HeadStart 2009 is going to be organized on the 9 / 10 /11 January 2009. Details will be published at the earliest to provide you with ample time for the preparation.
If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, entrepreneur, student, industry leader or an academician, you need to be there. Please visit HeadStart for more updates and join Friends of KickStart mailing list to receive updates regularly.
The Blogalorean community has decided to have its first ever Blogathon during March 2008. This even runs for a week and bloggers get to write/comment/critic on various thoughts.
All details pertaining to the event are available on Blogathon web site. So, am not going to re-write anything here 🙂
Join the Blogalorean community (there are certain guidelines) and also follow us on twitter to know more about the event.
Going forward, I would like to write on my learnings on Innovation, Strategy, interesting information on Entrepreneurship and introduce you to books and sites which can provide you with loads of information regarding these topics. I name this series as “Innovation Series #<No>” and you can filter all posts on this topic using tags – Innovation, Strategy.
Let me begin this week with some interesting information and links: Fidelity Ventures PresentationsVery interesting presentations available. Especially I like the presentation on “Positioning Technology Companies for Success” in which there is a very practical depiction of “Magic Quadrant” which is very important for any organization to showcase itself.
Building Teams is another good one where the speaker is concentrating on how do you build, recognize and manage teams which produce results.
The Joy of fund raising is a good point to start before you make your first investor pitch.
When you write your business plan, one key aspect which you cannot miss to pen down is “Exit Strategy”. You will need to have this section which brings clarity to yourself and your investors.
Managing Successful Exit gives you an insight into this.
State of Indian EntrepreneurshipSanjeev Bikchandani, on his blog wrote about State of Indian Entrepreneurship.
A nice read and this is what i have to say -” That was very thoughtful Sanjeev. Yes, as you mentioned there are various organizations who are promoting entrepreneurship. I just wanted to throw light on BarCamps which are fast becoming forums for like minded people which deserve a noble mentioning keeping the returns in mind. Likewise, we just concluded HeadStart yesterday which focused on showcasing entrepreneurial spirit and also brought investors, academicians, entrepreneurs together.Coming to the “slow down”, yes, we need to be worried, but IMHO a person who believes in his/her ideology and passion need not bother about it. However, one needs to assess risks and ensure there is always a risk mitigation plan in place. When you write your business plan, always has answer to the other side of your proposal – this would be a lot of help.”
Buy and Sell IdeasDid you know that there is a market for buying and selling ideas? Yes, there is. Visit Idea Pages and you will know. Idea Pages provides you a platform to list your idea and will link you and the party interested in your idea so that you can either sell/partnership with the prospect to bring your idea to life 🙂
Angel Group Financing has an interesting e-book on Venture Capital information for Entrepreneurs.
You will need to visit The Institute of Innovation and Information Productivity web site to get some interesting information on these topics. Read the IIIP Innovation confidence Index for 2007 which says Asia shows most enthusiasm for Innovation. Interesting data.
Blogs on Entrepreneurship – Sramana Mitra, Paul Graham have interesting writings on Entrepreneurship.
Forbes Midas list has the list of worlds top 25 Venture Capitalist’s and there are 3 Indian names with Ram Shriram at number 3.
Refresh yourself and smile, after you see this comic strip on Web 2.0.
During the closing session of HeadStart, there were loads of comments which came in from participants present there. I am not going to write them here, but will consolidate and get them at a later stage. Also, we have received few emails personally. This is the first time we organized this and these feedbacks motivate us to do more. If you have any feedback regarding our “need for improvement” do not hesitate to send us and we will try to work on them. If you would like to keep hearing from us, please subscribe to friends-of-kickstart.
Afternoon session started with Mr Deepak Srinivasan‘s thoughts on Product Management.
Role of a Product Manager:
Deepak recommends Crossing the Chasm for understanding how to sell to customers.
You can write to Deepak at deepak {AT} mobiance {dot} com
Cost based funding and Startup Culture – Ashwin Masheh, MapUnity
This concludes the 2 day HeadStart for 2008. Look for more updates on www.HeadStart.in and www.KickStart.in
Do write to me (hari {AT} kickstart {dot} in) or leave a comment on any of these posts if you want to get in touch with our team.
Here we are; the last day of HeadStart 2008. The morning session started with key note presentation by Dr Peter Hofstee, Chief Scientist, IBM Research at Almaden Research Center, USA on Cell Broadband Engine.
Srini Vudayagiri – LightSpeed VenturePartners
You can write to Srini with any questions/project proposals – srini {AT} lightspeedvp {dot} com
Startup Funding – Ganapathy Subramaniam, myDuniya
With this, the morning session concluded. Its lunch time. In thepost-lunch session, we have Product Management by Deepak Srinivasan and Cost based funding & culture in startup’s by Ashwin Mahesh. So, stay tuned.
Afternoon session of HeadStart kicked off with Embedded & Silicon systems segment presentations / demo’s and concluded with a fantastic panel discussion for which Dr S Ramesh of General Motors, Giri Krishna of Texas Instruments, Ganapathy Subramaniam of Cosmic Circuits and Devesh Garg of Bessemer Venture Partners providing key insights into technology and VC presence in this segment.
Vayavya Labs – Device Driver Generating Tool
Developing the world’s first automated device driver generator too.
Benefits of DDGen
BioEnable
Developing products & services based on TCP/IP, Internet, Biometrics, RFID, GPRS, GPS, RF Wireless.
iWave
iWave specializes in providing turnkey embedded hardware and software design services and design solution.
Mango Technologies
The Mango Advantage:
PS: I am no authority on Embedded not do I posses enough knowledge to comment on this subject. So, reproduced what the presenters spoke and also referred to their websites for more information.
Day 3 of HeadStart will be very exciting. We begin the day with Identifying and validating business opportunities keynote session by Srini Vudayagiri. So, tune in without fail.
Also, there are 100 free passes to give away for this session. Write to sbhagavatula [AT] gmail [dot] com
Day 2 at HeadStart started off with a bang. The inaugural key note presentation was given by Ram Shriram of Sherpalo and he had many things to share. Key summary of the presentation is that Mobile and Web Applications are going to be the future of Technology.
I am here at the venue trying to live blog to share my experiences here. So, if the writings are a bit raw, you will need to bare with it 🙂
Sonim – The all weather phone
As part of technology presentations, Sonim demonstrated their all weather phone technology.
They are looking for Innovating Entrepreneurs who can build applications for their phone.
Q: Do you use a high level OS/how can u support third-party applications?
A: Our next gen phone will help solve this problem
Q: Do you support OTA?
A: Yes
Q: Are your applications only for your phone or for other phones?
A: Our applications run on Windows Device and NXP. We are concentrating on Windows Mobile.
Q: What is the exact OS this phone works on?
A: Philips NXP
A technology innovation and licensing company focused on enhancing the usability of hand held devices.
Q: Have u targeted countries like Russia?
A: Yes, in Ukrain
Q: Did you do any statistical analysis for your product?
A: Yes.
Mobile + Easy = mobisy
Q: Is MobiTop platform independent?
A: Yes and No. People can develop applicatios for MobiTop using Java Script
I am really impressed with this application. Am definitely going to signup 🙂
Panel Discussion
Rajesh Srivatsa – Ojus Startup Ventures
Muralikrishna – Sasken Communications
Jagannath Rao – Motorola
Alok Mittal – Cannan Partners
Viswanath Ganapathy – HoneyWell
Karthee – QualCom Capital Funds
Rajesh Srivatsa – rajesh[at]ojusventures[dot]com
Muralikrishna
Jagannatha Rao
Alok Mittal
Viswanath Gapanathy
Karthee
HeadStart 2008 started with a bang this morning at the JN Tata Auditorium, IISc Campus, Bangalore. Registrations began early at 8 AM and are still continuing as I write this post (10:30 AM IST). There are many technology enthusiasts who are here and also the media is covering the complete event. There are quite a few Live Bloggers too 🙂
More to follow, keep an eye….
We have been hearing about innovation and creation for a long time now (ever since there has been human presence on this mother earth). There are many books available for reading and there are many eminent personalities to explain the same too. However, for a common human being, this term is still on the higher end. End of the day, every time we hear this term, we have one question in our minds – How does it matter to me? That’s a very correct point. I doubt if all of us understood the metal steel as well, until we heard the SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited) punch line – There is little bit of steel in everyone’s life (Now it is rephrased to There is little bit of SAIL in everyone’s life). How true?
Innovation is all together a different process and all of us innovate in our own way to make lives simpler and happier. Consider an example of getting the newspaper from the gate to your sofa? We have seen in films and also in real life many people execute this – train the pet dog to fetch things. Remember the last time you did something destructive at home and you had an innovative lie to your parents. Do you remember the time when you had a better way to memorize those formulae? Everyday, you figure out a new way to home from work to avoid traffic and reach home soon. If I go with the list, we have many. But, how many times have we really innovated destructively? Yes…something to think about.
This is what exactly happened to Automobile industry on the 10th January 2008, with the Tata’s creating the Rupees One Lakh Car.
My co-blogger and friend Thejesh has consolidated most of the important comments by various personalities on his blog. None from the automobile industry provided a good citation of this innovation. Well, they are not able to digest. Deep in their hearts, they are happy, but the position they are in, does not allow them to comment more than that.
In their book Innovative India, Radhika Chadha and Parmit Chadha write about Auto, the most popular and amazing public transport vehicle which is well lauded by everyone (keeping the nosiness and pollution apart). When was the auto last re-invented after it has been invented? Almost never. There have been only 2/3 players in the Indian market and Bajaj is the leader in this. Why has there not been any change in the design or technology to make it better and safer? Interestingly, the authors have taken pains to speak to owners about how they feel and most of them felt that the auto needs more innovation and they are ready to pay more price as long as it is making sense. Why the manufacturers have’s not thought about doing something? Is it because they feel that they have the monopoly? Probably Yes.
Today, why am I writing about all these things is because I sincerely feel that Tata have Destructively Innovated something which no one has ever dreamt of. They have created the People’s Car and millions are waiting to own one.
Innovation is in thought process, commitment and the dare to dream big. Before Maruti 800 came on to road’s 20 years back, we thought that a car is only for the upper class and always have had a picture of the big RR or Ford’s which were with only limited in number. Maruti revolutionized the aspect of a car for family to travel. Now, Tata has again revolutionized the aspect of mobility.
In his article Decoding the Rs 1 lakh message, Mr. Ajit Balakrishnan in Business Standard today, mentions how confusing and tough make the west understand the terminology of “Lakh” in relation to the ‘millions’ which they have. Now, the whole world will understand what a Lakh means.
I am going to my hometown tonight and when I called my dad yesterday, he said “Can you please pick that 1 Lakh car and drive home?” I was really amazed. He was following the news channels and he wants to own one immediately. Mr. Tata, thank you for realizing my dad’s dream to own his own car with his own money (he retired as Principal for Government High School 12 years back and lives on his pension) instead of us, his children wanting to buy him one (He never allowed us to buy a car, because he wanted to own his own car).
There are many testimonials good and bad. However, I look at things optimistically. Let us wait and see what it is actually when it is on the road.
The 1 Lakh car is Destructive Innovation demystified.