StartupDunia » Entrepreneurship

Read, learn and imbibe from the guru

pranav — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:58:19 +0000

Jason Calacanis (a master at link baiting and PR tactics) has an amazing writeup on how to do good PR for your startup.

Startup or no startup, I would advise everyone to bookmark his piece and definitely imbibe some of his mantras.

Thanks jason for this brilliant post.

Comments

August 22, 2008, Gautam Kshatriya commented: A fabulous, inspiring post by Jason. If I was to summarize, its this: be obsessed with talking your product, but at the same time 'be human' - that is don't hard sell / speak to the truth / act like a mindless drone yammering on unless the other guy wants to listen. If you follow these two simple rules, then it'll become a self enforcing PR cycle. Pranav - was wondering, in your experience which have been the better startups in building relationships with you? What did they do, and how did they do it? Did they take you out for lunch ;-) ? I think there are some parallels to be drawn with Jason's post about 'being remarkable' and Seth Godin's thoughts on making your product a Purple Cow. Indeed, I feel that what Jason is *essentially* saying is, YOU, the founders must be purple cows. If what I'm saying doesn't make any sense check out my review on Godin's book (its an essential read, in my opinion): http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog/?p=305
August 26, 2008, Ajitesh commented: Thanks Pranav for bringing it up! That was indeed a very useful read. cheers!

Eximius - Entrepreneurship Summit at IIMB

pranav — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:14:38 +0000

Eximius is IIM Bangalore’s inaugural entrepreneurship summit to be held on 22nd - 23rd August.

Some of the events included:

Ingen - Invites innovative business ideas in the field of education. At stake - huge cash prizes, and an opportunity to get your idea completely funded.

Innovation Challenge – Have an idea that will Transform India but don’t know how to take it to the next level? Test your idea amongst hundreds of others – and, if you get selected, present it to an elite panel of judges in front of a critical audience to earn invaluable feedback and recognition. And cash!

Genesis – Nurturing a business plan and that needs VC funding? What you need is constructive feedback from VCs in a simulated setting, a dress rehearsal to enhance your chances of winning that pot of cash.

Panel Discussion - Social Entrepreneurship is a buzzword today but what does it really mean? Find out from the people who are dedicating their lives to it. Get inspired by eminent personalities such as DR Mehta (founder of Jaipur Foot), Varun Sahni (Acumen Fund India director) and others.

Additional details can be found at their website: http://www.iimb-eximius.com/

Comments

August 28, 2008, easy2share commented: Entrepreneurship summit is a great way to promote innovation. I am glad that this kind of leading institutes are taking proactive action.

Madhouse founders starting Morpheus Venture Partners

pranav — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:52:10 +0000

WATBlog reported yesterday that Sameer Guglani and Nandini Hirianniah, founders of DVD rental company Madhouse.in (acquired by Seventymm), are starting a YCombinator like incubator called Morpheus Venture Partners, to assist other early stage startups.

Ashish has a good QnA with them about their latest venture.

At this point, it looks like the incubator will be more targeted towards mentoring, strategy and advise for startups as opposed to seed funding the startups.

Our primary value add to the startup teams is the advise, mentorship, guidance, access to the right network, creating opportunity to meeting relevant people, team strategy, product strategy, launch strategy, fund raising strategy (intros and more), getting the right advisers onboard with the right kind of terms, etc.

In the current scenario, there is definitely a lot of need for such an entity. Someone, who can closely work with other entrepreneurs and help them get off the ground and get the ball rolling.

At the same time, I cant help but reminisce about a similar effort called DreamzHunt, that was launched in early 2007 by a Chennai based business group called SGS. The idea was to launch a competition where the top 3 teams will be selected and receive a funding of $20k - $100k for 15% stake in the company. The effort fizzled out and it seems that only 2 teams were selected out of all the applicants. Thus far, I havent seen any update on how those two teams are doing. Or if SGS ever invested the quoted amounts in the ventures. If you have any updates about DreamzHunt, leave a comment below and let me know.

However, based on Sameer and Nandini’s entrepreneurial success, I’m more optimistic and wish them the best with this new venture.

Comments

July 9, 2008, Gaurav commented: The model where you get n number of teams and then select top2 or 3 wouldn't work very well. Its not like you have to select top x% doesn't matter if they have the right _stuff_ to get _there_. They might as well add OBC and SC/ST quotas. Also the valuation (like 15%) can't be set up front for all the selected teams. Morpheus sounds interesting and something that Indian Internet space badly needs.
July 10, 2008, Ankit commented: Its a great initiative and is much needed in India. However, just like any other venture its success will depend about how the founders execute their vision... Morpheus guys are better equipped for success as they have been entrepreneurs themselves....

Too many Ideas ?

pranav — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:00:56 +0000

Are you someone who continuously gets ideas ? Does it happen often with you that you see a particular startup and go “Damn - I’d already thought of it” ?Â Do you easily get swayed when you see someone else’s startup idea ? Feel overwhelmed by the number of ideas ? Too many ideas, too little time and dont know where to begin ?

If your answer to the above questions is yes, then fikr not my friend, you’re not alone. You suffer from what is called the Idea Overload Syndrome (a term coined by yours truly). A vast majority of the aspiring entrepreneurs always tend to remain in this perennial state of idea overload. And before long, window of opportunity passes by with them not having worked on any single idea. And the dream of becoming an entrepreneur slowly fades away as other priorities in life take over.

If you suffer from IOS, you can try to follow the below mentioned regimen to possibly reduce the clutter and be more focused about your ideas:
1) Make a list of all the ideas that are bouncing off your head. If you want, you can prioritize them by the ideas that interest you the most to the lesser interesting ones

2) Now that you have the ideas listed, evaluate each idea for feasibility. Evan Williams, founder of Blogger & Twitter, has an excellent post on how you evaluate an idea. I suggest you take each idea from your list and evaluate against all the points listed by Evan and build a matrix with the results

3) In addition to the points listed by Evan I’d like to add a few of my own as well.

Core Competencies:

As a person, where do your strengths lie ? What are your weaknesses ?Â What do you do very well and like to do ?

You need to use these personal traits while evaluating each idea as well. For instance, if you dont like sales and one of your ideas involves an ad network or if you arent really a people’s person and any of your ideas involves interacting with people, I’d suggest you think twice before considering those ideas.

Does a Market exist for the idea?

Would YouTube would have been so successful had it emerged say in 2000 ? Would Twitter have clicked in 1997 ?

I doubt it. The reason being that the market was not ready for it yet. We were still building up the hardware infrastructure, broadband was hardly common place and mobile was not as pervasive.

So, its essential that you evaluate if the market is ready for your idea. Because if there isnt a good market-product fit, chances are that your startup might fail.Â See Marc’s post about the importance of the market to your startup’s success.

Financial constraints:

Evan talks about evaluating the technical feasibility of an idea, but I’d say you might want to consider the financial feasibility as well. How long will you able to bootstrap the startup if needed ? Is it likely that you might not have a working prototype inspite of sinking your entire savings into the startup ? If you need to seek out external funding, is this idea fundable ?

Hiring talent - co-founder ?

How easy will it be to hire talent or a co-founder for my idea ? Hiring someone with knowledge about Natural Language Processing may not be as easy as hiring a PHP coder. Especially, if you are bootstrapping. If the need arises, will I be able to find knowledgeable folks - who are especially important to a fledgling startup.

4) You should now have a fair objective evaluation of your ideas. You can select the top 3 and research further into these ideas - get further market data / statistics etc. Ultimately, you should have an idea, that is not only relatively feasible, but also has gone through some reasonable objective analysis and is likely to be devoid of any subjective biases.

5) If any further validation is needed, I’d suggest discussing the ideas with family, group of friends etc. Their perspectives might bring out some insights that you may have overlooked.

6) And now comes the most challenging part. Once you’ve shortlisted the idea, keep a razor sharp focus and start to act upon it. That doesnt mean that there wont be tweaks to the idea as you tread further along. But make a conscious effort not to be distracted by other ‘ideas’.Â Unless you make a determined effort to break away from the “idea” maze, its likely that you may get sucked right back into it.

7) Practice Yoga or some form of meditation to keep a calmer mind and greater focus.

If you try the approach above, let me know if it helps.Â Open to any suggestions - changes as well.

Comments

June 12, 2008, Cyril Gupta commented: Hi, certainly I've been there. But I've been a bit lucky that many of my ideas have seen daylight, implementation and ahem... failure (oh one too many times). But some of them have been reasonable successes, and the ship is sailing. Cheers! and hang in there.
June 13, 2008, Sonia Malhotra commented: Hi, I suffer from Ideas Overload Syndrome and finally I started one business. I have launched www.GhumiChale.com, India's First Hotels Comparison Engine. Now my priority is to make it successful and from the money that I earn from this venture I will start working on my other ideas Sonia Malhotra Internetpreneur www.GhumiChale.com India's First Hotels Comparison Engine
June 13, 2008, Ram commented: @Sonia "Indiaâ€™s First Hotels Comparison Engine" I don't see a single Indian city on the frontpage, :)
June 15, 2008, Paras Chopra commented: Good that I am not the only weirdo in the world. :) It feels so good when you realize that what you have been suffering is not at all idiosyncratic. That side, I am not sure how much your tips will help. I have read a lot of such tips. But, they don't seem to help me much. Having ideas has become an addiction. Dunno if it is good or bad.
June 16, 2008, pranav commented: @paras - it isnt an "addiction". Its the mind - it wanders.
June 16, 2008, Kunal commented: Ah been there done that :) Ppl need to do an SWOT analysis which is essentially what u r talking ab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis have just started doing it for my sites (i went other way round launched the site n then doing swot) Cheers!
June 20, 2008, Sonia Malhotra commented: @ Ram...Thanks for your feedback...Indian Cities were alredy there please visit again it's 5 cities in the list + I have recently added the links below for list of prominent Indian cities + you can also type in the name of the city in the search box. Moreover the site detects the IP address and the Top 15 cities are shown based on the IP so if you r accessing the site from outside India the cities might change Hope now ur experience would be more pleasing...do check and give ur inputs. Sonia Malhotra Internetpreneur www.GhumiChale.com India's First Hotels Comparison Engine
June 21, 2008, Kris Nair commented: I call it Endless Bad Ideas!
June 23, 2008, Arjun Rajkumar commented: Too many ideas! Would be gret if you can help by diverting some of that creativity to come up with a tagline for us at GreenGambol. http://www.greengambol.com/tag.php Any suggestions? If you still have lots of ideas, check out sites like 'Innovation Exchange' - these are great where real companies post problems and look for solutions from people. Arjun Rajkumar.
June 23, 2008, pranav commented: @kunal, thanks for sharing the link. I wasnt aware that there's a formal term - review of the same.

Event: Conference for Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs

pranav — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:18:25 +0000

KickStart.in is organizing a day long conference for current and aspiring entrepreneurs - “Conference for Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs”.

The conference will be held on June 15th at The Auditorium, IIMB campus from 9 AM - 6 PM.

Agenda includes topics like Idea Validation, Business Plan - Basics, Technology and IPR, Product Management and Marketing, Legal aspects of setting up your own company, Selling + How to talk to a VC etc.

For additional details, check out their website.

Bootstrapper’s guide to starting an office in Bangalore - II

pranav — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:04:16 +0000

The following is a two part series by Saurabh Chandra, founder of Bangalore based startup Neev Technologies. He has a pretty interesting blog at Bootstrap in Bangalore. Check it out.

In the part I of this guide we discussed the externalities of starting the office - location, rents, surroundings. Now that you may have found the right place, lets see what goes in and what you need to get it running.

Go to Shivajinagar/Infantry Road for great deals on furniture. Instead of buying consider renting it. You could get a stuff for as low as Rs 50 a month for a table and chair. Do get a white board with a stand (so that you can move it around). PAN furnitures on Langford road has nice white boards in different sizes apart from other office furniture like chairs etc (no I donâ€™t get a commission from them).

Moving to the electronic infrastructure. While trying to be frugal, be rational and invest in productivity - time is your enemy so donâ€™t let it slip by you. Take the best internet connection for your needs. If you add up all the delays in downloads, it becomes really huge. The worst part is usually you cannot do anything productive in the wait time. Cheap availability of broadband is an important factor in making bootstrapping possible much more easily compared to earlier times.

Buy laptops and wifi. This is the best mode to be connected. No wires, more productivity. Let your budget guide you in case all your seed money is just going into just buying those cool laptops. We started our office with desktop computer parts bought separately from computer warehouse (the website has an updated excel sheet where you can check prices of peripherals. The shop is on M G Road) which I assembled at home with the help of a friend (just assembling on my own saved me 500 bucks! plus we could choose the cheapest alternative for every component). For an earlier startup we bargain hunted on S P Road, you can surely get the best deal in bangalore there if you negotiate well.

It helped that I had worked in a start up earlier where I had to play sysad for sometime and I set up the home office network with a cheap 800 rupee hub and ethernet wires that we borrowed from friends. During my college time I used to troubleshoot Linux setup issues for friends and that came really handy allowing us to save on windows license costs. We were very clear from day 1 that pirated software was a big no. Its just not worth risking your budding companyâ€™s reputation on these trivial things. Hidden lesson that we will reiterate later: do many things even before you start up. In your own company, you will find some use for the most obscure talent you have.

Buy a hosted server to keep your source code (learn version control ), web server. I recommend buying a virtual private server at rimu and if you find something better, do let me know. This allows you or your friends to access files from anywhere, almost 100% uptime and no worries about losing your data if your local machine goes down. You may sometimes want to host a demo or a tool when this server will come handy. For your email definitely buy a domain name and use hosted gmail. Communicating with people using you@example.com makes a much better impression than gmail.com.

Comments

June 6, 2008, Ankur Gattani commented: :) Good stuff. when are you getting someone to write about Mumbai? i'm three days old here.. and really doesn't feel like the best place to startup!
June 10, 2008, pranav commented: Ankur, I'm open to receiving submissions from Mumbai folks on the same topic..Probably, you can write one yourself :-) which can be shared here, on my blog :-) -p.
July 20, 2008, Anthony Shekar commented: You can check Prices of laptops computers and parts at http://bwindia.com/Products.htm you can find very low prices on this link then sp road and mg road

Bootstrapper’s guide to starting an office in Bangalore - I

pranav — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:57:38 +0000

The following is a two part series by Saurabh Chandra, founder of Bangalore based startup Neev Technologies. He has a pretty interesting blog at Bootstrap in Bangalore. Check it out.

Now that you have finally overcome the inertia of being in a job and have adopted the think local, look around principle, its time to look for a place to set up shop. If your idea is at a stage where you are working on it on your laptop, the guide is pretty short for you: just continue at home. If you are starting out with friends move in to a single apartment, it saves cost and adds to the productivity. If possible, try to partition the apartment into a work area and create an office feel to it.

In case you want a dedicated office where friends would like to come over to get into the discipline of working everyday or maybe you have hired a few people who need to come, then the above strategy of continuing at home doesnâ€™t work. Now you need to go looking out. You can still simply try finding a home but keep a few things in mind. For a business today reliable internet and power are most important. Try finding a place closer to the typical VIP areas where power cuts are minimal. In your current MNC office, you do not notice it but the power backups is often in use. In a small apartment you cannot install a generator and a UPS with truck batteries will give you 2-4 hours back up. Keep in mind that the truck batteries give off poisonous fumes so donâ€™t install them inside the workplace. Dry batteries are maintainence and poison free but a little expensive. I stuck to the truck oneâ€™s but installed them in the balcony so that the fumes donâ€™t accumulate. Since batteries are expensive and one way to manage costs is to weigh the cost of UPS with laptops (since they come with internal batteries). Then all you need is a small UPS to make sure your internet modem and wifi router is up (both of which drain very little power).

This is easy to overlook initially but when you have a deadline to complete work, not being able to do anything due to a power outage will seem like the stupidest excuse and believe me you will be willing to pay insane amounts for resumption of work at that point of emergency. Something that saved us at times was that accidentally our own houses were in different areas in the city and all of us had good internet at home. Outages seldom happen in the whole city, so if there was an important check-in, deployment or skype call we would just pick the laptops drive over to the other house and we kind of had redundancy this way.

When you zero in to a place evaluate it from some more angles than just space and location. Reducing commute time is important but having ample parking for employees and visitors is too. In case you are looking at a flat make sure that the association is not going to crib about business being conducted in the society (typically no one does). Check noise levels during the weekdays/weekends and day/nigh since you will typically work all the time. It usually is great to have an independent house or a first floor in a house since that makes it possible to put up a board and visitors/prospective hires have typically a better impression of the place.

You may find a place with reasonable rent but what breaks your heart is the 10 month deposit that needs to be paid in Bangalore. Negotiate hard, usually you may be able to achieve one of the two things - reduced deposit or the deposit itself paid over a longer period of time. When cash is so crucial having a huge amount stuck as deposit is the last thing you want, so minimize this damage.

Now that we have found the office - the next post will delve in the stuff inside the office.

What is your biggest fear about becoming an entrepreneur ?

pranav — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:32:57 +0000

Entrepreneurship is hard for one single reason - unpredictability. This unpredictability makes entrepreneurship a risky affair and not everyone has the same appetite for risk. Depending on your age, personal situation, financial resources etc. you might be able to sustain less/more risk than some one else. However, it is essential that you identify what your biggest concern is about an entrepreneurial life ?

In the quest to identify what exactly is stopping you from becoming an entrepreneur, here’s a list of questions you can ask yourself to zero in on your biggest concern:

Are you afraid of failing and the social stigma associated with it ?

I left this cushy job with XYZ. If I fail, my family and friends will think I’m a loser and an idiot.

Are you concerned about how you will sustain yourselves when there’s a period of little or no income ?

How will I pay the bills if I become a full time entrepreneur ?Â Living in a place like XYZÂ isnt exactly cheap. I dont have a rich daddy who will bail me out if things dont work out. What if any unexpected expenses crop up ?

Are you concerned about the unpredictability and fear the unknown ?

Will this idea work ? What if the economy goes into a recession ? What if the product isnt successful ?

Are you concerned that your personal and social life will be disrupted ?

I will not be able to take vacations with my wife. I might not be able to frequent Cafe Coffee Day.

You have an idea but no clue absolutely about where to begin ?

I have an idea about a ticketmaster like site. But where to begin ? How will the technology, channel partnerships etc all work out ? How do I go about getting info on events ?

I am a techie and have no knowledge about marketing - sales

I dont have the marketing skills or the aptitude to sell - will I be able to build a viable business from my idea ?

If I fail, how will things work out after that ? Will I be able to re-enter the corporate world if needed ?

While there may be hard data evidence to quell some of the concerns, some need anecdotal observations while some others - you simply need to seek answers as an individual since there is no single, good answer. You need to ask yourself such questions and identify what is your biggest fear. Once you’ve zeroed in on it, you can work towards debunking that fear.

PS: the list of questions above is generic andÂ aims to capture a broad range rather than drilling down on one specific question.

Leave a comment and let me know what is it that is your biggest concern ? And how do you plan to address it ?

Comments

June 3, 2008, Rabi commented: Hi Pranav, I think my biggest fear while persuing my idea and taking it till execution is "time"! Time is an important factor and deciding on deadlines and adhering to them is the toughest thing. My fear lies in losing the grip of idea, losing the market till the time my idea arrives, losing the team if my partners find themselves in a different situation after a particular timeframe etc. Money and all those things will always be a concern but anyhow they can be managed but time is a thing which only knows to move forward!!!!!
June 4, 2008, Paras Chopra commented: My biggest fear is actually identifying the right problem to solve. There are tons of ideas, but most of them trivial.
June 4, 2008, Keshava Ram commented: My fears are 1. Will I be able to lead the team to success. Can I make them as motivated as I am. Will they stay with me for a long time. 2. What if my competitors copy the idea and make my business redundant? 3. I don't want to do any illegal or unethical activities, but will the business survive still in this ruthless world.
June 4, 2008, Vivek commented: Sometimes havin a rich daddy isnt such a big advantage.. coz comes along wit it is the responsibility of takin care of the exisitin business.. rather than venturin out on somethin new.. ask me :)
June 4, 2008, prabindh commented: Forming the right business plan and convincing the right people is the key. Once thsi is done, money is not a problem. The next stage is probably the sustenance of the business, and taking it to its logical conclusion. It is in many ways a bigger challenge, as the initial "enthu" is gone, except probably for the founder :)
June 4, 2008, Saurabh Garg commented: Hi, Interesting post Pranav. For me the biggest fear is the fear of failure. I dont want to fail in anything I do. Not because the world would laugh at me or because I would be rated as a failure by my peers. But because I myself would not be able to achieve the standards that I have set for myself. Regards, SG P.S.: Although have seen your blog lots of time, noticed it just now. Keep up the good work.
June 4, 2008, Heeren Pandya commented: Hi, My biggest fear is the failure to make money. I have one or two ideas and even if after trying the idea is not clicked in the minds of clients then what to do. Considering the low cost startup (in terms of investment), if you are not able to get a client either in a month or two, is a big deal. Because when you are just starting up there will be not support from either VCs or Angels until you have good network. If you need to evolve your idea into a product, you need atleast 3-4 months working on that based on the idea. Let's say I am the sole person working on it fulltime and the after working for this period, it should make inroads into client minds within a month. If this doesn't happens, then it is a failure.
June 4, 2008, Abhishek commented: I believe if you have any of the above fears or some other you will never be an entrepreneur, I would like to term is as risks and have risk mitigation strategy. Without that you will always remain a Fence Sitter.
June 4, 2008, abhinav commented: The fears that you have mentioned are big , but the biggest one is here : Despite all the odds you have the consistency to keep continuing and contributing towards the vision is required ... I would like to address the few concerns and answers to few of your questions. Getting back into the corporate world : offcourse you can get back to a corporate world; say 4yrs of exp and 1yr of sabatical looks fine.. social stigma: beggers can't be choosers , the crowd is a spectator and if can't defy them then there is lack of confidence in the person or the idea is not strong enough to let him do the extra mile. Its a Risk * time factor which remains constant. if you want to rise high in less time, risk has got to be increased give more time less risk reach the same level.
June 4, 2008, FMG commented: I believe its fear of faliure for me. I was working fine in US with good job and i had this urge of being an enterprenur. I had tons of ideas every day and more i read about India and things around me I felt more confident. I quit my job moved to India and did try to implement my ideas but nothing seemed to work. I failed to even get started because of faliure. Everytime I would work on idea i will start getting neagtive thoughts. Wasted 8 months of time going from here and there... lost all my confidence and was really depressed. Finally moved to Dubai and am back with the JOB but again i am getting all the ideas :) But this time I will be more cautious. I would take that step since my family is well settled. Not everyone can afford to do that. So for me fear of faliure was the reason. I still plan to do it all over again but with much better planning and execution. Hopefully sooooon.
June 4, 2008, Harshal Vaidya commented: My Biggest fear is that I will never be able to find a good motivated team which will stay along with me till the delivery date!
June 4, 2008, Nishi/Chillibreeze commented: Scared of failure, not being able to make money, not being able to pay my bills..... But most of all, I am scared of not being able to grow. It is not enough to get a few big clients or be featured in magazines and newspapers the first few years. In order to be deemed truly successful, startups must continue to grow. And this is not simple. Another fear is getting taken over by a big company and seeing your vision dissolve into nothingness once your company becomes part of an ocean. Both these fears might sound trivial because the scary situations seem to occur after the startup has become successful, but they are still food for thought, especially for those who are not in it solely for the money.
June 4, 2008, Abdul Jaleel commented: A fascinating look into the minds of Indian Startup Founders - www.ifounders.in
June 4, 2008, pranav commented: Boy -- thats a whole lotta comments..Am a little backed up today - Will read and respond in a day. Thanks to all for sharing your concerns and keep them coming..
June 5, 2008, BZ commented: This one is less of fear and more of a startup concern. I have always had a difficult time finding the right people with domain knowledge for a business problem. Lack of focus is one of the key reasons for folding a startup. I was involved with a startup that wanted to implement SaaS in the SMB industry. Half way through the project, one of the stakeholders realized that he wanted an ERP system instead of a document management system. Six months after the system was developed, Frankenstien had to be scrapped.
June 5, 2008, Kenney commented: To me its the marketing skills. With the kind of team with me, we can make almost any product. Marketing is the hardest job on earth.
June 10, 2008, pranav commented: since each comment deserves an individual response, I hope I can effectively answer each one of you. @ rabi, "losing grip of the idea" though I'm not an entrepreneur myself, after talking to several other entrepreneur friends, I know for a fact that its quintessential for you to be passionate and believe in your idea. When you passionately believe in your idea, you will not lose grip or focus on your idea. "losing the market till the time my idea arrives" Rabi, to address this, your entrepreneurial idea needs to be tractable. The time to go to market in terms of an Internet startup is short - so obviously, you cant take forever to launch your idea. It needs to quick to market and rapid iterations from there on. Of course, if you're talking of some serious technology, it will take time to develop and launch. But that shouldnt deter you - see Google's example. When google launched, everyone thought that search was already conquered by yahoo-MSN-Ask. You shouldnt be afraid of 'biggies' entering your market. As a startup, agility and nimbleness are on your side. You should use that to your advantage. "losing the team if my partners find themselves in a different situation after a particular timeframe etc." That's why its essential that you select your co-founders and team very carefully. They need to be convinced and believe in your idea as much as you do.
June 10, 2008, pranav commented: @Paras My biggest fear is actually identifying the right problem to solve. There are tons of ideas, but most of them trivial. The key is to identify what you yourself think is a problem. Most of the successful companies have started this way. the best example I can provide you is about Netflix. NetFlix founder was frustrated with paying late fees and with the limited collection that the nearby Blockbuster store provided. and thats how he started NetFlix. Most often than not - any problem that you face, its highly likely that others face the same problem as well. some of today's most pervasive problems are information overload, productivity etc. See Paul Graham's essay on how to identify what problems to solve.
June 10, 2008, pranav commented: @Keshava My fears are 1. Will I be able to lead the team to success. Can I make them as motivated as I am. Will they stay with me for a long time. 2. What if my competitors copy the idea and make my business redundant? 3. I donâ€™t want to do any illegal or unethical activities, but will the business survive still in this ruthless world. 1. You need to identify your core competencies - are you a techie ? Are you a salesman ? Are you a biz dev guy ? After you've identified your core competency, you need to make the call if you are a good leader. If you have a techie background and doubt your leadership skills, you should probably find a co-founder, who'd be able to lead the team. As a founder and a good leader, it will also be your job to sell the startup idea to your team. In other words, it is your job to convince and sell your idea and dream to your team and keep them motivated enough. 2. Unless your startup has some serious technology or IP behind it, rest assured that there's a very good chance that someone, some where will most definitely work on it. probably, even beat you to the market with it. But that shouldnt deter you if you really believe in your idea. That's why its essential that you remain focused and believe in your idea. In fact, you should always include the possibility that there will be other competitors in your market, as part of your biz plan strategy. 3. You dont have to be unethical or do anything illegal to succeed. Instead, you can let your startup - technology do the talking. Constant innovation in terms of features should be a good way to deal with competition.
June 26, 2008, Small Business Entre commented: Hi, as I wrote in several articles like this one Entrepreneurship fear of failure most of the fears can be summed up as the fear of failure. Although some say entrepreneurs are big risk takers and they have a good tolerance on failing, I'm quite sure that failing is the most common reason.
June 26, 2008, Nav commented: Simple put ... 'creative destruction'
July 10, 2008, Vivek Dhar commented: there is no security in our country. Big VC firms are here to hand shakes with people who became industry gurus by licking during licence raj of India. Ideas are worth nothing in this country. Need a debate, then will prove it or go yourself in the market with a idea, huge real time experience of India, no IIT/IIM degree, as first venture and then tell me what this country has to offer.
July 28, 2008, Alexis commented: My biggest fear is financial. What if everything falls apart and I am stuck paying for stuff that I can't afford. I don't want to wait forever to start, but I also don't what to risk ending up homeless (probably won't happen). My biggest hold up to starting right now is money.

Hiring for Indian startups

pranav — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:25:26 +0000

Based on my research and conversations with entrepreneurs, it seems that hiring is one of the most difficult jobs for a startup. Be it Silicon Valley or be it Bangalore, finding the right employee can be one of the most challenging and often, one of the most time consuming jobs. The early employees are really crucial and can easily make or break your startup.

While some novel attempts are underway in the Indian context, I’m skeptical if job postings on sites like Naukri, Monster etc. really work for startups. I havent gone through the ordeal myself and am more than willing to change my perspective if you can share your hiring success story on Naukri / Monster etc.

If you are an Indian entrepreneur, I’d like to know how you go about hiring employees for your startup ? What resources have you found useful to hiring quality employees ?Â Do you have any suggestions to improve the hiring scenario ?

I seriously think that there’s opportunity for someone to tap into this niche.

Comments

May 30, 2008, Raghuram commented: I work in a start up and am regularly asked to Interview ppl. I find that most of the times, ppl who come for interview just dont have depth in their education and consequently will not be able to perform well in their jobs. This applies to ppl who work hav gud bit of experience In the last 1 yr, we hav been able to add just one guy while we require 4 guys( we work in EDA tool domian). Monster and Naukri work as resume aggregators. Everybody posts their resume there and smaller placement agenencies grab resumes from there and send to us start ups. So they work as much for large companies as for small companies. However, I am talking of start ups with money. I dunno abt tight budget start ups. Personally, I think employee referrals are best. Our employees know what we expect and what kind of ppl they themselves wud like to work with. So when they refer, they refer ppl with right skill who are more likely to get hired. --Raghuram
May 30, 2008, waqar azmi commented: Hi Pranav, Waqar here ,I run this company called Sutra hr where we only hire talented people for Startups & Entrepreneurial driven companies.Currently we are working with some of the best startups in india like Komli,Burrp.com,Seventymm.com,Zoomin.com,Mkhoj,Iksula etc. Some of there core Business & Tech team have been hired by us.You can get more info at http://www.sutrahr.com. We have been covered in press also ,chk out these links http://alootechie.net/Not%20mentioned?q=node/650&source=1 http://www.watblog.com/2008/04/22/update-new-launches-in-indias-webduniya/
May 30, 2008, Vibration commented: I have not started hiring for my company yet but what I feel about the best way of hiring the Angel Engineers is to go back to your college days and try to contact best guys which you knew they were and then try contacting those best guys which your old college day's friends know they are. just don't go to any placement consultancy or job website, because early day's employees are not just the employees, they are whom you will rely upon, those who will build the company, those who will actually define the success for your venture !
May 30, 2008, Prakash commented: I am actually on the other side of the fence now - I have some solid 11+ years experience in the software industry (working as a Software Developer and then as a Program Manager in Microsoft, Redmond) and am currently seeking good opportunities back in Bangalore, India. I am running into the following problems: - Naukri and Monster just dont seem to work. Most of the responses are from headhunters who do a very poor job of matching my interests and experience. - Posting resumes online on a company's website usually does not result in any response (goes into HR blackhole). - Most of my friends are here in US so the referral thing does not exactly work for me. I guess what I am trying to say is that even for non-startups, I am finding it challenging to find a good position back in Bangalore.
May 31, 2008, Asutosh commented: Pranav, Hiring for a startup has always been a tough and will remain so for sometime. There a certain set of problems like shortage of quality talent, unrealistic salary expectations, office infrastructure, fitment issues plaguing all startups. The job portals donâ€™t add any value and neither are there many recruiting firms who have focused on this area. I have a recruiting background and had co-founded a firm which specialized in hiring for startups. From my recruiting experience, I feel entrepreneurs need to do a little more then required. The expectations need to be set right and lot of care and attention needs to be applied to each interaction with a potential hire. Startups are often associated with demanding work and higher risks by candidates hence quite often we have people shying away or demand higher salaries. At the same time stock options havenâ€™t been very effective. I run a blog on the hiring scene in India, and I have shared my experiences on hiring for startups through a couple of posts http://asutosh.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/hiring-for-startups/, http://asutosh.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/getting-the-right-guy-for-your-venture/ .Will invite you share your views on the same.
May 31, 2008, A.V commented: Iâ€™m toying with couple of ideas for my latest startup - I explore almost each and every avenue to find talents - from job sites, to blogs, to references etc. EDIT: If anyone who is interested to work with exciting startup then contact me at: ideas101[at]orgoo[dot]com
June 1, 2008, Norbert commented: Finding the right employees is the one of the most challenging tasks at hand no question.
June 1, 2008, Vijay r commented: We tried many options - as ever, the best were referrals, first from friends at previous companies, and then from our first hires. For hiring technical people, targeting the local tech mailing lists worked well. We did get some leads from Naukri/Monster, but found better people outside.
June 2, 2008, Nishi/Chillibreeze commented: Ha ha. Most people here are trying to promote themselves instead of answering the question.
June 2, 2008, Krishna commented: Referral based recruitment is the only option that works in cases like you. As a startup, you have limitations of the number of employees that you have and the number of people that they can refer. You may like to try portal like www.zyoin.com and extend your referral program to all professionals. Cheers! Krishna
June 2, 2008, Neeraj commented: Hi Everyone Very interesting, just found this blog and found lot of posts very helpful. On topic of job portals, we are launching our beta for Indian market in middle of July, stay tuned, will pass on the details as soon as it's public. We are trying to solve some of the problems, and yes there are huge value propositions for both startups as well as enterprises. If anyone wants to learn more, I will happy to share more details. It is risk free and there is no upfront cost for employers, if anyone would like to sign for beta customers, please feel free to contact me. -Neeraj
June 2, 2008, pranav commented: @nishi, If we uncover some good resources, which startups can leverage for their hiring needs, through such comments, I'm totally cool with it. @neeraj, keep us tuned. We'd all like to find out more about the value proposition you'd offer to startup hiring.
June 2, 2008, Nishi/Chillibreeze commented: Sure Pranav. I was just making an observation. We always learn a lot through healthy discussions and I appreciate the way you try to foster them. Anyway, let me add my two bits too. Successful hiring should also mean low attrition rates. And here is something startups can do to achieve this. At Chillibreeze, once we have shortlisted our candidates, one major question we ask ourselves is - Does he/she need Chillibreeze as much as Chillibreeze needs him/her? If the answer is yes, then it is more than likely the employee will stick around for a long time and add value.
June 2, 2008, pranav commented: nishi, you bring up an excellent point. Startups (all companies actually) should create an atmosphere so that the employee feels a compelling urge to work for you. An excellent example would be google - everyone seems to be making a beeline for Google. also, check out this excellent hiring tactic by Zappos: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/taylor/2008/05/wy_zappos_pays_new_employees_t.html
July 26, 2008, Nupur commented: have any of you heard about thehiringtool.com? posting is free - employers pay only if they hire and leverage our network of consultants which is already at 150 and growing steadily.

Free tickets to Proto giveaway

pranav — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:52:40 +0000

If you follow the Indian startup scene closely, chances are that you would have already heard about Proto. For the uninitiated, Proto is an event that brings together entrepreneurs, startup enthusiasts, VC’s, technologists, media professionals andÂ students at a common platform, where they can interact, network and startups get a chance to showcase their products. Even though the event is just a couple of years old, it has quicky become one of the go-to events for anyone who’s interested in Indian startups and technology.

The July edition has been scheduled in Delhi (IIT Delhi most likely) on July 18-19, 2008.

I have 3 free tickets to giveaway for the event (tickets valued at Rs 500/- each). If you are interested, leave a comment explaining why you want to attend Proto and why you deserve to win. Bonus points if you can blog your Proto experience and grab snaps of the event.

The contest will end on June 8th. Make sure you provide your correct email id so that I can contact you in case you win.

Comments

May 19, 2008, Kenney commented: I have never attended proto before, but have heard about it a lot. Id really like to attend it this time. I am also part of a startup, and I can contribute to the event and also learn from the other participants.
May 20, 2008, Vivek commented: Hi.. I m the founder and CEO of Interactive Media pvt ltd.. could really be interested in attending the Proto exhibition.. m ready to pay for it too :) can u tell me from wher can i get the tikets..
May 20, 2008, Rabi Gupta commented: Indian ecosystem needs an entrepreneurship driven system where we have easy access to key resources required to create a successful enterprise. We as a team has suffered from this problem for past few months, slolwly the things are getting better. But, I know to proceed further we need to have a good network which is efficient in this area. It's a rare chance to be able to attend proto and our whole team is planning to join. Even if I'm not elegible for your free gift ;-), we'll try and go there! Will update you further about our story if we get something positive from Proto.
May 20, 2008, Saurabh Garg commented: Interesting way to get more readers. If you dont find three good answers, please consider me for the giveaway :D Regards, SG
May 20, 2008, Nipul Parekh commented: Hi Pranav, I am the Partner of a start-up business and I have faced a lot of problems during the process, have met a lot of VCs too for the same and have found different views, would really like to attend the event to understand some irregularities faced by me. Let me know if you can give the ticket to me. Thanks
May 20, 2008, Aniket B commented: Hi Pranav, Very frankly speaking,Its your blog through which i came to know about Proto.in, and it feels like this is D Destination for an ultimate experience. Ofcourse, there are people here , who are willing to even buy the ticket for attending it, but i feel winning the ticket from you, will be my first entrepreneurial success. The money, hence saved would contribute to my venture. Entrepreneurship is a real challenging experience, and an experience like this will go a long way in reducing the risks. I hope, rather I am confident, that you will choose me for this ticket. thanks & regards Aniket
May 21, 2008, aakriti commented: Hi, I have a friend who is brimming with ideas which are very functional and with the potential to succeed. In the past ten months I have seen 2 start-ups which have used the same concepts my friend has been describing. I know he will succeed, he just needs that nudge. I think this platform will be good for making him interact with fellow-wannnabe-entrepreneurs, and inspire confidence.
May 22, 2008, Sunil commented: Hi Pranav, Why are you upto making a mockery of yourself by posting such contests? I can understand techcrunch doing this but not you. You did a similar thing before by posting on one of the yahoo surveys......remember? I am sure you would have realized what I am talking about by now after reading whopping number of (7) quality (?) comments to win the tickets. Unsolicited advice: Please stick to writing quality posts. Please write well researched & thought provoking articles and have patience before people get hooked on to your thoughts. Hope you get it this time. Best wishes.
May 22, 2008, pranav commented: @sunil I appreciate you dropping by every once in a while and reminding me that I'm no TC. Trust me, I know I'm not TC and neither do I aspire to be one. But what gave you the notion that you have to be only TC to engage users this way ? I see nothing wrong in engaging users via such means. There are users who might be genuinely interested and I have no reservations of "making a mockery of myself " for the benefit of these readers. Thanks for your advice though. If I had more spare time at hand, I'd do more insightful posts. Ask any blogger and they'll attest to the fact that each such insightful post takes a really long time. Along the same line of thought, if you have anything interesting to contribute, that'll benefit the community, why dont you drop me a line and you can be a guest author on my blog.
May 23, 2008, Rabi Gupta commented: Hi Sunil, You can never expect a Blogger to be always serious, to the point and monotonous! It's always gud when something interesting keeps happening over a Blog. This Proto thing may not interest u but thr r many (like me) who actually get these kind of news from such Bolgs! And if Pranav has free passes he needs to distribute it (obviously he can't use all those!), and wht better a way than this ?
May 30, 2008, Nagendra commented: I would like to attend the event because I am intrested in investing/funding for good ideas and there work.

Incubators at TechnoPark Trivandrum and ICICI Knowledge Park get national award

pranav — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:10:29 +0000

The incubators at Trivandrum TechnoPark and the ICICI Knowledge Park have been awarded the “Best Technology Business Incubator” for 2007. The national award has been instituted by the Dept of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.

In the TechnoPark incubator, 71 startups have been incubated, of which 35 have graduated and moved to bigger premises, while 31 are still continuing operations in the incubator.

In the Knowledge Park incubator,Â 29 companies have been incubated, of which 10 have graduated and moved out, while 19 still continue to operated out of the incubator.

As as aside, one of the big benefits of operating out of an incubator is that you need not pay service tax on the services provided. See this (PS: word file) for additional details.

What Indian city is best conducive to entrepreneurship ?

pranav — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:56:17 +0000

A distant friend asked me this question during a conversation yesterday:

What Indian city is best conducive to entrepreneurship ?

Based out of a tier - III city, his town lacks reliable broadband access, human capital is not appropriately skilled and there’s a lack of exchange of intellectual ideas amongst his peers. He’s contemplating moving to a bigger city, where he can get easy access to ideas, capital and skilled people.

The question really got me thinking. Which Indian city would be most suitable for me to setup shop, if I were an Internet entrepreneur in India ?

Mumbai would be prohibitively expensive for majority of the startups, unless you have a home there and you dont really need to rent office space etc. That leaves Pune, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad in the picture (surprising, but you dont really hear a lot about Hyderabad in the context of startups etc.- other than ISB). The list can be further trimmed if there’s a possibility that you’ll need VC funding, since majority of the VC’s require that you relocate to the same city that they are based in.

Personally, I’d opt for either Bangalore or Pune (Chennai weather is not for me). I’d love to hear where you’d base your startup, if you were/are an entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur, have you faced a scenario where you would have had better access to resources if you were located elsewhere ? Do you think life would have been easy in terms of hiring, networking etc. if you were located in a startup hub ?

Comments

May 13, 2008, Shashi commented: Makes me wonder how you came to the conclusion of Mumbai being prohibitively expensive. If you are a startup, say operating in media industry, you have to be in Mumbai. Also, if you are startup, most probably, your office space requirement will be comparatively low. (At one point in time, in our Mumbai office we had 20-odd people occupying may be 600 sqft office.) I worked in Mumbai for almost 3 yrs and moved (back) to Pune recently. Of these two, it's difficult for me to pick one which is distinctly better than the other.
May 13, 2008, pranav commented: @shashi, i've a cpl of very close friends who moved to mumbai - i've first hand heard their experiences on renting an apt and finding suitable office space. if you have been in-around the Mumbai area for sometime, the prices may not come as a shocker, but for many of us, coming from elsewhere, we would find it really expensive. about needing to be located in b'bay if you are a media startup, i completely agree about any constraints imposed by the domain itself. along the same lines, if a large percentage of your potential customer base in located in a particular city, you'll probably opt to be based in that same city.
May 13, 2008, sagar commented: Being a Hyerabadi, I personally prefer to do a startup in Hyderabad. Reasons to add would be reasonable rents (doubt if the prices are still the same as 2 yrs back) and most of all cheap skilled man power. With lots and lots of Engineering Colleges around you can easily get young minds to work for you at much less cost compared to other cities. Though the kind of business exposure you get in Mumbai is different and vast to what to get in Hyderabad, because we are talking Internet startup here, I think you can manage the backend operations from here. So my ideal solution is to have the initial development center in Hyderabad and after the roll out have a marketing Office @ Mumbai at later stage.
May 14, 2008, Ankur commented: Pune is the place to be. Loads of IT Colleges, Salary rate are more stable vis - a - vi Bangalore. Property / Rent rates are reasonable (Lower than Bangalore, Mumbai). Having stayed in Bangalore and Mumbai, i feel Pune has the best of both.
May 14, 2008, Cyril Gupta commented: My company is located in Delhi, the country's capital, and probably the worst place to do any kind of business. The state government has made it a policy to put as many hurdles as they can in front of the entrepreneurs. The cost of the ownership is really prohibitive. There's even a tax on parking your car in your own space! We're a developer of packaged software and websites, and enjoy good margins, additionally we own the premises we are housed in. In spite of all these factors we feel a need to shift away from Delhi. At present we're considering: Goa, Bhopal, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore. Goa's at the top of the list because it's got good weather, good working environment, better political atmosphere then rest of the India, and outsider friendly natives.
May 14, 2008, Azeez commented: @ Sagar I'm also from Andhra...U said Hyd is good place for a startup.Bcoz U site that it has more than (350+) engg colleges...I bet U If U find a reasonable student to venture for a startup, leave these colleges I mean IIIT,RECs, they are different,majority will opt for foreign studies..remaining students most likely will come from normal colleges,example If I say I'm going for startup..they will put faces blank like whats the culture of startup..Here not student decides,but his parents are trump card holders,If at least he gets a job in some not famous IT co,he will not valued..Bcoz U know why the Bride's father will not show any interest in him..More over he will not get enough Dowry... The major Four IT Cos are so rooted.U should not surprise if their names attached to their last name.. for at least upto 21.12.2012 don't think of startup in Biryani city. Bangalore is nice place...And moreover Entrepreneurship is deep rooted there..Test Ur luck there..I don't know much about North india....(Hey Folks don't take it as serious...)
May 14, 2008, Raghu commented: Hi everybody! i am an internet entrepreneur and based in bhopal. Since the question is specifically about dot-coms, i would suggest that its wise to spend the 'gestation period' in your home town. that way you minimize your day-to-day expenses, and can focus better on your startup. resources required for such businesses are available equally in most indian cities (specifically broadband) Ecosystem for dot-coms exist on Internet itself (i agree that VC and technology ecosystems may exist physically in some big cities, but you need them after the gestation period). We ourselves have take 2 years to come out of gestation period, in which lot of course correction has happened, and revenues have only started to come in recently. had we been in mumbai/bangalore/delhi it would have become impossible to pull along (financially). One constraint that surely in small cities is of skilled developers. if i get a job application from a developer in bhopal i can safely assume that he/she isn't good enough to migrate to banglore/pune etc. We however bypassed this constraint by leveraging open source software.
May 14, 2008, Sudhir commented: I don't think any Indian city is startup friendly when you need to complete so many formalities. But I think Chandigarh is a good choice in tier two cities because the real estate price are not that high and I believe you can get skilled manpower in Chandigarh.
May 14, 2008, pranav commented: @cyril, are there other tech startups / companies operating out of goa ? you're probably one of the first companies that i'm (personally) hearing about shifting to goa. @raghu, thanks for sharing your experiences. you make a very valid point - spending the initial gestation period in your own hometown..that way, you can probably piggyback living expenses at your home itself :-)
May 20, 2008, Kashif Razzaqui commented: Gurgaon has a LOT of IT startups.
May 21, 2008, Sharad commented: How about Kolkata? - its a metro city, cost of living is the lowest - and so is talent! surprising, it never even got a mention
May 22, 2008, pranav commented: @sharad, i've heard of several IT companies like wipro, TCS etc. setting up shop in K'kata. but beyond that, havent heard much. probably, i'm just ignorant, but if you have anything to share on startup - entrepreneurship out of kolkata, i'd love to hear about it.
May 27, 2008, tarun vij commented: how about Chandigarh - mohali area for a place for startup ?
July 29, 2008, Dedicated server in India commented: These days Tier II cities like Nagpur, Indore, Bhopal etc are seeing lots of startups, basically due to low cost. Getting a office is easy and less expensive than metros. Lots of colleges and low salary structure are also the reasons companies look into Tier II cities like Nagpur. Good Internet penetration in these cities also is an important factor.

StartupDunia » Entrepreneurship

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