the fusioncharts journey

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FusionCharts @ TiE 2009 The FusionCharts Journey Pallav Nadhani Founder & CTO

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The presentation that I have at TiE, Kolkata talking about the FusionCharts journey - right from conception to the current day, and the lessons I learnt along the way.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

The FusionCharts Journey

Pallav NadhaniFounder & CTO

Page 2: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

This is me when I was 3…

Thank you Google Image Search!

Page 3: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Know me better

I thought dropping out of the college was the in-thing.

When I was 17, I was approached to write an international technology book. But, writing the book itself wasn’t the biggest challenge!

Beer is the second best thing God ever made. The best is unlimited beer.

When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m lonely, I eat. When I’m confused, I eat. When there’s nothing more to eat, I go buy some more.

Page 4: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

So why am I here today?

Free food!

To share my entrepreneurial experience with you

Page 5: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

What do I do?

Run a small ISV – InfoSoft Global (P) Ltd.

2 offices in Kolkata

12 products

30 employees

110 countries where we sell

12,500 customers (satisfied, happy and ever-growing)

250,000 users

Page 6: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

So what is it that we sell?

?

Page 7: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

So what is it that we sell?

Page 8: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Our flagship product FusionCharts

Page 9: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

So what exactly is FusionCharts?

A Flash Charting Component for web and desktop applications

Adds the “wow” factor to your data centric applications

Works with all web platforms, scripts and databases

4 out of 5 Fortune 500 companies use it

Pioneered the concept of Flash charting way back in 2002

Page 10: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

Page 11: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

LinkedIn Polls

Page 12: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

LinkedIn Polls

Facebook polls

Page 13: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

LinkedIn Polls

Facebook Polls

Google Docs

Page 14: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

LinkedIn Polls

Facebook Polls

Google Docs

Rediff.com

Page 15: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

LinkedIn Polls

Facebook Polls

Google Docs

Rediff.com

MoneyControl

Page 16: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

How is it being used in popular sites?

Weather.com

LinkedIn Polls

Facebook Polls

Google Docs

Rediff.com

MoneyControl

Federal IT Dashboard

Page 17: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

So how did it all start?

Page 18: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

I needed money…

I was all of sixteen

At that age, you always have a fiscal deficit while managing your extra-curricular activities

Being nerdy had its own financial advantages back then in dot-com boom period.

Chanced upon a publisher who paid handsome money for writing innovative technical articles. That was my “Eureka” moment.

Page 19: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Frantic search for right mix of technologies began…

After weeks of effort, I froze down on Flash and ASP as the right siblings for the content of my article

Flash meant cool & snazzy; ASP meant all business. Putting them together was an unchartered territory

And the article was published

Developers liked the concept of what could be done with Flash

And still better, I got paid for it… handsomely…

Page 20: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

And the idea for product was born…

Page 21: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Always address a pain-pointEntrepreneurship Lesson #1:

Page 22: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Brickbats or bouquets, take itall constructively

Entrepreneurship Lesson #2:

Page 23: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

And v1 of the product was developedSingle-handedly…

Page 24: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Why the name FusionCharts?

fu sion⋅  /fyuʒən/ [fyoo-zhuhn] –noun1. the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.2. that which is fused; the result of fusing

chart(s) –noun1.a sheet exhibiting information in tabular form. 2.a graphic representation, as by curves, of a dependent variable, as temperature, price, etc.; graph.

Page 25: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

We put the product up for sale…With little literature, a basic website and just search engine listings

Page 26: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Fingers crossed; Palms sweating;Mailbox checked every 5 minutes for sales

2 hours gone…. Nothing6 hours gone…. Nothing1 day gone… Nothing3 days gone… Nothing1 week gone… Nothing

What could be wrong?

Page 27: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

“FusionCharts is not the best thing since sliced bread”

Page 28: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Your product means the worldto you. To the world, it’s just

another product!

Entrepreneurship Lesson #3:

Page 29: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

We needed to get the word out. But how?

Ads? Pocket money was meant for higher things in life

VCs? Funding 17 year olds with plans for world domination?

We had to be cheap

Discovered free marketing techniques like articles, community forums and directory listings

We built ourselves a new logo and website, enhanced the documentation and got ourselves a good tagline

Page 30: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

7 days later…We finally sold a license

Page 31: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

“On the Internet, no one knowsyou’re small”

Entrepreneurship Lesson #4:

Page 32: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Sales started picking up…

It was post dot-com bust. The era of everything for free was gone

The web was evolving. People were experimenting with new technologies

Companies were looking at trimming costs and enhancing revenue models

We were priced very competitively; in fact, under-priced for the first version with free support and upgrades

Page 33: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

This was the most critical phase…We needed to cross the chasm

Page 34: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

More ideas, more needs, more competitionTime for v2…

Page 35: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Out came v2… again single handedly…With more chart types, features and enhanced product

literature

Page 36: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Now we knew we could make money

We were moving up the value chain from developers to product managers

Revised prices & innovated licensing models. Open source-licensing with no restrictions

Created sweet pricing spots which didn’t require purchase approvals

Experimented with various pricing strategies. Few worked; many didn’t

Projected Low Total Cost of Ownership over a long term in way of free upgrades and support

Page 37: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Do not price too low. People tend to believe you get

what you pay for

Entrepreneurship Lesson #5:

Page 38: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Marketing never stops

We always strived to be in the heads of our customers – organically

Had more money at our disposal to be spent on marketing

Leveraged traditional and new age channels. Experimented with various mediums

Conveyed benefits to users – how it helped them save cost/time and make them look good?

Built an ecosystem around our products, which generated a lot of buzz

Page 39: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Market your success

Shared customer success stories

Listened to customers. Gave them not only what they wanted, but the way they wanted it

People loved our product and raved about it. Almost a third of our sales is word-of-mouth. Happy customers are our best sales people

Page 40: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Sell benefits. Not features.Entrepreneurship Lesson #6:

Page 41: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Success finds many takers

We were now a brand – a small one, but a brand nonetheless

Allowed us to initiate OEM partnerships with big companies

Added more products to our stable, enabling us to cross-sell and up-sell

Built bridge products based on core products.

Forged partnerships with other companies who also built bridge products on our core products

Page 42: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

…and a few unwanted ones too.

We were open-source.

A couple of companies ripped off our product, changed the source and started selling under their brand. So, what did we do?

We released the next version of our product, and released the previous version (which was ripped off) as free product to be used by one and all

Helped in multiplying our community and keeping such rip-offs at bay

Page 43: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

It’s not the big that eat the small.It’s the fast that eat the slow.

Entrepreneurship Lesson #7:

Page 44: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

The Evolution

Change of paradigm – From bottom-up to top-down

Kept innovating. Given good people enough freedom to enable so

Focused on keeping a small but effective team of people who are emotionally attached to our products

Released early, released often

Page 45: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Lessons learnt along the way

Always address a pain-point

Brickbats or bouquets, take it all constructively

Your product means the world to you. To the world, it’s just another product!

“On the Internet, no one knows you’re small”

Do not price too low. People tend to believe you get what you pay for

Sell benefits. Not features.

It’s not the big that eat the small. It’s the fast that eat the slow.

Page 46: The FusionCharts Journey

FusionCharts @ TiE 2009

Thank you for your timeQuestions?