HeadStart Day 3 – Afternoon Session

Afternoon session started with Mr Deepak Srinivasan‘s thoughts on Product Management.

Role of a Product Manager:

• Owns the business plan of the product.
• Has a 360 degree view of the prodcut
• THE go to resource for all questions, decisions
• Directs Life cycle, Engagements
• Is the “CEO Jr.” of the prodcut.
• Creates
  • Spots the opportunity
  • Sells the plan
• Manages
  • Life Cycle
  • Socialization
  • Executive Board
• Coordinates
  • Finance
  • HR
  • Sales
  • Development
• Directs
  • Program Management
  • Product Marketing
  • Internal Evangelization
  • Business Development
• Product Requirements Document
• Market Requirements Definition
• Role in Innovation
  • Socialize – Meet people and talk to them
  • Gather – Listen, Find, Stimulate and Conveive
  • Culture – Receptivity, Recognize and Rejection
• Hiring
  • Engaged
  • Passionate
  • Reflective
  • Gatherer
  • Hunter
  • Visualizer
  • Communicator
  • Integrity
  • Rule Breaker
  • Leader
• Product Management 2.0
• Markets have changed forever
  • A segment of One
  • A Million Segments
  • All need addressing
• Delivery has changed forever
  • Real-time
  • Re-usable
  • Re-combinant
• Real-time PM
  • Strategy
  • Delivery
  • Operational
• Startups
  • Help replicate thinking
  • Helps reduce I/O, improves productivity
  • Engineering delight
  • Independent voice to Shareholders, Board
  • Greatly improves chances of success
• Grow up
  • PMs most often manage people that outrank them or dont report to them.
  • CEO, Executive team should communicate and reinforce the universality of the role.
  • Share the role and introduce the PM to your Board of Directors.
  • Have project, program management and product marketing report into PM.
• So you reap..
  • Its never 2 early, its habit forming – that’s good
  • Retrofitting a PM culture is often impossible
  • PM’s make some of the best founders, CEO’s
  • You owe it to your business, your shareholders.

Deepak recommends Crossing the Chasm for understanding how to sell to customers.

You can write to Deepak at deepak {AT} mobiance {dot} com

Cost based funding and Startup Culture – Ashwin Masheh, MapUnity

• Recipe for Success 🙂
  • Don’t have any money
  • Want to retain autonomy/control
  • Want to survive, even prosper
  • Want to work with large firms and develop scale
  • Want to attract talented people at affordable pay
• Problem with selling
  • Pre-conceived ideas of rich/poop and their needs
  • Cash cow syndrome
  • Low impact, as a startup
  • Financial uncertainty
  • Cultural implications
• Technology Ecosystem
  • Offline workbench
    • Client-side software that can allow data to be created offline, and synced with online platform data.
  • Independent, domai-specific APIs
    • OpenLayers-based application interface allows other software developers to build on top of the Mapunity platform. Custom APIs for specific domains – traffic, shopping, health, etc – will also be developed
  • Geo-search and indexing
    • Hierarchical as well as spatial searches possible, as is searching across databases and communities hosted on single platform.
• GIS Telecom synergies
  • Call origin Mapping
  • Mobile data collection and query
  • Device-linked software development
• Other focus areas of MapUnity
  • energy hub
  • mapmedia GIS
  • e-City
  • udhavi
  • relief GIS

This concludes the 2 day HeadStart for 2008. Look for more updates on www.HeadStart.in and www.KickStart.in

Do write to me (hari {AT} kickstart {dot} in) or leave a comment on any of these posts if you want to get in touch with our team.