I met with Dhiraj Rajaram, Founder & CEO, Mu Sigma, recently. Mu Sigma calls itself variously as an applied math factory, world’s leading pure-play decision sciences company and so on. Simply put, Mu Sigma is in the business of analyzing the growing information of its customers and making sense out of it- asking the why question as much as the what and how- and offering meaningful interpretations on the business for its management.

Set up in 2005, the company has grown at a fast clip- not only has the company scaled an important milestone of a $100 M run rate but they have also obtained a significant funding to secure future growth.

Talking with Dhiraj, it is not hard to see why the company has been as successful as it is. The first thing that struck me was the aspiration combined with quiet confidence- Dhiraj clearly has his goals set on a bigger dream, and is systematically charting the course. When I say quiet, let it not be thought that Dhiraj is a man of few words J On the contrary, he is articulate and passionate about his company and ideas – but sports the air of someone who feels his journey has just begun. And so does not think that they have achieved much yet!  Dhiraj’s clarity of purpose is also evident when he explains the way they went about building the business- the choices they made and the philosophies they abide by.

I walked out of my meeting with Dhiraj ( who incidentally is a fellow alumnus of College of Engineering, Guindy) convinced that Mu Sigma is definitely a company to watch out for!

Cracking the exponential growth formula?

Popularity: 24% [?]

Ashok Soota, former chairman Mindtree announced his next venture today- Happiest Minds! While the name is unusual for an IT company, the services are far from unusual- in fact, its business lines include IT services, R&D services, product engineering services, RIM, consulting and testing. A feeling of dejavu? Hang on.

Soota also says that his company will hit the USD 100 M mark within 5 years- perhaps to break the Mindtree record of being the company to hit the 100M mark in 6 years!

Only time will tell whether Happiest Minds will actually stay true to its name- that will entirely depend on how they create a distinctive customer experience- even if their offerings and approach seem to be far from it, at least from what one can make out from the news report.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I  have ! Thanks to Nasscom Product Conclave 2010, I had this unique opportunity of teaming up with 6 total strangers and trying to sell a pet made out of lego blocks. This was part of a fun-filled workshop titled “Opinion vs Market Research”. Conducted by Chad Wathington from Thoughtworks Studio, this session was aimed at instructing entrepreneurs on the importance of market research.

We basically were asked to build a pet out of  lego from scratch keeping in mind a bunch of characteristics ( like no of legs, colour, barking, biting, etc ). The cost of the pet was based on which characteristic we chose to impart to the pet. On the other side of the table were the buyers who were given a list of characteristics – and they could buy from us only if our product matched their requirements. The best part was we had no idea what the buyer was looking for, and so, in the first build iteration, we failed miserably.

Now, things got interesting ! There were 3 market research reports on customer and competition intelligence which we could buy ( that would, of course, bring up our costs ). Leveraging these reports , we had to modify our pet and try to sell it again . During this iteration, we witnessed what is called a “market shock”. The buyers’ requirements suddenly changed ( they suddenly wanted more legs on their pets !! ). At the end of the third iteration, the team which sold the most number of pets won ! It wasn’t surprising that the winning team had purchased the market reports ( resulting in a slightly higher price of their pet ) and leveraged that information to understand what the customer was looking for.

Wonderful way to drive home the point, wasn’t it ? Whether you are a startup or an MNC, you need to invest into your marketing efforts and use hard core data points to understand your market.

Popularity: 11% [?]

With that jarring title, I hope to have caught your eye !! Coming fresh from a “Catching a billion eyeballs on a shoestring budget” session by the outspoken Sridhar Vembu of Zoho , I decided to at least ensure Prayag BlogPost gets its share of “eyeballs”…

There were a number of takeaways from the conclave – but the one which stood out for me was the massive number of aspiring entrepreneurs who turned up with innovative products to sell ! There are around 40 million SMEs in India – so , as an upcoming product guy, the one thing you need to bear in mind is the value-add you are bringing to your customer. To quote Sashi Kapoor from Deewar – the question he asks Amitabh Bachchan is “Mere paas sab kuch hai, Tere paas kya hai??” ( I have everything, what do you have ?) If you don’t have the answer to this, you had better trace back your steps !

Of the 40 million, they say that the potential addressable market for cloud or Saas based business solutions is  around 8 million. 3 lessons for you to target this market :

1. Understand your market ( do your market research and surveys – and stay focussed on marketing at every stage )
2. Understand your customer ( you cannot assume that you know what they want – take care not to fall into the chasm of building opinionated products – your opinion could be wrong )
3. Know your value add – don’t “cloud-enable” your application just because it sounds tech-savvy – understand how the cloud solution will help your customer

Another important point is to get people talking/reading about you – but remember “not all eyeballs are the same” . One would rather have 10000 people reading your blogpost, out of which 5000 are going to buy, as compared to 1million hits on your blog site, with no conversion happening.

So, remember – there are millions out there trying to outsmart you – so, differentiate or die !!!!

Popularity: 10% [?]

That’s the tag line o kiva.org, a microfinance lending portal that I came across while researching some ideas for one of our clients eho provides technology solutions for MFIs. The idea is so simple, yet so powerful and I urge you to check out the site. Kiva brings together individuals who want to help the under privileged in any way they can (loan contributions can be as low as $25) and the poor with an entrepreneurial mind set. Kiva for example has funded farmers, fisherwomen, seamstresses, small retailers and bakers from countries across the globe. The organization also now funds students. A friend on facebook had also recently posted that he lends money and added that he had not once had a default.

I found the idea of Kiva highly empowering and it kind of restored one’s faith in the goodness of humanity. The premise of Kiva is that human beings are fundamentally generous, and also that the poor are highly motivated.

Here is an example of how technology can be used to make a real difference – what do you think?

Popularity: 13% [?]

Last Sunday I read an article by well known economist Swaminathan Aiyer on this topic- Jugaad refers to inventive spirit and ingenuity of Indians, who have learned to make the most of a resource strapped situation. Be it successful reverse engineering in Punjab, or large scale working around the system by the likes of Dhirubhai Ambani, the underlying pattern is how to make things work, look at possibilities, rather than get bogged down by what is not available.

Think about it, and this is indeed one of India’s greatest assets. Being able to thrive in a resource rich environment is one thing, but building large scale companies and creating successful entrepreneurial ventures when the business climate is not conducive is something.

The important point is however that India and Indians must not lose this spirit as our economy progresses and some of the constraints ease out. Imagine the advantage we would have as a young aspiring nation with this spirit of inventiveness.

Only time will tell how we protect this trait, as a nation.

Popularity: 12% [?]