India Need Initial Funding & Mentoring Groups

The initial stage of any new venture is quite tough to manage. Forming a company from idea stage takes lot of time and energy, if not planned,funded & mentored properly. In order to help out upcoming companies there are now specialized venture firms/groups which are providing small funding and mentoring to companies in-order to validate their ideas. I would cover few major ones ( based out in US & Europe) :

Focus Areas : Software and Web services
Selection & Mentoring Process :
Online Submission of Application Form --> Visit to Mountain View --> Selection Done and Offer Made --> 3 Month stay in US --> Pitch for further funding & Networking
Frequency : Twice a Year
Funding Amount & Equity : They usually invest $5000 + $5000n, where n is the number of participating founders (i.e. 2 founders get $15,000, 3 get $20,000), in return for between 2% and 10% of the company. The median is 6%.
Key Benefits :
1. After acceptance of offer, they write you a cheque immediately for as much as you need to cover your initial expenses. Also they give 600 USD to cover travel expenses.
2. They set up all your paperwork for you, including getting you incorporated.
3. For 3 months they will have dinners every Tuesday for all the founders. At each dinner they invite an expert in some aspect of startups to speak.
4. On Thursday afternoons they have an open house at YC for founders who want to demo their latest work or talk about strategy. One can arrange to meet with them any time during the week, but the open houses ensure no one has to wait too long.
5. Companies are encouraged to ask the founders of other YC-funded companies for help. There are now about 200 of them, and they're usually very willing to give advice or make introductions.
6. About 10 weeks in, they organize a pair of investor days at which one can present to later stage investors, one in Cambridge and another a week later at their office in Silicon Valley. Company can of course seek additional funding from any investor whenever you want.
7. YC doesn't really end after three months; only the dinners do. They continue to give advice and make introductions as long as founders need—and so does the informal network of YC-funded companies.
8. They spend much more time teaching founders how to pitch their startups, and how to close a deal once they've generated interest. In the second phase they supply not just advice but protection; people are more likely to treat companies well if they come from YC, because how they treat you determines whether in the future we'll steer deals toward or away from them.

Profile Companies : Reddit, Loopt, ClickFacts, TextPayMe, Snipshot, Inkling, Flagr, Wufoo, YouOS, LikeBetter, Thinkature, JamGlue, Shoutfit, Scribd, Weebly, Virtualmin, Buxfer, Octopart, Heysan, Justin.TV, I'm In Like With You, SocialMoth, Xobni, Versionate, Adpinion, Anywhere.FM, Fuzzwich, Bountii, Songkick, Auctomatic, Disqus, Draftmix, Webmynd, RescueTime, Reble, Heroku, Tipjoy, AddMired, 8AWeek, Kirkland North, Wundrbar, Mixwit, and Snaptalent.

Click here for more details.



Focus Areas : Product/Service must make use of the Internet
Selection & Mentoring Process :
Online Submission of Application Form --> Selected Team's visit to London for SeedCamp Week --> Selection Done and Offer Made to 5 companies --> 3 Month stay in London --> Pitch for further funding & Networking
Frequency : Once a Year
Funding Amount & Equity : €50K for equity stake of 10%
Key Benefits :
1. There is a diverse mentor network of serial entrepreneurs, corporates, product designers, venture capitalists, recruiters, marketing specialists, lawyers and accountants that help the selected teams put together the foundations of a viable business.
2. The goal of 3-month period is to help grow and nurture the teams by providing the same level of intensity and in-depth focus on developing the product and business.
3. During the course of the three months, the groups will have an opportunity to take advantage of the same ecosystem of experts which participated in the Seedcamp event through weekly dinners and continued mentorship on various issues from scaling the business to raising further funding to M&A. Additionally, during the three months, SC will also do all the paperwork of getting company set up properly.
4. Six weeks into the project, SC will have a demo day where teams can show their products to the other groups from Seedcamp and a select group of investors. And ten weeks into the project SC will host an investor day where startups can present to potential investors.

Profile Companies : MyBuiler, Hypernumbers.com,Kublax,Tablefinder,Rent Mine Online,Zemanta

Click here for more details.

Focus Areas : Technology based Product/Service
Selection & Mentoring Process :
Online Submission of Application Form --> Selection Done and Offer Made to 10 companies --> 3 Month stay in US for development --> Pitch for further funding & Networking
Frequency : Once a Year
Funding Amount & Equity : Upto 15,000 USD for 5 % equity stakes
Key Benefits:
Same as listed for YC & SC.

Profile Companies : Brightkite, EventVue, Filtrbox,Intense Debate, J-Squared Media,madKast, Search-To-Phone, socialthing, Villij

Click here for more details.

Although IIMA and few other institutes started such initiatives in India, but we need such formalized organizations to provide funding & mentoring for initial development work,business understanding and company formation. The investment amount should be in the range of 12-15 Lacs spread over 3-4 months for equity stakes of 4-6%.
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR)is running Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP)which provides support upto 15 Lacs for prototype development, but dotcom companies are not eligible for this grant.

Let me know if there are any other group providing such funding and mentorship?

Startup Quiz : 10 Basic Questions

More


Disclaimer : This Quiz is Only for Geeks. Smart Guys Don't Doubt their Knowledge

Startup Quiz - Know your Google

50 Incubatee Companies at IITB in next 2-3 years

IIT's are bringing professionals to lead their incubation unit. With growing demand of incubation programs at IIT's such move is justified. IITB wants to incubate more than 50 companies in next 2-3 years. Read recent article.

There are significant benefits of incubation at IIT's. I would highlight 10 benefits :
1. The incubation process is quite easy and helps entrepreneur to set-up company quickly.
2. There is huge support from IIT's in terms of mentoring & consultancy.
3. All networking events at IIT's like seminars/conferences/ alumni meet helps companies to find-out right people and promote their service/product.
4. For IIT's incubation program is not a business, but more of entrepreneurship promotion.
5. Access to huge talent pool ( students) for internal requirements.
6. World class infrastructure
7. Exchange of ideas/thoughts with other budding entrepreneurs
8. Reasonable equity demand
9. Support even after graduating from IIT.
10. Help in getting funding from Government/ Angels.

List of Incubation Units:
1. IIT Bombay - SINE
2. IIT Kanpur - SIIC
3. IIT Kharagpur - ECell
4. IIT Chennai - C-TIDES
5. IIT Delhi - TBIU
6. IIT Guwahati - EDC
7. IIT Roorkee - EDC

If you are planning a start-up soon, then you should seriously think of exploring these options.

Entrepreneurship Genes

Entrepreneurship means creating new opportunities and benefiting the society at large. People from elite institutes like IIM's, IIT's are now venturing into not so popular areas like catering, vegetable selling etc.

I would like to highlight two small cases.

1. Sarath Babu (MBA-IIMA) started catering business sometime back to serve the society. In his words " Serving someone food is an extremely satisfying feeling. The smile you get after giving good food to someone is an experience to cherish".

Key benefits : Good Quality Food at low price, job for good number of people.

Read more here

2. Kaushalendra, a topper from IIM- Ahmedabad will be selling vegetables using his pushcart which is ice-cooled to keep vegetables fresh. In his words ''My dream is to make Bihar the vegetable hub of the country. I want to see vegetables in the name of Brand Bihar in the every plate of Indians.


Key benefits : Value for money , assured income for farmers, branding-building
Read more here

There is need of more such ventures by professionals from elite institutes. People should use their education and experience to make our society better to live.

Session : Understanding Financial Framework

Amity Innovation Incubator in association with techTribe is hosting a special session on “Building Financial Foundation a precursor to Funding”.

When : 28th June , 2008
Where : Amity Innovation Incubator,Amity University Campus, Sector 125, Noida


The idea behind this group mentoring session would be to equip you with the necessary skills & knowledge for building a strong financial foundation for your venture, you will walk away with practical insights, learning & the skills to take your venture to the next level.

Maintaining a strong financial base is crucial for any entrepreneurial venture as it looks to scale up through further financing via debt, equity or merger.The session is designed to be a precursor for the understanding of how,when,what,why of Raising Venture Funding in the month of July.

The session would be lead by Mukul Singhal (Canaan Partners), Mukul will share his experience as a venture Investor & what they look for while evaluating business plans especially from a financial perspective. Our panel of experts comprising of Chandan Goyal & Gaurav Mehrotra will help you understand in detail on the critical steps that you need to take to build a strong financial base.


Agenda

Investor's Due Diligence- What they look for while evaluating business plans from a financial perspective.

Do’s and Don’t of financial system to be followed during the start up phase.

Statutory compliance (i.e. TDS, FBT, Service Tax etc.) and its applicability on each structure

Post Session Networking on tea/coffee


Profile of Speakers

Mukul Singhal
Mukul Singhal joined Canaan in December 2006 and supports the team’s investments in India by helping to identify and analyze innovative opportunities in mobility, enterprise and digital media. Mukul worked on closing Canaan’s investment in iYogi and serves as a board observer at the company. He also supports Canaan’s other investment interests in India, such as cleantech and microfinance.
Prior to joining Canaan, he worked with Gujarat Venture Finance, where he pursued investments in technology and clean tech. He also has operational experience at technology companies like Sapient and Infosys.

Mukul received a B. Tech in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and an MBA in analytical finance from the Indian School of Business Hyderabad.

Chandan Goyal

Mr. Chandan Goyal is a Chartered Accountant by profession and also an ICAI’s certified Information System Auditor (ISA). His expertise lies in the filed of Finance, Accounts and Direct Taxation. He has previously worked with a company which had a joint venture with Halliburton Energy Inc. USA, (the largest oil field service company of the World). He is an active Partner in a reputed firm of Chartered Accountants. He is also a co-promoter of a company named Blue Consulting Pvt. Ltd that provides Finance & Accounts outsourcing services and Consulting in the area of F&A (www.blueconsulting.co.in) . His area of expertise is understanding the client’s requirement and providing customized, cost effective and efficient outsourcing solutions in the field of Finance & Accounts .


Gaurav Mehrotra

He is a Chartered Accountant by profession and also an ICAI’s certified Information System Auditor (ISA). His expertise lies in the filed of Audits and Finance & Accounts. He has worked with associate firms of M/s Hawath International in U.S.A., India and M/s Moore Stephens UK. He is an active Partner in a reputed firm of Chartered Accountants. He is also a co-promoter of a company named Blue Consulting Pvt. Ltd for providing Finance & Accounts outsourcing services and Consulting in the area of F&A (www.blueconsulting.co.in) . His area of expertise lies in assessing health of Internal Controls System in various organizations.

Fees: Rs 200/-

For Registrations please write to Digbijoy Shukla : digbijoy@techtribe.com

Mobile oriented service offerings holds bright future

Mobile penetration in India has zoomed like anything. All the speculations and estimations were proved wrong by actual subscriber base numbers. The number of mobile phone users crossed 250 million mark in Feb 2008 making India 2nd largest country in terms of number of subscribers. Liberal government norms and aggressive growth-plan of Telcom companies helped us to ramp-up so fast.

On the other hand the Internet penetration is happening at slower rate. The numbers are not at all impressive and the future projections are also doubtful. Currently there are only 40 Million + Internet users in India.

It becomes imperative for technology start-ups to leverage this opportunity and try to make their service offerings mobile oriented. The points worth noting are:
1. Reaching huge number of people of various social-strata. The projected number of mobile users by 2010 is 500 Million.
2. The average time spent on mobile is several times of that on the Internet.
3. Mobile phone is available almost everywhere and anytime.
4. Huge number of people ( Almost 50% of total users) would be having Internet enabled phones.
5. m-commerce and mobile advertising holds huge potential in next few years.

Similar viewpoints by MD of Nokia India can be read here

Considering all these points start-ups should device their service offerings keeping mobile on the fore-front.

TiE Retail Summit on 1st August in Delhi

Indian Retail Industry is expanding at a rapid pace. The industry is being tranformed by entry of organized industry players and favourable government regulations. If you want to get into it or want to expand your visibility then this event shouldn't be missed out. Four editions of this event were already held in the past. This summit would enable delegates to understand and get relevant insights on the issues, challenges and the opportunity to be part of the Retail Space. The event highlights are as follows:

1. Keynote sessions by prominent industry leaders
2. Hot new Retail Stories
3. In-depth workshops on different aspects of Retail Industry from operations, logistics, property, IT to retail financing
4. Mentoring clinic - Opportunity for entrepreneurs to be mentored by senior industry leaders in the retail space
5. Guru Sessions – Guru sessions by successful entrepreneurs & investors capturing their insights
6. Networking with prominent delegates & professionals

When : 01st August 2008 ( 9.00AM -6.00 PM)
Where : Sheraton Hotel, Saket, New Delhi

Participation fee and other details are available here.

5 Ways to hire & retain good people at start-ups

A good team is very much required at start-ups to scale-up their business after the volume of work starts increasing. Finding a right person is difficult for even bigger companies,but for start-ups its almost uphill task. A lot of time and energy is being spent by founding members in identifying bunch of right people, talking to few ones, selecting right ones and then finally motivating them to join.This is just one part of the story, the other bigger one is to retain them for long time. There are certain issues which makes the whole recruitment & retention process quite problematic. The few ones which need attention are:
1. Lack of Right Source/s for Identification of Candidates : Most of the start-ups don't have any formal channel to identify right candidates. Some of them try to get candidates from networking events while others try to get through some referrals. The cost of buying a database and then trying to identify right candidates is not justified for start-ups. Eventually the whole hiring process becomes damn slow and pain-point.
2. Compensation & Other Benefits : Start-ups typically don't want to overspend and hence evaluate each and every financial decision cautiously. While defining salary and its structure they take all measures to minimize the cash outflow. A lot of people don't appreciate stock-options, even though tried by start-ups to attract & retain people.
3. Attitude of Founding Members : Start-ups typically are started by bunch of people who are passionate and do have higher risk-appetite. Sometimes, their passion becomes obsession and they believe that they hold all rights to handle each and every thing, be it any small decision or big one. Sometimes they don't realize that the person joining a start-up will start believing in the same vision and should be suitably placed & rewarded.
4. In-appropriate Projection of Company's Image : In some cases founders show a rosy picture to prospective employees while few ones discuss all problems and warn them to be ready for failure. This kind of mis-representation leads to employee dis-satisfaction at later stage.
5. Next One would be Best One Syndrome: Sometimes people don't want to stop their search and always keep on evaluating new people all the time. They think there is always a chance of finding better person than last identified person.

For any start-up handling all these issues is not easy. There are ample number of limiting factors, restraining them to solve these issues. According to my opinion and learning " 5 Ways to hire and retain good people at start-ups" are as follows:
1. Formulate Structured Candidate Identification Process : The ad-hoc methods of finding right candidates may not work out and yield desired results. A few structured ways of candidate identification are:
-- Visiting colleges in nearby areas to get entry-level people. Establish good relationship with few colleges to acquire good talent pool.
-- Shared HR or Database for group of 3-4 companies. This would lower the recruitment cost significantly. Also typically a start-up don't require huge numbers to be filled in immediately. Also in some cases a candidate not compatible for one vacancy may be well suited for other one.

2. Better Compensation Offer & ESOP's : Start-ups should give best offer to candidates to keep them interested in the company. The employee stock-option trust should be formed in the very beginning. Also stock-option for each employee should be worked upon and communicated to him/her beforehand. The financial value and projections should also be highlighted to the concerned people. In case of initial stage start-ups, such offer holds very high value and should be leveraged appropriately.

3. Creative Freedom : In terms of responsibilities initial bunch of people should be given enough freedom of planning & execution.The creative freedom holds the key as far as hiring & retention is concerned.

4. Project Balanced Image : When talking to potential employees one should always portray balanced image of the company. At one hand is freedom, responsibilities and growth while at the other is lower brand value & money. Setting right expectations in initial stage would help start-ups in long-run.

5. Come out of the Next One would be Best One Syndrome : One can search for right person forever and won't make any progress, but that is worst strategy. The company should make an offer to a candidate as soon as they find someone fulfilling good number of variables laid down by the company. Some of the missing variables can be developed over a period of time. Also there is significant impact on company's overall strategy and execution in case of such delays.

Building a great team, meeting time-constraints is the key to SUCCESS for any start-up.

WiCamp Gurgaon on 11th July

WiCamp which stands for Wipro’s Innovation Camp is scheduled on Friday, July 11, 2008 ( 2.00 PM -7.00 PM)at Wipro Technologies premises,480-481, Phase III, Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon- 122016.

Another event to foster greater learning & sharing for mutual benefit. The theme of event is Innovation: Practices and Perspectives.

The event is open for everyone who believes in learning new things and at the same time sharing with others. Although Friday may pose some problem for office going people, but people in and around Gurgaon should surely mark their presence.

OSSCamp Delhi Summer Edition on 21st June

If you are a technology enthusiast and looking forward to understand and/or teach open source projects, then OSSCamp is the right place to be. OSSCamp Delhi Summer edition is scheduled for June 21st, 2008. It will be a single day unConference focussed at emerging FOSS projects and the dynamics of FOSS in India. The camp is scheduled from 10am to 5pm at Indian Social Institute,Lodi Road Institutional Area,Behind Sai Mandir,
Lodi Road,New Delhi.

Venue Map is here


As on date there are more than 19 speakers and 65 participants. Some of the areas covered by speakers are - Game Development,Building Complex Workflow Applications using BPMN Standards, Ruby on Rails, CSS, Drupal.

This event should not be missed by any upcoming company, since this platform may help them to get good talent for their internal requirements. Also companies should try to look for smart people who can help them to ramp-up there development work.

TiE-ISB - Business Plan Showcase Date Extended

Due to popular demand the submission deadline for Executive summary for the Business plan showcase has been extended to July 31st 2008.

The TiE-ISB Connect is a joint initiative of TiE, Hyderabad Chapter and the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship at the ISB, Hyderabad. It is a forum that brings together early stage venture capitalists, start up and growth stage entrepreneurs and academicians, on a common platform to interact and help build successful enterprises.

Band of Strategists

Start-ups are interesting place to nurture creative ideas . A lot of ideas are shaped and executed by a small-group of freaks/enthusiasts. These people work for long hours to realize their goals. They network with people from different domains to get creative inputs.

In last few months, I got a chance to attend few events like BarCamp4 & SLD-2. Both of these were great learning experience. The passion of entrepreneurs to create new sucess stories was commendable. Most of the people came together, exchanged cards, attended few sessions and went home with a cool mind ( And off-course T-shirt too at BarCamp4).

I was thinking that although these people are working on different ideas, but formation of a collaborative group can do wonders. Let me put forward some points before I propose something:
1. Most of the informal discussions help to some extent but in-order to gain more knowledge, there is a need of better/structured approach.
2. Most of the 1st generation entrepreneurs are not cash-rich.
3. Ideas can't be shared with all for many reasons ( at least not in the initial stage)
4. A lot of such forums like Indian Angel Network & government bodies like FICCI are already doing good work.

Keeping in mind following points, let me now propose something:
1. Start-ups should form small non-competing groups ( 4-5) to share knowledge & resources. The contribution from each company to other should be suitably compensated by relevant help.
2. A group of start-ups should look for shared resource to work for them in initial stage.
3. There should be a " BAND OF STRATEGISTS " who take-up such assignments. Typically these are people with relevant technology/business knowledge. The cash outflow for company would reduce considerably and development/marketing time-frame would go-down significantly.

Let me know your viewpoint/s.