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It has been long since a new post has been published. Pardon me for the absence, but I was involved in creating my own venture.
Thankfully, after much brainstorming, looking for ideas, understanding our own pain points, my co-founder Nidhi and I, have decided to launch, FounderMates.
The product is right now been developed, but you can definitely look it up here and sign up if it interests you:
The concept briefly is outlined below. We will highlight more in few week’s time as well launch our beta platform to sign in.
Why FounderMates?
Most existing advisory channels available to entrepreneurs today have inefficiencies that FounderMates aims to solve:
1. Social media / public forums – lack of privacy, disintegrated, search is time consuming
2. Paid advisory – entrepreneurs charged upfront
3. Physical networking events – Every advisor cannot attend every event. Also, in an event entrepreneurs do not network with every advisor. Also advisor’s skills are not known by entrepreneurs. Leads to inefficiency
4. Cold calling – perceived rude by some, time inefficient , limited reach
5. Personal networks – limited networks , lack of access to broad range of skills and expertise
What is FounderMates?
FounderMates is an organized online platform where entrepreneurs can connect with advisors in a safe, secure and private environment at no cost
Benefits of FounderMates to an entrepreneur
· Easy and quick access to quality advisory at no cost
· Access to a diverse portfolio of carefully selected advisors from different professional backgrounds, industries and skills
Benefits of FounderMates to an advisor
· Make advisors visible to the entire entrepreneurial community on the platform
· Enable an advisor to build his SME/startup influence by getting reviews from entrepreneurs
· Provide a platform to advisors where engagement with entrepreneurs may lead to value added long term relationship
We will contact you soon with further details of our platform
We will launch in the middle of March 2013
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Please take a moment after you register to share the link with other advisors and entrepreneurs who you feel will add value to our platform and help make FounderMates a stronger community.
It’s interesting to hear people say that they wish to start-up at some point in their lives. By people here, I mean those who are currently employed with companies. And when they say that they wish to start-up at some point, they mean it.
I say so because I said ‘I want to startup’ to my friends and family for about 5 years. It took me this long to start-up. Did I lack the passion? Did I like being in a job? Did I lack an idea? The answer to all these questions is NO.
What I did lack was the ‘doing mindset’. It’s great to dream, come up with an idea but when it comes to doing, most of us begin to face blockages. Some start feeling it’s not what they hoped for, some feel it’s boring and dull, some feel it’s a lonely journey, some get caught up in fear of the unknown. The silver lining here is that YOU are not alone facing those thoughts. We all have those creepy, lowly thoughts nagging at us, trying to distract us from our goal.
Entrepreneurs2012 was a part of the Global Entrepreneurship week which culminated on November 16, 2012 at the Excel Arena.
This was a 4 day mega event featuring several big-shots from different fields – Politics, Media, Music, Business, Arts etc., came together to discuss about Entrepreneurship, about how to make it big in their fields following one’s dreams and passions.
I was able to attend only the 4th day of the event, thanks to a friend who apprised me of this.
Waking up at 5 in the morning and reaching Excel Arena at 7 AM was quite a task and was hoping that this event was worth all the effort.
I have attended plenty of Entrpreneurship events in the past. Hence this had to be something special for me to justify this blatant madness.
The highlight of the evening was supposed to be Bill Clinton!
As I was queuing up for registration (I was a free ticket holder and hence had to queue up early so that I do not miss out on a confirmed seat!) I could see the excitement among some of the other attendees. Few had come for all the 4 days.
I heard this lady who is a Fitness Advisor and wants to learn more about how she can make it big and grow her client base.
So after all the waiting and queuing we managed to to enter the arena while the show started at around 10-15 minutes past 9 AM.
There were 4 panel discussions back-t0-back on the topics of Culture and Diversity, Leadership, Innovation and Reinvention and finally on Motivation.
I did not know whether the participants were under prepared but it appeared that everyone was stating the obvious and no one disagreed with the other. None of them had a differeing view point on any topic which just made the discussions monotonous and dragging.
We were able to withstand till the 3rd panel discussion which fortunately, my friend and I enjoyed the most. The panelists had some interesting thoughts on invention and how to go about market research and developing your product.
We were too tired at the end of the 3rd panel and so had to break for a much needed coffee. Don’t know why the organisers did not account for the fact that breaks in between events helps to keep attendees mind fresh!
Amidst all this, we just found out Bruce Dickinson (IRON MAIDEN) is a fabulous speaker and an extremely competent investor!
Fortunately after several speakers, we got to see Bill Clinton who came in for a 45 minute presentation. Have to admit that he has lost the charisma while he was at the White House. With white hair and sagging wrinkled skin he was just the pale shadow of his old self. He is definitely not an Obama when he speaks but he does speak well nonetheless.
Bill spoke about his work at Haiti, about how he used some of the out-of-box thinking during his time as the President of the USA. He spoke of some of the difficulties presidents face and how entrepreneurial thinking can help Presidents make decisions that would prove beneficial for the country in the long run.
A well timed good speech, I must say.
However, I have to say more than Bill Clinton, the person who stole the show was Kevin Green, a multi-millionaire and the richest Real Estate Baron in the UK!
Well, to be honest we did not hear of him until we saw how good a salesman he was!
I wanted this event to gather more knowledge on some of the fields. However, this event proved to be a platform for several entrepreneurs to come and sell their services.
Kevin Green was at the forefront of using this Entrepreneurs2012 event to Sell his services.
He spoke for almost 2 hours! Yes, you read it right, For almost 2 hours!!!
And in that, all he spoke about was his disturbed childhood, broken family, his divorced wife, his sex life and how amidst all that he became detrmined to be a millionaire.
He was willing to “share” his secrets with the audience so that everyone can become as successful as he is. For him, becoming a millionaire and then giving to charity is the benchmark for success and he idolises Richard Branson.
He even showed a video of how he gave GBP 7,500 to this mother whose child was dying of a disease and with that money she could give her child one day of happiness which she can cherish all her life! What a Great PR!!!!
Great work Kevin!
Now to add to this, Kevin showed us what a fun loving and energetic team he has.
Please take a look at the video. He performed this on stage with his team!
And finally, he showed what courses he conducts for wannabe entrepreneurs in London.
His course pack including a 4 day workshop is priced at GBP 12,500! Too High eh?Wait! Kevin has more tricks up his sleeve.
He announced that he will give one lucky winner something special. So he asked the audience who wants to be the Winner. Several hands go up and he randomly selects this suited booted black man to be the winner!
As this guy got on stage, Kevin asked him to read through all the materials on the course pack from the screen so that everyone sees what is there. And finally he is asked to read the price which is GBP 12,500. Then he announces that since he is the lucky winner, he gets the course pack for FREE!!!
But, to attend the 4 day workshop with a partner, he has to pay GBP 2,400.
Quite nominal isn’t it? This guy was then given 10 seconds to either ACCEPT or DECLINE the offer on stage. And when the countdown started, the guy accepted it within 2 seconds! Just what Kevin expected!
He has conveniently sold his service at GBP 2,400. Now is that all??
Hang on, there is more.
After announcing this lucky winner, he asked the crowd again whether anyone else was interested to become a winner like him!
And believe me, 32 hands went up!
And he invited all 32 on stage, and he offered the same GBP 2,400 package to them in pairs. So he ended up selling further 16 packages.
So in total Kevin with his 2 hours of Selling, manages to generate 17 X 2,400 = GBP 40,800 worth of revenue!!!! Voilà!!!
He also promised throughout that 50% of this will go to Bill Clinton Foundation.
So in effect, he generates GBP 20,400. Factoring Conference Hall booking costs in London for 4 days at GBP 2,500 and stationery and printing costs at further GBP 5,00, he still manages to make a profit of GBP 17,900!!!
For a 2 hour presentation, making GBP 17,900 to bad eh?
Now, I have every reason to believe that he must have paid the event organisers to give him a slot to “advertise”! Given the usual costs for such events, I am inclined to believe, he must have paid the organisers a paltry sum of GBP 3,000.
So factoring that in the cost, he still ends up making GBP 15,000!!!
Now that is true entrepreneurship! Whether I liked Kevin’s speech or not, whether I was put off by his extra “Selling” efforts, whether his presentation was thin on content, it doesn’t matter!
I have been to several presentations and events in the past, where entrepreneurs, thought leaders and startups convened to discuss ideas, but none had this salesmanship involved!
Have to admit that through this I learnt 3 things:
1. Use every opportunity you get to make yourself visible and sell your business! No platform is bad to promote!
2. London is hungry for entrepreneurship! Every other Tom Dick and Harry wants to be an entrepreneur!
3. Every Hard Rocker or Metal head does not necessarily have to die of drugs!
I am writing this blog post not to refute the purpose of higher education but as I have already spent two months with Elevate Direct(a London based start-up), I do get down to thinking how it disconnects from practical learning.
I specialised in entrepreneurship and did rather well in the business plan competition where I got an opportunity to pitch to some of the most well-known VCs and BAs. That was definitely a confidence boost and made me think that if I could pull it off once (of course as team effort), I could replicate the success again. Logical, isn’t it? But unfortunately, the answer is No. As me and my friend started working on a business idea, we found ourselves refer back to the process that brought us victory in the business plan competition. As we went on, we began to realize that it was just another day after day with us being stuck to making better documents containing our research. The alarm bells rung that we were not doing something right.
Simultaneously, at my full time job with Elevate Direct, I began to notice the difference between my approach and that of the co-founders. I began to realize sooner than later that I tend to wear a consultant’s hat which is detrimental to an entrepreneur. There might not be sophistication with processes or with the way stuff is documented and maintained. But who cares really?! The most important thing is that they did it! Processes and sophistication are bound to come of their own accord. And that’s what really changed my mindset from that of an MBA consultant’s to a doer (a synonym I like to use for an entrepreneur).
And well, I applied the learning from this environment to our idea and there we go! Just by making our thought process ‘lean’, here we are ready with a first un-sophisticated prototype in almost 2 weeks’ time. If I compare this timeline to what I learnt on the entrepreneurship workshop, I should be still doing my market research & trend analysis .
So, what’s the moral of the story? If you are really contemplating making your own mark in this world, keep structure and processes at bay. They limit and just delay actual action required of you. Don’t get me wrong; I still love my excel sheet and well maintained docs but just a bit of diligence as to what works when can take you miles closer to your goal sooner than you would expect!
Whether you are working for a start-up or thinking about taking the leap on your own, we would love to hear your story in the entrepreneurial world.
Having made a recent vacation trip to India, I had been to a start-up event in Bangalore. Although some speakers and topics were major disappointments (more on this in another post, hopefully), I had the opportunity to talk to some really smart CEOs and investors who were well tuned with the global entrepreneurship scenario. Not surprisingly, our topics always circled back to why India has more service companies than product companies. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against service companies (after all, that is what has caused us to be known in the global start-up scene), but haven’t we always wondered if it is the lack of something that prevents us from achieving that feat as well (given our competitive nature)?
That is the reason it was so refreshing to read today’s article by Paul Joseph of EntrepreneurHeat about how Chennai, one of India’s primary manufacturing hub (also known as the “Detroit of India”), is now leading the way in developing world-class product technological start-ups. Some of the examples mentioned are really inspiring. I have tried to pick the best ones below:
Zoho Corporation: “has brushed off acquisition overtures from many leading Silicon Valley corporations and believes in bootstrapping his way to success. He has started a university kind of training within the company to grow talent.”
OrangeScape: “has jointly launched a product named KISSFlow along with industry giant Google in its flagship event Google. IO last week. This is the first time that Google as a company has partnered with another company to launch a product (so far every product launch has been its own, inhouse built, and 100% owned).”
Freshdesk: “has taken the global leader Zendesk head on, on this task (to a point where the Zendesk CEO seems to be shaken).”, “have also raised a round of funding from Accel to the tune of $6mn.”
These are just some brief stats to indicate the potential of global strategic partnerships for the country’s young minds. Some of these leading entrepreneurs have also been inspiring images on improving India’s start-up ecosystem.
It will be really interesting to see how Chennai’s start, along with Bangalore’s well known tech capabilities and Mumbai’s commercial mindset, will influence the country’s growing entrepreneurship development.
RT @beeba_puttar: It's cute how we stop everything and slowly enter the password in the third attempt like the world would end if we fail a… 3 days ago
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