Comments on: India’s Hottest Startups

By: Abid

Abid — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:37:13 +0000

I agree with you on both the points.

1. Startups should be really young companies max 3 years old - otherwise there should be some kind of levels. Established, incubation, prototype etc etc and they should be placed in these categories and judged in these categories. You cant expect a really young startup to compete against a yaatra.com or pagalguy.com in the same category.

2. There are very subtle ways to promote your company. This should not end up in a spam war, there should be guidelines for this. Maybe the public voting is a disadvantage for really small startups nevertheless it brings great exposure to the contest.

Whatever said and done this is the only good platform for startups to showcase ourselves and get some exposure. I appreciate TATA and NEN’s effort to but there is always scope for improvement. I am sure they will

By: ajitesh

ajitesh — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 03:30:27 +0000

At least, it has done one thing by bringing lot of young companies on one platform and in a manner create awareness. Other than that, startup owners need not associate much importance to it and keep themselves busy with value creation. Its because a real winner will be one who creates a compelling value for users.

By: Priyanka

Priyanka — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:18:42 +0000

“I don’t think upcoming trained classical musicians/singers ever participate in ‘Talent Hunt’ shows.. same goes with startups..”

Classical, trained singers who are interested in singing and making a career of it would and should be a part of the hunts otherwise the basic purpose of the hunt is lost! and that is true when dealing with start ups too.

By: RYK

RYK — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:02:48 +0000

strange that NEN has been getting spam complaints (saw one on Plugged and one on another site), they are a serious organization. Looks like some junior team members (yea they have a few kids in there) went whacko with the awareness campaign.

The problem with the public voting model is that it works only for Consumer product startups and not for enterprise and engineering products. Who would vote on a telecom networking optimizer startup? The public can’t get that space.

That said it’s a good platform for creating awareness and getting angels and startups together. It should also serve to show the fabulous opportunities for people to join a startup and help sell the space to quality talent.

By: Gaurav Mittal

Gaurav Mittal — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:42:31 +0000

Thought its not right to send mass emails to every one, who knows or does not know the importance of this award for startups. I think if the enterpreneurs are sending mass emails to the people in their respective domain, whom they see as their potential clients, I think the intent as right, which is nothing but to market and showcase their product/services. It helps startups to gain confidence of customers, who hesistate to buy product or services from a startups, I feel so because the same has happened with us too. My company is also nominated for this Awards, we have started getting good response from the potential clients whom we had been talking to for a long time and considered them as closed case.

By: Raghu

Raghu — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:41:57 +0000

“why any self respecting start-up would give time to a ‘reality’ show and spend time away from execution beats me…”

It won’t… we didn’t. I don’t think upcoming trained classical musicians/singers ever participate in ‘Talent Hunt’ shows.. same goes with startups..

the whole premise of public voting makes this platform which has 2 very respected brand names associated TATA-NEN… a mediocre show. Now that the organizers have allowed that.. they can only watch their reputation being degraded by spammers… inevitably.

By: Harpreet

Harpreet — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:28:01 +0000

I think NeNTataAwards attracts people towards startups and that is important. As for spam, I would treat this as ‘higher quality spam’ than voting on music channels.

And why is not someone who starts his own shop for selling sweets (traditional business) a startup guy? He is creating value by identifying a need and addressing it and that is what in the end startups are all about.

By: Jaspreet

Jaspreet — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:00:33 +0000

Deepak, I liked your view point.

Probably, I should bring this to the organizer’s notice and request them for doing something about this.

- J

By: Deepak Shenoy

Deepak Shenoy — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:20:53 +0000

Ashish: Spamming is bad, period. Startups or not. Such events are not the reason for spam - spammers will find any reason. That doesn’t mean we stop doing everything. This event may be just hype, but what difference does that make? It creates enthu and sparks conversation.

By: ashish

ashish — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:15:22 +0000

“Who cares if it’s hyped to the moon and back - it’s all good because it’s happening, and it’s worse if nothing is happening.”
Well, startups spamming is the worst that I am seeing..

I’d rather say - doing nothing is more important than doing something very cheap.