9 Rules for Building a Tech Winner

Tony Seba gave a great talk at Google some time ago and lists these 9 rules for building a tech winner. This talk is still a must-hear for any entrepreneur in the high tech area. Here are the main points of his talk:

1. Design products and services that are easy to adopt.
2. Add value not features
3. Focus, win, grow. Repeat.
4. Have a story for your product.
5. Feel the pain, and then develop the products
6. It's a risky world. Sell confidence and not products.
7. Convert champions and not just deals.
8. Choose the right partners and Manage with Clarity.
9. Having succeeded, change or die.

I find #2 the most valuable since it is easy to get carried away by the allure of adding new features. This is especially true in any software product where it is really easy to add new features.

Education Market in India

According to Educomp Solutions Limited 2007-08 annual report, here are some key facts about the education market in India:

1. 361 million children, making India the largest school market in the world. However, only 219 million go to school and the remaining 142 million are deprived of education
   
2. There are 75,000 private schools and 950,000 public schools. 84% of the public schools are in villages.
3. Out of the 75,000 private schools: 15,000 unaided premium schools, 29,400 unaided regular schools, and 30,660 aided by government.
   
4. There are about 136 students per public school, on an average. And 1200 students per private school.
5. About 200,000 more schools need to be built
6. 5 million teachers in the country with 90-95% needing re-skilling
7. K-12 market is estimated to be $20 billion, comprising of $15 billion of unaided schools and $5billion for aided schools.
8. About 2o million students take private coaching after school due to the highly competitive nature of exams in the country. This market is about Rs 5.3 billion or $500 million.
   

According to New York times, the total education market in India (including schools, universities, tutoring etc) is around $80 billion, with $30 billion coming from the government spending, and $50 billion from individuals.

For futher reading:

1. WSJ: VCs give India Education Market High Marks
2. Venture Intelligence report: Private Equity Pulse on Education (free 52-page report on sign in)