The Startup Journey

You can point to the articles by Prof. Sreekumar Rao in his Economic Times columns here If your life is mechanical, it is because you have made it so. Human beings have a great capacity for making anything and everything routine and eventually, 'boring'. ... Why do you go to your 'mindless' job? It is likely because it gives you a paycheque. With this paycheque - inadequate as you may feel it to be - you support your family, pay your rent, save for retirement and entertain yourself. At some level, you know this. At some time, you were aware of this. But this knowledge has become buried in layers of the 'routine' that you now complain about. Dust off this knowledge and bring it to the forefront. Keep it there. and here Your knowledge of your current industry gives you an edge that you can use. In every industry, even the shrinking ones, there are some companies that are growing and gaining market share. What can you do to make your company one of the...

Great post by the founder of Twitter and Blogger. Couple of interesting takes: Sometimes the threat is internal—an inability to execute on one’s opportunity. Friendster might be an example. When they turned down $30 million in pre-IPO Google stock, it was not a dumb move from a “capturing the upside” perspective if you consider they were the first big social network, and they had no real competition. It’s not clear how obvious the internal threat was, though. ...Sometimes the founders or other key people may just be done. This is actually quite common and drives a lot of small acquisitions. It doesn’t apply as much as companies get larger, because everyone is (eventually) replaceable—especially if the company is doing well. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Rea...

Useful Quora answer by Seedfund's Mahesh Murthy At the friends and family round, you give out 5% to 10%. So your post valuations are typically around Rs. 1.5 cr At the individual angels round, you give out 10% to 15% so post valuations are Rs. 3 cr to Rs. 5 cr. At the established angels round, you give out 15% to 20% and post valuations are typically Rs. 10 cr or thereabouts. At the seed stage, you probably give out 25% to 33% and the typical post valuations are Rs. 25 cr or so. At the growth stage you give out 25% to 40% or so and your post valuation will be at Rs. 80 cr or so. At the late-stage you might give out 25% to 40% or more and your post valuation will be Rs. 150 cr or so. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Comp...

Useful PPT (by Tim Dick of US-based Startup Capital Ventures) for entrepreneurs in fund raising mode. If it makes your head swim, you know you need to hire a good lawyer (ideally one does not do work for investors as well). Hat tip: Sidd Das Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Seth Godin in Economic Times: Does it snow in Utah because that's where they built the ski areas? Of course not. It's obvious that you find the snow and then you build the ski runs...Whether you're a non-profit fundraiser or someone selling b2b, understanding the profile of what's succeeded before you is a little like understanding where it snows. Sure, it's possible to invent an entirely new market dynamic, to persuade the previously unpersuadable. If that's your mission, go for it. But if your goal is to make your project work, to engage in a way that makes a difference right now, you're better off planting seeds in fertile soil.   Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Exp...

Dharmesh Shah of OnStartups has a "tell it like it is" post on how entrepreneurs and their PR agencies should go about pitching to bloggers like him. (My feeling is that these lessons apply equally well - in "The Indian Context" - to say, pitching Economic Times' Friday page on "Power of Ideas". In fact, Indian journalists and bloggers - self included - can learn a lot on what to screen for - from a readers' perspective - from this post.) Don’t tell me your story is unique. No offense, but it really isn’t. There are thousands of Ramen noodle stories. There are thousands of 3 am “Eureka!” stories. There are thousands of maxed-out credit cards, relatives won’t return your calls, last-minute financing savior stories. Your story is deservedly fascinating to you because you lived it (just as my story is fascinating to me), but to the average reader your story sounds a lot like every other entrepreneur’s story. Claiming your story is unique creates...

Mukund Mohan of Microsoft Accelerator has a post suggesting that entrepreneurs set their expectation realistically on this front. The question I get asked by entrepreneurs a lot is what persona type should I hire? I see most entrepreneurs looking to hire that elusive work-work persona. There are so many Indian entrepreneurs, who claim to have a culture that attracts the work-work persona, and those folks that are passionate employees. I hate to tell them they are being fooled and really if I talked to their employees, they’d tell me they’d rather start their own company, but dont have the risk profile to do so. Here’s the real truth. The work-work folks will not be working for you in India. They would rather be entrepreneurs themselves, since they live their work. So the best you can do as an entrepreneurs is to hire a work-hobby or work-life persona. I’d highly recommend you dont get frustrated if they dont give you a 100%, because really their mind is elsewhere. As long as ...

The folks at NovoJuris have an article on the tax impact (salary and capital gains) and the implementation of each of these. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Mukund Mohan   of Microsoft Accelerator (emphasis mine): There may be tons of reasons, which are all very valid and humane, for you not to take any painful measures. Your first commitment should be towards your people – so do what it takes to help them land on their feet someplace else, but take the necessary actions to ensure that your business will live to fight another day. You owe it to your dream, your passion and your family to give your startup a fighting chance and keep it surviving as long as you can. ...I have been in this situation two times just in the past 3 years. At both times, revenues from a customer suddenly were in jeopardy and I had to take corrective action very quickly. The day we got to know about it, we had to let go of 4 folks in a very close knit team of 7 and the second time let go of 3 people in a smaller team of 6 people. I had to be ruthless about the business since I wanted the company to survive. Without those cuts, the busi...

Uday Kotak in Outlook Business (emphasis mine): In my 25 years of building this business, I have learnt that embracing change is about creative death. In every organisation you need Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh -  the creator, preserver and destroyer. Most of the time when you start getting successful there are too many Vishnu’s and you will not find as many Mahesh’s. But to continue to be successful in a changing world you need all three. Getting this combination right is crucial and also contextual. At a particular time, you may need more of Mahesh, at another time you may need more of Brahma and some other time, more of Vishnu. It is not one fixed formula, but that is what management and leadership is about. For example, we had an investment in a company called Matrix that was a fascinating idea, but it came to a point where it was not working. We decided to exit, took the pain and moved on. As a firm grows and becomes more successful, exiting becomes more diffic...

From an Inc. summary of panel discussion involving women entrepreneurs: Eight weeks after emerging from the Tech Stars accelerator, Fitton's company, OneForty, closed a $2 million venture round. It happened fast--too fast, said Fitton. The company wasn't ready for it. "Our burn rate went way up and we became much more expensive," she said. That happened before OneForty had quite settled on a direction. Taking venture capital means "hiring a boss you can't fire," she added. Ferraro's venture investors insisted she relinquish several projects that mattered to her, including work in the community, and with the homeless. "I had to do it under the radar and behind their backs," Ferraro said. She advised attendees to consider debt first and "keep your equity in your pocket." Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and f...

Tom Evslin has ten ways to identify whether you are an entrepreneur. Here are some of them: 10. You can’t bring yourself to call anyone “boss”. 8. Instead of saying “there oughtta be a law”, you say “there could be a business…” 5. Some of your favorite people are VCs (condition applies only after obtaining at least one round of VC funding). 4. Some of your least favorite people are VCs (condition applies only after ATTEMPTING to obtain at least one round of VC funding). 3. You are most likely to start a new business immediately after thinking in the shower. 2. You have to take two zeros OFF the numbers in your business plan or no one will believe it.   Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competitio...

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't. "  But, which 'few years' of your life? I have a theory that, given the Indian social and economic context (despite early stage funding options getting better in recent years), it would be good for folks in India to turn entrepreneur at either of the following two stages of their lives:   1. Straight out of bachelor's education - or maybe with 1-2 years of work experience. Especially a good idea if the idea/opportunity you are going after cannot wait (i.e., someone else will end up executing on it to your lifelong regret). Also, at this stage of life, you have nothing very significant to lose by giving it a shot - say for two years. Getting back into the job market before you turn 27 or 28, isn't difficult at all in today's context. 2. After you have saved up enough to put your kids through ...

  Nilesh Bhojani has some advise on the best practices in Yourstory : Plan to spend at least a couple of hours on product development every day – answering queries from the development team on detailed requirements, reviewing and testing  progress, thinking about the next set of items to be built, reviewing and testing what has been done so far, and so on. If the product to be built is complex and the development team is bigger than 2-3 members, you might have to spend even more time. If you can’t commit that kind of that time, you must hire someone who understands the domain and someone you can trust – this person can be a bridge between you and the development team. If the development team is remote, this person should be local to you and he/she needs to have the authority to make day-to-day product decisions. ...Also, the development team working on the project usually notices a number of things that can be done different or better and this could be valua...

Accelerators, Incubators, Angel Networks, Seed Funds, Early Stage VC  Funds, Growth Stage VC Funds, Mid Market PE Funds, Buyout Funds, Large/Global PE Funds…. the Indian PE/VC Investor Ecosystem is getting more and more stratified and specialized each year. As a founder/promoter/senior representatives of a growth oriented company, its is crucial to remain updated on the developments in the investor ecosystem – at least once a year. Which is what the annual APEX PE/VC Summit & Awards ( February 13, 2013 at Mumbai’s ITC Grand Central - Parel) provides you in one power packed day long event. The Star Studded Speaker Line-up at APEX’13 includes: For The Big Picture: How about someone who was Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank Of India until last month? And Chief Economist-Asia-Pacific at a top global rating agency before that. For The Public Markets: How about the CEO of the Asia's Oldest and best known stock exchange , the BSE? About Private Equity: How ab...

Interesting take from Derek Flanzraich, Founder and CEO of Greatist,  in his Mixergy podcast : ... convincing people to work for very little money, or no money, is very hard, and if you convince them, it means they’re in it for something else. I love that. I love the idea that we were creating an online TV show at my university because people genuinely thought it was important that we do it. The students were learning how to run a camera, something they’d never done before, purely because they thought it was important that we poke and satirize the university. Here it’s no different, except the difference is it’s bigger and more meaningful. We want to help people think of health and wellness in a healthier way. When we interview people for new jobs, if they don’t believe extraordinarily, passionately in this vision of the future and want to have a hand in shaping it regardless of their experience, we don’t hire them. I got reminded about the amazing story of the ...

Ashish of Nextbigwhat has a nice post on why it's dangerous for Indian startups to (ab)use "cloud" as a marketing buzzword when pitching to customers (as against investors). To which I added the following comment: Just when the logic of SaaS (pay as you go; no installations reqd; upgrades are automatic, etc.) seemed to be getting through to the target market (SME owners/promoters), the vendors have abandoned it (at least the word) to make themselves cloudy. Having said that, let me join the buzzword bandwagon. Dear Investor,  We are a cloud-based big data firm leveraging social networks and are working on a disruptive mobile application (iOS only). Interested?   Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Lear...

And other vignettes from TiECon Chennai-2012 "I'm going to just stay still like you," said the rabbit to the owl on the tree branch above. And proceeded to stay still. Just then, a fox happened to pass by and got to enjoy a nice (effortless) dinner. - Satguru Jaggi Vasudev to emphasize that entrepreneurs can afford to delegate depending on the level at which their company is. (If the company is operating at a vulnerable level - like the rabbit - then they better be "running around" focusing on even the smallest details. But if the startup has taken off, they can afford to perch themselves and run their companies with an owl's eye view.) Keep your eyes on the immediate next milestone (say, Series A funding) and focus on what you need to get there. Everything else is a distraction. - K. Ganesh , Founder of TutorVista & CustomerAsset You have one life to live. And it is too short to worry about building a legacy and be wedded to one com...

From a post on being practical   Of simple startup names that work - Single letter words – Path, Square, Fab, Uber Twisted Spellings – Lyft, Digg, Disqus Tongue Twisters – Quora, Twitter, Bitly Double letter words – Instagram, Foursquare, SendGrid, Facebook, AngelList, TechCrunch, PostMates ( Wishberg goes here). Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

I was recently a guest at the Insead "India Business Dialogue" event at Bangalore. The event aimed to provide Insead grads - who are naturally mostly employed at large corporations - on starting up, attracting venture capital and, if the entrepreneurial plunge is too much of a risky leap, getting hired by a startup. If the grads thought getting hired by a startup sounded safer, they had anothing think coming. The last session (on joining a startup) had one representative each from a VC firm, a HR Services firm and a veteran entrepreneur. And here's a sample of what they had to say about startup hiring techniques: The Entrepreneur: One of my friends makes sure to pour coffee on the candidate and takes a call based on how the candidate reacts. The HR Person: We offer to send a cab for picking up the candidate. And we generally don't bother to. We - and out clients - like to see whether the candidate turns up late and cribs about the taxi or figures out an alter...