Saturday, May 24, 2008

Silicon Valley Startups - It's real and happening in India






Alright I am not sure if you guys will be interested in reading this stuff but I am too excited to share with you all. I came back from a day long conference cum exhibition on start-up ventures in India. There were around 40 startups who were displaying their products which will revolutionize the way ordinary people like you and me live life....This was an effort by a magazine called Smart techie which attempted to bring together VC, startups and Industry leaders on one platform for the first time. The distinguished speakers included Infy CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan, Vivek Mansingh (Country Manager, Dell), Praveen Vishakantiah (President, Intel India), Sharad Sharma (CEO, Yahoo India). In addition to this there were speakers like Ashish Gupta (Founder of junglee.com), Prof. YLR Moorthy from IIM Bangalore and many others. The key theme was to really educate, motivate and inspire the entrepreneurs of today and the budding ones and guide them on how to succeed. Here are some of the points that I could capture from various speakers and discussions regarding taking a plunge into a startup and steering it to success:

1. Introspect if you are ready for a startup? Remember it is just not about thinking of a cool or a whacky idea. We all get ideas, what really matters is if you have the desire, passion, patience and a mindset to go through the pains of a startup. Are you prepared to make sacrifices at both personal and professional level. Be honest to yourself

2. Evaluate your idea by going to Market first. Do not ever start by building a product. Go meet the customers, understand their problems see if are idea can solve their problems or add value to the existing solutions.

3. Never think that you are the only person who has got this whacky idea. At any given point in time there are a number of people who may be building same product or service to solve the same problem. Who will succeed will depend on who has understood the problem correctly and who can deliver it.

4. Be imaginative. You can only win customers by being more and more imaginative about the way you can solve their problems.

5. A startup can succeed only if it has fours important things:
- great idea with a solid business plan and a scalable revenue model
- a passionate leader who is a great visionary, communicator and team player
- great passionate generalist team willing to make real sacrifices and an attitude to do any thing to make it succeed
- a disciplined, consistent way of executing the plan

6. The biggest challenge for a startup is to market its product. Build your network or get a person with a network as your CEO. The objective is to succeed so keep your ego aside !

7. If you are in a startup create same rules for personal and professional life. You cannot have two sets of rules to follow when at work and when at home.

8. Do not be scared of failures, if you do not fail, you will not learn to succeed. See failures as a stepping stone to success. Do not penalize someone in your company for failing... Fix the problem and move on rather than crucifying someone. You can always come back and coach him.

9. Leverage the ecosystem around you and leverage the benefit of co-existence. That is, find partners in your business and expand your revenue streams... It is not an era of working in isolation. it as an era of collaboration and shared businesses!

10. Lastly, find out forums like StartUp City where you can build a network where you can find a mentor, guide, partner, friend who can help you succeed in your venture!

Some useful references:
1. Organizer: http://www.thesmarttechie.com/
2. Sun StartUp Essentials for low cost hardware and free engineering support : http://www.sun.com/emrkt/startupessentials/index.jsp
3. Amazon Web services with hosting services at no cost : http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=343536
4. Microsoft Startup zone (case studies to resources):
http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/
5. National Entrepreneurial Network : www.nen.org

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