How #PNCamp went through its own Customer Discovery process

1. PNCamp – Dec 2013…
The Journeyline

2. The birth of an idea
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…

3. PNCampJourneyline (Kickstart)
Marketing team formed –>
Pune Ecosystem
becomes Audience Curation
Volunteer pledge
team l
International speakers
support
Sep 3
engaged
30
Debates on city choice
Identify Format for 1:100 people for
deep networking, peer and
22
experiential learning
June
Productify Volunteer Brainstorm on
Ecosystem ‘Jobs To Be Done’ .
Identified two target segment
18 May
June
8 Aug
27 Aug
Productify –
>PNSummit,
Under iSPIRT
15 July
Format rev1 ,
Also change
date to 3-4
Dec
Smaller volunteer does
daily meets
Volunteer Energy
fades
More inputs and
brainstorming lead
to huge format
pivot
Sep 5
Audience Curation has great
plans but stuck without
program guidance

4. Ideas lead to Birth pangs !!
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.

5. PNCampJourneyline(Orbit shift)
New format crystallized, Curation paramount
Bala and Pallav step up as designer of Scale& Audience Application form
Discover Track respectively
made live, stretch goal to get
huge signups (for Final
Sep 16
www.pnsummit.in announced
shortlist of 150 )
Sep 12
Oct 15
Realignment in thinking, market
benefits not feature document (
i.e agenda with time breakup)
Sep 11
Audience Curation
has great plans but
stuck without
program guidance
Self doubt - Audience
application/selection
never done before,.
Doubly hard without
program content
Oct 1
Sep 25
Clarify and over communicate to
teams difference between
PNSummit and other conference
Endless debate on
pricing conclude
to INR 2K
Sep 26
Pivots made it hard to under
even understand the
benefits. Need to articulate
program benefits. Crisis cant
market well
Stretch goals not
achieved
Nov 1

6. The No-looking-back phase
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 

7. PNCampJourneyline(last 30 days)
Nov
27
Press coverage creates
buzz
Overall A period of intense pressure
And learning
Daily WAR rooms to
stretch and make it
happen
Nov 3
Stretch goals not
achieved
Nov 1
Nov 6
Name change to PNCamp
61( out of planned 75) Discovery
track confirmed
65 ( out of planned 75) Scale track
confirmed
Dec 1

8. And now the home run
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…

9. The iSpirt philosophy
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….

10. Rewarding to work as Volunteers

11. Thank you Session facilitators

12. 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.