Category Archives: Startup

Ask

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Ask is the one important factor and the first step towards success.

  • What would have happened if Newton never asked himself “Why did the apple fall down?”
  • What would have happened if Henry Ford asked his potential customers “What do you want?”
  • What would have happened if Richard Branson never asked himself why should he get into airline business?
  • What would happen if no politician ever goes and asks for Votes?
This is not different in Entrepreneurship.

All that we need to do is Ask. Not everyone is interested in Equity for Investment. Few Investors come to you because of their passion. Few investors adore your idea, but might not be able to invest money, but they are ready to mentor you, write a business plan, make a connection etc. Few other investors might just want their name to be associated with your Idea. The list goes on.

When was the last time you asked anyone for Investment in your idea other than Money? 

Monetary investment surely helps’s, but there are other investments which are more precious and help you build your idea.

Next time, ask for Investment from family/friends and strangers other than Money and see how it changes everything.

Health Apps in India

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Over the last few months, I have been working on curating information on Startup’s in HealthCare.

There are many applications/app’s which are being worked on to bring HealthCare to fingertips of consumers. With my observations on around 100 Startups in HealthCare IT, I started to categorise them into three sections.

Lifestyle Apps
These apps focus on monitoring your Steps, Calories burnt, Floors walked, Heart Beat Rate, Sleep Quality, Food in-take, Weight monitoring etc.

The benefits of these apps is that they show you what your lifestyle has been. Using lifestyle apps in India is completely based on self-motivation. Few organisations are motivating their workforce to use these apps and providing small benefits for reaching their goals.

The absolute connection between living a healthy lifestyle and being healthy are yet to be established. In the US, for example, employers motivate their workforce to use Fitbit or Garmin step counter devices for themselves and their family. Based on the activity employees are given discount on their Insurance payments. In India, this might take time to come, but with the speed at which things are changing, I foresee this happening in the next 2-3 years.

Why use these services?
Using these services and tracking Food in-take, steps taken each day at least provides information on how your lifestyle has been. According to the walking site, a sedentary person walks about 3,000 steps a day. In the 1960’s, in Japan, they had a 10,000 steps counter. Why 10,000? Well, at least we know it is an activity which takes effort and walking definitely helps you be more healthier. Probably, this 10,000 steps came from the 10,000 Hour Rule.

Care Apps – Apps Providing Care
Look at apps like myLabYogi, DoctorC, CyberLiver, Achiralabs etc. These are focusing on providing care at home like Blood Collections, Monitoring Liver Health, Medical Diagnostics at Home etc.

Why use these services?
Predominantly, these services are for elders at home and others who are busy and cannot afford to go to a Diagnostic lab just to give the sample and collect reports. Also, instead of going to a Hospital/Clinic, today you can book an appointment with the Doctor and go at your specific time-slot which saves you time too.

Service Apps – e-Commerce, Booking appointments etc.
Practo, Zipnosis, Surgical are few of the best examples of Service oriented Apps. You can book doctor appointments, consult with other Doctors etc.

Why use these services?
There is a surge in requests for Doctor Appointments, collecting samples from home, second Doctor reference etc. Apps/Services in this category are beginning to streamline Health service requests. Even though these services are currently being used in select cities, they are fast penetrating into the complete country. Over a period of time, we see that if not all, most of the Doctor community will be online and services will start to get better. Since we do not have a central medical system (like the NHS in UK), these apps can bring about the change in reaching out to Doctors and how we start looking at improving care.

PS: I might change the categorisations if required and would go deeper into each categorisation over the next few weeks. If you are interested in getting a complete report on Companies working on various Health related applications, subscribe to my HealthCare Technology Report.

You don’t need Money to Startup

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Traditional approach to investments for Startup is Friends, Family, VC’s and Angel’s. But, when you are pondering on idea’s to startup, before you pool in money to either start or make it big, you will need lot of other services/resources for which you need not have cash.

You have an idea and you have validated it. Now, it is the time you start investing to make your dream come true. The biggest investment you make is time and the rest follows.

First, make a list of things which you would require. Let us say you are starting a website to offer online Piano lessons. The first expense is the Domain name and the Web site. The second expense is building the website. Next comes marketing and signing up for the first client.

Domain name and Web hosting space cost very less (~Rs.2,500) and you can self fund it or alternatively request someone to invest and you pay back when you have signup’s. Designing the web site and getting it live is the biggest expense. Try reaching to your friends and networks if someone can help you part time to design the website. You may offer something in return – Probably, 50% of the money from the first month revenue etc. The intention here is to have the web site designed and taken live.

What happened here is that even though you did not have money, you have got your website done. Technically, you don’t need money, but you need what money can buy for you.

Today’s world, there are lot of people who want to do something, but unable to take the next step for some reason or the other. Reach out to people and am very confident someone will step up to help you. In return, you can also provide a helping hand to someone who needs something which you can offer.

When starting up, stop focusing on money, and start focusing on what money can buy.

As a first step, I can help with Market Evaluation for your startup. Reach out to me at hnpv at harinathpv dot com if you need help. I will give my best.

Why should you Bootstrap?

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From the time we are born and till we complete schooling, parents bootstrap. When we get to college, we do not have Credit Cards (Funding), but we do odd jobs to support ourselves. When the biggest and the most important aspects of life are arising out of bootstrapping, then why not our Ideas? Why do we look for funding?

Bootstrapping is often misunderstood word. Bootstrapping is just not our own money. Bootstrapping also covers money we borrow from family and friends. This money is very crucial for us to do what we need to and we have timelines when we return the money. This money comes because people around us trust in what we are doing.

Even when we startup, going to family and friends first to raise some equity to build what we want is very important in many aspects.

First, we have the confidence we have our first customers.
Second, getting support from people we know gives us the confidence and required motivation that we are on the right path.
Third, we will also develop a social commitment and work towards making the idea successful because we need to return the money.

Bootstrapping is not only associated with the Money, but also associated with our credibility. What happens when you have a new idea and share that with your Manager? Your Manager evaluates and after he invests and buys into your idea, he takes it to the Senior Leadership. Your Senior Leadership trusts you because your immediate Manager also thinks that your idea is worth while. They allow you to work on your idea. It becomes your moral responsibility to not let your Leadership down because you might not get another chance.

So, next time you have an idea give it your best shot to BootStrap rather than looking for funding or passing it on to someone else in the team to do the execution.

#Confidence AND #Competence

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It is a very subtle difference between the two words. They sound almost similar and start with the same syllable.

One word describes your personality and the other describes how you operate. Confidence and Competence are the key attributes of our personality.

Confidence comes with experience and Competence comes with practice.

To be confident, one must adhere to the rules of the game and understand how to execute learnings, and to be competent, one must practice the execution.

Confidence is being self-aware; being aware of what you know and what you do not. Acceptance of the unknown and willingness to explore the uncharted path.

Competence is accepting the ability of coming together of forces which en-kindle the thought.

Confidence AND Competence will make you Impregnable, which is what will make you cogent.

The One Thing

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Having the passion, desire and ability is one aspect of building a meaningful life and its outcomes, but focusing on The One Thing is the most important.

The one Thing is the first action you take which will impact other facets of your life.

To build on the habit of winning and accomplishing it becomes extremely important to keep refocusing on what needs to be accomplished.

Each day, identify what needs to be accomplished by end of day. From the list, pick 1 task which will have an impact on the day and the remaining task’s. Execute on that first task and notice the impact it creates on the reminder of tasks and the day.

Motivation comes from our inner fire and the fire ignites and continues to burn when we keep focusing and refocusing on what we wish to accomplish.

Considerations for #healthtech Startup

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We see that on an average, there are at least 10 new startup’s every month across the country trying to address Health Care IT Problems. Are we really solving or are we complicating things?

According to IMS Institute for Health Care Informatics and Health Care IT News, there are more than 165,000 Health-related apps available and a mere 36 of them have 50% or more downloads. Just 10% can connect to a device or sensor and 2% can sync into providers systems (US App’s).

In the Indian Health Care app scenario; there are around 100 Apps and Websites which are addressing the Health Care segment (My personal research) and quite a few are coming up. Out of these 100, around 40% are catering to search (Doctor, Hospital, Diagnostic Center etc.), 22% are in the Wellness segment, 10% in e-Commerce (Medicine delivery), and the others are distributed in Nutrition, EMR/EHR, Medical Devices, Personal Health Management, Chronic Disease Management, Doctors Networking, Analytics etc.

If you look at the big picture and identify sectors in Healthcare which startup’s are trying to solve, majority of the solutions are coming out in Doctor Search, Booking online appointments, Home Tests and Medicine Home Delivery etc. One concern I personally see is that these solutions are being focused on particular region and this poses challenges for scalability. In India, where we have diversified Health Care models it is very important to understand the scalability, adaptability and acceptability for the solutions which we design.

The other vulnerable area specifically in Medicine delivery is that the control, distinction and distribution of duplicate / fake medications.

There are certain key contributing factors for Startup’s and large organisations alike to bare in mind while defining the problem and designing the solutions.

The Big Picture – It is very important for aspiring entrepreneurs who are attempting to solve Healthcare problems to understand the big picture as to how the system is structured and how can we take this solution to the maximum consumers. Also, one should understand if the solution which is being designed will scale up to address the problem at the Nation’s level and will it contribute to uplift Healthcare delivery. Why is this important? Because scattered solutions do not help.

Workflow oriented – When we design Technology solutions for addressing Health Care IT, the most important aspect we should understand is to create solutions based on the Health Care delivery workflows. Even though you design the best solution, if it is not following the delivery workflow, you are loosing consumers.

Scalability – The next important consideration. Why? Health Care IT is not a problem for a specific city / district / state. It is the Nation’s need. Diversifying solutions for each geographical location is not a viable solution. If not today, at a later stage we will need to codify and bring solutions to a common platform.

Adaptability – How are consumers adapting to the solution? India is a culture rich economy where we trust more from family, friends and acquaintances while attempting to utilise HealthCare services. How are we as Entrepreneurs attempting to address this scenario in the tools we build? Today, everyone is using technology to get suggestions and help for their requirements, but do not completely go with the solution they find, but definitely ask others around if it is a viable approach. We need to understand the adaptability of the solutions we design and this comes with additional research on what key areas are people likely to gain deeper understanding before attempting to utilise the services.

Contextual – (Will this solution help better the situation) – This goes next to understanding the big picture. The solution we design should be contextual and if required work in tandem with existing solutions to address the scalability and adaptability.

Data Security – Very important aspect of building Health apps. We need to builds systems/applications following he Data security rules because Health data is very vulnerable and it is the responsibility of the Entrepreneur to ensure security.

To quantify, Entrepreneurs wanting to address HealthCare IT, should begin with the end in mind, understand the System and help develop workflow solutions which contribute to the Macro level.

List of Incubation Center’s in India 2012

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In 2007, I posted a list of Incubation Center’s in India. However, in the last 5 Years, things have changed and there more and more center’s being added to the list. Below is an updated list and am sure am missing quite a few. If you know any center I am missing, please feel free to add as a comment and I will update the list.

NS Raghavan Center for Entrepreneurship and Learning (NSRCEL), IIM Bangalore
Technology Business Incubator BITS Pilan
Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship IIM Ahmedabad
Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur
Center for Entrepreneurship SP Jain, Mumbai
C-TIDES IIT Chennai
TeNeT IIT Chennai
Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship IIT Mumbai
Nirma LabsSIDBI Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center IIT Kanpur
Entrepreneurship Development Center IIT Guwahati
Foundation for Technology and Innovation Transfer (FITT) IIT Delhi
Abhiyan IIM Lucknow
E-Cell IIM Kozikode
Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship IIM Kolkata
Entrepreneurship Development Institute Ahmedabad
ICFAI Center for Entrepreneurship Development Hyderabad
MICA Entrepreneurship Development Center Ahmedabad
Wadhwani Center for Entrepreneurship Development ISB Hyderabad
TIME-IS DST, Government of India
JSS Academy Science & Technology Entrepreneur Park Noida
National Institute of Industrial Engineering Mumbai
Entrepreneurship Center IIT Rorkee
Ekta Incubation Center West Bengal University of Technology
E-Cell NIT Trichy
VIT Technology Incubator Vellore
Technopark Technology Business Incubator (T-TBI) Trivandrum
Center for Bio-Technology Anna University Chennai
National Design Business Incubator Ahmedabad
NIT Calicut
International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics Hyderabad
Kongu Engineering College NEN e-Cell Erode
Advanced Materials Technology Incubator Hyderabad
Center for Entrepreneurship SPJMIR Mumbai
North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Guwahati
NSIC Technical Services CenterBirla Institute of Technology Mesra
NIT Suratkal
STEP, BEC Bagalkot
Maulana Azad NIT Bhopal
Science and Technology Park, University of Pune
Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park Ludhiana
STEP – Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology Patiala
STEP – PSG College of Engineering
IncuCapital TechnoPark Trivandrum
ICICI Knowledge Park Incubation Center Hyderabad
Gujarat GrassRoots Innocations Augmentation Network Ahmedabad
CIE IIIT Hyderabad
L-Pad

 

Startup Weekend

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I got associated with Startup Weekend recently and have been thoroughly enjoying my association with them. Am working with the team who is bringing the Hyderabad edition and wanted to share all the information regarding the event here.

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Entrepreneurship, technology and innovation have never been as important in our world as they are today. With that, entrepreneurs and innovators across India need all the help they can get through mentors and meeting the right investors.

At Startup Weekend (www.StartupWeekend.org) we bring together aspiring entrepreneurs and provide a platform to give shape to their ideas.

Startup Weekend (www.StartupWeekend.org) is founded by Andrew Hyde in 2007 and funded by Kauffman Foundation. You can read more about us at http://startupweekend.org/about/our-story/

What happens at SW?

More than 100 aspiring minds come together to identify ideas to give shape. All 100 can share their ideas or they can be part of another idea. Ideas are shortlisted, teams are formed and over the next 48 Hours, the idea takes shape. We have Investors, Idea Evaluators, and Mentors available to guide teams through the process. On the last day, ideas are presented and the shortlisted ideas take away cool prizes.

Startup Weekend in India

Startup Weekend came to India in 2011. The first two events were organized in Delhi (March 4-6, 2011, http://delhi.startupweekend.org) and Bangalore (March 11-13, 2011, http://bangalore.startupweekend.org).

During Delhi Startup Weekend, 34 Ideas were Pitched, 10 Teams formed; 8 Partners, 5 Mentors.
During Bangalore Startup Weekend, 67 Ideas were Pitched, 15 Teams formed; 7 Partners, 4 Mentors, 20% of teams won prizes.
Now, we are bringing Startup Weekend to Hyderabad from 2-4 September 2011.

To know more about the event, visit http://bangalore.startupweekend.org. You may also join our announcement only mailing list at https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/startupweekendind, which will keep you posted on the event and other details.

Creating a Market for your Startup

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Days have changed and so has Entrepreneurship. Until very recently, if you have an amazing/cool idea (as per your rating), you write your thoughts on paper, share it with family and potential investors and look for some angel funding or formal Investment to give shape to your idea. In cases where you do your homework well, you go around doing the ground work asking people of their views on your idea, make modifications and re-design your Innovation.

Today, we have the new parameters of Entrepreneurship shaping up. Innovations are shaping the future. People are not only expecting better solutions for problems, but smarter ones. The future of Entrepreneurship and Innovation lies in creating the market and just not bringing out new solutions.

What is Creating New Market?

Let me start with an Illustration – Today, in developing countries, HealthCare is one of the primary focus for building a healthier future. However, with no strong HealthCare framework for meeting the demands of hungry consumers, HealthCare organizations (Hospitals and Medical Schools) design and operate very independently. What misses is the “integrator” for providing Quality HealthCare. Each organization has its own way of handling medical records and the system. Instead, “single-point” solutions is the need of the day. This is not the problem in India, but across the world.

The next aspect of Innovating for the future demands “Education”. Educating the customer gives better mileage to the Innovation rather than creating something and leaving it for the customer to read and understand.

One of the most recent advertisements (advertisements are the closest to Customer Education) I saw and loved its thoughtfulness is the Volkswagen Polo Ground Clearance advertisement. VW came to India just few Years ago and they have been really bombarding commercials (which make sense to Indian Customer) of their brand and in just a very short period of time have become a very common name. Mercedes, Honda, Toyota have been in India for long enough but still not many people cannot identify the car (at least few models). What i am referring to here is the time to market and customer education (awareness).
Any Innovation does not make sense unless it reaches its target customer and also creates a sizeable customer base.

How to Create your Market?

  • Create a prototype of your idea (can be as simple and stupid as you want, but which gives a near picture of what the final Innovation would look like).
  • Associate your Innovation to a cost.
  • Educate your potential buyer on how it can ease out their effort in addressing the problem you are solving (Provide the USP)
  • Sell!
  • Ask them to try and give you feedback.
  • Will they buy your Innovation at the price you have fixed or do they think twice and bargain??

After you win confidence of your potential customers, try it with outsiders (colleagues, acquaintances etc) and see what their reaction would be. Will they buy and use?

The last aspect what you need to consider is the longevity of your Innovation. How long will it take your customer to come back? If your customer has to come back regularly, what is that which makes them come back to you and not your competitors? How long can you sustain your customers before loosing them? Will they come back?

If your Innovation is a one time solution, how effective it is and what is the your Business Model to add enhancements and keep your market going?

…This chain goes on.
Remember to always Educate your customer on what particular problem your Innovation will solve, which makes meaning and this will help you see a new world of opportunities opening up.