Some people may find it annoying, but I think I must write about this.
Almost a month back, I received an Email from NEN for participating in the hottest startup contest. I looked at the website and was impressed by the participation. What was annoying was the classification of a “startup”. I could see companies founded in 2003 with 70+ employees nominated by NEN with expert rating 8+ ??
Today I was planing to fill the form sent by NEN and suddenly I see an email from an unknown “startup” –
 I, on behalf of my company, request you to find few minutes out of your busy schedule and vote us for Tata NEN Hottest Startups 2008 contest. Your vote matters!
The TATA NEN Startups Awards are the first ever people’s choice Awards to recognize the highest-potential startups in India: young companies with great potential to grow; with the ability to change their industries; companies that will create jobs and drive economic growth.
You can vote a***.com online at http://www.hotteststartups.inviewandvote.do?method=fetch&businessFn=viewandvote&startupId=2**
…. More SPAM <snip>
CEO and Chairman …
XYZ
And I swear to God, I hate spams. Specially from a CEO and on a Sunday morning …
IMO, this raises some questions –
- What distinguishes a “startup” from a “businesses”. Can a new Kirana shop call itself a startup ?
- Is “People’s Choice” genuinely a good thing or just means of involving people and promoting spam ?
- Shouldn’t mentorship be an important part and motivation factor for such competitions ?
- Is cash rewards a good thing to offer. I can see Eureka has it, But I also feel that it again leads the BPlan makers to project arbitrary stuff on paper ?
- Shouldn’t entrepreneurs be judged by entrepreneurs and not “respected jury” from some college or MNC ?
Jaspreet
- India’s Hottest Startups - September 7, 2008
- The case of SonimTech – And lessons we can learn - August 23, 2008
- The Druvaa Story – III - July 14, 2008
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 😉
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.