Loading ...We started with a Data Replication and Disaster Recovery product for Asia Pacific SME market. Had a good start, built a solid team … and then got beaten down by Angels/VCs & some market “veterans”. Thanks to a lot of guys (specially some on venturewoods) who advised, We decided to go ahead and pooled in $85K of “friends and family” money.
So like to share some thoughts, a news and need some advise.
thoughts,
My last post did help me know a lot of things about VC/Angels. We also did some introspection of our work and how we can present it.
But still, It makes me think — Is market for seed/angel investment in India mature enough for startups or its just me who got beaten down ?
We met all kinds of VCs - some showed interest and helped, some showed no interest but still helped and some cowards who fixed meetings and never came for them 
News,
Someone in (i think) Virtualization conference 2007 asked amazon ppl about rumors of completion from google on S3 and EC2.
That guy answered saying, “we would love someone spend their millions educate ppl about benefits of virtualization. We don’t mind sharing the market”.
Something similar happened to us, while we were sure of market in aisa pacific . News of Reliance and Bharti opening Disaster Recovery data centers in Indian backed our strategy. We got some inbounds and gained some traction.
Now we just released product final beta on July 4th, and some good names signed in as beta customers.
I would love to demo the product over a webcast or send across an evaluation copy. Please let me know, if anyone is interested.
More about product: http://www.slideshare.net/jaspreetis/druvaa-product-overview-and-advantage
Need advice,
1. We “can” sustain couple of more months and start supporting and selling. Is it still worth trying for angel money ?
2. Any good ideas on how to conduct online product demos . I am using gotomeeting right now coupled with skypecasts.
3. Any idea on how to build product documentation and knowledge-base.
cheers,
J
Hi jaspreet,
Angel investing in India is still very nascent while VC investments are evolving. i did a qucik research and here are the facts. a)In USA and Canda there are over 275+ angel networks and in USA alone angels invested over $25billion in 2007. b) VC investments in India in 2007 totalled about $700 million and out of this software products receveid about 20%.
I guess going forward in the next 2-3 years VC and angel investing will take off in India. You are defnitely positioned aptly to accelerate. organisations such are IAN and NEN are present in India and doing good work. do check up their website for list of angels present in India.
I have only one line that i keep reminding myself when am down. Its from Shawshank Redemption..” TIME and PRESSURE”
> 3. Any idea on how to build product documentation and knowledge-base.
Look at how MySQL are doing it. They’ve taken the unconventional route and harnessed their community. S3 and E2C are also taking the same route through their forums.
Jaspreet: Firstly, congratulations on the traction you’ve got. Good job and go with the program.
VCs and Angels will usually not say no. In cases where they don’t find your idea mindblowing they will usually dither and dilly-dally and all that - understand that, in investor parlance, this is a no. They really mean “not right now” - and if you show serious traction they want to still be around to take a part of the pie.
Second, some VCs will be brutally frank. These guys meet entrepreneurs with ideas everyday and will tend to speak their mind if they don’t like your idea. This might come across as arrogance, and starting up requires a seriously thick sking.
Third, berating VCs or Angels does little to help your cause. While stories about yesterday can be fun, remember that they can affect your story for tomorrow.
About your points:
1) if you can sustain and even get some sales there may be a way to get a small line of credit from banks - some will give you upto 10 lakhs as unsecured debt. This may help you tide through till you get cash-flow-breakeven. Anything on the angel/vc front will take months and take away from your real work.
2) Online product demos: If you’re out there to convince a group of people to decide (N approvals required types) then your collateral should allow people to share it with others (PDF files are ok, a flash video on youtube is good etc) But always have a printable version for the folks that make decisions in conference rooms.
In your case I think all your realised product demos will be face-to-face because of the decision making authority needed for something of this sort.
3) Product documentation: Man this can be complex. My experience with outsourcing this function has been quite bad, and we gave up on it in the end because of the fat golfer problem (put ball where he can hit it then he can’t see it, put it where he can see it then he can’t hit it) Technical people aren’t good writers and writers write horrible techie docs (in India). Yes, gross generalisation, but I think the best writer-techies are now management.
What I can say is do it and then refine it as you go on. If you’re going to hand hold your first customers through their setup you will realise what needs to be in the documentation.
Hi,
@darshan,
thanks for the comment. I guess you are right about the angel funding part of it.
And sorry if my post threw a wrong attitude. Had i got funding, cooking stories and throwing attitude would have been much simpler
not when i am seeking it.
When you are climbing a mountain with limited supply for oxygen and someone borrows it for smoking, he better we careful. I don’t even mind sharing those names here.
We have been helped by many, even though they didn’t have much interest in funding. But i will keep you point in mind what you said, and try and look closer at the problem.
At the end of each day … I always ask my self two questions -
1. what did i learn ?
2. did i challenge myself ?
@iqbal/bb
interesting points. we are experiencing the same, while getting commitment from first few customers.
Thanks,
Jaspreet/Iqbal
One trick i do on saving travel costs… travel one way by train. i’m based out of bangalore but if i have to travel to mumbai, i take the weekend train to mumbai and fly back on weekdays.
i have about 40K JP miles with 6 upgrade vouchers thanks to my previous job, Hence it is very tempting to travel by air but i try to save these miles also for future use.
I’m very scared of my laptop being stolen in the train, so I hire the laptop in mumbai for a day and upload all my data through a pen drive.
i know all this is a little difficult. my point is think low-cost alternatives and dont continue habits of a full-time job once you switch-over to entrepreneurship.
regards
I think a product like Druvaa’s will have limited success in convincing an Angel / VC over a web. It will be better if a (beta / early) customer vouches its VFM /utility on the basis of his experience, how critical or life saving has the solution been . Not just someone who has tried it out, but someone who benefited from it.
Convert the beta customers to customers by fixing bugs / customizing it early on – even at a significant discount or as Iqbal had said, at a loss.
Most important –
Be less sarcastic and abusive. You may have experienced some turn offs – for reasons good or bad. Everyone has a choice not to part with money and whining is not going to alter it. Calling an Angel / VC “coward” just because (s)he didn’t turn up as promised – betrays the *cynic* in you. At this stage, having an `attitude’ is luxury that’s best avoided. The undertone of your post is rebelling against your predicament - of someone seeking advice. It’ll in fact drive away many more.
Be receptive to criticism, expressed or implied. Look inwards and stop reclining on the smugly conclusion that “they don’t understand”. Instead switch to “what we’ve done is not enough” or “we’re not investment grade as yet” or “let’s get some customers” etc….Talking to others who got VC funding and how they did it will help draw some broad hints even if they belonged to a different genre. That’s being positive.
Recognize that you’ve to show a compelling reason why someone should pull the money out. That means, your product should scream “RRRR….OOOOO……IIIII”.
Hi Jaspreet
Seems I am a little late to the post, but here goes:
1. Angel money is a pain, there is nor way to convince the man with the money that what you have will work, unless you show it working, and for that you need a customer. The first sale you always do is a loss, but its the most important one since it does two things
a) convince the vc/angel
b) and this is the important one, actually convince you and your team, and keep you motivated.
To get the first customer
a) Make a list of every type of customer vertical you need to be in (do this as a brainstorm, use something like mindomo.com to mindmap it out
b) Then sort through the verticals, and start to list companies within those verticals
c) Mark all companies you have a contact in, and/or you know someone who knows someone, use things like linkedin etc
d) Narrow down to top 2 verticals
e) Get a piece of paper and list every single question about your product that you have , or have been asked, or need to answer in terms of sales process, i.e what happens after the sale. This is your faq
f) Now you have a list of companies, and people you know there, now prepare a ppt, or even a online walkthrough with something like camstudio (allows you to record a demo as you click through on ur pc), targetted at each vertical, dont waste time introing urself show
i) what it does
ii) what problems the vertical has
iii) how it solves them)
iv) money and what is saves
remember that cost and price are different, especially if your solution in priced higher than others
g) Give it away to first customer….almost
h) product docmentation, do a ppt to start with, its easier.
not sure if it answered anything, but hope it helps
If resource limited go for customer not money. If money is tight, look at where the burn is, you said flying, book in advance , see if the low cost flights help, I have had lots of demos from comps in the US who all do it over webex, BUT they have a script written out, which they follow, and so they tell a story, and actually do a very good pitch.
Iqbal
We are from Mumbai. Infact, do not get frustated or hopeless. In business, it is always towords your favour. It is worth of taking risk at this stage. I want to see the link. But I could not due to net problems. I can help you in marketing support if needed at all. Contact me : loknathswain@gmail.com
Do nat take it as it is a sales pitch. My mobile : 9833181107
HI rehan,
first of all, i really appreciate and value the time you have given so far.
thought of mailing you in private, but i guess the questions are general.
1. Storage getting comoditized, backup would be past. People would need replication. No one would like to freeze applications for hours for backup. When they can have real-time and consistent secondary copy.
2. You gave me a very good pointer last time, and we are looking fwd. to working with data centers to provide disaster recovery as service i.e. colloquial servers.
3. Next version, we are thinking of supporting replication to S3/VMware Images etc.
J