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 […]
SWOT Analysis – Importance and Need
For those who are not aware of SWOT, it stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat and an analysis of all these factors is done for any new product, service or company. I have come across many business plans without a SWOT analysis. People probably underestimate the power of such an analysis. A good SWOT […]
Impact Investing in India – three trends worth noting
Recently, impact investing in India has been taking center stage in the news. For example, Omidyar Network recently awarded $800,000 in grant funding to six organisations providing a spectrum of services that support social entrepreneurs, Unilazer investments also recently announced that as a fund they would continue to aim for profit first while expanding in […]
Sales Strategy for startups
Strategy — As word describes — covers both Long Haul and Short Haul Objectives. Strategy Differs for companies to companies — In a typical MNC / Established Companies , there is core team of Strategists who would evaluate each and every Product Line/Business Unit/Country and would Make Plan for 1 year , 3 years etc […]
Blogging helps to generate traffic for your site
Having built a great website, how do you get traffic to your site? It is one thing to have product or service relevant content, but what would be found more interesting is regularly updated content relevant to the product, industry or target groups that you wish to connect with. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one […]
How critical is Mentoring for start-ups?
From my experience of the last 12 years with start-ups, the issue is with the entrepreneurs understanding and acknowledgement of the importance of a Mentor. In most cases, a mentor is supposed to be a like a quick-fix. A first time entrepreneur needs to understand that a mentor is like a partner, hand-holding you to […]
Internet in Tier II/III towns
My article in Strategist regarding the challenges and opportunities for Internet services in Tier II/III towns. Read on… http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/overcoming-the-digital-divide-113060200429_1.html 0
HBR – How to negotiate with VCs
Update: 18th Oct 2013 – The slideshare link seems to be disabled. Please read here. Excellent article on how to negotiate with VCs – valuation is just the tip of the iceberg. Other terms, as well as ensuring alignment through the negotiation process are far more important. Read on… HBR – How to negotiate with […]
Muscle Capital : Delivered
I am not a car guy. I had my last car for 15 years and put over a quarter of a million kilometers on it, but a couple of months ago I bought a Tesla. It felt like a piece of history so I had to have it. It is thrilling to be able to […]
TLabs is organising startup mixer in various cities, applications open...
It’s that time of the year again when TLabs goes to a lot of Indian cities and meet early stage startups and budding entrepreneurs. TLabs has now opened applications for 4th Batch (Fall 2013) and is calling all start-ups/entrepreneurs/founders/co-founders who have awesome ideas and are looking for support in nurturing their products into sound businesses. […]
Accelerator->Angel->VC flow is still struggling to find its equilibriu...
I had fun moderating the panel on early stage financing at India Internet Day. Vccircle has an interesting article. The key issues are as under: 1. Too few deals are progressing from accelerators to angel, and from angel to Series A. Only 5% of deals going from accelerators to Series A might not be very […]
The role of venture capital in growing Indian ecosystem
Iamwire published this article by me around the broader impact of venture capital. I believe venture capital has had a defining role in getting first generation entrepreneurs out in increasing numbers, at the same time benefiting from that trend. In addition to entrepreneurs, the capital-exit model of venture backed companies also creates the right incentives […]