PNCamp – Dec 2013… The Journeyline

This is the story of #PNCamp. The first product leaders bootcamp in India.

The idea was born in May of 2013. It was the fire in a bunch of folks who wanted to create a meanigful Products event

Wanted to make lasting and deep impact, and to be bold enough to experiment without inhibition to make it happen.

From May to Sep 2013, did all the things that a normal conference would have done…

The birth of an idea

PNCamp Journeyline (Kickstart)

18 May

Productify Volunteer Brainstorm on Ecosystem ‘Jobs To Be Done’ . Identified two target segment

Identify Format for 1:100 people for deep networking, peer and experiential learning 22

June Format rev1 , Also change date to 3-4 Dec

15 July

Debates on city choice

Pune Ecosystem Volunteer pledge support

30 June

Volunteer Energy fades

International speakers engaged

8 Aug

Smaller volunteer does daily meets

Productify –> PNSummit,

Under iSPIRT

27 Aug

Sep 3

Marketing team formed –> becomes Audience Curation

team l

More inputs and brainstorming lead

to huge format pivot

Audience Curation has great plans but stuck without

program guidance

Sep 5

Multiple pivots happened. Made it difficult for us to articulate our own value proposition to you.

Settled on Audience Curation as the key to getting successful blend of guided sessions with experiential learning. Important for people to be at similar stage of business.

Focused on growth and scaling up. There were enough technology events happening already. Lets talk business!

The hardest thing – marketing why PNCamp (benefits) without having the program (features) ready. Conviction was the driver.

Ideas lead to Birth pangs !!

PNCamp Journeyline (Orbit shift)

Audience Curation has great plans but

stuck without program guidance

Self doubt - Audience application/selection never done before,. Doubly hard without

program content

Realignment in thinking, market benefits not feature document ( i.e agenda with time breakup)

Sep 11

Endless debate on pricing conclude

to INR 2K

Pivots made it hard to under even understand the

benefits. Need to articulate program benefits. Crisis cant

market well

Sep 25

Sep 26

New format crystallized, Curation paramount Bala and Pallav step up as designer of Scale &

Discover Track respectively

Sep 16www.pnsummit.in announcedSep 12

Clarify and over communicate to teams difference between

PNSummit and other conference

Oct 15

Oct 1

Audience Application form made live, stretch goal to get

huge signups (for Final shortlist of 150 )

Stretch goals not achieved

Nov 1

1st Nov and our enthusiasm and energies were at an all time low. Yes, honestly.

We want you to understand this, because this is how volunteers work.

We needed to be challenged by adversity to flip around and change gears. And it happened.

Employed continuous experimentation and “fail-early” techniques to move on to the next experiment. Getting a quality curated audience to an invite-only event wasn’t for the weak hearted

The No-looking-back phase

PNCamp Journeyline (last 30 days)

Stretch goals not achieved

Daily WAR rooms to stretch and make it

happen

Turned impossib

ility to BHAG and

experimented each channel

methodically eliminating things th

at

don’t work

Nov 1

Nov 3

Nov 27Dec 1

61( out of planned 75) Discovery track confirmed

65 ( out of planned 75) Scale track confirmed

Overall A period of intense pressure And learning

Name change to PNCampNov 6

Press coverage createsbuzz

Vision of having 125 companies attend, is achieved.

Sponsors have been kind enough to recognize and support.

Volunteers stepped up at the last moment to fill in any gaps that appeared. Almost spontaneously… (thank you).

Daily huddles over the last 30 days, program fine tuning, facilitator huddles, curation huddles, logistics, et al… was like going from 0-to-60 in 5 seconds flat!

2 days to go…

And now the home run

PNCamp is hosted under the aegis of iSpirt

It is one of the several initiatives undertaken by iSpirt for the Products ecosystem in India

Like all other iSpirt initiatives, this is driven entirely by volunteers out of passion to contribute and who pledge to give back

Come meet some of our volunteers and facilitators. We hope you will be one of us in days to come….

The iSpirt philosophy

Rewarding to work as Volunteers

Thank you Session facilitators

The Journey has only begun

The community is helping each other

A powerful motivator to grow globe-scale

Communities are like “open-source” goods

The growth of communities is self sustaining and the only answer to becoming a true software product nation

Thank you everyone for being part of this Journey until now, and for the Voyages we’re yet to embark upon. Together.