NASSCOM product conclave 2010 – Lessons learnt by a Homepreneur

At this NASSCOM conclave, I have had people asking me, what does ‘Homepreneur’ mean?So, here is my definition of it.
HOME – I work from home as an independent consultant / freelancer &
(Entre)preneur – I manage this ‘business’ (of freelancing) on my own.
so, I guess that qualifies to call myself a ‘Homepreneur’ isn’t it.
A couple of years back, I didn’t even care what NASSCOM meant/ did. I had just about begun freelancing and was having a hard time convincing people about could apps as it is, forget convincing them that one-woman-working-from-home could answer their needs as well.
On one such regular (busy/chaotic) day, I had someone fwd me an email about the NASSCOM product conclave 2010 because they saw a mention of “Zoho” in the newsletter and it seems my name popped up in their head. God bless that kind heart…. (psst… thats me being humble.. okay !!).
Now, that caught my attention. I have been working on Zoho Apps since 2008, and here is an event where Mr.Shridar Vembu from ZohoCorp is going to deliver his speech at 3 different sessions. I couldn’t miss this for the life of me. I had to reserve a seat for myself, & I did…. btw, this busted another idea which I had, that “Only Companies” can attend events at NASSCOM. I signed up citing myself as a Freelance Consultant & it felt good too.
The D-Day had arrived, and I was not sure what to expect. But then, that’s the good thing. You go in with a clean slate (… and by the end of the day, I came out with a feeling of so many post-its-stuck-all-over-inside-my-head… Need to get these organized as soon as I finish this blog post…).
I sat through each one of these sessions, (barring a couple as there were parallel sessions happening), and here are some snippets that I found to be inspiring, and some of the things make better sense when we ruminate on them…
Vivek Wadhwa: “Selling is the SINGLE most important skill for entrepreneurs. And selling is a SCIENCE!”
Freelance consultants know this only too well. We work hard at selling the skills, before we comprehend the solution to the client’s problems. Homepreneurs have the added responsibility to sell the idea that, in spite of ‘being home’, we are disciplined about the work that we do.
Mukund : “I gave 1046 demos and closed 2 sales.”
The trick is to ask “qualifying questions” to your potential clients, says Mukund. Every wannabe freelancer (who is more attracted to the prospect of working in pyjamas.. I personally don’t consider them as homepreneur(s)…), jumps in and says “I can do this – I can do that”. Being all over the place, cannot help either of you. So, Stop-ask-evaluate, before committing on one’s services… &… timeline too.
Harsh Manglik: “Innovation is purposeful discovery of solution”
We have heard “Necessity is the mother of Invention”, Now, we must try to remember this alongside as well. I mean.. folks, this says it all.. what’s more to add here ??
Shridhar Vembu : “Not all Eyeballs are equal”
The context being, Unless all of the eyeballs (site visitors) convert into your paying subscriber base, it does not makes sense in “attracting eyeballs”.. the focus should be on “attracting the right-kind of eyeballs”.
As a homepreneur, It is essential that I see my client’s projects to completion on time, and then scout for another client to work for. This leaves me very little time left with to consider “advertising” my skills. Its for this very reason, I have a blog. But would “having a blog” suffice? No, absolutely not.
I guess its time to throw all the “SEO mantras” out of the window and find one’s specific site / forums / boards where the eyeballs really matter. If Homepreneur’s can harness those eyeballs into visiting their sites, it could as well translate into a potential client, or establish our presence in the chosen niche…. worst comes to worst… we still get visitors eh !
I guess this would have intriqued some of the eyeballs on who actually missed out on the Conclave. Fret not!.. NASSCOM_EMERGE has promised to upload it for all of us in a week or so

(btw, NASSCOM means National Association of Software and Services Companies, here is the Wikipedia link ).