Ladies and Gentlemen,
The finally awaited moment is here – well, atleast the first of it. The nominations are open for companies that do want to submit their products for evaluation, out of which 20 companies will present before an esteemed audience – the creme de la crop, the movers and the shakers of the IT industry from and around India on the dates of January 18th and 19th 2008 in Chennai, India.
If you are a company that wants to make a nomination, head to the website at http://www.proto.in and click on the nominate link, on the right hand side, enter the details and hit submit. A copy of the nomination form will be mailed to you. But should you require a copy, in case, do write to me and someone from the Proto.in team will be sure to respond to you at the earliest.
As always, there is an entry fee attached to this. But you wont have to make a payment till you are confirmed to one of the 20 finalists who will be taking on the stage.That said, we also do request you to kindly make an evaluation of the product yourself, and with your peers and only submit products that are complete and ready for demonstration so as to not take the time of the organizers or have any disappointments. There is nothing that i would hate to see than for your team and company not being able to make an impact because of an unpolished demo or product which isnt able to convey the solution that you have built with such commitment.
If you do have any queries on this regard, do let me know and in the meantime, I strongly encourage you to take a visit to the site, and cruise around so that you get a good understanding of what Proto.in is about and what we are hoping that you will benefit from.
I would also, at this time, like to clarify that entering into Proto, and showcasing your product as one of the 20 might not be the only criteria for funding, as much as that is one of the activities that happens around the stage. Investor firms might decide to sit back and watch as you evolve from that snapshot on the stage to a few months before they decide to make a deal, depending on the growth that you are showing. I wanted to make sure that expectations are set right in terms of those who would be nominating.
Of the crowd that attends Proto.in, there are segments of people from the VC and Angel Investment Community, Heads of Mergers and Acquisitions, Our Friends from the Media (Print and broadcast), Executives from Large corporates and SMEs who are exploring partnerships, Professionals who are looking for prospective companies to be a part of, and pool of bloggers looking to get a glimpse of the next big thing to happen out of this region. We can assure you that it is the liveliest gathering of all your well-wishers from the ecosystem, if you are to be an entrepeneur.
There are a few other invited guests from the Industry who are to visit us this edition, from abroad and the names are yet to be revealed. We will disclose them as the days close in, so that the excitement still remains.
Thanks again for your attention and time, and I look forward to seeing you at the event. Good luck and Be in touch.
Regards,
Vijay Anand
Key Organizer – Proto.in
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Hello,
Ashish Baldua here, co-founder of an Indian based startup website called http://www.citipals.com.
Read your blog and really liked it. Its a very interesting one indeed. I see that you are interested in stuff that pertains to Entrepreneurs an India based startups.
Citipals is a website that caters specifically to Indian audiences and contains information on lifestyle entities such as restaurants, bars, theatres and of course movies in cities like Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata( Plan to extend the cities covered to many others in the near future).
We also enlist the new releases in Bollywood and Hollywood that are screened across the country.
Our objective behind emailing is to request you to post a story on the venture and effort, that specifically caters to the Indian audience.
We have created a new and interesting feature called MovieMatch. MovieMatch is a place where you can rate popular Bollywood and Hollywood movies. This feature enables you to compare your taste with your friends and at the same time, its also a great platform to make your opinion known to people.
We have created a facebook app for MovieMatch as well where facebook users can play MovieMatch.
ou can read our latest press release on a facebook app by us at http://blog.citipals.com/2007/11/moviematch-new-facebook-app-for-indians.html
We also tried something sarcastically funny in the recent past and you can read a bit about it at http://blog.citipals.com/2007/11/social-networks-mania_07.html ( this is a small jscript animation slideshow which shows what will happen if social networks become “really open”)
Further, you can read out press release on MovieMatch- a small game which lets you and your friends share ratings and opinion on a set of hit bollywood and hollywood movies; both blockbusters and new releases at http://blog.citipals.com/2007/11/moviematch-compare-your-tastes-in.html
Press release for MovieMatch is posted at http://blog.citipals.com/2007/11/answer-to-users-quest-for-trusted.html
I hope that you will like the matter that we have gathered at citipals.
Looking forward to your reply.
PS: If you like the website, but due to some reason, are unable to post a story/article or our press release on our website, do let us know. We would love to have you as a contributing user on our website. citipals ensures that users have fun while sharing things that interests them.
Thanks,
Ashish
Sagar,
Thats what we thought as well initially, but when 120 new companies nominated right after six months after the first edition, those thoughts flew out of the window.
The basic question that came up was that, if a company couldnt make it to one of the editions (the prototype not being ready), it would be silly to have to wait for an entire year. I have been working with grassroot level companies that i know which company would have their product ready by which edition of Proto… and when companies are planning their launches and marketing activities around this, its kinda essential to keep the timeline convenient for them to plan around.
Alok: Will write you a more detailed post. It requires it 🙂
I guess organizing this event every six months is kinda too frequent.
Just my 2 paisa
Sagar
I think the key element that needs local attention is the logistics – deal sourcing, screening etc needs to be local in any case. On the logistics front, I am happy pitch in in Delhi, and perhaps TiE might want to help out too. Since Amit has been engaged with Proto, he might be open to leading that effort. In the past, there has been active support from Adobe for Momo.
Of course, Delhi happens to be a outside “downsouth”, but thats a matter of another discussion 🙂