Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Re-Created at the NASSCOM PRODUCT CONCLAVE
Loading ...So here I am, LIVE blogging the most interesting session yet at the NASSCOM PRODUCT CONCLAVE (amogst many others though) but here I have a personal bias 
Well, we have a group of people who are fairly well known in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and the room is full to brim with energy of the entrepreneurs. We have some interesting known names in the panel to be sharing their knowledge with the ecosystem which has been created here in this room.
We have people from Proto, Headstart, MOMO, NEN, ET NOW. Interestingly we also have a serial entrepreneur who has created and sold 6 companies successfully. And now the session is under free flow, as it is an unsession:
interestingly we are starting the discussion with the place where it all starts which is the educational institutions. Which is something NEN is doing since quite sometime in India. I agree, as I have personally been involved in deliverin sessions for NEN in Delhi.
I went in for a student session, you go in there and you go talk to them and someone comes out and says I have a great Idea, where is the money?
We are trying to address, what starting up really is. You have to have the management buy in to the concept. What we are doing is building institutions in the campuses building the right capacities. We are actually facilitating clubs on campuses. We don have a dearth of students being entrepreneurs, but the challenge is to get the professors become entrepreneurs.
Aditya from headStart shares his experience now. What is it which is being like when you are HeadStart which is a pure volunteers taking up something. Well, its simple we started when we stopped cribbing and went ahead and started fixing things. We are learnin at each place, building momentum, building teams.
We did not have a large institutional support so we bootstrapped.
We are spread in 5 cities now. Each one is done through volunteers. There are cities from where we get requests, but we dont start it unless we have a critical mass and we see that the team can continue. We are a local community that takes care of everything. Delhi team looks at the Delhi issues, Mumbai team looks at the Mumbai issues, hence each one owns the event.
Glad to have Vijay Anand, who is a good friend, talkin about Proto. When we first started Proto, the concept was when people were looking at the valley and we used to say, we have to have strong product start-ups from India. And then we looked at the thought when we start showcasing some good companies you increase the network and you create an ecosystem.
Talking about over-exposure for start-ups, we have a thought, which says that if there was a problem to start-ups 2 years ago, now it is no more there. I think there are not many good start-ups coming out, though there are nough coming up. What is a successful start-up from Stanford: They took 100 companies who took series A-B-C funding, and till when did the companies survived.
And they found one thing common, whatever you said that you would do in series A, you did not do in Series A and whatever you said you will do in Series B, you end up changing things. You may change your business model completely by Series C. Start-up is not about the idea. Its about learning fast from the market.
The question to ask is not that we have good or bad start-ups, it is, whether we have smart people, and smart people who are ready to take risks
The question to ask is what will make this eco system strong. Most of the people I have spoken to dont really know how to build a product company.
Academics – what would it take for the professors to get excited?
You need successful role models. A Yahoo, Google coming out of one place, will have people getting up.
- I think today the level of maturity for entrepreneurs is really really bad, Entrepreneurship will get a little more democratized if we have some more capital in the market – Vijay Anand
- The Banks have not really opened for the SME’s
I can no less agree to Vijay. The point about that the Upper-Middle class taking up the majority in the initial start-up phase is higher as they have money along.
- We are very good at advertising and very poor in customer service, we have to learn from college how to be customer oriented
- We are not good sellers, we are not good marketing guys
We are discussing one point each which the panel would want to change.
- I would love to see people spending more time on their idea, vetting it
Sudhir comes up with 3 points:
- Education
- Ecosystem
- Lack of clarity towards the government, and what it is doing for start-ups and also corporates doing more for the startups
- Infrastructure is highly important
With all these limitations you are asking the start-up to succeed, you are asking it to do a Houdini act.
The first time I was up for raising funds, I did 54 version of my presentation
The process of raisin money for start-ups is always painful
Now we have questions/ comments from the Delegate(s). Interestingly we start with the Prisoners Dilemma facing Indian entrepreneurs, well, I personally may not really agree to the dilemma part.
- Interestingly we have someone asking about Opportunity Costs being addressed for people who are 10 year old experienced.
- We are prisoners of our own experiences, comes the answer from the Founder, MOMO Bangalore
Very true, we have someone coming up with the reality of life, which is if a person my father’s age who wants to start at an age when they have kids like us. Raising a family and putting them at stake ain that easy.
Well, I had amazing fun
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Interesting coverage Paritosh. Is it possible to get in touch with you at bipin@mobikwik.com? I wanted to attend the conclave but could not.