“AI” as a buzzword has been around in the startup world for a little over 10 years by now. It started with the early days of OCR system reading address in postal mail and parcel distribution, Email spam prediction on mass scale, multi-language translation systems to name a few. Besides these, all other efforts were […]
How To Use Social Media To Pitch Investors
How can entrepreneurs use social media to pitch investors? Social media has become an incredibly powerful tool for all types of uses. It has made and broken brands with consumers, changed politics, created movements, become an instant news source and has evolved into a chief community and shopping hub. It’s also been responsible for years of […]
Bootstrap to Exit
Over the last decade and more, I’ve had the privilege of working with a large number of bootstrapped entrepreneurs. These include self-financed companies and also modestly capitalized startups that operate in a capital-efficient manner applying the principles of bootstrapping. [You can review my Bootstrapping course on LinkedIn to review these.] For our Seed Capital series of podcasts and blog […]
30 Fundraising Terms Entrepreneurs Need To Know
Ready to begin fundraising for your startup? Make sure you know these terms first. Don’t blow all your hard work and potential by completely flopping on basic startup fundraising terminology. Know these words and lingo so you can pitch and walk into investor meetings sounding like a pro who has done their homework. In simple […]
The $10Trillion India goal, a lot is on shoulders of startups
Recently, in the union budget, the presenting minister stated in the house “We are poised to become a 5-trillion-dollar economy in the next five years and aspire to become a 10-trillion-dollar economy in the next 8 years thereafter” (full speech transcript here). The sentiment may be construed as a politically motivated move or a false promise, […]
Launching an Experiment to Spot Problems Worth Solving
It is a little over ten years now, since I started working with the Startup Ecosystem here. Much has changed – and I’d say for the better. Funding has improved. Startups are mainstream. And Entrepreneurs are celebrated. Yet, when I look at some of the companies and startups that we showcased at Proto.in ( Between […]
For Start-ups Processes are critical for growth
You have got your first set of paying customers and have validated all your assumptions and now feel you would like to initiate actions for serious go-to-market. Every young enterprise looks forward to this day when they would be able to scale and grow their revenues. The entire focus is on revenues. But do you […]
Cold-calling is a necessity for start-ups. But how do you go about it?
Having worked hard to get that MVP (Minimum Value Product) in place, most start-ups struggle with getting those first set of reference customers that would help them validate their assumptions and scale their business. Most of the first-time entrepreneurs have not done any selling their entire life and are now expected to go out there […]
What’s NXT : Digital Content – Where is Money – 3rd April 2012,
Digital Content : What’s NXT – Where is Money Britannica closing down its print publication after 244 years to focus on online version!  The number of Internet users in India – estimated at around 140 million today – exceeds the number of TV sets in our homes. Facebook, with its 44 million Indian members reaches more of […]
The New Model of ecommerce (is the old model of business) – Profitable
 (This post was triggered by Alok’ s recent post about  new capital efficient, profitable models of ecommerce) The current crop of poster boys of ecommerce ventures in India – FK, Snapdeal, FnY etc are all horizontal – sell everything to everybody. They have built a business which has scaled – they have served millions of […]
Delhi is the New Hub For Techs
I read this interesting article recently- about how Delhi is the new hub for tech startups– in Wall Street journal. I am curious- what are the experiences/opinions of other members- who may have worked in multiple Indian metros on the subject. — Below article is a mirror of article in Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576644220533569618.html Delhi […]
Do you want to be known as one of the Future IT Companies globally..? ...
Do your products/services have the potential to redefine benchmarks of excellence for the industry? Have you witnessed accelerated growth patterns over the last 2-3 years consistently using innovative business models? Have you successfully ventured and leveraged emerging/domestic markets for faster financial growth? Here’s your chance to ride the wave to fame, as INNOVATION, GROWTH and […]