Tag Archives: entrepreneurs

Interview with Mayank Jain – Co-founder of ApnaBill.com

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It’s the middle of the night, and your prepaid phone runs out of credits, and you need to make a call urgently. Don’t you wish that you could re-charge your prepaid mobile over the internet? Pune-based startup ApnaBill allows you to do just that. Fire up a browser, select your operator (they have partnerships with all major service providers), pay from your bank account or by credit card, and receive an SMS/e-mail with the recharge PIN. Done. They have extended this model to satellite TV (TataSky, Dish), with more such coming out of the pipeline.

PuneTech interviewed co-founder and lead developer Mayank Jain where he talks about various things, from technical challenges (does your hosting provider have an upper limit on number of emails you can send out per day?), to unexpected problems that will slow down your startup (PAN card!), and advice for other budding entrepreneurs (start the paperwork for registration/bank accounts as soon as possible).

On to the interview.

Overview of ApnaBill:

Simply put, ApnaBill.com is a online service for facilitating Prepaid and Postpaid Utility Bill payments.

Available now, are Prepaid utility bill payments like prepaid mobile recharge and prepaid vouchers for Tata Sky, World Phone, Dish TV etc.

Organizationally, ApnaBill.com is an offshoot of Four Fractions. It aims at being the single point of contact between service providers and customers, thereby minimizing transactional costs. The benefit of this is directly passed onto our customers as we do NOT charge any transaction costs from our customers. Its an ApnaBill.com policy and would be applicable to all of our product line.

Apart from regular Utility Bill Payments, we are also exploring some seemingly blue ocean verticals which have not been targeted by the online bill payment sector – yet.

Monetization strategy:

We have managed to make our business model such that despite absorbing the transactional cost, we’ll be able to make profits. They would definitely be low but the sheer amount of transactions (which we would attract because of no-transaction-charge policy) would put our figures in positive direction.

Moreover, profit generated from transactions is just one revenue source. Once we have a good traction, our advertisement revenue sources would also become viable.

We are definitely looking at a long term brand building.

Technical Challenges – Overview

Contrary to popular belief, technology is generally the simplest ingredient in a startup – specially because the startup can generally excercise full control over how it is used and deployed. And with increasingly cheaper computing resources, this space is becoming even more smoother.

However, following problems were a real challenges which we faced and solved.

  • Being a web 2.0 startup, we faced some major cross browser issues.
  • Mail capping limits for shared hosting accounts.
  • Minimizing client side internet connectivity and page display speeds
  • Database versioning.

Thankfully, ApnaBill.com is running Ruby on Rails under the hood – and all the solutions we designed, just got fit into the right grooves.

Technical Challenges – Details

Ruby on Rails a one of the best framework a web developer can ask for. All the solutions to the above problems just come bundled with it.

Prototype javascript library solves a lot of common cross browser issues. To completely eradicate them, an additional PNG hack from Pluit Solutions and IE7.js which lets IE6 browser render PNG images which have transparency. Once you have sanity in terms of cross browser issues, you can actually start focussing on feature development.

To overcome mail capping limits for shared hosts, we devised our own modules which would schedule mails if they were crossing the mail caps. However, we later discovered that there’s a great Ruby gem – ar_mailer to do just that. We are planning to make the shift.

Minimizing client side page load speeds was an interesting problem. We used Yahoo’s YSlow to detect where we lagged interms of page load speeds, introduced the necessary changes like moving JS to bottom of pages, CSS to the top, etc. which helped us alot in reducing the load time. Yahoo also has a JS minifier – YUI Compressor – which works great in reducing javascript files to upto 15%. We also deployed a dumb page-name based JS deployment scheme which simply blocks any javascript to load up on some particular pages (for example the homepage). This helps us in ultra fast page loads.

If you see our homepage, no JS loads up when the page is loading up. However, once the page is loaded, we initiate a delayed JS load which renders our news feed in the end.

Database versioning is an inbuilt feature in Rails. We can effectively revert back to any version of ApnaBill.com (in terms of functionality) with standard Rails framework procedures.

Non-technical challenges:

Integrating various vendors and services was visibly the biggest challenge we overcame during the (almost) 9 months development cycle of ApnaBill.com.

Getting the organization up and running was another big challenge. The paperwork takes a lot of valuable time – which if visioned properly, can be minimized to a manageable amount.

Payment Gateways are a big mess for startups. They are costly, demand huge chunks of money for security deposits and have very high transaction costs. Those who are cheap – lack even the basic courtesy and quality of service. Sooner or later, the backbone of your business becomes the single most painful factor in your business process – specially when you have no control over its functioning.

Thankfully, there are a few payment gateways which are above all of this. We hope to make an announcement soon.

The founders of ApnaBill - from left, Mayank, Samir and Sandeep.
The founders of ApnaBill - from left, Mayank, Sameer and Sandeep.

The process of founding ApnaBill:

When and how did you get the idea of founding ApnaBill? How long before you finally decided to take the plunge and start in earnest? What is your team like now?

The story described at http://www.fourfractions.com/main/our-story is very true.

In June 2007, one of the founding members of Four Fractions saw a friend of his, cribbing about how he cannot recharge his prepaid mobile phone from the comforts of his home. He had to walk about 1 km to reach the nearest local shop to get his phone connection recharged.

This idea caught the founder’s attention and he, along-with others formed Four Fractions on 20th December ’07 to launch ApnaBill.com as one of their flagship products.

ApnaBill.com was opened for public transactions on 15th June 08. The release was a birthday present to ApnaBill.com’s co-founder’s mom.

Our team is now 5 people strong, spread across New Delhi and Pune. As of now, we are self funded and are actively looking for seed funding.

What takes most of the time:

As I mentioned earlier, getting various services integrated took most of the time. If we had to just push out our own product (minus all collaborations), it would have taken us less than 3 months.

There was this funny thing that set us back by almost 1 month…

We applied for a PAN card for Four Fractions. First, our application somehow got lost in the process. Then someone in the government department managed to put down our address as 108 when it was supposed to be 10 B (8 and B are very similar looking).

None of us ever envisioned this – but it happened. We lost a precious month sorthig this issue out. And since all activities were dependent on official papers, other things like bank accounts, payment gateway intgrations etc also got pushed back. But I am glad, we sorted this out in the end. Our families supported us through this all the way.

Every process like creating Bank accounts, getting PAN cards etc are still very slow and manual in nature. If we can somehow improve on them, the ecosystem can prove very helpful for budding startups.

About the co-founders:

There are 3 CoFounders for ApnaBill.com

Sameer Jain: Sameer is the brain behind our revenue generation streams and marketing policies. He is a Post Grad from Delhi University in International Marketing.

Sandeep Kumar: Sandeep comes from billing (technical) background. With him, he has brought vast knowledge about billing processes and solid database knowhow.

Myself (Mayank Jain): I come from desktop application development background. I switched to Ruby on Rails almost 18 months ago – and since then, I am a devoted Ruby evangelist and Rails developer.

Luckily, we have a team which is just right. We have two polarizing ends – Sandeep and Sameer. One of them is constantly driving organization to minimizing costs while the other is driven towards maximizing revenue from all possible sources. I act as a glue between both of them. Together, we are constantly driving the organization forward.

About selection for proto.in:

Proto.in was the platform for which we were preparing for from almost 2 months. We had decided our launch dates in such a way that we would launch and be LIVE just in time for Proto.in.

Being recognized for your efforts is a big satisfaction.

Proto.in was also a huge learning experience. Interacting directly with our potential users gave us an insight on how they percieve ApnaBill.com and what they want out of it. We also came across some interesting revenue generation ideas when interacting with the startup veterans at Proto.

A big thanks to Vijay Anand and the Proto Team.

Advice for other potential entrepreneurs:

There are a lot of people who are currently doing a job somewhere, but who harbor a desire to start something on their own. Since you have already gone that route, what suggestions would you have for them?

Some tips I would like to share with my peer budding entrepreneurs…

  • Focus, focus and focus!
  • If you are an internet startup, book your domain before anything and get the right hosting partner.
  • Start the paperwork for firm/bank accounts registration as soon as possible.
  • Write down your financial/investment plan on paper before you start. Some plan is way better than a no plan!
  • Adopt proper development process for the tech team. With a process in place, development activities can be tracked rationally.
  • Get someone to manage your finances – outsourcing is a very attractive option.

The most important factor for a startup besides anything else – is to keep fighting during the adverse scenarios. Almost everything would spring into your face as a problem. But a team which can work together to find a solution for it – makes it to the end.

Just remember, more than the destination, it is the journey that would count.

Blog links:

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Business plan competition for students – funding up to Rs. 1 crore

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Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune, is running Endeavor 2008, a business plan competition (open only to students). So if you are a student with an interesting idea looking to get visibility, guidance, and possibly lots of money, hurry, because the last date to submit entries is 24th August.

Details:

“SIBM Endeavour 2008” provides a platform for budding entrepreneurs with
viable Business Plans to meet seed funds and venture capitalists through the
“SIBM Endeavour Business Plan” contest. This contest is a 3 month long
business plan contest with 4 rounds. Every participating team can expect to
gain from the contest. Individual mentorship, Elevator Pitch for top 40
b-plans, cash prizes, and above all, funding of upto Rs. 10 Million (from Seed
Fund Advisors Pvt. Ltd.).

Our panelists for this contest are:

  • IndiaCo Ventures Capital Ltd.
  • NEA-IndoUS Venture Capitals
  • SEED FUND Pvt. Ltd.
  • NEN Online

Last date for Executive Summary: 24th August – 2008

Cash Prizes:
1st Prize: Rs. 2,00,000
2nd Prize: Rs. 85,000

For registration: http://www.sibm.edu/endeavour08

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How social|median is developed out of Pune

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Jason Goldberg is a serial entrepreneur, who founded and headed Jobster, and who is now on to his next startup, social|median, a social news website. In a long article on his blog, he talks about what lessons he learnt from his first startup, and what he is doing differently in social|median as a result. The whole article is very interesting, and I would say, a must read for budding entrepreneurs (Update: unfortunate, the website seems to be gone, and the original article is no longer available). However, most interesting to me is the fact that, although Jason is based in New York, his entire development team is in Pune, with True Sparrow Systems.

He talks about why he decided that development of social|median:

  • Second […] we decided to build on a tight budget. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking cheap as in 1 guy in a dorm room. I’m talking low budget as in constraining the company to <$40k/month of burn in the first 4 months and then only taking it beyond that to about $60k/month once we had shown some early initial traction. The notion here was that spending our cash is the same as spending our equity. The more we spend early on, the less the company will be worth in the long run.
  • Maintaining a burn like that forced us to think outside the box when it came to staffing the company. To put a $40k/month burn in perspective, that would get you about 3 employees at most fully loaded with office space in New York (if you’re lucky). I remember interviewing a total rock star CTO-type in January in NYC and walking away thinking there went all my initial funding and that’s just for 1 guy. Instead, we have run the company out of my apartment in New York and from our development center in Pune, India. I’m the only U.S. based socialmedian employee (besides our awesome intern Scott who joined us for the summer from Syracuse and who has been a god-send). The rest of our team is based in Pune, India. We started with 6 fulltime socialmedian employees in Pune and have since grown the socialmedian development team to 11 fulltime employees in Pune.

Finding the right company to outsource to is another interesting story.

Jason first found out about True Sparrow Systems when he saw a facebook application they had developed. He felt that the application had been designed very well, by someone who had not just done a quick and dirty job to jump on the latest bandwagon (social networking! yay!), but instead someone who had spent time thinking about the application and its users. Based on this he decided to go with True Sparrow Systems.

However, this is not your usual outsourcing relationship. Jason has set-up things rather differently from most other companies:

A few notes about working with an offshore team. If you’re gonna do it, do it right. What I mean by that is that I’ve seen it done wrong so many times it’s sickening. Folks in the U.S. all too often have this mistaken belief that there are these inexpensive coders outside the U.S. who are just on call and ready to write code based on specs. That’s a recipe for disaster. In order for software to be developed well, it takes a team that is adept at planning and strategizing and problem solving together. It takes a team that feels like a team and who is passionate about the product they are creating. It takes a team who truly feels like they are building their product not someone else’s.

So, we decided to set up things differently at socialmedian. First, our decision to go offshore was certainly based on costs, but it was equally based on abilities and mutual respect. I had worked with the future socialmedian team in Pune before socialmedian on other projects and only chose to work with them on socialmedian because I was impressed with their thought process as much as their work product. We chose to work with them because they know how to solve problems and how to figure out how to respond to customer/user needs. And, they passed the most important test of all, an earnest early interest in the problem we are trying to solve at socialmedian and fantastic ideas on how to tackle the problem.

Second, I personally committed to travel to Pune, India nearly monthly for the first year of socialmedian (I’ve been there 6 times thus far in 2008 and am headed back in a couple of weeks). The logic here was that if the team was there, I, as the lead product manager, should be there too. As per our hunch, we learned early on that in-person time was critical for planning. As such, we have evolved into this regular cadence wherein for 1 week out of every month we plan together in person, and then for 3 weeks we are more tactical as our interactions are over skype. Sure, all that travel is tough (ask my spouse who hates me for it), but it has proven to be very effective for us at socialmedian.

Third, we have made our Indian team shareholders in socialmedian, so we are one company building one product. It’s an offshore situation, not an outsourcing relationship.

Of course, this model is not for everyone, but it has worked well for us thus far. Mostly because we have an awesome team joined together working on socialmedian and we’ve created an environment where it’s all about our users and the product, and the fact that we are thousands of miles away from each other is just a fact of life, not a problem. If I had to start over today I’d choose the same team 10 out of 10 times to work with.

A lot of this is enabled by the tools:

In case you were wondering, here’s the process and tools/services we use at socialmedian to mange our New York – India operations. As noted, I travel to Pune for at least 1 work-week out of every 5 work -weeks. We ship code 3x per week within 3-4 week development milestones. We use TRAC (open source bug tracking tool) to manage bugs and feature requests. We use basecamp to share files. We talk on Skype when I’m not in Pune pretty much 6x per week from 8am Eastern Time to around 11am.

Read the whole article for a whole lot of other (non-Pune related) advice. It is long, but worth the trouble, especially if you dream of having your own startup.(Sorry, the article is gone, but here is a copy from the Wayback Machine (thanks Pragnesh))

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Why I chose Pune for my startup

Featured, In Depth, Pune City, ,

This article was written by Anthony Hsiao in an e-mail thread over at Pune OpenCoffee Club‘s mailing list, and is reproduced here with permission. Anthony is a co-founder of Pune-startup Entrip. Anthony, Nick and Adil, who were in London when they decided to start Entrip, moved to Pune to actually make it happen, for the reasons given in this article.

I am putting my money on Pune as India’s startuphub.

When we first decided to just head to India to start work on our startup
(we’re London based), we were only heard of Bangalore as the next IT hub,
and Hyderabad as upcoming. We didn’t want to go to a megacity like Delhi or
Mumbai, but more of a Tech City. Then one of my best friends from
Switzerland, he’s Indian, recommended we should have a look at Pune.

After some research, Pune met exactly the kind of requirements that we were
looking for, or at least, it fared better on a decision analysis than did
Bangalore or Hyderabad: It’s a college city with lots of young, educated and
(as we hoped) creative people, not too large, IT focused, not too expensive
(at the time). Another big factor was the fact that we perceived Bangalore
and Hyderabad as HUGE IT OUTSROURCING CENTERS, cities of modern factories,
where modern labourers were robotting away, while Pune, as educational
center, appeared to offer a different perspective. My friend also told me
that the girls in Pune were very ‘interesting’, but that is just a side note
– but as true geek this didn’t play much of a role *wink*.

When we got to Pune, I think one of the first things that struck me was
actually the apparent lack of creativity, lack of spirit that we are used to
from university towns where students just ‘do things’, the lack of ambition
just for the beauty of it and the seemingly only motivation to do anything –
working for some big company with some name, earning bucks.

It took some time for me to understand where a) people were coming from (not
everybody has parents that would happily support your little startup
adventures if they went wrong) b) the cultural and in large parts traditonal
context that young people had to operate from within, and c) that in fact it
strongly depends on the kind of circles that we moved within to get these
impressions. I was a bit disappointed, and am still, everytime I heard
someone ask for what company I work for rather than for what I actually do,
but my criticism was challenged by a different world that I later
discovered: the startup community in Pune.

Yes, a lot of people in Pune are neither creative nor ambitious or daring.
But that’s ok, every place in the world has a broad layer of such people. In
fact, they are vital for the ecosystem as well. But not every place has a
vibrant, connected and active startup community as Pune.

Instead of ‘cannot’, ‘big salary’ or ‘I don’t know why’, I suddenly heard ‘I
think I can, and I will try’, ‘big opportunity’ and ‘Because it’s cool’. A
180 degree turn from a lot of the students or ‘desparate’ professionals I’ve
met! What is this newly discovered startup community?

Looking at it now as I write this, I would say that Pune has what is
necessary to attract ‘the right kind of people’, young, creative,
adventurous, willing to ‘do things’ – the stuff that startups are about (in
large parts). It certainly worked for us or fellow foreigners trying it out
in Pune as well as the countless NRIs or long term expats that come back
with a more open mind and lots of experience. That, then, is a positive
feedback loop for the composition of the city and the community.

So it’s the people of Pune, or the startup community to be more precise,
which I think send out a strong message. Of course I would like to play an
active part in shaping this still relatively young community, and I think so
does everybody else. There is this community sense, where people communicate
AND understand each other, go through SIMILAR experiences and face SIMILAR
hurdles as entrepreneurs (in IT-outsroucing-India), want to help each OTHER
and want to rise TOGETHER, as a community, so that one day we can all say it
happened in Pune, and we were  there.

So what message does Pune send out? I think it says ‘we are Pune, and we
have what it takes to be India’s silicon valley’.

Best regards ,

Anthony – a foreigner.

Other thoughts: Maybe I am painting a bit of a biased picture, and of course
there is still a lot of work to be done. But the composition of Pune is
there, the community is there (and growing), and the will and shared spirit
seems to be there. Now the change just needs to happen.

I would attribute a great part of this spirit or feeling to the fact that
Pune is relatively small, or at least has been. People are closer, and know
each other. As such, I see the creation of huge IT parks all over the place
OUTSIDE the city/in satellite towns, as a potential dilution to the Pune
startup community, which I hope we can somehow fend off.

Of course, one might be able to craft a similar description about other
cities line Bangalore, but I would say that the unique composition of
colleges and companies are a great edge. Also, at least in the past, the
ratio of ‘large companies’ to ‘small companies’, I’d guess, is smaller in
Pune than in other places – or at least was. If everybody around a young
graduate is going to try to work for the next big company that pays stellar
salaries, of course, startups would lose the war for talent. As such, the
intensifying competition of large companies for good people is another
threat to look out for, but one which, I think, can be addressed by a strong
and visible startup community.

I don’t want to get into politics and policies (at least not in an email
thread!)

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Inviting articles on Entrepreneurship for CSI Pune’s September Seminar

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.

CSI Pune is planning a half-day seminar on Entrepreneurship in September, and with it they will also publish their Desktalk newsletter, on the same topic. Anjali Gupta of Bookeazy, one of the driving forces behind the Pune OpenCoffee Club, is the guest editor of this issue of Desktalk.

You are invited to submit articles of interest to entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in general. The following is a list of suggested topics, but feel free to write on any other subject that goes with the theme. The article needs to be submitted by end of August, to deodhar [dot] swati [at] gmail [dot] com.

The right advisor at the right time made all the difference.

The article must highlight the importance of getting the right advisors for the company early in its lifecycle, recognizing which advisors are necessary and when to listen to them. Or it could highlight a negative experience with bad advice. Also, the necessity to change or add advisors at different phases of the company’s evolution.

An entrepreneur must be very flexible and very stubborn.

Entrepreneurial judgment is the ability to tell the difference between a situation that’s not working but persistence will ultimately prove it out, versus a situation that’s not working and additional effort is a destructive waste of time. An article highlighting either situation or both at different times in the company’s life would be useful to compare and contrast.

Venture capital – the good, the bad, the ugly.

Understanding the mechanics of the VC industry. A profitable business need not always be venture fundable. Only certain businesses need and are suited for venture money. What else besides the money should be evaluated in a good VC?

Five Reasons not to start a company.

Article must highlight and recognize how much pain and effort it involves to start a company and then deliver shareholder value. Being good at something, working on my hobby, having a good idea, wanting flexible timing, or being good at managing people, are not reasons to build companies. What you build must have a path for sustained growth and profitability.

Avoiding the Founders’ bias.

Will your pre-starting work years really count or harm? Every company’s DNA is strongly colored by founders background and prejudices especially in the initial years. Those from a tech background will hire developers first and write code. That need not be the best way to approach the market. Experiences from tech entrepreneurs who’ve had to change themselves to be businessman and not technologists.

Product companies must embrace failure first and cash much later.

Building a successful tech product company i.e. build once, sell many times, is different from building a services company. Very rarely will your first product be successful, most of the times it will just tell you what not to do the second time around. Experiences and learnings from those who have switched from one to the other or built one type of company or both forms in the same company

It’s the stuff that’s not on your business plan that will trouble you the most.

It’s not the assumptions on the business plan but the unknowns that are not even on your sheet that entrepreneurs need to worry about. An experience highlighting how the unknowns unfolded and how to start looking for them early by talking to potential customers, partners or suppliers, competitors, etc.

How will Technology Entrepreneurship benefit India?

What technologies and/or companies will comprise of the next wave of social change in India? Will they still be service-oriented? Or, will they look a lot more like Products from the West with a distinct Indian flavor? The purpose of this is to suggest answers to the conundrum – is India really a potential large market for Technology Entrepreneurs?

India’s Export to the Rest of the World through Entrepreneurship

What is India’s contribution to rest of the World in this day and age? India’s unique problems, social structure, youth, education and culture have resulted in a very different impact on the rest of the world. The aim of this topic is to highlight and analyze startups/companies that have the potential of making a global impact by solving hard problems within an Indian context.

Is there indeed a fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid?

… that requires Entrepreneurs to make a paradigm shift in what is conventional thought? Are we doing enough to encourage failure, experimentation and retrial – all very necessary to encourage entrepreneurship at this level?

The art of the Start for to-be-Entrepreneurs

(and the state of that art in India): Starting a Company is hard, what with an extremely competitive environment and an unforgiving social attitude towards failure. The intention of this broad topic is to highlight the key elements of the startup ecosystem in India – How do I fund my dream (Angel Investors, Friends, Family, Bootstrapping, Venture Capital)? Getting a Business Plan together, what are the key elements of a good business plan? etc.

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POCC meeting (Footprint Ventures and Google) report

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I’m liveblogging the Pune OpenCoffee Club meeting organized by nFactorial. There are over 50 people and SEED Infotech‘s classroom is overflowing. They are having to bring in more chairs for people who are still standing.

Neill Brownstein of Footprint Ventures is giving a pitch about his company

  • Footprint has created $30 billion in value over 35 years. 20% IRR. 23 IPOs
  • Among other companies, Footprint has invested in our own Veritas Software.
  • Average run-rate of companies they fund is currently in the $1 million

Neeraj Arora, works in Mergers and Acquisitions at Google, focusing on APJ – mainly Australia and India

  • They don’t invest in startups. They acquire. But they work closely with some seed funds.
  • These are the guys that did the acquisition of a company in Australia which ultimately became Google maps
  • They are not looking for anything in particular. Consumer, enterprise, early stage, late stage. Is all OK. Pre-revenue is good. But must be a product company.
  • Question: do they only acquire companies with technology that is compatible with theirs? Answer: if it needs to integrate with Google products, then yes, the technology does need to be compatible.
  • The company needs to relocate. Either to Mountain View, US, or Bangalore, in India. (in most cases)
  • They sometimes buy companies just because they think it is cool, even if they can’t figure out where it will really fit in
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POCC meetup – Footprint Ventures and Google M&A – 3 July

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What: Pune OpenCoffee Club get-together. Informal meeting with Footprint Ventures, and Google Corporate Development and M&A.

When: Thursday, 3rd July, 6pm.

Where: Seed Infotech’s office in Erandawana

Registration and Fees: This event is free for everyone. Register at upcoming.

Details:

Hemant Joshi, of nFactorial would like to invite POCC members to an informal get-together with special invitees: Footprint Ventures, and Google Corporate Development on 3rd July, 5pm.

Footprint ventures will be there to meet startups and talk about what they look for when considering Series A investments.

Neeraj Arora will be representing Google’s Corporate Development and M&A division and will be there to interact with Startups.

The venue will be Seed Infotech’s office in Erandawana.

The complete address is:
Seed Infotech
Nalanda building, Opposite Gandhi Lawns,
Erandwane, Pune

Many thanks to Naredra Barhate, CEO of Seed Infotech for arranging place for the meeting.

Footprint Ventures are an early stage venture capital fund, based out of India. (http://footprintventures.com/index.htm).

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Footprint Venture entrepreneurs meeting – 3 July

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Update: See the updated post on the latest details (including venue, and Google M&A’s participation).

Hemant Joshi, co-founder of nFactorial Software, writes:

Footprint Venture will be visiting Pune in next week, 3rd July. They are an early stage venture capital fund, based out of India. (http://footprintventures.com/index.htm ). I am trying to arrange their meeting with POCC members where they can informally interact with POCC member and talk for a few minutes on their prospective, what they look for, etc. The tentative plan is to have this meeting from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM. The venue is TBD. I will confirm the venue and meeting in a few days. If anyone can arrange for place, it will be great.

Footprint is an early stage venture capital fund, based out of India. They are targeting entrepreneurs seeking Series A investment.

The fund is the brainchild of Neill Brownstein, a co-founder of Bessemer Venture Partners. It aims to invest in companies with a strong India focus, i.e. companies with offerings that are either exclusively for India or for India & international markets.

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Pune OpenCoffee Club Meeting – 14 July

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What: Meeting of the Pune OpenCoffee Club – theme: startup mentoring, incubating and collaborations

When: Saturday, 14th June, 5pm

Where: Barista, Law College Road, opposite IndSearch

This is the (loose) agenda:

  • Synergising startups through Service Provider – Client relationships or just good old Fashioned Business Collaboration.
  • Freeman Murray will lead a discussion about the possibility of Y!Combinator style startup incubation in Pune
  • Hemant Joshi from nFactorial software will talk about his experiences and thoughts on mentoring startups and entrepreneurs in Pune

WiCamp – “From Ideas to Dollars” barcamp – 30 May

Events, , , ,

What: WiCamp is a barcamp with the theme “From Ideas to Dollars”, organized by Wipro Technologies. BarCamps are un-conference like meetings. Here like minded people come over and share their learning on a topic of mutual interest through presentation, demos, videos, etc.

When: Friday, 30th May, 2pm to 7pm

Where: Wipro Technologies, Platinum Training hall, Tower-3, Lower Ground, Phase- I, MIDC, Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjwadi, Pune

Who can attend: This event is open to all. There are no fees. Please register at the WiCamp website.

Themes for WiCamp:

  • How firms arrive at value proposition for an innovation
  • Partnering to take ideas faster to market
  • Open Innovation
  • Measuring returns on innovation
  • Shrinking the time to market
  • Increasing hit-rate of ideas
  • Managing teams for innovation
  • Personal creativity to organizational creativity

More than the actual presentations given what I like about a barcamp is the people you meet in the corridors, and the enthusiasm and energy levels. You should definitely attend if you’ve never attended a barcamp before. For details, see the WiCamp wiki, which will keep getting updated until the last day.