Thanks
Siva

@Rajeev I agree with your “egg” analogy - this was obviously raised when we were talking to MVP.

I am looking forward to the good times ahead.

Exciting = Longterm + Aligned with our vision.

With regards to the mentoring only model - From a mentor point of view one needs to be careful of how many eggs one holds in its basket coz the more the eggs the less warmth you can give them for them to hatch. I would ideally look at not more than 5 companies in a year to mentor.

From a Startup point of view - Try asking some hard questions on your business model.. if thats still blur then you surely need a mentor and shud be willing to shell out equity. If thats decently figured out and what you are struggling is with execution then you need to do two things - Hire experience core execution team (which could be cash + equity/cash/equity only depending upon whom you are hiring and what is you cash flow status) and Surround yourself with advisors (This could be your dad, uncle, professor or ex boss who has operations experience)

Hope that answers your queries

I had a word with Sahil Parikh this morning (DA founder) - he said that this has been going on for a while (the planning). No money has been received - its only equity for a host of things such as marketing and product expertise. According to him MVP isn’t the kind of company that is a boardroom ‘expert’. They want to get their hands dirty and spent time with DeskAway. He said that the guys from MVP would be spending something like 1 week in Mumbai with them. So its not ‘mentoring’ just for the name to raise money (to be honest i dont think DA needs it) - so according to him he sees them as an extension to the family and an addition to the ‘team’. The expertise will help them build and also hopefully shortlist certain strategic alliances that they’ve been pursuing that will make them big internationally.. He also spoke about things like organic growth and how VC money forces you to grow unorganically and in a manner that can often lead to a breakdown in structure.. and the like.

This is probably something that WAT would like to do in the future (or wanted to do it at one stage) - but i think the kind of deal that DA has undertaken is probably what WAT wouldn’t have undertaken, right?

Quite interesting in terms of ideology - i think it makes for an interesting WATShow featuring 2 companies - DA & WAT and the approaches towards funding and the like and the key strengths that the 2 look 2 bolster up. In any case i found the DA perspective pretty interesting - makes for a good show nevertheless. Since im this side i can do it - would be fun to do it!

Rajiv, waiting to here your (candid) thoughts on this ‘mentoring’ model. I remember you mentioned something to me at the Jan Proto with respect to this model vis a vis the likes of Alok Kejriwal etc.

On another note. Anyone else tried DeskAway? Or any other project management tool like the overpriced Basecamp etc? I’ve noticed too few indian companies are driving processes to the T. So they dont feel the need to use PM tools. If anyone has case studies of how they manage efficiency otherwise - would love to know.