Startup Saturday Kolkata shares insights on “Business Plan and Valuation”

The February edition of Startup Saturday Kolkata was on the wonderful theme of “Business Plan and Valuation”. It was an insightful event with major highlight on ‘Making impactful B Plan’ and ‘Preparing right valuation’ for a startup; and featuring a compilation of knowledge sharing sessions covering various topics such as Business Plans, Funding Strategies and Finding Investors. It hit the right chord with the audience.

SPEAKER SESSION

The first talk of the day was by G K Tandon, Founder & CEO of Sattva Consultancy. His talk inculcated a diversified spectrum of topics. He commenced by talking about fundamentals of business plan, types of B-plan and their differences, and later spoke about Strategic Planning and Functioning of Sales team. The audience seemed captivated by his in-depth explanation and enthusiastically asked questions to quench their inquisitiveness.

The next speaker of the day was Sauvik Banerjee, Founder & COO of Array Consultancy. He had the mesmerizing quality of keeping the audience hooked till the end with his simplistic yet deeply informative talk. He laid down a keen analysis of every important factor which is needed to form a B plan. He explained the concept of Business model from every angle including – need, demand, vision, cost and revenue. He shared that profit and loss are a part of business and they help entrepreneurs learn. He ended his talk by explaining about different ways of funding.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Next in line was the most awaited session of the day – the Panel Discussion. Our moderator for the day was the charismatic Anurag Singal, a highly qualified finance expert. The esteemed speakers acted as the panelists. It was an engaging session revolving around the theme of the event.

Major points discussed:

• Effectiveness of the business plan
• Scalability of the business idea
• Deciphering the perspective of investors
• Aligning business according to the investor’s portfolio
• Understanding cash burn models
• Clarity of thoughts related to idea among entrepreneur
• Popularity of Venture Debt

Words of wisdom shared by the panelists:

• Entrepreneur market is evolving and maturing every day. One needs to figure out how to scale up, return money to the investors, and pay their employees on time
• Excellent presentation and jazzy presentation do not always make an impact.
• Huge experience is not necessary, but an appetite for risk plays a better and vital role in entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurs say not to quit, but to start from scratch. Be a beggar before you start

STARTUP PITCHES

Four startups were chosen to pitch their ideas to the audience and to the panelists. They got the opportunity to have a healthy interaction and it led to some fruitful suggestions.

Arch the way( Co-founder – Nikhil Bajoria): It is a free app for teachers to connect with the students and their parents on phone. Teachers can broadcast messages & files to the entire class and receive feedback from the students and the parents privately. Arch the way is revolutionizing the education sector with its innovative idea

Fashion Darbar(Founder – Amitava Dasgupta): It is a fashion apparel ecommerce business, solving the problem that shoppers often face with the fitting of clothes. This startup gives the option to manufacture apparels as per the customer’s request and size. The best upcoming feature of Fashion Darbar is the ‘My Price’ concept. Through the ‘My Price’ feature customers can bargain and get the best price.

Hungry Rabbit(Founder-Ankul Jagatramka): It is an emerging online food business provider.  This startup also provides digital backup to help all the restaurants and also has the unique feature of Social chefs.

Ocaision(Founder- Himanshu Bhatia): This startup lets one select the most interesting occasion and gets tickets in a jiffy. There are additional features such as searching best suited venue for the occasion and browse services from an exhaustive collection of occasion services. Ocaision is an interesting startup to look forward to.

Headstart’s Kolkata team pulled off yet another successful event. Startup Saturday has become one of the key initiatives in Kolkata, catering to the need of entrepreneurs and budding startup enthusiasts. A big thank you to our audience for their unswerving support and enthusiasm.

Written By: Annupreeti; Edited by: Swati Ramnath