We’re super excited to kick off proceedings for The Grand Finale of TechSparks 2012, India’s biggest tech product startup discovery platform, which will be held on September 8th at the MLR Convention Centre, Bangalore. We’re very close to the 5th and final Roundtable at Hyderabad (which is this Saturday) before the Grand Finale in Bangalore. These Roundtables, which were held across 5 cities in India (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad) saw 1500+ startups, 2000+ startup enthusiasts and several VCs come together to network, bounce off ideas and celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship.

You can still apply to be a Techspark.

What to expect the finale?

The Grand Finale will unveil the top 30 tech product startups (including 10 mobile startups). These finalists will be picked by a jury from the 500+ applicants and 700+ app developers who registered during this 3 month campaign to become a “TechSpark”. The day long startup extravaganza will be anchored by Shereen Bhan of CNBC TV18 and the 30 Sparks from the Indian Tech community will emerge as they demo.

And to boost off proceedings, the Early Bird Tickets for the Grand Finale are now on sale! Book your seats now, in time to avoid missing out later! Just as a word of caution, we had to close registrations early because we ran out of space at the venue, so don’t wait till the last minute.

Block Your Seats Now! [Ticket partners: Ayojak and MeraEvents]

Contact:

samridhi@yourstory.in [+91-9740196885 / +91-9769004430]

chandan@yourstory.in [+91-9986198806]

Overwhelmed by the response in Mumbai and Delhi, we reached the southern city of Chennai which enchanted us with its own idiosyncrasies. A reticent but perspicacious audience was witness to a brilliant talk by V.T. Bharadwaj of Sequoia Capital who profiled the entrepreneurship landscape in India through an investor’s eye. Veering slightly from the usual tradition of a roundup wherein no pitches are made, Chennai gave entrepreneurs a chance to make a 2 minute pitch and the likes of 1000Lookz, HmmApp, Localever, Lema Labs, Metrosmith, and PlayText drove home a point.

Next in line was Ahmedabad and it came as the biggest surprise of all! Having to close registrations 3 days before the event, even after having moved to a bigger hall at IIM-A. The IMDC auditorium was jam packed 300 people in the audience where we expected much less! The young and enthusiastic crowd was treated by a fantastic key note speech by Gautam Gandhi, Head – New Business Development Emerging Markets, Google. One sentence that will definitely keep ringing in the crowds head and give them the motivation to startup has to be, “Think Big, Fail Big, Fail Spectacularly; They’ll Remember You.” The Panel discussion in Ahmedabad was brought to life by the local hero, Vishal Mehta, the founder at Infibeam; with questions galore, Ahmedabadis imbibed as much as they could.

Now in the last leg of our campaign, we are set to meet the startup ecosystem in Hyderabad on July 29, 2012. With just 13 more days left to apply (applications close on July 30, 2012) to be a TechSpark 2012, the anticipation is beginning to build.

All these Roundtables culminate into a Tech30 report which will be unveiled at the Techsparks2012 Grand Finale on September 8^th, 2012 in Bangalore. These 30 startups will pitch at the startup extravaganza and we’d love you to join us in the celebration! Come, be a part of it, block your seat today!

“Don’t think: just jump’ was his first point which he fleshed out further by mentioning that to succeed as an entrepreneur you will need to take the risk along with the possibility of failure. He spoke of ‘analysis paralysis’ meaning that you’ll never has all the information before beginning and it’s quite likely that you have the wrong information. It’s better to get on with it knowing you could fail rather than waiting for more information.

His second recommendation was ‘think big – big markets – big growth’. Big markets allow for room for everyone and new players can enter. Some of the questions that are serious food for thought were ‘what are today’s big trends? What are VCs investing in?’ “In smaller markets you have to work as hard to succeed and the probability of success is less as mature players exist. Pick a market that is big and rapidly growing,” he advised. “You have a better shot at success if you can move quickly and do something new and disruptive.” He also mentioned that if there was a lot of buzz around something, you’re probably too late at riding that wave. “News is really old news – you have to be well ahead of the curve.”

A seeming contradiction to this was his third point ‘think small – execute well.’ The essence however, fits in with his previous point of think big in terms of markets and growth. He elaborated that it’s better to pick a small problem and solve it really well. The focus should lie on process and quality. “Execution will be the only differentiator eventually so embed process and quality into the organizational culture,” Sashi instructed. Humourously, his powerpoint slide explained it best – great execution will always beat great ideas (unless you are Steve Jobs). Some of the thought provoking questions he asked the budding entrepreneurs seated were – how will you solve a small problem and how will it be supported and sold? “Ideas are dime a dozen. Any good entrepreneur has five good ideas. Execution is the only thing that matters.”

“Be #1 in something” was his next nugget of truth. Essentially, select a tiny area of the huge market and become #1 in that and then you can always expand that box and try to continue to be #1. Focusing on that allows all stakeholders to remain aligned with the company. Naturally, this has to be a realistic goal that you can achieve within 3-4 years.

Sashi then spoke about how when he started AppLabs in 2001, he had to figure out how to make the company stand out. He asked himself “how do you structure yourself to be #1?” He answered his own question by setting himself up for a goal of becoming #1 at testing services for software product companies in 4-5 years which he then went on to achieve. The lessons learned from this? Having such a clear focus “gets the whole team aligned and everyone knows what you’re trying to do. If you’re clear, all your questions are automatically answered. You don’t have to stay in the small box. If you’re able to get your goals, expand the box.”

He also spoke of his other venture FXLabs which did well but was not necessarily solving a problem or addressing a market need so it’s important to be #1 but also address a market need, he endorsed.

As an entrepreneur, his next lesson highlighted the need to answer the question “why should you exist?” Do not lose sight of the value you bring to customers. It’s great to be faster, better, and cheaper and to be in it for the money. You must show value to your customers as well as all stakeholders. A good way of understanding this is to be clear about this statement: “Because I exist, something in the world is better.” What are you doing for customers that no one else is doing and what are you doing better than anyone else? What’s your value proposition to a customer?

“If you’re doing it for social good – be upfront and run a non-profit,” Sashi advocated. As with any other business venture, you exist to make money for shareholders. Other questions for folks in the room to think about were “how will I be able to make money for investors and others in the team? and am I really adding value? “Just because you’re getting business, it doesn’t mean you’re adding value. Key relationships help you get started but are you really adding value?” Sashi asked.

His next tip was simple, ‘keep thinking.’ The context for this is constantly changing markets and competition which translates as a flexible approach that could mean changing business plans a dozen times before getting them right. A good question to consider as a team he posited was “what have you done different today, this week, and this month?” He felt employees should be allowed to stay abreast of the outside world and an hour spent browsing the internet to do so wouldn’t be wasted time. “If you’re doing the same thing, it’s going to ride out the wave to the extent it can and then go away. Where is the new thinking? You want a culture where people are looking at the world and coming up with ideas that impact the business.” The start-up’s strength is that it can adapt to change so that ought to be leveraged when business plans demand a change.

Along similar lines was his next recommendation, ‘think different.’ He felt that there was a cultural aversion to failing and his advice was to ‘fail often and fail early.’ “There are times when you analyze everything to death. On paper you cannot know what will and will not work,” he cautioned. “No amount of theory can tell you whether it works or not. Try and see what happens. I would rather see entrepreneurs try something and fail. It’s easier to fail early in the cycle than to fail later after spending money. You cannot walk away easily when you create something, but you’ve got to be prepared to walk away and build another idea/company,” he rationalised.

On hiring, Sashi’s counsel was get a team that isn’t very similar to you. He emphasized the value of diversity whether in age, gender, race or experience. The responsibility of attracting great talent remains with the founder as ‘you will be judged by the people you are surrounded by.’ Sashi mentioned that during his early days he worked with friends or classmates that were very similar to himself and he quickly realized that if everyone’s technical, who fills the gaps of knowledge when it comes to going to market or recruting? “A sign of a good entrepreneur is the ability to attract smart people who think slightly differently and get comfortable with varying sets of opinions,” he maintained.

Towards the conclusion of his presentation, Sashi encouraged team spirit and fun at the workplace. The ability of a team to be able to work together will always be better than having experts who cannot see eye-to-eye, he opined. “The secret is having clearly defined roles and letting people do their thing,” he shared.

His parting shot was ‘forget what I just told you.’ “There are no rules so feel free to make up your own and go with your instincts and evolve a winning strategy,” he concluded.

A brief Q&A session followed Sashi’s talk where he mentioned that several challenges that existed for entrepreneurs have been overcome in the last two years since the ecosystem has improved. He felt the entrepreneurs he’s met so far are comparable globally in terms of what they have to offer. The Hyderabad Angels group, the ISB incubator, VC funding options, along with more mentoring and networking opportunities have all contributed to this healthy ecosystem.

He also challenged the myth of ‘no innovation is happening in India.’ He felt “innovation is seeping out.” He projects that in the future, there will be more innovation in the product space coming out of India.

With Hyderabad, we conclude the TechSparks Roundtables for 2012. Up next is the Gala Event, TechSparks Grand Finale, scheduled to happen in Bangalore on 8th September. Block your seat today to witness India’s Top 20 emerging tech startups of 2012 ( the tickets are selling super fast, so hurry up! ).

We thank our sponsors Intel, Sequoia Capital, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, CNBC TV18 and VentureBeat for their continued support which was instrumental in making all the Roundtables successful. 

- Jessie Cherian

If you’re still looking to be a part of Techsparks 2012, the registrations for The Grand Finale in Bangalore are open. (The Grand Finale is a culmination of all the 5 Roundtables conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.)

And as a reminder for the Agenda for the Hyderabad Roundtable, here’s a recall:

Date: 28/July/2012

Venue: Hotel Fortune Select Manohar (Old Airport Exit Road, Begumpet, Hyderabad)

Agenda

The first question was directed to Aakash regarding a VCs ability to look at a product and judge whether it will work or not and the criteria applied to the ability of a product to scale.

Aakash’s first response was the caveat “never tailor a company for a VC. VCs will come and go. You will stay longer than a VC.” From there he went on to speak about the quality of an idea and whether it solves a customer need or a real, central problem and doesn’t provide an extremely complex solution. The quality of the team and whether they were able to chase the vision outlined was another important consideration. The ability to understand the size and scope of a market and gauge the market reaction to the product all go into the consideration process as well. Apart from this, quality of revenues (lumpy or recurring), traction of the business, defensibility of the product and quality of the financials were other key aspects that VCs look into. These are broad principles but are applied selectively depending on product and industry.

Joe was then asked what it takes to build a venture from scratch that becomes huge. “Those great IPO days are gone. These are acquisition days,” Joe opined. You have done a good job if you put together a business and when you exit out of it, you find a higher return on your time than if you had worked elsewhere. Some practical words of wisdom from him were ‘focus on your core competency and don’t waste time on anything apart from developing the product. Have your idea, execute early, measure and test on that idea (it’s a version of the idea that gets acquired).” He emphasized getting feedback from the market and building into your culture the ability to get feedback and then feeding that back into your product development.

The last moderated question that the panel looked at was the actual building of a good product and what goes into the nuts and bolts of product development. All panelists unanimously agreed that the product must solve a need. Need identification is a rigourous process that might change every day but the product must make life easier. Other key considerations for the entrepreneur are what does a customer want? Is the market ready and is this the right time to launch? Are you targeting the right people and are they the kind that can scale the use of the product?

The live Q&A opened the floor for further interaction between the participants and panelists. Aakash tackled the question of whether Sequoia invests in the early stage and as an exception he said they do. He also said “VCs are suckers for traction.” It’s great to have recurring clients in order to get funded at an early stage.

Joe tackled the question of at what stage of product development should the launch be planned by stating, “the smallest stage possible. It’s always better to launch as early as possible” Aviral added, “market feedback is also valuable,” and can be gathered with an early launch. Joe also shared his perspective on how Amazon tackles the aspect of data security with respect to cloud computing prompted by a question from the audience.

On customer acquisition, Aviral said, ‘you have to be your own customer and use your own product.’ He also mentioned using employee networks or targeting different channels of customers and figuring out which mode and channel work the best.  Aakash mentioned that early traction is usually seen from friends and family and then it’s important to understand the return on investment from the various channels that you’re reaching out to. Shraddha’s personal lesson was to meet people and attend relevant events or even provide free trials initially to get started.

A spin-off from this was Aakash’s idea of co-developing a product along with a client or a small set of clients first and using the deep engagement to figure out requirements as well as points of customization and then use the same features to scale to other clients in a similar industry. From this, the panel moved onto the question of patents and Joe clarified that very few ideas are unique. The ability to execute and bring a product to market is unique. An inventor is someone who builds something completely new and he felt that there was a distinction that ought to be noted. Aviral felt that uniqueness comes from ‘being close to the customer’ and the challenge lies in doing that right.

In terms of hiring at an early stage, the panel advised that it’s best to start with folks that you’re most comfortable with. You will need to know where your target folks are hanging out and tune into the right forums. Aviral felt that getting the right people was one aspect and ensuring engagement with them was another one that needs to be considered as well. Delegation of responsibilities could be one way to start this process.

About dealing with the competition, Joe felt it was important to focus on the customer and innovate on behalf of them. Aakash also rallied that entrepreneurship is very rarely about pioneering ideas but it is about execution. “Don’t assume you’re the first in the world, promise that you will execute better than anyone else in the world,” was his take on innovation.

With Hyderabad, we conclude the TechSparks Roundtables for 2012. Up next is the Gala Event, TechSparks Grand Finale, scheduled to happen in Bangalore on 8th September. Block your seat today to witness India’s Top 20 emerging tech startups of 2012 ( the tickets are selling super fast, so hurry up! ).

We thank our sponsors Intel, Sequoia Capital, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, CNBC TV18 and VentureBeat for their continued support which was instrumental in making all the Roundtables successful. 

- Jessie Cherian

He started his workshop by focusing on what designing a product means and how to think like a product manger. In one sentence, product managers make decisions and live the consequences. They own which features get to stay and which get thrown out the door and create a product strategy. This brief introduction to the role was followed up by an activity to get folks in the room thinking. The activity was to design a business card as a product manager would. He also provided some open ended questions to consider and guide the activity – who’s the user? what do you want to communicate? what’s the ideal user experience? what’s the end result that you expect? what’s the final call-to-action on the part of the user?

In the case of the business card, everyone in the room agreed that future interaction whether by email/phone or a website hit was the final intended result.

The next step was guiding the audience towards was the layout of the product (or in this case the business card). Some practical considerations he placed before the audience included facts such as most people reading business cards left-to-right, card creators indexing by a forgettable name, the right side of the card likely being covered by the user’s fingers, the usefulness or lack of it of providing a physical address, the ability for a colour blind person to read the card, as well as other important features that might be missing from everyday run-of-the-mill business cards.

His recommendations for the business card as a product were, put something interesting and catchy on the top left and design a clear call-to-action on your business card which could be “follow me on twitter/linkedin/facebook” or a QR Code. Other considerations were the usage of white space and lack of clutter to provide for actionable space. These would result from prioritisation of the most important features which is the main focus of a product manager.

The next product aspect that he tackled was the ability to make a product stand out. His tip, “do something interesting to catch attention. Do something funny or do something evil.” He shared his own innovative use of a QR code with a small batman logo at its centre. He also mentioned a humourous (or evil!) approach of someone who created a business card that was bigger than the standard business card which meant it literally “stood out” amongst a stack of such cards.

To get your product to stand out, build a special relationship with the user so that the user has an emotional connect with your product. He felt that these principles applied to enterprise products as well.

Moving from designing the product, to measurement, Aditya’s kicker was ‘measure the crap out of everything!’ By this he didn’t mean just carrying out A/B testing but measuring everything as a habit in order to glean actionable and un-intuitive insights. “Your gut can tell you what to do, but the numbers should tell you if your gut is right,” he maintained.

In e-commerce, he urged that it’s important to know the value of each user to the business as well as the best time to advertise. “Once you have data, you know where to spend your next marketing dollar,” he shared. He shared the usage of heat maps and eye tracking studies to track and then incorporate user behaviour to product design.

His take on innovation – it’s a process not an idea that goes off like a lightbulb. The good news – since it’s a process, it can be replicated. He shared the story of how the post-it was developed through an iterative process which started with the inability to solve a problem in the painting industry but which went on to become a household and office writing tool due to its ability to be used in a vastly different setting than for which it was initially intended. “Innovation is never an idea. It’s a process that you can iterate and develop.”

In the product space, he felt that it might be useful to first list out important features of your product and then come up with absurd ideas by eliminating one of the most important features to see how it can be replaced by something new and creative. He gave the audience a practical taste of this by giving an example of a travel site which doesn’t allow users to set vacation dates. The folks in the room came up with alternatives almost immediately!

Aditya closed the workshop with the idea that innovation is a responsibility that is owned by the founder of a startup. Throughout the workshop, Aditya clearly linked the exercise of the designing of the business card back to the job of a product manager using analogies and anecdotes to drive home his points in a lively, fun, and interactive manner.

He can be contacted at aditya@yourstory.in for entrepreneurs looking for a tech mentor.

With Hyderabad, we conclude the TechSparks Roundtables for 2012. Up next is the Gala Event, TechSparks Grand Finale, scheduled to happen in Bangalore on 8th September. Block your seat today to witness India’s Top 20 emerging tech startups of 2012 ( the tickets are selling super fast, so hurry up! ).

We thank our sponsors Intel, Sequoia Capital, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, CNBC TV18 and VentureBeat for their continued support which was instrumental in making all the Roundtables successful. 

- Jessie Cherian

Shradha Sharma moderating the Panel Discussion

Shradha Sharma, founder, YourStory.in, gave the audience a hint of impact of TechSparks event in the last year. Out of the 30 companies identified through Tech30 Report, 14 companies have received funding, one was acquired, and one company acquired an European company. “This validates our initiative,” Shradha pointed out.

V.T. Bharadwaj profiles the entrepreneurship landscape in India through an investor’s eye

Sequoia Capital is a venture capital with a global presence. One is always intrigued by their investments in Vasan Eye Care and Prakash Snacks. V.T. Bharadwaj, MD, Sequoia Capital, unravelled the mystery in his keynote speech. For a company that has invested in 74 businesses in India over three years, certain characteristics are obvious. But Sequoia looks at three important parameters to invest: (a) total addressable market, (b) evidence of customers loving the product or a service, and (c) team/entrepreneur. This broad framework aided by the fact that the range of businesses may be from domains such as health care, pharma, IT, software, kitchen appliances in a country like India has kept Sequoia’s outlook open. Another important aspect of the businesses is their small initial investment. QuickHeal started with an initial investment of Rs. 25,000 for example and have scaled manifold quickly. Druvaa, which provides enterprise backup and disaster recovery solutions, appealed because of its total addressable market. One Assist’s business of helping customers secure their wallet (which contains credit cards, debit cards, and other documents) if it is lost, by blocking the cards and arranging for new ones was the crucial factor in the investment.

“The time to incubate is higher in India,” said Bharadwaj. Thus a company makes it easy at Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 crore of annual revenue but for a revenue of Rs. 150, it takes a bit of time. A crucial ingredient of scale is testing product robustness continuously and then execution intensity gaining speed once the customers adopt the product has been the approach of Sequoia in India. “It is always better to go after the large share of the market once the product builds scale,” said Bharadwaj, which is very much the case in India.

His final piece of advice was: keep the cash burn low (as incubation takes a longer time), be patient on a product (till customer adoption stage) and impatience on growth once execution starts. In the backdrop of the Sequoia experience, this is the best way to scale a business in India distilled by V.T. Bharadwaj for the entrepreneur community in Chennai.

Then Aditya Kulkarni, Product Manager at InMobi and YourStory’s product evangelist, laid out a broad picture outlook for product managers in his product workshop. Using experiential learning techniques (such as designing a business card), he demonstrated how innovation could be made a repetitive process as innovation means recombination of ideas. He also stressed upon the importance of measuring everything to make informed decisions.

A panel discussion followed after the workshop and another important highlight of the roundtable was local entrepreneurs in Chennai showcasing their apps.

—Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy, Chief Evangelist

Keeping with our theme, “The Smartest Way to Scale Your Startup”, the focus will be on enabling all the factors required for the rapid growth of technology ventures. To keep you abreast of the happenings of the event, here are the details of all that we have in store:

Venue:  IC&SR Auditorium, IIT Madras

Date: 29th June, 2012

Agenda

2:00 PM to 2:30 PM – Registration over Refreshments

2:30 PM to 2:40 PM – Introduction by Shradha Sharma, Founder, YourStory.in

2:40 PM to 3:10 PM – “Lessons from a Venture Capitalist” with VT Bharadwaj, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital

3:10 PM to 3:55 PM – Startup Product WorkShop

3:55 PM to 4:55 PM – Interactive Panel Discussion on “The Smartest Way to Scale Your Startup”. The panel will include:

• Narendra Bhandari- Director AsiaPacific, Software & Services Group, Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd.
• Vaidya Nathan- Founder & CEO, Classle Knowledge Pvt. Ltd.
• Venkat Rangan- Co-Founder & CEO, INXS Technologies Ltd.
• Kingsley Wood- Business Development Director, Amazon Web Services (APAC)

4.55 PM to 5.25 PM – Open House with Questions from Entrepreneurs

5.25 PM to 5:45 PM – Startup Showcase

5:45 PM onwards – Networking and Closing Remarks

See you there!

Know more about Techsparkshere and register for the Chennai Roundtable which is happening on 29^th June here.