The Startup Journey

Kamla Bhatt has a two part audio interview with Quentin Staes-Polet, the Belgian CEO of Kreeda Games, the Bombay-based online multiplayer gaming start-up funded by IDG Ventures India and SoftBank. Quentin has some interesting points on why the firm chose not to disclose the amount of funding it raised, interplay between social networking and gaming, experience of an "foreigner" starting a business in India, etc. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the Private Equity and Venture Capital ecosystem in India. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Businessworld has a profile of a Delhi-based company that makes Lassi making machines. ...an enterprising young man called Sultan did the next best thing. He perfected a lassi-churning device. He sold his first machines to the numerous lassi shops and restaurants in the crowded lanes around Delhi’s Jama Masjid area. The devices ran on electricity, worked for hours on end, needed little maintenance and almost never broke down. That was the 1950s. Fifteen years after starting out, Sultan passed away. His son Mohammed Usman, barely 20 then, took over. Usman decided to name the devices ‘Sultan’ in memory of his father. He moved the workshop to Daryaganj in 1992 and also set up a factory in Wazirabad, which employs 25 workers and engineers, to meet the growing demand for his father’s machines. He called the business Raja & Co. — a nickname given to him by friends and loyal customers. Usman’s sons have helped add a modern touch to the 50-year-old family business. Orders from outside D...

While I was reading a profile of M. Mahadevan of Oriental Cuisines in The Hindu , I realized that he seemed to own almost every restaurant that I'd enjoyed eating at in Chennai. (And, I had always associated his name mainly with "Hot Breads" - which I don't frequent at all!) The gentleman indeed seems to be a very fascinating entrepreneur - one that is sure to be besieged by offers from Private Equity firms. Along the way, Mahadevan, the restless man that he is, launched a whole slew of fast food and restaurant brands for every segment of consumers – Benjarong, the Thai restaurant, Wang’s Kitchen and Noodle House for Chinese, Don Pepe for Mexican, Zara, the Spanish Tavern and the byword in food courts – PlanetYumm. Not being content with India operations, Mahadevan ventured into foreign shores – he took Hot Breads to France and Italy, tied up with Saravana Bhavan to take the brand to US and opened a string of bakeries in the Gulf region. “But India is still my explo...

The young founder-CEO of a young but profitable Rs 30 crore company believed it should capitalize on what it saw as immense market opportunity. He believed his company should and could grow by tem times to Rs 300 crore over the next 5 years. He wanted his company to be recognized as the number one player in its area by far on various parameters. Finance wasn’t a constraint as the company was generating sufficient cash flows with external funding being a viable option as well. The issue lay in getting management talent into a largely unknown company and in motivating them to enough to help generate and manage the incredible growth envisaged by the CEO. The company was now run by young but very bright and talented people. Would it be able to attract and manage executives that would be senior to them in age and experience? What kind of a person should the CEO hire and what should be offered to such a person? Should an external recruiter be hired to find the talent or should perso...