Building A Global Indian Software Product Company

Manav Garg

Founder & CEO,
Eka Software

Tip #3: Invest in Sales early on
I have seen many cases where the mindset is to invest in sales at a later stage while building the company. Teams often wait for the product to be ready before investing in sales.

When we raised our first capital, a significant portion of it went into sales. What needs to be understood is that sales during the initial period of a company involves the market. You do not have to wait for the product to be fully ready to begin selling it – this is a classic trap. A lot of times customers are willing to buy your product earlier on, often at a discount, provided they believe in the value proposition and the team. This helps improve the product, brings market focus and gets the momentum going.

Tip #4: Mature your value proposition
It takes time to properly understand your market and customers, and often in early years the value proposition can be hazy. But, with time, and with the proper investment in ‘hearing’ customers and monitoring competition, your value proposition will get more and more focused. With relevant inputs from the market, companies in the early years should not shy away from questioning previously held assumptions, and from going back to the drawing board if required.

Tip #5: Leverage the channel
There are a range of channel partners who know how to sell your product - you only need to find them and reach out to them. Look at adjacent/ complementary solutions and approach their channels. Quite often you can even find how they rate partners on their web sites. Pick low-hanging opportunities even though they are in smaller markets, while being cautious about the amount of time you spend with them and keeping an eye on the bigger picture. Large partnerships take time to break in to and mature.

For instance, at Eka before we strike partnerships with the bigger players, we picked smaller companies as partners who provided us with some initial sales impetus.

Culture & beyond
While focusing on Sales and Marketing, do not forget that building a product company out of India is also about building a global culture. In a product environment, we need to learn how to cope with failures, and more often than not, the market picture is hazy at the start. An innovative mindset and a culture for discipline needs to set in early. With a product company, it takes time to see results.

To conclude: each company and opportunity is unique, and there is no exact mantra or formula that is applicable across the board. The above are some useful ideas and experiences. Welcome to innovation, to the global Indian software product company - the excitement of the journey has only just begun!

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