Ever since she was a little girl Komal Bhatia dreamed of becoming an engineer. Inspired by her father — who studied at the most prestigious university in India — and eldest brother, Bhatia spent countless hours breaking toy robots and clocks, only to put them together again. Her work ethic, however, came from her mother, who volunteered at her school and took a part-time computer course to help motivate her children.
In just the third grade, Bhatia touched her first computer and built an animated triangle using the language, Logo. She named him Turtle.
“I wrote commands to trace movement all over the screen and watched him go bonkers, traveling in circles,” Bhatia said. “I never looked back.”
Today Bhatia is a software engineer and technologist for Intuit and helps both internal and external innovators launch successful product ideas during monthly Incubation Weeks, where students speak with real customers, receive coaching and display products at a “Gallery Walk.” To find new, innovative methodologies to bring back to Intuit Labs, Bhatia enrolled in Stanford Ignite — a 10-week program that teaches innovators to formulate, develop and commercialize ideas. The class touches on core skills — entrepreneurship, finance and business models — to functional skills — communications, design thinking and teamwork.
“Our Incubation Weeks are great but they’re more focused on the initial phases of innovation,” she said. “What I’ve really learned is that innovation is for everyone. And now I look at the end-to-end process and ask myself, ‘What’s next’?”
Much like Intuit’s Design for Delight space, Stanford Ignite offers a Startup Garage, which includes tables, toys, building blocks, accessories and white boards. The brainstorming space was used by 11 Stanford Ignite teams, consisting of grad students, entrepreneurs, scientists, post docs and engineers.
“I’d say 50 percent of the class was made up of working professionals from places like Google and Amazon,” Bhatia said. “But we’re all considered technical people; even the post docs who work in labs every day. And we all had little business knowledge.”
Bhatia and fellow teams were forced to innovate by creating end-to-end business plans around an idea. Team Give a Day Global connects travelers to local nonprofits and schedules volunteer work, whereas a surgeon-based team suggested installing cameras within surgical equipment to help teach medical students. Ideas touched on everything from hand-free toothbrushes to drone/pedestrian safety products. Stanford Ignite also included presentations by VPs and professors, who shared their successes and failures, as well as final pitches by each team.
“We come from such different backgrounds yet we were all like-minded people — ones that wanted to change the world,” Bhatia said. “We learned from each other and influenced each other. I went in focused on the technical part and came out understanding the finance aspect. You need all the elements to work together to be successful. And then you have to be able to pitch your idea. If you can’t articulate it well, you won’t find investors. We had to make our product a story.”
Some of Bhatia’s main learnings about the end-to-end process include:
1.) Talk about your pain points
2.) Talk about your solution
3.) Explain why your product is important to the general population
4.) Explain your journey/learnings
5.) Weave these elements together to create a strong pitch
“Pitching our ideas to professionals was nerve-wracking,” Bhatia added. “And getting the harsh feedback is important.”
Some of the greatest innovations of our time weren’t original ideas, rather they built on an existing idea in a different way. And it takes lean startup principles, like experimentation, to get there. Bhatia also plans to bring Stanford Ignite’s program director back to Intuit to share additional insights. But whether a student or teacher, Bhatia hopes to keep learning, innovating and inspiring others.
“As a student, you’re freer to explore the possibilities,” she said. “You’re not as stifled by assumptions and misconceptions. As a professional, sometimes experience and domain expertise can get in the way of exploration or thinking like an end user.”
Working innovators are faced with tight deadlines, money constraints and, at times, old-school-minded managers. It’s why company teams, like Intuit Labs, are important. They help teams run experiments, capture metrics and influence an innovative mindset.
“Experiment and test,” she said. “Let the data speak for itself.”
Companies throughout the Valley are also hosting innovation challenges, where employees from various business units can work together to come up with new product ideas or solutions to existing problems. Such collaboration encourages a creative culture. Many of Intuit’s staff uses their Unstructured Time — also a common startup practice — to create something new. Projects like Brainstorm help employees share and collaborate on ideas whereas Intuit Labs showcases employees’ creations to the outside world.
“Staying in tune with your customers and talking to them directly, for months, is also essential in knowing who they are and what you should be creating,” Bhatia said. “Be inspired by your customers and innovate for them.”
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