What is enterprise e-summit:
E- Summit is a unique initiative by The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay which serves as a common platform for aspiring, budding and successful entrepreneurs to interact and help build successful enterprises.
E-Summit 09, also celebrating the Golden Jubilee celebrations of IIT Bombay had an overlying theme of Empowering entrepreneurs.
Morning address:
The welcome address was delivered by Prof. Devang Khakkar, Director IIT Bombay though full half an hour behind schedule but it provide insights into the initiatives of enterprise cell and the past hurdles faced by them.It was also pointed out that they are looking for gaining more tract in the area of entrepreneurship awareness programmes.
The keynote address was delivered by Mr.kanwal rekhi , MD Inventus capital.
He talked at length about how Japan and U.S has entrepreneurs in large numbers and the society at large supports entrepreneurs there but entrepreneurs in India just consists of 1-2 % of the entire population.
He also pointed the fact that how his former student student who turned entrepreneur made him so jealous at the same time inspired him to turn entrepreneur.The main underlying was always have some role models who were commoner few years ago and turned their fortunes which would always inspire you to believe that if those people can do it then you are no exception.
1st panel discussion:
- Kanwal Rekhi, MD Inventus capital.
- Aravind Singhal, Chairman Technopak.
- Vishal Gondal, CEO Indiagames
- Vinnie Vyas, CEO Crossover advisors who was also mentoring the panel discussions.
Main takeaways:
To be a successful entrepreneur either invent a pain killer or a product which is better, faster or cheaper than the other available products in the market.
An entrepreneur does not need to change the field of his interest for business purpose he can continue chasing his interest with business motive too,e.g just how vishal gondal made a muti-million dollar empire by just concentrating on his favourite hobby i.e gaming.
Being an entrepreneur is like being pregnant because in the end you have to deliver.
When you aim for the sky you reach moon when you aim for the moon you reach nowhere.
Entrepreneurs in these turbulent days need to be flexible in whatever they do beacause the journey is similar to that of the road on a mountain you have to take turn whenever needed else you loose you life.
Networking lunch:
All the penalist were seen chatting with aspiring entrepreneurs and giving them a verbal piece of advice and were answering the question posed by them.
Through the lunch I caught up an informal conversation with vishal gondal, indiagames which seemed to suggest that they are very bullish on their games on demand platform and are not worried about reliance foraying with zapak gameplexes and even their future venture through reliance broadband.
His take was that the main subscribers for indiagames are not coming from metro cities but instead are people from tier-1 and tier-2 cities and he quoted figure as high as 90%-something to really think about.
2nd panel discussions:
- Kiruba Shankar of Kiruba.com
- Alok Kejriwal ,CEO and co founder, games2win
- Jay Gupta ,MD the loot store.
- Rajeev Mantri ,ED Navam Capital
Key takeaways:
Observe your customer they might just provide you with next big opportunity.
Get a good team without a team you can’t do much yourself.
Get an experience of the industry before venturing into that field.
If you want to be an entrepreneur always defy conventional wisdom.
Never be too greedy while taking funding because the funding is very much required for your companies future growth and hence take as much you need.
A session by david wittenberg on brand ideation:
Make your idea as simple as possible because many muti-billion companies are made on that idealogy.
Always observe your consumer never go by herd mentality.
Always go for prototype or alpha launch which is way better than spending a fortune and realising a mistake later on.
If your product offers Value of more than 1 then your product has a potential to become success:
V=B/P where B stands for benefit the consumer derives from that product and p being price benefit.
Networking tea:
I caught up with Rusell Stamets, JCSS Consulting Pvt. Ltd
One thing I must point out is that never underestimate foreign nationals of venture capital industry beacuse they have a very deep understanding of Indian markets so dont try to fool them that was also the viewpoint of rusell stamets.
His take was that the presentation of Indian companies are very lengthy and it should be no more than 20 mins and if its PPT presentation than it should be no more than 10 slides.
His another viewpoint suggested that even venture capital industry works on herd menatlity.
If you want to get an insight into vc world than start following guy kawasaki because many of these Industry people are big fan of him.
3rd panel dicussions:
- Farzana Haque, Global Decision Manager,TCS.
- Mohanjit jolly, DFJ Venture Capital.
Key takeaways:
Venture capitalist are getting bullish on sectors like cleantech ,education and healthcare related sector due to laggardness of these sectors in India and future potential is just enormous.
Almost every people from private equity industry is heard saying that the next big thing in mobile would be from india though it has to be seen how much of it holds flake in future.
On showcase:
Microsoft biz spark:
Microsoft is doling out free production licenses for application hosting and management servers, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server, BizTalk Server and Systems Center and soon, Microsoft Dynamics CRM.This is seen as a strategy to get familiar with companies at nascent stage and become their main I.T software vendor.
The results for eureka –Asia’s largest business plan competition was also announced and there was Venture pitch and other mentoring -parallel sessions held for attendees who were selected prior to the event.
