivots, the leavers and the rest.

Continue Reading

Trending