5 Things To Expect At The Makers Summit 2022, India’s Largest Product Conference

It’s finally here. Inc42 is back with the second edition of The Makers Summit (TMS), in partnership with Searce and Google Cloud; co-presented by CleverTap and Deskera; and supported by Dukaan and Simpl.

TMS 2022 is all set with a lineup of some of the most scintillating product makers in India and more over the course of today and tomorrow, April 23. We are bringing together over 75 of India’s best product minds, makers, founders and leaders to decode the product and business strategies of the nation’s fastest-growing startups that are fast becoming global product benchmarks.

Wondering what’s in store at The Makers Summit 2022? We have an array of masterclasses, panel discussions and of course, fireside chats with product leaders, experts, founders and investors backing the product ecosystem.

What To Expect At The Makers Summit 2022

From exploring the potential of India in the global tech market to diving into emerging startup segments such as web3, quick commerce, full-stack fintech apps, creator economy companies and more. This year’s edition will explore the most revolutionary, industry-changing products that are shaping the next generation of technology as the world opens up after two years of being locked up.

Here are five reasons for you to register now, if you haven’t already.

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India’s Biggest Product Leaders

TMS 2022 will feature leaders such as India’s SaaS maestro and Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu, as well as unicorn founders such as Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, Urban Company’s Abhiraj Bhal, Hasura’s Rajoshi Ghosh, OfBusiness and Oxyzo’s Vasant Sridhar, among other leaders from the Indian product ecosystem.

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The lineup of speakers and panellists include founders and product leaders such as Vijay Arisetty, cofounder and CEO​​ of MyGate; ZestMoney CEO and cofounder Lizzie Chapman; Kabeer Biswas, cofounder and CEO​​ of Reliance-backed Dunzo; ETMoney’s Mukesh P Kalra; INDMoney founder Ashish Kashyap; LogiNext CEO Dhruvil Sanghvi;  Simpl CEO Nitya Sharma; Supriya Paul, CEO and cofounder of Josh Talks and Josh Skills, among others.

With unscripted interviews, immersive sessions, storytelling, cutting-edge product pitches and exclusive experiences with India’s biggest founders, TMS 2022 will have the ingredients to help you figure out the secret sauce for your startup. Plus, an unprecedented opportunity to connect with other curious minds at India’s largest product conference.

Fireside Chats: Up, Close & Personal With Founders

Joined by some of India’s biggest investors and VCs, TMS 2022 will celebrate the journey of the founders and product startups that have set the benchmark for the Indian market. We are hosting the likes of Zoho’s Vembu, Groww’s Keshre, Dunzo’s Biswas, Hasura’s Ghosh and other product leaders.

These fireside chats will be moderated and led by investors such as Sequoia’s Ajey Gore, Accel’s Abhinav Chaturvedi, Lightbox partner Sandeep Murthy, Amit Somani of Prime Venture Partners, 3one4’s Siddarth Pai, Antler India’s Rajiv Srivatsa as well as founders who have seen the ecosystem grow and mature such as Pallav Nadhani of FusionCharts, CleverTap’s Anand Jain.

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Masterclasses & Panels: Lessons from Product Success Stories

You cannot top the learnings that you will get directly from product leaders at TMS 2022. If the previous edition of TMS was enlightening and insightful, this time around we are diving deeper into some of the models and growth strategies that have actually worked in the Indian context. Founders and product leaders will reveal their success mantras through a series of masterclasses and panel discussions.

Learn how Scaler Academy and InterviewBit is tapping into India’s higher education space with its offline to online transition, and its recipe to bridge the talent gap. Straight from the founder Anshuman Singh.

Or know how retail tech and D2C enabler Dukaan is unlocking the value and monetisation potential of Indian SMBs through its constantly-evolving product. Founder and CEO Suumit Shah will take the audience through how Dukkan has cracked organic and inorganic growth with its Shopify for India approach.

The likes of Mukesh Kalra, founder and CEO of ET Money; Priya Sharma, cofounder, CFO & COO of ZestMoney, INDMoney’s Kashyap and others will go into how fintech startups can avoid the super app trap of low margins, while also navigating the regulatory dilemmas that plague this sector from time to time.

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Further, FamPay’s growth and product lead Brijesh Bharadwaj will delve into building growth models for consumer products, which will solve many of the scalability challenges that product companies face once they exit the early stage.

And as omnichannel ecommerce and D2C takes centre-stage, Haptik founder and CEO Aakrit Vaish’s session will be the guide for all product managers and founders to mastering WhatsApp and unlocking scalability through the Meta-owned messaging giant, which has over 400 Mn users in India alone.

TMS2022: Dive Into Emerging Products, Segments

With $42 Bn in funding and 42 new unicorns last year, India saw a new unicorn startup every nine days in 2021, funding has grown at an unprecedented rate taking the total funds raised by Indian startups since 2014 (to date) to $115 Bn. The value created by Indian startups has touched $400 Bn already.

So now’s the time to step on the accelerator and put innovation on the fast-track. As we shift from a services economy to a product-first nation, the Indian tech market is seeing new leaders and models emerging — from product strategy and framework to hiring and retaining the right talent, and from optimising unit economics to exploring the rise of web3, gaming and the subscription economy.

In 2022, we fully expect metaverse to become a bigger buzzword among Indian tech companies, given the massive focus by Facebook (now even called Meta), Microsoft, Amazon, Google and other tech giants. Indian web3 startups such as Rario, Hike’s Rush, Polygon, FanCraze, nCore Games, OneRare, Avataar, MetaMall have all raised significant funding in the past two years to build their metaverse products, even as others join the web3 bandwagon.

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At The Makers Summit 2022, we will be walking through the product models in web3, while also catching up with traditionally large sectors such as ecommerce, the emergence of super apps, quick commerce product strategies, the EV product ecosystem and more.

Other rivetting sessions are expected around the booming creator economy, the SMB SaaS space, fintech regulations and more. We will reveal the full agenda shortly, but it covers product-driven sectors such as healthtech, ecomemrce’s different avatars, gaming, edtech’s changing landscape and more.

Tackling Post-Pandemic Trends

Of course, thanks to our stellar lineup of product role models, we will also get some macro insights on some of the larger debates and issues in the tech ecosystem. For instance, how do Zoho’s Vembu, Unacademy’s Munjal, Urban Company’s Bahl & Co view the new breed of entrepreneurs and investors in the Indian market?

The capital and funding rush seen over the past two years has thrust Indian products and startups into the global limelight, but it has also brought about a shift in focus and mindset of startups. No longer are startups eyeing growth at any cost as factors such as unit economics, talent costs and profitability come into play.

Among the trends that have emerged in the past couple of years, The Great Resignation is a hotly debated topic among all entrepreneurs, and it goes hand-in-hand with the talent wars in the Indian startup ecosystem. Talent retention is a key competitive moat in the industry today. TMS 2022 will dive into how startups are managing talent under the pressure of profitability.

How are product managers, engineering divisions and design teams working through challenges such as reintegrating or maintaining remote teams and hybrid working? What are their tenets of culture and team building and more given the focus on corporate governance in the startup ecosystem today?

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Expect this and more at the TMS 2022, starting today.

Join us for the first session, where Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu will talk about how India can become the centre of the global tech industry.