TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards 2008

The TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards are the first ever people’s choice Awards to recognize the highest-potential startups in India:

• Young Companies with great potential to grow…
• Companies with the ability to change their industries…
• Companies that will create jobs and drive economic growth…

The TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards are the first Awards designed to engage the Public throughout the process: the Public nominates the companies; information on the nominees is available to all, via a website; and winners are chosen through a combination of Public Voting and Expert Judges’ ratings.

India is witnessing a wave of growth. More individuals are taking the risk, stepping away from the comfort of jobs and institutes, and are starting companies to capitalize on today’s opportunities. The TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards will provide these entrepreneurs with visibility, and enable them to connect more easily with resources. And by engaging the public, TATA NEN Hottest Startup Awards aims to increase appreciation and support for these future engines of growth.

The TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards celebrate their entrepreneurial spirit: Dare to try!

Awards competition structure

People are invited to nominate hot startups starting August 2008. Each nomination will be reviewed and rated by two Expert Judges. The number of Public Votes and Experts’ Ratings together determine the 30 shortlisted startups on October 15, 2008. The 30 shortlisted startups then campaign for votes in the final round. Ultimately, the five companies from the shortlist with the most final-round votes become the 5 TATA NEN Hottest Startups 2008 Winners.

Benefits for Winners

The Awards are designed to boost significantly the growth of the short-listed companies, and even more so that of the 5 Winners by providing publicity, business development support and access to funding. The support will be provided by IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, Microsoft, Indian Angel Network, TATA and NEN. Subject to fit, winners will get introduced to angels or VCs; and/or connected to industry experts; and get access to specially designed business training, mentoring, educational programs and incubation support.

Partners & Support Organizations

NEN and TATA have come together to lead this first-of-its-kind effort to showcase and support young high potential startups in India. Major Partners include Seedfund, Helion Ventures and HT Mint. Microsoft, IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Bangalore will provide support as Knowledge Partners. In addition, all the entrepreneurial communities of India have come on board as Associate Partners, including TiE, Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, Proto.in, Smart Techie, Open Coffee Club, Kickstart, Pagalguy Startup.in, Webyantra, Cool Avenues, MBA Universe and Business Gyan.

Criteria for Participating Startups

The company must be: 5 or fewer years old; headquartered in India; and a stand-alone venture, not a subsidiary or division of a larger company. In addition, companies should be highly innovative, growing rapidly and have the potential to reshape their industries.

Contact : Kavita Krishnamurthy at kavita@nenglobal.org for more details.

Visit Website here

MoMo Delhi - 6th Meet on 23rd August

The 6th meet of Mobile Monday Delhi is scheduled on 23rd August 2008 at Amity Innovation Incubator, Noida. The theme of this meet is Mobile Advertisement.

Event Venue :
Amity Innovation Incubator
Auditorium, Block F2,
GATE NO. 2,
Amity University Campus,
Sector 125, Noida,
Ph: +91.120.46590000, 4659151


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Event Schedule available here

About MobileMonday

Mobile Monday is a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

Mobile Monday has the following objectives:

• To encourage innovation within the mobile sector.
• To facilitate networking between small and large companies, and between local and foreign.
• To help local companies effectively participate in international initiatives through the import and export of visions, concepts, technologies, know-how and best practices.
• To present innovative visions, trends, studies and forecasts from the mobile marketplace.
• To facilitate and create partnerships.
• To contribute to the education of the broader public through its publications, online presence and media partnerships.

Mobile Monday is organized by a group of dedicated volunteers from around the world. Originating in Helsinki, Finland, in the year 2000, Mobile Monday has grown into the world’s leading mobile community.

Start-up Tips : Are you a startup employable?

Startups in India are fast picking up and a lot of people are getting into entrepreneurship. These startups need good talent pool with slightly different genes than usual guys/gals preferring big companies. I am giving a check-list to find-out whether you are Startup employable or not:

1. You prefer doing things by yourself than relying on others.
2. Your mind is full of new ideas and you experiment few of them too. You believe in ideas & execution.
3. You are not very particular about your office timings ( I mean you can stay late or come early)
4. You want to become Head-Engineering, VP- Sales, VP - HR pretty fast and that's why want to put extra efforts to learn multiple things within short span of time.
5. You enjoy working in a team and want to learn from others. You want to learn from people outside your company too.
6. You are not very particular about your office, seating space or even space outside. You are much concerned about your work and passion.
7. You don't want to earn fast money. You believe in wealth creation.
8. You don't want to own house, car, and other luxury items very fast.
9. Apart from cash component you realize the power of stocks
10. You enjoy the whole process rather than the input and output.
11. You want to experiment new things and not fearful of making mistakes.
12. You don't blame others for your bad moves. You come forward to accept mistakes and take corrective action.
13. You grow faster and become mature faster than your counterparts at big companies.
14. You respect others and believe in open communication. You don't want to spend time gossiping about people. You like talking about work.
15. You are passionate about your work and discuss your work with your parents or friends.
16. You like attending events which enrich your capabilities.
17. You enjoy sharing your tiffin/lunch with your colleagues.
18. You enjoy Office Maggi at 9.00 PM in the night. Sometimes even you prefer sleeping at office rather than going back to home.
19. You don't mind your salary being credited to your account on 10th day of the month rather than 01st.
20. You don't have too many girl-friends.

Score Inferences

20 : Complete Startup Individual
15-19 : Good Startup Person
10-14 : Formative Startup Person
Below 10 : Startups are cool. I would prefer reading about them.

You can drop me a mail with your score at contact@venturevilla.info for specific discussions.

Startup Tactics : Realizing the power of social networking

A lot of startups put all their energies in developing their products/services. They don't realize the power of social networks which can do wonders for them. Spending good amount of time to make world-class offering is a good move, but you can't do it at the cost of losing the opportunity of being networked. Being active in various forums help you to connect to multiple people with different skill-set and opinions. Ideally one founder of startups should be very active in all networking events. There are some inherent benefits of being part of such events/forums. I am listing here some key benefits :

1. You Learn : The startup founders should be keen to learn new things on daily basis. A lot of people start their venture pretty early and hence don't know a lot of business and/ or engineering aspects. Generally talking to people at good forums helps you to learn from their experiences at no cost. A lot of them are candid enough to share their real experiences giving enough food for thought. One should always try to get engaged with people of diverse skill-set i.e. suppose you are heading sales but start talking to a senior HR person, then ideally you should learn best HR practices, employee motivation, knowledge management etc. The knowledge gained from these forums should be shared among core group members. The whole idea of such events is sharing for growth of the eco-system. Even though a lot of people/companies come for some objectives but still provide good ground for learning new things.

2. You Grow : Being part of such events help you to grow your personal network. Even though internet is fast growing and people are using internet as a medium to grow social and professional network, but still the warmth and relevance of face-to-face meetings is phenomenal. Even a small gesture like bringing a glass of water or offering dinner plate to other participant helps a lot. A lot of places do have informal set-up and starting a conversation is very easy. Don't try to be pushy and aggressive and try to engage in a healthy discussion. If there is a group talking on some topic of your interest, feel free to join and throw your ideas and/or listen to others. The whole process helps you to grow your personal network and spread a word about your company. After developing some rapport and few meetings may come-up for help in some form or the other. You should also be genuinely ready to help others in best possible manner. A lot of times, only the knowledge transfer is more than enough.

3. You Spread : Apart from knowledge sharing and learning, these events bring good amount of people looking for good opportunities/companies. These events provide enough opportunity to spread word about your company and requirements. There may be some technical requirements or sales requirements or funding requirements which can be propagated . Spreading the word helps you to reach out relevant people at almost no cost. A lot of people are updated about your growth, vision and passion. Be passionate and truthful to others. This would help you to get good guidance, right people and visibility. A lot of times such meetings also result in revenue generation, but while attending such event don't keep that objective on the fore-front. It takes time to develop some and generate business.

4. You Brand : Such forums provide enough opportunities to carry out small-scale branding exercise. Try to get involved as a speaker, volunteer, blogger etc. If you get an opportunity to speak, then try to pass-on your company's message without being invasive. Don't make 50 slides about your company, but pass-on the vision and summary about your work. Interested people would try to touch-base after your talk and/or during networking sessions. Even during normal conversations, try to put across your visions in best possible manner. Be active and show high level of energy and enthusiasm. A lot of people would try to relate your startup with your personality. So, being a brand-ambassador spread-out the right message to attract potential customers, partners, investors, employees, vendors etc.

In order to make your venture successful, you need to attend such events. After all success is not so easy; you need to work really hard.

How to Select a Startup Person?

Selecting right person for any startup is very critical. A wrong selection might have significant impact on the growth of company. While selecting any new employee/partner startups should look for following things:

1. Right Mindset : For any startup, understanding the mind-set of prospective employee/partner is very important. They should understand his/her current state of mind and future aspirations. An employee having different future aspirations may not stay with you for long in-turn hurting startup. The people interested in startups generally want to learn new things at fast pace, take higher responsibilities, look for wealth creation rather than faster bucks, possess good time-management skills, show maturity & passion and are quite flexible. The best candidate would show all these qualities in some for or other. Even people scoring moderately on few parameters should be probed further. A person with right mind-set would start shaping your dreams in right manner and would grow exponentially.

2. Financial expectations : People with startup mind-set would prefer to delay their financial gains. They may not look for fancy salaries in the beginning, but would like to have equity participation and/or profit-sharing. The startup guy/gal understands that during initial stage of any venture, utilizing cash optimally is very important. A company spending extravagantly may run out of cash in no-time risking life of employees and company itself.

3. Higher Responsibilities : A Startup person would always emphasize his worth and capability to take higher responsibilities. Before discussing salary and benefits he would like to understand the job-profile, expectations and his participation. A startup person will always look for value addition rather than just compensation.

4. True Reflection of his aspirations/skill-set : A startup person would try to bring-out real aspirations in front of decision makers. He won't try to fool you by saying that he will continue with your organization for life-long, if he doesn't feel like that. Similarly he won't try to project that he knows everything. Being truthful is very important trait of any startup person. This mind-set helps them to be fair with every person directly/indirectly related.

5. Flexible Mind-set : A startup person is always open to new ideas and approaches. He/She look forward for best solutions, even-though initiated by somebody else. He/She is not always dying to get credit for work done, but is more interested in solving a problem in best possible manner. He/She is a good listener and derives out meaningful conclusions.

6. Innovation : A startup person would always think in innovative direction. He/She won't try to solve problems in usual manner. He/She should be open to new approaches and look for multiple options before settling for best one. He/She would try to improve existing processes and methods and talk about the same during initial stage too. His/her motivation is improve the system through creative contribution.

In case you find potential employee good on above-mentioned parameters, then you should definitely look-forward to welcome him/her on-board.

VentureVilla@BlogIT - August Edition

VentureVilla started sharing content with "i.t." Magazine. As a result the first article Five Ways To Hire And Retain Good People At Start-ups got published recently.

i.t. Magazine | INFORMATION. TECHNOLOGY. TODAY. TOMORROW

'i.t.' evolved into a magazine that strives to be the best source of information for those who make strategic technology decisions related to IT itself. Thus the magazine's mission statement now reads, "Research. Identify. Simplify. Technology that matters." The magazine is published for last 17 years having 1,000,00+ monthly circulation.

It's a magazine for those who need to know and those who love to know about, "Information. Technology. Today. Tomorrow."


| Frequency: monthly | Language: English | Download

OCC Noida August Edition : Event Summary

I participated in August edition of OCC Noida today.The event was again full of good discussions and knowledge sharing. I am covering few major points which were discussed there:

1. Project Management & Documentation : A lot of startups focus energies on doing real-stuff i.e. development, testing etc. but tend to forget important supporting functions like time-management, documentation etc. For any startup ( and especially in services arena) tighter project management is very much required. This helps in delivering the output in desired time-frame. Also during planning a project all of us should keep some buffers to take care of unforeseen situations. Even big companies go wrong in estimating the project time-frame and add some buffer beforehand to take care of any externalities. As soon as startup initiate few projects, they should look for structuring it well. A lot of processes like Coding Guidelines, Document Management etc. should be followed from very beginning for reference and re-usability. Document Management helps a lot when any transition happens within organization.

2. Open Sourcing IP Components : For any startup getting visibility at "low or no cost" approach should be followed. Packaging existing open-source IP's helps you to get visibility. For online businesses the usability of such small things is too high. Also from company's side there is not much work to be done. All startups should try to leverage such sources to get visibility and business. A lot of times people who use and benefit from IP components refer to others too.

3. Monetizing Online Business : A lot of online businesses attract significant traffic, but is there any way to monetize it well? Almost all people felt that currently a lot of Indian users don't click on online AD's hence not benefiting online businesses. Also the placement of advertisement makes significant difference. While putting any Ad campaign, businesses should try to use relevant keywords rather than generic terms. Also strategic advertisements should not be looked as something creating negative impression.

4. How does Google Page-Rank helps in monetization : Some people felt that Google Rank helps in better monetization and one should initiate an Ad campaign only after getting good Google Page-rank. But this assumption was challenged by others. People felt that at the end of day, most end-users care about services. They are not much concerned about such rankings. How many times you have seen Google Page-rank for makemytrip or IRCTC website. The most important thing is the convenience user is deriving out of using online businesses. So, one should be much concerned about service offerings rather than Google Page-rank. Even little things like end-user voting would add more value and help end-users in making a judgment about your offerings.

New Investment norms for Venture Capital, Private Equity and Hedge Funds

The government is seriously reviewing current investment norms and may soon release new investment norms for venture capital (VC), private equity (PE) and hedge funds. The idea behind such a move is to make them operationally transparent and create a level-playing field for both the domestic and foreign players.

The discussion with SEBI has already been initiated. The motivation is to promote all sectors rather than few specific sectors like real estate which is attracting huge fund inflows.

Government is considering tax-incentives for organizations investing in high-risk venture areas. The bias between domestic players and foreign players would also be rationalized in the new system. Domestic players need to pay tax for sectors other than 9 identified by the Government while foreign players enjoy tax-benefits for other sectors too.

SEBI will make it mandatory to register VCs and PEs after compiling data about their investments in sectors like real estate, ITeS, education. SNI director TC Nair said that at present the market regulator has no definite source about the exact investments of PEs and VCs.

UK’s Young Design Entrepreneur 2008

The British Council, with support from the Cultural Leadership Programme envisioned UKYDE award.

Entrepreneurs with passion for design and looking for innovative ways to move the UK design industry forward are welcome. People considering international business opportunities and looking forward to build their network should definitely participate. This award would help you to know more about the business of design in India.

To be eligible for the award, you must be aged between 25 and 35, have at least three years of industry experience and be resident in the UK. Applications close at noon on Thursday 14 August 2008.

You can download form

UKYDE is one of nine awards for young creative entrepreneurs that are being developed by the British Council with support from NESTA, the Cultural Leadership Programme, trade associations and professional bodies within the creative sector.

As part of their prize the winner and two runners-up will be invited to take part in a specially designed and tailored tour of the design industry in an emerging market – for the 2008 award this will be India.
The British Council in the UK are working with our colleagues in India and their local industry partners to create an appropriate itinerary to support the breadth of this opportunity. The visit will take place in January/February 2009. Precise dates and details have yet to be confirmed, however the basic details are as follows:

Why India?
The tour will provide a real insight into the industry in one of the world’s fastest developing and most dynamic economies. With a steady 9.2% annual GDP rise, a middle class of a quarter of a billion, and an established design scene growing around leading institutions like the National Institute of Design in Ahmedebad, India’s potential as a market cannot be overlooked. The tour will open the door to India’s design industry, from the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedebad, India’s equivalent to the Royal College of Art, to the thriving design scenes of Delhi and Mumbai or Bangalore.

What will the tour consist of?
The tour will take the group to Delhi and Ahmedebad. It may also include either Bangalore or Mumbai. The group will meet leading figures from the design industry in India, including members of the British Council network of young design entrepreneurs, and have the chance to learn first hand about how business is done there. The tour will comprise meetings, workshops, talks, and tours – delving into all areas of the design industry: graphic and multimedia, interiors and architecture, industrial and furniture designers, etc. The tour will allow participants to develop their international understanding and skills,and identify potential business opportunities for their company/organisation in the Indian market.

What is included?
• Return economy flights (if you wish to stay on after the tour has ended it may be possible for us – given enough notice – to issue tickets with a later return date. Please note, however, that the awards programme only provides support during the period of the tour, so any additional accommodation or other expenses would be payable by you directly and we are unable to assist in making other bookings outside of the tour programme.)
• Visa – we will cover the cost of the Indian visa, please note however that you must provide the requisite supporting information to allow the visa to be issued.
• Accommodation for duration of tour
• Subsistence at our standard India rates
• All transport within India during tour
• Full tour itinerary organised and looked after by British Council staff throughout

I was wondering can we introduce similar awards for Indian Nationals visiting abroad. What do you say?

NASSCOM Session : Using Online Professional Networking to Get Ahead at Work

As part of NASSCOM Friday's 2.0 (Emerging Companies Forum - Marketing), the 38th session of NCR companies is scheduled on 08th August 2008(Second Friday of the month). The session is Using Online Professional Networking to get ahead at work and the speaker is Ajay Jain, Senior Journalist.

Sites like LinkedIn changed the way professionals interact with one another at a global level, and many are using such platforms to their advantage in many different ways. Not only to find jobs and recruit people as many believe is the most useful application of these networks, but in many ways including: sales and marketing, seeking partners and investors, building a personal brand equity, opening new markets, tapping the collective wisdom of the crowd and more.

This presentation will thus cover all these many ways one can use sites like LinkedIn (with 23 million members globally, and one million in India) to get ahead at work.

Venue : NASSCOM Board Room, International Youth Centre, 2nd Floor, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi - 110021

Date & Time : Friday, 08th August 2008 5.00 PM - 7.00 PM

Registration : Please do send in your confirmations to Ranjita Kamat at ranjita@nasscom.in along with Name,Designation,Company,City,Mobile,Email,Membership

Event : Raising Venture Funding on 09th August

A must attend for people in and around Delhi to understand issues related to raising venture funding.