Most companies don’t act on learnings and institutionalize change

Vivek Bhaskaran

Vivek Bhaskaran, an entrepreneur, investor, and business leader tells us what excites him about his portfolio and the space he is in.

Can you tell us a bit about the companies in your portfolio?

Right now, Questionpro continues to be a one-stop shop for survey needs, ranging from DiYs to Enterprises. We continue to build new features and envisage new customer scenarios and are finding synergies and a real continuum between consumer-focused feedback and surveys and enterprise-focused feedback.  It’s a very fun time to be in this industry.  Ideascale continues to serve the innovation and crowd-sourcing spaces and we’re adding new customers, organizations, and government bodies every day.  Trymyui is growing very well, concentrating on the usability space for both the web and apps.  Of course I have other projects too that are taking time and energy, but they’re amazingly rewarding.

How do you think about your portfolio overall?  How do you decide where to spend your time?

I split my time across the companies and I tend to break it down according to high-priority items, which companies need coaching, hiring, product changes, etc and of course which are at strategic pivot points.  My leadership team and I make these calls together because more brains and more perspectives- when distilled well- make for better outcomes.

Your companies are based in Silcon Valley, Seattle, and Pune.  How is it working across these geographies and specifically Pune?

Our geographical spread happened partially by design and partially by chance.  We love Pune- great people, great talent, a nice city to live in, and improving infrastructure.  We believe that we truly exemplify a global company (despite our size).  We in fact just opened Mexico City and are entering Dubai as well.  We feel we truly benefit from a global talent pool.

Can you tell us a bit about the feedback space in general?

Fundamentally, we are still at the tip of the iceberg here.  Even now, most companies don’t listen, act on learnings, institutionalize change, and improve then rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.  Many companies still think of feedback as an episodic “project.”  So while we’ve grown every year for the past 8, we think the bulk of the growth is still ahead.