The Churchill Club’s annual Top 10 Tech Trends Dinner discussion post is here. The panel has some cool VCs in it. The post has important predictions and some cool factoids
- In Europe, cell phones are 8% of credit card payments
- Projectors in cell phones in next two years. More than one camera per cell phone
- About 90% of all venture returns made by about 5% of the people; global supply of capital has kept pouring in. Returns come from a very small set.
Lots of mobile devices related predictions. Go read the full thing.
Hi - Last date for submitting entries for TiE Canaan Challenge has been extended to 25th May.
We are seeing a good response. Also, CNBC TV18 has been roped in to feature the Winners and the working of Challenge in three series.
Regards,
Mukul
A nice little stat to chew on a sunday morning.
PS : “Transit” refers to Public/mass transit systems.
I recently did two interviews with two very different but passionate entrepreneurs: Deepak Shenoy, co-founder of Moneyoga and Dr. Girish Saraph of Vegayan Systems. Over the past year or so I have spent a fair amount of time talking to both of them and have followed their journey as entrepreneurs.
Deepak and I have spoken at length about entrepreneurship, startup environment, Bangalore, etc over the phone, but never got around to meeting over that cup of filter coffee in Bangalore. Blame it on the messy traffic congestion in Bangalore that precluded me from going to his part of town! Deepak is a passionate and seasoned entrepreneur and it was great fun interviewing him. In the interview Deepak made some great points about entrepreneurship in India.
Girish is an academician turned entrepreneur that I met at the TiE Mumbai conference in 2006, where I interviewed him the first time around. He was very excited at having won the TiE_Canaan Challenge for that year and was looking forward to going to INSEAD Singapore to spend 6 weeks there. I remember how Girish patiently and methodically answered all my questions about the software his company was building and gave me the big picture overview that also helped me in getting a better grasp of his company. Methodical is the word that comes to mind when I think of Girish since that trait or character is reflected in the manner in which he has plotted the course for his startup and in the way he did this interview that I did earlier this week.
From the news today (sorry, no link)
Reliance Industries has shut all of its 1,432 petrol pumps in the country after sales dropped to almost nil as it could not match the subsidized price offered by public sector players. The company owned less than 3% of the 36,936 petrol pumps in the country. Of the total retail outlets, state run Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum own 34,304 pumps, while the remaining belong to private sector Essar Oil and Shell India.
”Reliance has informed that sales at their retail outlets was negligible due to selling price differential between private and public sector ROs, leading to the closure of all their 1,432 pumps in the country with effect from March 15,” petroleum minister Murli Deora informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Public sector currently sell petrol at a loss of Rs 13.97 a litre and diesel at a discount of Rs 20.97 per litre. This revenue loss is made up by the government through issue of oil bonds and subsidy share from upstream firms like ONGC and GAIL.
If this sounds ominous, Goldman Sachs economist Arjun Murti dropped a bombshell by writing,
“The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six-24 months”
To add to all this bad news on the Crude oil front, rupee has breached the 41 mark. The price action is very swift and a bit unnerving.
If these trends persist, are the Indian businesses operating on wafer thin margins (textiles, airlines, farming) sustainable ?
It appears that these low profit margin businesses are the biggest employers of Indian Masses ?
This is a new series in which I invite readers to take a journey with me into the future through the minds of multiple entrepreneurs, who by addressing the opportunities I see today, will perhaps shape the future of India.
But in this series, we will close our eyes, and exist in this future, and BE each entrepreneur. To read the first of these posts, click here.
Enjoy!
Businessweek has a nice refresher on recruiting top management. While it primarily seems to be written for large companies, the lessons are equally relevant to startups. Of course, there are some additional points one needs to keep in mind when recruiting for startups:
- Sell a personal vision - not just of where the company wants to be, but also why the prospective candidate should get involved. Money? Significance? Career advancement? Broad-skilling?
- Build credibility - let others speak for you. Customers? Investors? Advisors?
- Prepare well - have a detailed view on why you need this person - is he going to feel overqualified once he comes in?
- Hire the best - this is a motherhood statement, but one which cant be emphasized enough, especially for startups.
Any others that have been useful in your experience?
One year down the launch of commercial model of plugHR in April 2007, chasing a million dollar first year dream, plugHR proved the concept by reaching almost half of targetted numbers.
So HR can be delivered through autoserve platform, is what some two dozen CEOs experienced with plugHR managers driving their HR strategies in a highly motivated manner. Ofcourse, we faced all sorts of things along the way. But with renewals happening now, plugHR is targetting 100 companies on its platform by March 2009.
Idea is simple, we set up and run HR department for companies. 15 days and a simple sign up is all it takes to get HR department up and running with standard delivery model, professional manager on site and sharp Project manager bringing in supervision. We cleared some serious bandwidth for CEOs last year.
Not to miss, cost of running HR department crashes to half. Quite naturally then, all our clients came in through client references only & we remained geography independant. We did Mumbai, Delhi, Nasik, Singapore, attempting New Jersey, Bangalore now.
plugHR product portfolio ensures that there’s a suitable format for every size of company. Our smallest client is 7 people 
I can be reached on 9870257257.
Since we have announced the launch of TiE Canaan second edition; I have received multiple queries on: Why no cash awards? and Why no funding for winners? Funding issue is more loud and clear. I thought to share what we thought while deciding for awards:
1.) We should understand that a platform as open as TiE Canaan Challenge can’t be a funding platform. Parameters of winning this award are defined by a respected Jury. However; funding decision is very propriety to a firm and its partnership. Parameters can be different and usually are.
2.) Second and most important in my view: A company (or a team) might be good (and good is a relative judgment) but still not ready for venture funding. Does it mean that we should shy away from that company in all other ways? Probably not. There are enough examples when companies were able to close funding after 2-3 years of operations with modifications & iterations in their business models, approach etc
3.) Regarding Cash - I think we can certainly give cash rewards to winners. The examples of cash awards quoted to me are not big amounts in any way. However; we think that cash in an award form is not utilized properly and even can’t meet most of the requirements in a start up. We have consciously opted out from Cash rewards and are putting efforts in giving better and tangible awards.
Finally, I would like to impress that one should take this opportunity as a starting point for building a network and get good feedback. I understand many of us are well networked but I know lot of new entrepreneurs are not. If you hear my experience most of us are not: When I thought of starting my own entrepreneurial journey (that was just before i joined Canaan); I hardly knew ppl in the industry. From somewhere i got Alok’s mail id and requested for the time. It took me two return flight tickets (20,000/- in 2006) to get two hours of Alok. Imagine, if I have to meet 5 VCs - 1 lakh rupees gone. Here at least you can meet many VCs in one day and one shot.
I could elaborate more on Benefits and Awards since within the team we have spent lot of time thinking on this. I understand I might have scratched a wrong surface but willing to hear.
I would like to introduce the Venturewoods community to ReviewGist.in.
ReviewGist.in is a product discovery and research tool for consumer electronics powered by online expert reviews.
Essentially, we analyze expert reviews to figure out what aspect/part of the product is the reviewer rating good or bad. We then use this information to create simple yet powerful comparison and recommendation interfaces to enable a more informed online shopping experience.
We also provide specification and pricing information from some of the leading online retailers.
I am Nishant Soni and am the founder at ReviewGist.in. We are a small angel-funded startup based out of Gurgaon.
Hoping for some active criticism/feedback from the venturewoods community.
(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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