We have a very interesting format for presentations by startups and companies with new products at HeadStart and Compute 2009 this year. At the live product demonstrations in HeadStart 2008, we noticed a couple of things. First, presenters were so engrossed with pitching products that they did not actually find any time or get an… Continue reading The Demo-pit and the Innovation panel at HeadStart 2009
A round up of Startup Saturday Bangalore, November 08
The November edition of Startup Saturday Bangalore featured a talk by Sharda Balaji of Novojuris on “Legal pitfalls of a startup”. This was followed by the demo of citizenmatters.in by Meera K and Subramaniam Vincent. Sharda Balaji is the founder and director of Novojuris which provides legal services to startups and entrepreneurs in the technology… Continue reading A round up of Startup Saturday Bangalore, November 08
Apppoint : driven by market need, innovation and enterprise
A successful venture needs three things in equal measure. Its products must address a clear market need; this should be exemplified by use cases and ideally should not require a whole lot of educating target users. A new product must be innovative in the sense it can deliver greater benefits to its target user base.… Continue reading Apppoint : driven by market need, innovation and enterprise
A quick catch up on Startup Saturday presenters
We have a really interesting Startup Saturday coming up in Mumbai this weekend on the 8th. IndusGeeks, a very exciting company offering virtual reality experience solutions and O’Cricket, a company doing something very intriguing relating to cricket are presenting. We are looking forward to their 3D demos and will post them here as soon as… Continue reading A quick catch up on Startup Saturday presenters
Philips confirms participation at HeadStart 2009
In the past year or two, there have been a slew of startup oriented events. And if you go to a couple of events, you will notice that most speakers stay put at very high level talk; either they are VCs who keep on repeating the same ‘what does a VC need to see ?’… Continue reading Philips confirms participation at HeadStart 2009
Corporate venturing and Startups [Part 2]
I am continuing with the preceding post on how start ups in India can secure funds and customer leads from corporate venturing units that a lot of companies have. They are also often places which have the required domain expertise to assess your product and its fit to the parent company’s product roadmap which is… Continue reading Corporate venturing and Startups [Part 2]
Corporate Venturing and Startups [Part 1]
At HeadStart 2009, scheduled for 9th and 10th January 2009 at the NIMHANS Convention Center Bangalore, we are inviting quite a lot of corporate venture capitalists, directors of new businesses and initiatives and corporate development executives. I feel that Indian VCs are still not mature enough to handle businesses that seek to exploit ideas that… Continue reading Corporate Venturing and Startups [Part 1]
What do you get at Startup Saturdays ?
Seeing is believing, so I thought I will post some snapshots of Startup Saturdays, all complete with speakers, attendees listening with rapt attention, followed by discussions with interesting people and the lots of friends you make at SS meet ups. There are people and products you see at Startup Saturdays who you never knew existed… Continue reading What do you get at Startup Saturdays ?
The Mobile marketing opportunity, Vakow !
I had a chance recently to talk to Rahul Gupta, an IIT Bombay alumni and founder of Vakow, a SMS group messaging service. The recent hype over mobile advertising combined with the $10 million funding reportedly raised by SMS Gupshup, a similar group messaging service was intriguing and I wanted to find out what Vakow,… Continue reading The Mobile marketing opportunity, Vakow !
The State of Enterprise Software-as-Services (SaaS) in India
Using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has been talked about for a while and a few superb products such as Google Docs and SalesForce has underscored the viability of using software as a service. My personal experience of asking managers from the big software companies such as IBM has revealed that they still do not care much about… Continue reading The State of Enterprise Software-as-Services (SaaS) in India
IT’s going Green
There has been a recent spate of articles, events and people talking about ‘green computing’. Venture capitalists in India are also reportedly looking for clean tech investments. After going through portfolios of all major VCs operating in India, I could find only a handful of investments in this category which is very aptly captured by… Continue reading IT’s going Green
Emerging services based business models @Startup Saturday Bangalore
Given that we are witnessing slowing growth rates at major IT services companies in India and also given that the market is probably a big no go zone for newer and smaller entrants with no or little differentiation, time is right to take a look at emerging businesses and business models based around services that… Continue reading Emerging services based business models @Startup Saturday Bangalore