Moderator:

Pete Crawford

Pete is a 7-year cannabis industry veteran as VP of Supply Chain, VP of Professional Services, and CEO. He is a named inventor on two cannabis industry device patents, and has held multiple technology company leadership roles prior to his cannabis journey. Bend Oregon resident, father, husband, traveler, live music lover, and SaaS enthusiast.

Your goals as an entrepreneur are not always clear. They may be centered on making a profit, which means a lot of decisions need to be made on prioritization. But your goals as an entrepreneur should also be centered on building a brand that can deviate from a script, and consider alternatives. 

“Real estate is a relationship business and at a time when most of our relationships exist through screens, it is more important than ever to have a tool that can enhance those interactions.” - @foundersnetwork
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Julie Leonhardt, co-founder and CEO of Vuse, believes that her understanding of the real estate industry, combined with her listening to the pain points of the agents with whom she speaks on a daily basis, has allowed her to create the perfect tool for the agents’ toolkit. Vuse is a mobile platform that enables real estate professionals to create and share captivating, pro-quality videos on the go. Her former life as the COO of Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates, Inc. and the SVP of Affiliate Services and Head of Operations, EMERIA region, for Christie’s International Real Estate, and her partnership with award-winning filmmaker, Leanna Creel, creates the perfect team to build a product that the real estate market really needs right now.  

“Launching in March 2020 was definitely a risk,” Leonhardt explains. “However, once everyone realized that COVID was not going to be a minor blip on our year, my phone and email were blowing up with agents begging for Vuse. Vuse combines my real estate background with my co-founder, Leanna’s, amazing filmmaking acumen to create a product that is uniquely designed for agents. Real estate is a relationship business and at a time when most of our relationships exist through screens, it is more important than ever to have a tool that can enhance those interactions. ”

“Are you able to pivot where the industry is pushing you? That is so key to product nimbleness. You may not be able to find full market fit right away. Some companies may have to do a few degrees shift as the market changes so they…
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Vamshi Gunukula, COO of DirectShifts, didn’t have to search hard to find the opportunity in the global pandemic. His team found itself in the middle of the moment. DirectShifts is a tech-enabled staffing platform that matches clinicians with employers. As the need for qualified medical professionals grew, his team pivoted toward helping hospitals and clinicians source from a variety of locations. They also focused on sourcing more specialties.

“We diversified because we saw the market needed it,” Gunukula said. “We always create our product with a vision to serve certain aspects of the industry. But the industry will push you laterally. Are you able to pivot where the industry is pushing you? That is so key to product nimbleness. You may not be able to find full market fit right away. Some companies may have to do a few degrees shift as the market changes so they find their sweet spot.”

“This was an extension of my passion, but also very much trying to solve a problem. And as it turns out, it was a problem that basically every single traveler in the world has experienced or will experience some time in the future…
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Zephyr Seat is geared toward the air traveler who in this new normal seeks more private space, among other benefits. The Zephyr Seat would allow airlines to provide double-decker. lie-flat seating in a 2-4-2 configuration. CEO Jeffrey O’Neill, a frequent traveler and designer, came up with the idea after seeking a way to get some good sleep on a very long flight from at the economy price point.

“This was an extension of my passion, but also very much trying to solve a problem,” O’Neill shared with allplane.tv. “And as it turns out, it was a problem that basically every single traveler in the world has experienced or will experience some time in the future when they travel again.”

While O’Neill’s idea was born well before the pandemic in 2017, it arrives at the right time,  just travelers would appreciate isolation and social distancing. It’s poised to be a significant disrupter in the travel industry, should airlines adopt it. At this stage, the Zephyr Seat team is still hunting for the first taker. 

Hear more about how these founders are moving their products forward by joining our Product Panel on August 24. Sign up to join us in this FREE event and find out if you qualify for full membership and get insights on:

• How to pivot where the industry is pushing you with product nimbleness
• Why you should sell your meaning, not just your product
• How to extend passion to propose a solution
• Attract the attention of customers through experiences 
• It’s not about products, it’s about unmet needs

Originally brought up in India, Vinita Rathi later moved to London and began working at Goldman Sachs. For five years – with initially, no financial knowledge – she worked her way up in the fast paced environment, eventually becoming VP of the interest rate product teams. When her time with Goldman Sachs came to an end, she then started her own company Systango, an end-to-end IT service provider called Systango, which now has 300+ employees and works with names such as Grindr, Dialpad, ResearchNow, Deloitte, Oracle and Porsche. 

Not only does Rathi have 5.5 years in a tier 1 investment bank specializing in trading technology and 14+ years as a CEO of Systango, she is also the founder of Studio Fintech, a company that specializes in dealing with Fintech and blockchain ventures with a focus on blockchain-centric projects. Studio Fintech is arm of Systango focussing specifically on Fintech and blockchain. 

Additionally, Rathi is the founder of WomenHackForNonProfits currently made up of 1200 women in tech who are building open source projects for non-profits and individuals with a cause. She is also the founding director of Women Who Code (London Chapter), aimed to inspire women to excel in technology careers. To top it all off she is a Google Women Techmakers Lead, focusing on helping bolster the cause of feminism in Tech.

All of the above when put together indicate she has been playing this game for a long time.

“You start looking for analytics when you are solving a specific user behaviour problem. Thinking about it as part of product build enables you to solve the initial teething problems faster, quicker and efficiently.” - @VinitaKRathi
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During the early years, Rathi’s experiences at Goldman Sachs and now, working with a wide range of entrepreneurs under Systango and more, have given her some valuable insights about the role data science plays in building product strategy and how startups and scaleups can leverage it not only for increasing the efficiency of their businesses but also deciding the future course. Here are just a few of the takeaways Vinita will be speaking about.

• Planning your Data Strategy
• Data Mining
• Data Visualization
• Leveraging Visualization Techniques
• Other aspects of Data Engineering
  

“Often data during product build is an after thought. You start looking for analytics when you are solving a specific user behaviour problem. Thinking about it as part of product build enables you to solve the initial teething problems faster, quicker and efficiently.” Rathi says.

“Having right data strategy and appropriate tools in place early on enables you to learn more about your product and its usage than you can imagine.” - @VinitaKRathi
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This can be integrated into building your team early. Systango approaches its client’s problems with a human-centered and data-focussed methodology. They believe that there are no silver bullets in their space, and that the best solutions come from involving the right people in every step of the process, establishing KPIs for your teams and then tracking them with data you collect. 

Vinita says “When you are a CEO, you need to be able to see Sales, marketing, logistics, product analytics all in one place and be able to connect the dots.” Different departments/teams end up using their own tools, they end up collecting huge set of data but miss out on the holistic view. This has an impact on ability to see trends and spot patterns. You have to make sure that not only you define and collect but also aggregate and analyse the data points to optimise the effort/ROI across each channel. 

“When you are a CEO, you need to be able to see Sales, marketing, logistics, product analytics all in one place and be able to connect the dots.” - @VinitaKRathi
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Data science is slowly becoming essential for a lot of businesses, startups and enterprises alike. It helps organizations with crucial decision-making and helps companies gain a competitive edge in the market by leveraging any insight to increase efficiency and productivity by making the right decisions. It is important to ensure that you have an infrastructure in place that will allow you to monitor and analyze the data you collect.

To learn more about leveraging product strategy, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from August 9.

The first thing to do is to define the data collection of which is going to be helpful to the business. Then collect and aggregate this data in one place.  Data mining (the practice of analyzing large databases in order to generate new information) aids you in learning how to improve your product or service and how to create a better marketing and sales strategy, while predictive models help to monitor customer behavior. In order to keep up with the competition and trends, you must know the activity of the customers. Setting up data strategy right from start allows you to monitor your business KPIs and build on them. 

“Only when you have KPI for your business and teams, you will be able to measure them.” - @VinitaKRathi
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Data visualization gives you the ability to interpret, convert, and eventually summarize data to a comprehensive language that you can also present to stakeholders. 

To learn more about leveraging product strategy, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from August 9.