Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, is an amazing guy. He is fearless, going after goals that defy conventional wisdom. His brain doesn’t register risk the same way most folks do. Even more fascinating is the fact that he is one of the few company builders that can focus on multiple spaces simultaneously and do a good job. Many entrepreneurs are able to build very different companies in sequence but few can do it simultaneously. His ability to attract and deploy human capital is outstanding.

When we started Tandem our biggest motivation was to be able to work side by side with passionate founders and help them be successful. Tandem was designed to be different from other forms of capital. We are company builders with capital rather than financial investors that can guide and connect.  We really roll up our sleeves and get to work.  Unlike Elon, we don’t have the ability to work simultaneously on many distinct spaces so we have chosen a narrow focus on a segment of mobile first companies. This focus and our ability to provide company building ‘muscle’ alongside patient financial capital – “Muscle Capital” – is what defines and differentiates our approach.

We have always wanted to work with Indian entrepreneurs and have been doing an Indian company here and there over the last many years. However a little over a year ago it became clear to us that the Indian market was becoming primed for significant activity in our space.  We have decided to actively seek Indian entrepreneurs looking to launch in the Indian and US markets

We will unveil more of our plans shortly, but as we begin this journey, Rohit Bhagat (my partner at Tandem) and I are visiting India from now through the 1st of June. We will be in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. We would love to meet people who are passionate about the startup ecosystem.  Founders, Funders, Bloggers, Mentors, Angels etc.  Please send us an email at tandem.in.india@gmail.com if you think it would be useful to meet. Please add a link to your Linkedin profile in the email.

If you are a founder who would like to be considered for funding, please complete an application http://www.tandementrepreneurs.com/apply. and then send an email at the tandem.in.india@gmail.com address with your company name in the subject line.

Sunil

TLabs plan to travel across the country over the course of next few weeks to meet future game changers, so please come and meet TLabs family for a casual mixer in your town!

Mixer is an open forum that provides an opportunity to the budding start-ups to share their ideas, stories, concerns, challenges etc. from left, right and center with TLabs team, founders of portfolio companies and its mentors. There will be a few TLabs portfolio founders at each mixer to offer you some candid insights into how their acceleration experience helped them get to where they are today and what it takes to create successful ventures, manage challenges and raise money. Team would love to answer any particular questions about TLabs and Batch 4 application process.

Here is a schedule of our May mixers, kindly fill this form to let us know when you would like to attend. In June we will cover Hyderabad, Kochi, Pune and Mumbai and will confirm the logistics for the same by the end of this month.

Each mixer will be about 2-3 hours and the confirmation will be sent about participation. The mixers will be small and only up to 30 people so please grab your slot ASAP.

TLabs is kicking off its 4th batch in Aug 2013 and is currently accepting applications for the same. Your deadline to apply is 30 Jun 2013. Here’s the schedule in more details. If you haven’t yet applied to TLabs, please do so here: Batch 4 Application

The key issues are as under:

1. Too few deals are progressing from accelerators to angel, and from angel to Series A. Only 5% of deals going from accelerators to Series A might not be very different from success rate without accelerators.
2. Angel stage valuations are stretched relative to Series A valuations. At 20% success in getting to Series A, a Series A valuation of 35 cr would be a breakeven point for angels (7 cr angel valuation is typical). At 20 cr, the stage is not paying back for itself.
3. Its taking too long for deals to progress. While accelerators (admittedly apart from Mukund’s Microsoft accelerator ) aim to get to next round of financing as the startup graduates from the accelerator, it is taking an additional year to get to angel financing. Angel to VC is another 2 years on average. This slow progression may also be responsible for higher failure rate. Accelerators might do well to extend the runway.
4. Lot of “recycling” – the same company going from one accelerator to another, from one angel round to another. Again points to the time it takes to build companies, and the need for early stage investors to keep supporting the good ones.
5. Too little mortality – “fail fast” seems to be good advice, but little practice.

Of course, the above applies only to startups which are in the funding play. Note that the data was gathered from about a dozen “premier” accelerators/incubators and angel funds – so while I believe this is directionally right, its not the most comprehensive survey.

Three things that are critical to your customer retention strategy are:

Deliver Top Quality Service:

You may have built the ‘best’ service delivery process to ensure top quality service. Constantly question that process and find ways and means to better it all the time. Use every customer learning to change your process for the better. Anticipate what the customer would want and deliver it without being asked. Make your service delivery process more customer-centric. All this may come at a cost. But rich dividends are ensured in the long run.

Deliver on your Promise:

For a young enterprise, building credibility is not only the biggest challenge but also a constant process. If you can get your customer to speak for you, you will have people listening. But for this, the customer should have got what he expected. What you promised. So, promise only what you can deliver and deliver what you promise. Irrespective of great service delivery, if the customer does not get what you promised, you will still have an unhappy customer.

Build Competitive Barriers:

Use your customer learning to better your product all the time. Come up with new functionalities and features. Know what your competition is doing and ensure your product delivers one better. Building complimentary products and features around your product will ensure recurring business from your customer as well as keeping out competition.

All these will help in increasing the Life Time Value (LTV) of your customer leading to rapid and predictable scaling of your business.

The author, Srikanth Vasuraj, is a Business Consultant focused on helping start-ups to grow. He can be reached at +91-98454 78585 or srikanth@nodiva.co.in . For more information please visit www.nodiva.co.in .

In the business plan of an entrepreneur they do the math, calculate “their” salaries in, the prototyping costs, marketing costs and will assume that “no revenue” is made, and ask for the entire amount from an investor, who has nothing more than an idea and a team (which still demands a salary) that she supposedly has to back. The best pitch for an investor remains the same, Get on the boat, start rowing, and tell them to come onboard or miss the chance.

A lot of the new breed of Indian entrepreneurs have no clue about cash flow management. Its another symptom of the “Bangalore Flu” (that we have caught from the valley). Here’s an example of cash flow management. Air Deccan was started with 5 Crores (1Mn) in the bank. The cost of a Plane is about 60Mn$. The company went on to build the biggest fleet of low cost carriers in the country.

The Present day entrepreneur wants to plan for a fleet of 500, and the cash for it, upfront, at the best valuation, in the bank, funded by VCs. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

Want to see who is driving the risk averseness in the market that Indians dont make bold bets? Look at the mirror. It starts with (most of) you.

• HasGeek is been doing some amazing work in tech events…they are probably the leaders in the tech. events space. They tried NCR couple of times and now have written off. I’m trying to work with them to bring some of their events in NCR.
• In50Hrs has written of Delhi. They did 2 events and now have moved to Trivandrum.
• MobileHackday – a hackathon done recently at one of the companies in gurgaon did not attract many people…they had to close the event and did not even have the jury members to come and look at the prototypes.
• At Startup Weekend Delhi, there are around 12-14 ideas presented…atleast 8 teams present a powerpoint presentation and probably 4 present a prototype…Bangalore is just the opposite.
• Some startups have started moving the tech. base to Bangalore

I have not checked with respective organizations mentioned above, but will take this at face value given the credibility of the person who mentioned the above. Also, given the spread of events, I am making an assumption that this is not a reflection on quality of individual events. I also do not view this as a notion of delhi versus bangalore, but more an issue around the depth of tech ecosystem in delhi area, and whether it is growing stronger or weaker. I say “tech ecosystem” not in the semiconductor research sense, but typical depth that startups are relying on (application/ systems level).

In fact, the other thread it sparked in my mind was cultural and cutting across the country – are we propagating a culture of startup formation that relies on learning from the community and widespread exchange of ideas? That could be the other reason where founders and their teams might be putting their heads down and building their business, rather than throng events.

Would love to get comments on this. And if this is a real issue, what can we do about it.

Build your ‘A’ Team

This is the most important task that the CEO has to put in place first. Choose your team for the special capabilities that they bring specific to your business. People with domain expertise, with experience setting-up new enterprises, experienced advisers etc. Use them to implement your ideas. You may not have all the attributes to run a business entity, but your team will. Have faith in your team. Allow them to make mistakes. Give them time. No business is an overnight success.

Set up a system for review and accountability

The CEOs job of managing his team becomes easier if a clear set of KRAs and milestones are set for each member and a well-defined periodic review process is followed. This will ensure accountability and adherence to timelines.

Communicate your ideas clearly

This is one area where a lot of business heads fail. Sharing of thoughts and ideas about the business with your team is important as it will serve two purposes – (a) they will know that you are on the job all the time; and (b) it will give them an opportunity to share their opinions and experiences with you and the rest of the team. Such exchanges will only help to better the business plan.

Establish lines of communication

Have an open-door policy. Encourage everyone in your organization to walk in to meet and talk with you. You never know where that winning idea could come from. Keeping your channels open would also help to keep a tab on the mood in the company, especially when things are not going as per plan. Have an open mind and treat each bit of information without any bias or prejudice and give its due credit. In fact, this could help you stay ahead of the curve.

Do not be afraid to make mid-term changes to your plans

As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, most new ventures have had to change the entire plan atleast once in their life-cycle. By this I do not mean that you need to look at new business ideas and solutions. What normally happens is that the go-to-market or product/service/solution strategies go through major revamp, with acquired knowledge of market realities regarding your business. Most business leaders shy away from doing anything to their product/service/solution, as that is very close to their heart. This takes courage and an astute business mind. Afterall, the business was started to take it to success. It is important to keep your focus on this end-objective.

The author, Srikanth Vasuraj, is a Business Consultant focused on helping start-ups to grow. He can be reached at +91-98454 78585 or srikanth@nodiva.co.in . Please visit my website www.nodiva.co.in .

While we have made it a mandate in events like In50hrs that explaining the problem is crucial, we have realized that as a culture we havent yet learnt the art of observing the issues that around us – especially the ones that present opportunities along with it.

In an effort to help out, we have started collating interesting Problem Statements from entrepreneurs all around. Quite a few have contributed and we are starting to list them at the In50hrs site, as Problems Worth Solving (with due credits).

As a recent article said, Focus on Talking about the Problems, and not the solutions, its evident that the key to building a thriving ecosystem is by building the capability to spot the problems, but for now, we are giving entrepreneurs a headstart and hopefully a sense of what to look for.

PS: If you want to prototype a solution to any of these problems, do sign up for an In50hrs Near you.

PPS: Want to Contribute a Problem Statement? You can too.