Make your Product a Platform, But wait first invest!!!

Why are apps so popular on iPhone and not on BlackBerry? Why does iPhone have such a huge developer community and why do you have to struggle to find a BlackBerry app developer? well leave BlackBerry out of this why do no other product has such a huge community of developers as compared to Apple...

Answer is simple... Apple is led by a Innovation method that leads to a revenue model. In clarity the developers find a platform on which they can build a huge set of apps and tools and use them as the product to earn revenue out of it. Similarly if you see the path taken by Amazon Web Services and Salesforce it is clearly visible that they have turned out from being niche products into very strong platforms. Millions of tools, apps , products and Integrations now revolve around such platforms and they have become the Oracle.

I recently read a small snippet that said that startups should build desktop and mobile apps in the early age of the launch to be successful... I think more importantly they should build a set of API's and SDK's around at the time of their launch. The API's will help them to let open features that can attract developers or products to build tools and apps around. I also feel that this should be a step to become a platform sooner or later. However one has to be careful that not all products have successfully become good platforms... a lot of vision, hard work and investment is needed to do that... Importantly right attitude is needed and long term thinking required from the stakeholders to do such thing...

Here are my few tips on why one should look to be a platform and what care should be taken...

Why Platform?

1. As opposed to a product with a few API's available, platforms gives luxury to community to build things around it. If people think they can build things around you and use it for some revenue creation... you are going to be successful on how fast you accelerate your platform.

2. A platform has a longer life than a product... specially because it always invites and controls a lot of apps around. More than anything you are sure you would always have a set of old customers who would stick to you ONLY.

3. If you are new it will open up new avenues for Integrations... if you are OLD.. you have scope to drive the market towards you.

4. In the world of clouds... just a set of API's will not take you anywhere.

But building platforms is not a easy thing like I said.. you need some support, trust , effort and vision... Above all I think an organization should think of becoming a platform only if:

1. They have readiness to Invest :

Platform building is more of investment for a long time to reap the benefits out on the later stage.. A lot of companies simply want to have quick small web services to fulfill immediate needs and that's it. A lot of times the created services or API's or SDK's are unaligned.. they simply cant cover one single module... Moreover if you have a set of API's or services created years ago, you need the thought to upgrade, refactor them sooner.

2. If you don't sow, it wont reap.

One of the products i worked on.. API's started to become key. So important to a level that a whole bunch of internal tools were created around to help the customers use them... however there was no effort to ideate and align the model of such API's to a platform... Effect? Well they just end up as API's.. and you always try to change the existing ones to fit the needs coming ahead.. without really building any new.. If you are not refactoring and re-architecting the core time and again... you are running at the speed of a celeron.

3. You have a strong marketing plan for your platform

A lot of products and platforms fail because they dont know how to market and sell there platforms.. sometimes to whom and sometimes where and why...A year ago I met a retailing tool provider who had some experience on Salesforce developer program... In his first meeting he asked me about all possible tools and products we use.. in his second meeting he came with 100 different ways of Integration of the apps with the products we use... Interesting? Yes your marketing Team should know who and how to market the apps...

4. Document , Document , Document

If you aint document your API's upfront and the platform details upfront.. chances are you will never do it.. Once I heard from myself say this while working on the Web services for our old product... "Everyday I sleep, I feel a missing organ of my body when I dont see a wiki driving the platform details with examples, samples , usability , case studies of the API;s and SDK... ". This should be your first step....

5. Separate vision for Platform, Aligned to a product roadmap

Imagine you have a CRM and to get it up and running as a platform you create some services for Lead Management, some for reports and some for CR.. its not going to work.. take the vision, pick the important piece of the app.. and build everything possible around it as API;s and SDK... let it be used by some... I always feel a need to have a separate vision for building a platform... in terms of scalability , performance , robustness and communication... and then align it into the roadmap...

6. Communication

Its not a cup of Tea.. believe me.. you cant just have 500 Services and API's and without effective communication. Services provided by products like Mashery can come handy here...remember if you removed a XML tag from your response it can break 20K tools using that service... and this is not a easy thing to manage and maintain.

Now if you are a startup, a settled product , a nice market product having some or no API's.. and you think your product has a good future... make it great... think on making t a platform... and think of investing in that platform... A platform is any CTO's dream... any Engineering Director's vision... how you make your Product achieve it is something you have to think... Go think

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Innovation Teams and Internal credibility

Working with various organizations I have realized that there are 2 types of organizations with reference to Innovations....

1. Organizations that value Innovation and support the objective

2. Organizations that think Innovation is a superstitious concept.

I worked for both type of organizations, eventually there were people in organizations that believed in Innovations, but people within who dont realize what Innovation spans upto. And I worked for organizations which didnt believe in Innovation at all yet had people who were born Innovators. All of these experiences have added a great deal of value to my minimal viable version of awareness about Innovation. When I analysed more on why Organizations that dont believe in Innovations really dont believe in Innovations and why organizations that believe in Innovations fail.. I get through one important fact of life...

Internal Credibility

The trust of your own people. Believe me or not but most of the Innovation teams are challenged by Internal credibility.. to a fact that some Innovation teams do not even take off because there is lack of support from Internal people on it. When you hear statements like "I dont think this will work out", "What's the use of Innovation when the output is not in time?" and so and so.... believe me your Innovation sector is weak.... its time to reform the objective and expectations. A few months ago I sent a email to my team asking them to nominate themselves or Team members for what I called "Innovation Time off" a time off every week or part of every day to work on a project that can bring some Innovation to the Product we work on. In response I got 2 people who initiated thoughtful work on 2 important things...

1. A framework to change delegation model on UI.

2. A snippet that will remove client side dependencies of the application, to access client side data.

Both items rendered and ideate d in a different way for different things. Then came a time when support was needed... weeks of effort when doesn't show any tangible work value questions arise. This is the time when Internal credibility comes into question...

You need a reform when statements/questions like the one below are asked:

1. Is there a timeline to this deliverable?

2. How can we make sure that you get this done?

3. Can we do X instead of Y? Our customers need Y desperately.

4. Its hard for me to justify what you guys are doing, can you tell me what?

5. We failed doing Innovations last time, How sure are we about this time?

6. We have a Innovation team that cares of this. Ask them.

These are the things that takes the blood and oxygen out of your Innovators... If these questions come from customers its fine as they are expecting you to do something, however they dont come from customers.. when it comes from your internal staff... its a killer.

What can you do instead to support your Innovation teams?

1. Ask them on how is it going? Do you want brainstorming sessions to discuss more on your ideas?

2. Hand them a cup of coffee and take them on a Innovation stroll(I will write on this soon)

3. Offer help to support.

4. Innovation leaders should be made to present their progress in various internal meetings.

So what do you do when your Team tries to build a Innovation team? You standup with it or face your back?

How do you support your Innovators?

Do you think you have Innovators within?

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What keeps me motivated?

The days are always tiring, always abusive, there is always a customer shouting on your phone, there is always a issue that is waiting for you to take care of it. All of this is not just my part of routines.. I am sure for everyone who is one way or the other linked to MONEY. No one has peace, everyone has to struggle hard... so in all these times what keeps you motivated? I was asked this question by an ex-colleague... he had seen me working for first 4 yrs of my career and all through he had been consistently seeing me pass the years on.. his question was... I need my break every few months, I need a fresh start every few years... what is it that keeps you active and motivated to keep others going at the same pace as you are?

I push answer to those questions as this post....

1. Inspiration :

One of the reasons why our motivations get screwed up, is lack of inspiration. We dont see enough people around who can inspire us to do things and then we turn into pothole, just laying around the roadside and been nothing but a waste. When I count back my career, I realise the times when I have done worst is when I had no inspirational pictures around...Today what keeps me going is the art of drawing inspiration from everyone and everything...

1. Puneet inspires me when he talks about setting up iPhone development..inspires me to do some cool looking game app that can get 1 million downloads in a day ;)

2. The security guard that sits out of office inspires me when he works all day along to study his graduation and comes out with flying colors.

3. I get inspired when Nikhita says that "Keep a big joint family Happy, is not a very difficult task, not easy though"

4. I get inspired when an I read about an undergrad who builds a 1M Unique user app.

After all inspiration is the key.. if you stop seeing inspiration around you are dead.... Everyone around me inspire me... keeps me to look forward for a greater future ahead too...

2. Commitment :

No one in this world is less committed. Everyone is committed to what they do... the size of the commitment is more or less and depends on people's passion...I have realise that commitment is what lets you flow. Lack of commitment drives anyone to a rock state, what life would be if you are not committed to the product you work on? to the job you do? to your Team? To your team that works hard for you? Its the commitment that adds up the spice to the betterment of motivation...

A soul committed can see future in a better way.

3. Love :

The love and affection of Teams, Management and customers can change your level of confidence... Call me lucky but if you are loved by your Team, Management and colleagues you surely are going to succeed.. Love and trust is important and if you can get that.. you are cruising..This love keeps me going.

4. Criticism :

I have learnt a few things very hard way. I made mistakes and I turned those mistakes to blunders.. only reason was I never had someone who would stand by and tell me "How wrong I am". I found a critic in my own. I took my habit of blogging and criticizing my own decisions and behaviours over my private blog. I write what I do wrong, what I do worst.. then I read it after a few days to understand what I did wrong...

But that is never enough.. after all I am always soft on myself... So I find a few absurd rivals from my past and I tell them what I am doing and how.. my rivals have over the years turned into my friends... and they openly blame, criticize and puke thoughts on how I did something wrong. I have learnt that if you are not been criticized, you are going terribly wrong.

6. Hatred :

People who always hated me, motivated me. More the hatred , More the motivation. After all from "Guru" the movie I learnt that when people start hating you or talking against you, it means that you are growing....

7. Team :

Well one lucky thing around me is the the Team. They are appreciative, inspirational in different ways, funny, thoughtful, engaging, supportive, critic an at the same time warriors. The teams I worked with motivated me always, they stood by , guided me, helped me and loved me. Now if one person or thought can change someones life... imagine what a full team can do... I love to be a part of this Team and to be a part of the Team I have to work hard, keep myself updated... aren't they the thoughts that already motivate you?

I want to write more, more and more... but you may have realized that I am off beat. I am fixing things that went wrong... and I needed the much awaited motivation.... your love... Yes you readers motivate me when you read one single line of this....

Keep reading... and Keep me motivated :)

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The 101 days of Pride

Visit this again!!!!! I post on the 101 days of pride, those days that demanded weeks and months of hard work...

Blogging is a form of marketing.. if you give what they look for, they dont care... Share it in phases and they love you and want more..

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Whats your passion? Whats mine?

What’s your passion?

Ask this to a guy standing next to you, and you have him on the back foot, at times he would give crazy answers at times he wouldn’t know. Eventually this is the fact of our lives... we don’t know what we are passionate about, jobs fall in that category too. I once asked an engineer on what is he passionate about, a little honest he said nothing. It’s very hard sometimes for us to know what we are passionate about.

A couple of weeks ago our Team gave birth to a Friday Breakfast concept... We come together to have breakfasts at office on Friday. The first session we decided to play a game where people were asked to disclose one fact about them and others to tell whether they know about this fact or not... An idea behind it was to get to know who is passionate about what... except one or 2 no one really spoke anything that leads others to know about their passion.... in other words my judgement to that fact was they aint passionate about any or many things.

I gave a serious thought on what really is passion and how do we find out what’s our passion? A while ago when I saw this movie “Julie and Julia” i wrote a post... the movie showed a way to find passion within self.. not many of us know.. but here is what we can learn from it and find out what we are passionate about...

1. When you are passionate about something, your nerves stretch, your voice raises while speaking about it.

2. When you are passionate about something you like to get into discussions and debates about it

3. When you are passionate about something you don’t care if you will fail at it.

4. When you are passionate about something you do it without feel of regrets

5. When you are passionate about something you work for free or even spend your money for it

6. When you are passionate about something you want to give a try for it, differently

7. When you are passionate about something you are smiling when it comes to the topic

8. When you are passionate about something you get into the discussions even if you are not invited for it.

9. When you are passionate about something you will do it no matter what it takes to do it

10. When you are passionate about something you will think about it.. atleast once when you are alone.

Yes.. simple. Very simple... but we don’t ask these questions to ourselves.. do we? Well not because we are not capable enough to be passionate about something.. but because we are ignorant about the fact that we are passionate about something..My wife tried 4 different businesses, every time she shut the door to those businesses for some or the other reason. Only after 4 attempts she realised that she needs something arty (Art oriented) that i find her doing with all her soul and heart...

Now get a notepad and dot down answers to these questions... I did this last week and found I am passionate about Blogging, people management, cricket, current affairs, politics , technology innovations, films, art, dance , food and ofcourse myself... Now your turn... see what you got? Share it...

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Decision - The Reality and the Fantasy

Of all the things we do in this world we always make 2 types of decision a real one and a one based on Fantasy.. and the reason behind is our imaginative powers... we live in reality but we dream fantasies. I spoke to a colleague yesterday and upon the discussions we ended up discussing something on how we map expectations to reality...The way this happens is, we want something to happen , badly very badly without knowing the consequences or effects of what happens that is exactly what I term as fantasy thinking...

A few years ago I badly wanted a car, I went for one... When I bought the car I realized a few things that should have been taken care of before I bought the care... I found:
- I did not hold a separate parking space for my car, I had to park the vehicle far off from my home and walk almost 10 minutes every time to park it ro take it with me.
- I did not think of accidents and maintenance costs, leave the fuel hikes
- What about the borrowers, so many of my friends and relatives wanted to borrow it, resulted in other issues like bad usage

So I had a fantasy expectation of having a car..I call it fantasy expectation because it lead to things that I did not foresee or the consequences unknown. Result was definitely some bad things that came my way. In reality I was capable to buy a car, I deserved it so I fantasized my expectation. In reality this turned to have several unthoughtful consequences which I did not think off.

A similar story happened to one of a dear colleague who desperately wanted to be a Project Manager. He kept bugging me and other bosses for making him the PM. When the opportunity did not come his way, he resigned and started looking for openings and found one as a Project Manager. His have's included everything that he wanted to be a Project Manager except the readiness to be the Project manager. When he took over the role he realized that it wasn't easy, a while after I came to know from his Team mate about the disasters he made. As a courtesy to help I asked him to speak to me and he confessed-
- It was easy for him to create a rumor in the Team, but then it became difficult to handle the same when it affected him own.
- It was easy to work over others estimates than giving one
- It was not easy to handle people
- It was not easy to handle ego's and expectations
- Several things dont go right, its not about how you fix it, its about when

So in the story about the person was in a state where he expected a fantasy without calculating the reality... and this is the big thing that can change the life.

Now... Fantasy is not a fully fantasy expectation or decision... its a decisions , expectation that can turn real with the step of time... In Other words fantasy decision if given time can be a well made real decision but not many do that...We make Fantasy decisions based on what we want and not what we have.. results in some real bad steps.

Another incident worth mentioning a year and a while ago I was supposed to migrate to the UK with a change in job. I was in a state of mind.. The reality said that it wont make a difference on where you want to be, it will make a difference on what you want to do... I made a decission to migrate, though in back of mind I always had this question Should I? it took a year... all the thoughts about where to say, what to do, how to do in the foreign land started getting answered as I started to visit the place I was going to be very often. Realized the pros and cons and finally the decision came of not to migrate... The fantasy for me then was A Great Job in a Great land, Great Money, Great experience... but all this made me not think over all other facts that stayed as consequences of moving... Somebody who makes a decision and move in such time, then ends up not been satisfied for long.. and then wanting to turn back... Got any friends who joined another company thinking that its a great opportunity and then wanting to come back? or someone who left the city in despair and now wanting to desperately come back?

So... how do these fantasy decisions or expectations be turned into genuine , well thought decisions?

Pessimistic Approach
1. Dont just think it your self
Involve others who are near and dear to you. Friends , Family play good role. However do not tell them what you think before you get to know what they think about it. A lot of times decisions are biased based on your thoughts. A friend left his job because he was feeling not so good and he cribbed about it to his spouse everyday.. spouse suggested to leave the organization... Friend only later realized that he missed a good thing coming his way.. and was now stuck in another deep shit.

2. Is there a list, Is there an experience
Ask if others have experience in the decision.. people who have been through can hlep you make a decision.

3. Family is driven by your decision, involve a critic too.
Family recommends good always. Critic can give you some thought for money. He may be harsh but will give you a taste of reality.

Optimistic Approach

1. Give it a time before you take it
Time heals everything... before you take a decision spend enough time, working, reworking and re-re working. I was able to change many bad decisions of mine while repeatedly working and thinking about them.

2. Do not write it off
it may be great. A fantasy decision maybe great so never write it off...

3. List down pros and cons
What else can help you make an effective decision? make it with friends and family, make it with colleagues and run it with some experts.

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