The Startup Journey

I recently met a senior executive with a MNC who was contemplating leaving to either start his own company or join a startup. He has over 25years experience, is a respected and recognized technologist with several published articles and books to his credit; he has built several solid technical teams in his various avatars through the years. He had also started his own technology company about 10years ago. The company had to shut down after 2.5 yrs. “I took the decision to shut down the company after a meeting with an official of the Provident Fund authority. The company had not remitted PF on account of its employees though it was making some revenues. I was using cash-inflows to part pay salaries to employees that took care of the immediate situation than to worry about a future pay-out like PF. These employees had been with me at little or no salary for close to 18 months and I just couldn’t let that situation continue. However, the official made me aware of the serious consequences ...

We are delighted to announce a stellar list of speakers for APEX '11, the annual conclave of the Indian Private Equity / Venture Capital industry, scheduled for February 9-10 at Mumbai. Apex'11 Awards (evening of Feb.9) Special Guest: Gurcharan Das, Noted Author and Former-CEO of P&G India P.R. Srinivasan, CEO, Exponentia Capital A.K.Purwar, Chairman, IndiaVenture Vinod Dham, Managing Director, IndoUS Ventures Paresh Vaish, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal India Apex'11 Summit (Day long on Feb.10) Private Equity: The Road Ahead Raja Kumar, Founder & CEO, Ascent Capital Alok Gupta, Managing Director - India, Headland Capital K Srinivas, Managing Partner, BTS India* Al Lakhani, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal India Vishal Gandhi, Partner, Gandhi & Associates Anu Parthasarathy, CEO, Global Executive Talent Cleantech Panel Dr. Vivek Tandon, Co-Founder, Aloe Private Equity Inderpreet Wadhwa, CEO, Azure Power Vinod Kala, Managing Director, Emergent Ven...

The meeting ended with a list of “to-dos” for each of the startup team members. Everyone appeared charged and excited. Yet one of the members appeared less enthusiastic. Upon having a discussion with him, he said that he had the longest list of to-dos, with almost 15 specific items! More importantly, he felt that most of them would be a waste of his time as he was sure that executing them wouldn’t really benefit the company. A few weeks later at a follow-up meeting where the status of these to-dos were being reviewed, it transpired that only 2 of the 15 items on this individual’s list had been done and that too only in part. He explained that he hadn’t followed through on the execution of the 13 items as “given my earlier experience (in another company), I was sure they wouldn’t work”; But what of the part execution of the 2? Ah, the completion of those items required inputs from others and since those inputs weren’t forthcoming, the work couldn’t be completed in full. When the individ...

Vishwas Patel of Avenues India, the company best known for its online payment gateway service CcAvenue, has related his entrepreneurial journey in The Rodinhoods . Learnings from IT: 1) An average Indian businessman doesn't understand technology; he wants technology to understand his business and do wonders. The businessman just wants a simple, idiot proof solution that saves him time, effort and money. 2) Business is like an inverted triangle. You start from a small dot at the bottom and as you grow your business upwards, the opportunities keep on increasing. This is because you get experience, knowledge, access to funds etc., thats why you find the Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas, Mahindras. etc dabbling in all kinds of diverse businesses (Oil, telecoms, Insurance etc.) and are mostly successful in all their ventures. They build huge capital intensive scalable businesses that it becomes difficult to beat them on price and the way they scale their businesses in double quick time. Now if y...