Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Startups to look for in 2016

It has been tremendous year 2015 especially for the Indian Startups. Lot of success in raising large funds, successful startups capitalizing on their early presence, new technology startups with great valuation etc.

Consumer centric seems still the play and lot of happening in that space. Digital India initiatives and Prime Minister Modi coming again and again on support the startup eco system is helping to spread the word on the possible new generation of the digital startups. In 2015, there were a simple ideas that touch daily life of citizens and they made big into the arena. HouseJoy is a classic example and the way he have positioned themselves and big stride forward will be interesting to watch in 2016. Especially how they will keep up with the competition and earn more revenue / profit ratio and expand into new cities. Oyo is another excellent simple idea converted to a great potential and investors behind them will be good one to watch for 2016.

In my view, below technology / business ideas will be the key to watch for in 2016.

IoT Startups - My top selection especially around the buzz and possibilities this gives. Healthcare, Insurance, Connect Car quiet good opportunities and potential exists in this space.

Local commerce - Potential of this still to be proven but there are good ideas that are coming up with good technology based adoption in this area. Local communities / Neighborhood facilitating the commerce has huge potential.

Micro Payments - There is lot PaytM and similar companies are doing and been successful.  Still the adoption beyond certain use cases needs to be evolved. Local Banks could catch on this wave to get digital with Micro Payments platform. This could be classified as FinTech as well.

Digital for common man - Universal mobile apps or internet applications like Housejoy, Justdial, Bookmybai etc will also evolve into their new avatars and its going to interesting watch for innovation there in 2016.

Security as a Service - Cloud Security especially around so many mobile applications getting published every day now and its not easy to build security by every startup or mobile app developer. There is opportunity exists and as cloud computing and adoption is increasing, this area is good to watch out in 2016.

E-Health / Virtual Health - There are quiet few of the startups which are progressing well. Still there are enough opportunities and will be good watch out for in 2016.

Media and Entertainment - With 3G / 4G becoming realistic, on demand rich content on mobile will a good area to watch out. Ad tech companies are also striving for success with new patterns for advertisement channels and mobile content could be a good area to watch out for in 2016.

Have a great and prosperous New Year 2016.

Time to market on New Products



Creativity and speed on building new products have become so important for time to market and stay ahead with the competition. Important aspects of creating products from my perspective has been outlined below.

Continuous delivery - Delivering the products continuously from development to operations. Adding functionality / features in regular intervals.

Multiple Channel delivery - Different channel of delivery including Mobile, Web, tablets etc. Omni Channel delivery has become important strategy for most of the new products.

Automating product delivery process - Automating the delivery process reduces the time development and operations have to spend together. This means that when dev and ops must interact, they can focus on the issues that really matter.

Development and Operations working together - Development and operations often play cats and dogs during deployment. To stop the fighting, we must bring them closer together so they will start collaborating again.

Faster technology adoption - Adopting to new technology adoption that will enable multiple channel delivery, Operational efficiency, etc