Having been consistent in bringing a great event to the Indian Entrepreneur Ecosystem for ten continuous years, is an achievement in itself. With over 100 volunteer minds working to bring the best content together, the 3 day NASSCOM Product Conclave 2013 (#NPC2013) brought in a lot more excitement and structure this year. It was also the consolidation of the best minds from the growing industries of technology and business. There were mentors, investors, broad cross-section to startups, rich catchment of keen professionals, lot of decision makers and, off course, Ecosystem Partners like us that played vital role in #NPC2013 success. And many people had the advantage of meeting the entire management teams to accelerate decision-making.
Right from digital marketing for sales growth and lead generation using Facebook and LinkedIn advertising by Ravi Trivedi, Srijan Capital, to modelling the early stage contract documents in accordance with business and legal implications by Naina Krishnamurthy, KLaw, all the tracks were clearly audience marked and the workshops emphasized a lot of actionable learning. One of the most interesting sessions was touted to be ‘Design Awesome’ by Deepa Bachu, Intuit, which introduced to concepts and hands-on experiments to test hypothesis and change the outlook towards product development.
The focused track on emerging payments helped showcase the modern-day electronic money systems like mobile wallets, bitcoins and no-fuss Indian payment solutions. Pratyush Prasanna, VP of One97 said “it helped to showcase that payments is a very important part of the startup ecosystem and it gave us good visibility, as the best in the industry”.
The best part of NPC2013 was of course the Demo Jam, the Reverse Pitch and the Truth Or Dare with investors. The Demo Jam had quick four-minute innovation pitches by key payment enablers. The Reverse pitch had investors selling themselves to entrepreneurs in the room and answered critique questions and doubts with absolute patience. Their time is generally the most sought after and least available resource thanks to their tough job of screening the most invest-able team and idea.
And how could we forget the wonderful cocktail and dinner on both days. While liquor kept flowing, even the most celebrated guests gave up their inhibitions and shared laughing moments and dived into deep discussions. A wonderful culmination indeed.
One part of making an event better is hearing what the past delegates had to say about the event. And we did just that on behalf of NASSCOM. While some had an overwhelming experience with great contacts, business leads and advisory leads all present under one roof, some other had suggestions to make to NASSCOM.
Gaurav Kachru, 5ideas, confessed that participation in NASSCOM Product Conclave allowed them to extend their initiative and make them more real. He was happy that NPC got better every year and strongly felt the rigid one way interaction conference format should make way to more interactive workshops in the years to come.
Pinkesh Shah, Director of Programs, Institute of Product Leadership said although he loved the organized approach, however, having a list of delegates present would have helped to enhance social business networking at NPC2013.
Inference:
NASSCOM has concocted a wonderful recipe of value to all participants, delegates and partners. And now NASSCOM has three new challenges for the years ahead:
- Plan Direct Business Impact initiatives
- Use technology to enhance Business Networking
- Make way for more Actionable Learning Workshops to meet the demand
So see you next time around.
