Recession Time: Opportunity Time

Courtesy: The Economic Times

The message was loud and clear — the time has come. The ongoing recession is the best time to start out and the nation should let go of its hang-ups about business and government, business, media and civil society should come together to ensure that a billion ideas bloom. An elite panel at the The Power of Ideas discussion in Delhi (topic: Ecosystem for Innovativeness in India and Is Jugaad a Means of Disruptive Innovation?) threw up diverse ideas to create the right ecosystem for entrepreneurs. If a former bureaucrat-turned-head of India’s biggest car maker-turned entrepreneur wanted government policies to promote small companies instead of protecting them, a serial entrepreneur who is now seeding enterprises wanted a radical socio-economic shift, wherein the next-door aunt wouldn’t disapprove if one were to give up his job and start a venture. In an ecosystem, which is skewed towards the regular 9-to-5 office routine, an individual leaving his cushy MNC job to venture into something innovative is considered foolish. “And that is why the condemnation of a new idea needs to be done away with and success stories need to be blown out of proportion; failures need to be looked at as stepping-stones if India has to create entrepreneurs,” said Raman Roy, managing director of BPO firm Quatrro, and one of the pioneers of India’s BPO industry. And indeed, it was evident from the Indian’s inclination for jugaad that he/she had an entrepreneurial streak.

It was necessary that people with ideas be given the right ecosystem to turn their jugaad into appropriate technology and then, into business propositions. Said the former head of auto-maker Maruti and now MD of Carnation Auto, Jagdish Khattar: “It is difficult for start-ups to thrive in an environment where it had no governmental support in terms of policy and with little or poor infrastructure. Although some sectors, particularly information technology, have spawned entrepreneurship without any help from the government that model cannot be replicated in manufacturing. “Manufacturing has to depend on the government for facilities whereas IT does well because the government has no role to play in it,” Mr Khattar said. “Infrastructure will vary from industry to industry and for some sectors, it can be critical.” In the US, entrepreneurship is the real driver of the economy. Angels invested $29.4 billion in over 57,000 early stage startups, which comes to an average of $0.51 million per deal. VCs, on the other hand, invested $26.1 billion in 3,912 startups in the same year at an average of $6.7 million per deal.

In India, on the other hand, of the $19.5 billion that was invested by VCs and PEs combined (excluding angels), less than 6% went into startups. But interestingly, though the volume of deals might be significantly lower, the average VC deal size is much larger in India. $1.3 billion was invested by VCs in 2007 across 75 deals, at an average of $17.3 million per deal, which is almost three times that in the US, in the same year. “There are no figures available for angels in India but we at the Indian Angel Network have invested close to Rs 20 crore in about 15-16 early-stage startups,” said Saurabh Srivastava, founder IAN. The discussion revolved around the concept of jugaad (a unique approach to innovation in India) and how it can lead to a disruptive change in businesses. Fortis Healthcare chairman and MD Shivinder Singh said, “We are at a stage where pieces of innovations are coming up.

We are in the process of putting the pieces together. There has to be trigger point where people can go out and say ‘I want to do it’.” Indians are genetically known to be ntrepreneurial. “In fact, every second guy is a jugaadu,” he said. The biggest difficulty Mr Singh faces in his standardised hospitals is the fact that everyone wants to do things differently.

That’s not entrepreneurial. But the inclination for doing things the jugaad way is a prerequisite to being entrepreneurial. “One major way of strengthening the ecosystem is to engage industries with universities like they do it in the US. Even the idea of sponsors coming to universities is not entertained in India,” Mr Singh said. Mr Srivastava insisted that industry should come in full support of entrepreneurs. “You need a scenario where entrepreneurs can get funding, encouragement and mentoring. We have to make it easier for startups to operate. Today, it is easier for a large company to operate than a small startup,” he said. Mr Khattar had a suggestion for the government to pitch in with support. “Like the education cess, why doesn’t the government create a similar fund for entrepreneurship?” he asked.

Startup Identity: Logo Creation

Branding is a marketing concept used to create a position for the product or service in the consumer's mind. Logo is something that brings an identity to a firm helps to create a strong brand for the organisation. Here are few things we have to keep in mind while creating a logo and especially when you are talking to a logo designer about it- It is all about branding:

Create a company description - describing in which sector your firm operates
Create a logo theme - include specific colours, font type; if any on your mind
Ensure that you create them in both RGB and CMYK colour codes.
Get editable and printable files from your designer
Create logo that would be right for web and print resolution.

Please add if there are any more inputs.
Following are a few links where you can create your logos:
http://www.freeflashlogos.com/
http://www.simwebsol.com/ImageTool/
http://googlefont.com/
http://www.logoease.com/

Critics Everywhere: Hurdle 1

This is going to be a series that will pop up as and when I face a hurdle as an entrepreneur. Today I faced my first hurdle of "critic views".
Critics are of two types, who I have faced in my journey;
1. Someone who adds value to the situation
2. Someone who actually doesn't like you or your idea or who is arrogant and prejudiced about their own ideas

Well I faced both of them. It is really nice to have critics of the first category but second ones are dangerous. They are like slow poison. Their words keep beeing in your heads and someday you will believe that they were right and you are wrong. Well don't worry, it is just hypnosis.

We face so many such people who have prejudiced ideas about a person and experiences. They are not ready to look at a better picture which they always would have faced the other way.

I find critics everywhere, whenever I take my business plan and put it on their table grrrrrrrrrr, uh enough.
I want some value inputs not what you think about me.

So entrepreneurs.......... who are feeling dejected and disoriented about yourselves, fasten your seat belts and stick to the throne..........you have a long way to go, to achieve your dream and to walk on this path.
Shake these criticisms and walk on.

Businesses to start during recession and still be profitable

Consumers look for value add and security oriented solutions. So here are the problems one can address at the time of downturn and make money out of it:

Job seeking
Car Insurance
Funeral Homes
Health Care
Loyalty programmes where customers can save money
Second hand goods

Hope this gives rise many more interesting verticals.

Another event round the corner- Headstart 2009

Posted by Headstart

HeadStart is an event for entrepreneurs which marks the culmination of monthly Startup Saturdays across the country. You can get more information about it HeadStart here, and about Startup Saturdays here.
If you are an entrepreneur looking for Funding, we have arranged exclusive 1 to 1 "Meet a VC" slots over the 2 days of the event. Please refer to this blog post to view the names of the VCs along with the times at which they would be available.Please send an email to Vinayak Hegde on vinayak@headstart.in to help him arrange for a 1 to 1 meeting between you and the VC you want to contact. Ideally you should be a startup with a working prototype of your product being demoed at the demo pit as described in the following paragraph.
Besides,If you have built an innovative product/service and would like to demo it (and get feedback, meet prospective customers etc), then we invite you to nominate your startup's offering by filling up this nomination form. I am sorry about informing you so late, but the last date for nominations is tomorrow, so please send it at the earliest! This is absolutely free of charge.
Lastly, If you want to register for the event, you can do so here. The event fee is about 45$ if you avail the early bird discount. We have tried to keep it as low as possible to enable unfunded entrepreneurs to attend it.
We also have a rich collaboration with Corporates who want to either work with Startups or want to learn how to bring forth innovation/intrapreneurship in their organization. Feel free to connect me [amit@headstart.in] to your company's decision makers if you feel they would be interested. (We are a not for profit btw)
We are very passionate about building an ecosystem in India where entrepreneurship can thrive. Please help us spread the word by blogging about it or posting the information on relevant mailing lists. Please do drop me a line informing me about the same so that I can thank you personally!

-- For Entrepreneurs: www.headstart.in www.startupsaturday.in