IT Marketing

Indian IT Industry Needs Better Quality Sellers & Marketers, Not Engineers – Part 1

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This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following question on Quora: Short Answer: The Indian IT Services industry has optimum-quality software engineers, neither low- nor high-quality. Long Answer: Before I launch into my long answer, here are a few assumptions: “Software engineer” refers solely to coders employed by mainstream Indian IT Services … Read more

Tradeshow SAAS Provider Digs Into The Trenches

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Here’s our latest success story: Tradeshow SAAS Provider Digs Into The Trenches Product management inputs enrich product Coming from the advertising industry, the founders of this startup were deeply exposed to the tradeshow business. They were fully familiar with the pain areas faced by tradeshow exhibitors and desired to use technology to solve them. At … Read more

Why Do People Lie With Charts?

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In Three Ways To Lie With Charts, we saw the following tactics: Slippery Slope Slide Floating Origin Fraud Dual Axis Deception The most common reason for people to lie with charts is that they are shilling some product, service or ideology and run into facts that derail their pitch, so they need to lie to continue … Read more

Blockchain – Calling BS On Decentralization & Resilience

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Since I wrote Flight Delay Insurance – Why Blockchain?, I’ve come across several updates that have reinforced my skeptical views around the claim of decentralization and raised new doubts about the touted advantage of resilience. UPDATE #1: SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE Let me take the following remark in my original post: Data is distributed across multiple … Read more

Five Ways To Stand Out In A Highly Competitive B2B Market

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This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following question on Quora: Given below are five things that you, as a seller of a B2B product or service, can do to stand out from your competition in a highly crowded B2B market. Respond to inbound leads received via your info@company.com email address. From personal experience … Read more

How Do You Find Early Customers For A B2B SAAS Startup?

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This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following question on Quora: This question reminds me of a Patek Philippe ad in which the luxury Swiss watchmaker says, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation”. The tagline of the ad is “Begin your own … Read more

Harmless As Tiny Noticeable Thing Or Explosive As TNT

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Here’s another post on the cultural differences across different markets, with specific lessons for sales and marketing. Many years ago, Fortune had used the following lede to introduce the largest company on its prestigious list of 500 largest corporations in the world: Walmart is the #1 company on the GLOBAL FORTUNE 500. As the largest … Read more

To H-1B Or Not To H-1B… Is A Money Question

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Today’s Economic Times published my letter on H-1B and the controversy over surplus or scarcity of STEM talent in the USA. It was in response to the following article on this subject two days ago. The published version of my letter is a highly condensed version of my original letter. As a result, it’s quite cryptic (even … Read more