Is SaaS Dead? Depends on who you are asking

The ‘It depends’ answer always sounds like a cop-out. Often, that is the most useful answer. Founders will flip out and throw you off the building If you ask a founder, ‘Is SaaS dead?’ they are going to flip out. Most founders had just decided to brand themselves as SaaS founder. Just when almost the…More

Unusual founder lessons from the OpenAI saga

Friday, November 17 of the year 2023 will go down in tech history as a significant day. It’s a day that will be remembered and discussed for generations to come. It’s when Sam Altman found himself ousted as CEO of OpenAI for four days. This event holds some unusual lessons for founders. Yanked away from your…More

Every enterprise needs an AI strategy, how to build yours?

Most boardrooms are discussing AI strategy now, and they are as clueless as a penguin trying to fly. Every few years an unknown phenomenon shows up in the world and poses a challenge to well laid out plans. COVID was that phenomenon three years ago. Last year it looked like interest rates and recession may…More

Investors wont fund your AI startup and they probably shouldn’t

.ai in your startup does not make it an AI startup. Every few years, a new trend emerges, capturing the collective imagination. It stirs a frenzy, spawning conferences and reports, birthing startups and luring investors. Picture a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean, with pirates gathered in a dimly lit bar, swapping tales of treasure…More

How to use OpenAI to not get disrupted, a SaaS founders guide

[originally published at medium here ] Platform shift underway You are experiencing the fastest platform shift of all time. What’s a platform?” Well, it’s not the technical term developers typically use. Instead, think of a platform as a space where people interact and exchange things. Before Amazon and Flipkart, physical street shops dominated the shopping scene.…More

How to make yourself Anti fragile ? Not the society

World has found a new interest in understanding antifragile again. With the onset of a pandemic, global survival is at risk.  Everyone is pondering how could we have built an antifragile health system, financial back bone and an economy.  Antifragile is not a theory. It is a set of heuristics at best. Antifragile is a…More

India as Product Nation, lessons of the first decade

Nation means an imagined community. It stokes a certain pride in every human who belongs in it. Prefix it with Product and that makes it even more elite. In business terms it means climbing up on the value chain. Which in turn means more margins, more visibility and more power. I heard the word Product Nation first…More

CTS engineers are better SaaS founders than Google engineers

Surprise is a rock under which lessons are hidden. Don’t throw it away. Scott Cook, when coaching product teams often asks this question: “What is your biggest surprise?”  First time I heard it, I marveled at the power of this question. Using this question is like the situation when the examining eye doctor puts that one lens…More

Friedman was wrong, World is not flat

At least for enterprise software startups. Fact, one of two enterprise startups in the valley has an Indian founder or a co-founder Fact, earlier they had back office in India now they have front office as well. Largely due to how SaaS is changing how buying & deploying is done inside an enterprise. Still pause…More

Product you are building. Is it a Pot, Potter or Potters Clay ?

What is a product? Typical answer from engineering founders is that, ‘A product is a set of features’. This mindset leads to a never-ending spiral of building ‘new features’. Over time, the number of features gets so enormous that it is not clear what the original vision of building the product was. Prasanna is very fond of calling this…More

Why meaningful founder exits are better than go big go home

Most startups die, only a few exceed expectations and become successful beyond imagination. These successful ones become the talk of the town, while the failed ones quietly fade away into the background. Nevertheless, it is the story of the moderately successful ones that get buried on the other side. In the purview of unicorn-chasing investors,…More

Best Indian Founder of the first startup decade

Best Indian founder of the entire last decade 2008–2018 Is Undoubtedly Lee Fixel of Tiger Global. Every founder attempts to create value. It is not that hard. If money is handed out for a purchase, it is bound to create a consumer surplus. As Bill Gurley, legendary VC at Benchmark Capital says To turn it…More

India is eating SaaS

Change is easy to miss, hard to get right Policymakers take pride in thinking that they create markets. Many believe that the 1992 World Bank report which called India as likely software superpower was responsible for the creation of $150bn IT services industry. In emergent systems like markets, it is hard to say which inputs…More

When you don’t play the right game

When Mario plays soccer can he become a Super Mario? Everything about the future is so clearly visible when looked through the rearview mirror. Wish I knew what influenced outcomes for a tech startup founder in India. When you look back decade-long to sketch the picture from 2007 till now, leaving out the frenzy of…More