Pioneering Video Conferencing: Polycom CEO Bob Hagerty (Part 13)

SM: What is your philosophy of recruiting leadership? Is it domain expertise, leadership skills, both? BH: Yes, yes and yes! It is all of those things. It is a cultural fit. It is an excitement. There are not many maintenance jobs given the speed that we are growing at. We are looking for people with

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Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 9)

SM: In the next 10 years, do you see LeapFrog morphing into more of an online company as opposed to a toy company? JK: I think we will be more of a content company, and by that virtue, I think we will be more online. SM: At some level these chips may not be necessary.

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Pioneering Video Conferencing: Polycom CEO Bob Hagerty (Part 10)

SM: How would that work? The doctor’s office has to buy the Polycom suite? BH: The best example I have seen is Escorts Hospital in India. There, the population is not served well in rural areas. They have outreach clinics and they have our device in a regional center. People will come into the regional

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Do We Need More Funds in India?

Someone posed this very appropriate question in response to my Incubator Fund series. The answer is No. However, what we need is two things:

Incubator Funds in India: Synthesis

My first experience of technology entrepreneurship in India was in 1994 while I was still a grad student at MIT. The most vivid memory I have of that experience is that it took me 6 months to get a phone line. It was before wireless. It was, most certainly, before venture capital in India. Things

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Serial Entrepreneur Zack Rinat on Model N (Part 9)

SM: Where are you now in terms of size, market landscape, positioning? ZR: Model N right now is a leader in revenue management in the life sciences and semiconductor verticals. The life sciences market is a more complicated market. It is segmented into medical device and biotechnology. These are two distinct markets. The company has

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Incubator Funds in India: Management Team

This is going to be the last segment for this series on Incubators in India, and it tackles the key to making such incubators work. We have said, that we need concept engineering, engineering management, product marketing, sales, biz dev, legal and financial talent in the incubator management team. I am going to, therefore, propose

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Incubator Funds in India: Fund Structure?

Typically, venture funds pay out 2-3% of the capital in annual management fees, and offer 20-30% in carry (profit sharing). So, let’s look at the table below of various fund sizes, and what those numbers amount to: