I’ve spent a decent amount of time in India over the past few months. Most recently, I spent a little over two weeks of August meeting with founders and investors in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Goa. A couple of observations in no particular order: Indian founders don’t have clear role models… at least not within the Indian startup ecosystem. That being said, that will likely change over the next...
September 27, 2012
Observations on India
27September
September 23, 2012
Startups and mentors: How to look for a great marketing mentor? & A list of top marketing mentors in India
23September
After the first post on technology mentors in India, the next person who can help the most as a mentor to startups < 2 years old is someone that can help with product & customer knowledge (or understanding user / customer behavior if its a consumer startup). There are 3 primary categories of “marketing” mentors I’d recommend you think about. You dont need them all, just be clear who you...
September 23, 2012
Technology product startups, angel and venture market comparisons – US and India
There is a lot of activity and interest in technology product companies in India, as there is in the US. I spent some time reviewing numbers from NVCA, VCCircle and pulled some numbers specifically in the areas of Internet, software, technology products and eliminated services companies. Here is a simple table to keep things in perspective. All sources are at the bottom. USA India Total number of...
September 23, 2012
Startups and mentors: How to look for a great technology mentor? & A list of top tech mentors in India
I am going to write a 3 part series on mentorship and technology startups. Rather than write about why you need a mentor or how to engage with a mentor (next series) I thought the first step for most entrepreneurs would be to seek out great mentors. As an additional bonus, I thought I’d list some good mentors in India so there’s a starting point (not comprehensive). Please feel free to add people...
September 22, 2012
Is your company dependent on Innovation? Grow the right Culture First! The rest will take care of itself!
22September
There is a reason, Mark Zuckerberg sits right next to the Summer Intern from University of Waterloo (True Story – Daughter of an Indian friend of mine!). No separate office, no glass windows to look out of! Sergei Brin and Larry Page are worried sick of “Not Enough Innovation” out of Google! They all focus on building the right culture for their people so that they can out...
September 19, 2012
Fullerton India – Revolutionizing India
19September
At a time when “Cloud” was still a buzz word and “Platform as a Service” as a category didn’t exist, Fullerton India was looking for the next generation computing technology to help them build business applications faster, cheaper, better. Fullerton India stumbled across OrangeScape Platform (formerly known as DimensionN). They realized that the conventional approach to build a whole host of of...
September 15, 2012
Introducing #alpha: Showcase For Your Product Or Startup At The #NAMA Conference
15September
We’re pleased to announce #alpha, a product and startup showcase at our flagship conference #NAMA, being held on October 10th 2012, at The Westin in Gurgaon. While #NAMA is largely going to be about in depth conversations about the digital industry in India and the road ahead, in a 20 minute Q&A format (and 10 minutes for an audience Q&A), we also want some fresh (and great) products and...
September 14, 2012
Sanjay Parthasarathy’s Mantra for Product Entrepreneurs: “If You Can’t Think Big, You Can’t Really Scale”
14September
Even top-notch corporate executives get bored with their work and that’s what happened to Sanjay Parthasarathy. Maybe in such cases the corporation is no longer seductive enough to feed the creativity or a stray thought emerges to create something on one’s own instead of creating newbies at corporations. Sanjay spent a little more than two decades at Microsoft, at the forefront of many new...
September 12, 2012
TechSparks 2012 Unveils the Top 30 Tech Product Startups from India
12September
TechSparks, the flagship event of Yourstory.in, the biggest tech product startup showcase in India, is now in its 3rd edition. The Grand Finale of TechSparks 2012 was held in Bangalore on September 8th, after the 5 roundtables which were conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Hyderabad over a period of 4 months. Techsparks 2012 was presented by Intel in association with Amazon Web...
September 11, 2012
How Silicon Valley’s Community Gives Back
11September
Editor’s note: “Silicon Valley is a unique, vibrant intermingling of different ideas and cultures resulting in innovation coming from all parts of the world,” says Raju Reddy, executive vice president of global services at Hitachi Consulting. And it was the ideal location for the recent Sevathon 2012, the annual walkathon that brought together more than 60 Bay area profit organizations to raise...
