Product Development

I was associated with a product development venture about 10 years back, in the capacity of a technical lead. I worked my rear off, and we built what we believed was a very good product. The main client liked it. But some internal political wars resulted in budget being taken away from the product implementation. Soon after that, our disheartened company shelved the development efforts. It was a heart breaker, after coming so close to success. During the course of that effort, I realized that the satisfaction of developing a successful product is very different from successfully delivering a project. The joy of conceptualizing something, expanding on it, architecting it technically, designing it, developing it, presenting it to potential clients effectively, and successfully implementing it - can be extremely satisfying and rewarding.



We decided to venture into product development about two-and-a-half years ago. I liked the idea. The team in India started working on it. I helped them with some of the key topics initially, but my involvement was minimal after that. My work has been limited to just being the investor.


We got the product to a demonstrable state only in Q4 of 2007. And this is not an inexpensive product meant for consumes, but is an enterprise class business solution for broker dealers. This is something intended to be able to be used by thousands of users on an ASP basis, to be able to house extremely sensitive financial information and reconcile hundreds of thousands of transactions every night. Late last year, we decided to start the product demonstrations. We got an opportunity to respond to an RFP from a Fortune 100 financial services company, alongside four other firms. One of the firms (the incumbent) is a company with billions of dollars in revenue. There were other two large firms with several existing clients. We had a great demo lasting a full day. Subsequently, I started having several offline discussions with the potential client. The client decided to visit our office in CT. The day-long session went well, during which we discussed several technical aspects of the product. This was followed by a data center visit for security purposes.


In spite of all these positive signs, I was cautious. I have been doing this business long enough to understand that we cannot celebrate until the ink dries on the contract. Finally, I was called to be informed verbally that our product had been selected by this company! It was a great moment for me personally, and for the company. This is a huge, landmark win for us. After all the investmet of time, effort (and money, of course), we had landed a huge brand name as our first big client. We are going through the contract reviews now, and are expecting the begin the implementation process in the first week of April. And we are making strong progress with a few other firms, where we have shown the product. Coupled with our last month's win of a multi-year services deal with one of the largest health insurance companies in the US, this has set us up really well for 2008. Not a single day goes by, without some kind of bad news flashing all over the media. In such a situation, I am hopeful that these deals will help us weather the storm strongly, and may even be able to keep up with our growth rate! For now, I am just enoying the immense satisfaction of being part of the team that succeeded against odds in this deal.

Skiing

There was a sense of immense satisfaction when I learned how to ride a bicycle. It was a very pleasing moment, and I can remember the wide smile that was pasted on my face for quite a while. I felt like telling everyone that I could ride a bicycle, at last.

I did not expect to have a similar experience after all these years. After my good share of falling and rolling down the snowy slopes, I managed to ski today! It was a real nice experience. And it was just like how I learned cycling. All of a sudden, it seemed so natural. It was as if a switch turned on somewhere, and I started skiing comfortably. I felt like a little kid, trying to tell everyone that I could ski, after all! I took the lift back to the top of the hill a 5-6 times and tried a few more maneuvers, as I was very comfortable with my speed control and balance. I am now hoping to go back at least one more time to the ski resort, before the season is over.

Pursuit of Happyness

I had a chance to watch a few movies over the last couple of weeks. Most of it was regular, routine stuff. Lucky Number Slevin stood out a bit. Number 23 was ridiculously crazy. Breach was decent. And I loved The Pursuit of Happyness. It was a very good movie (based on the real life of an entrepreneur). Will Smith was fabulous, I thought. I would recommend it highly.

While I am on the topic of movies, here are some of my favorites:

The Patriot
The Majestic
The Green Mile
The Shawshank Redemption
Dave