iNnovate21

Never let your opinions be influenced by those of others

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(via Carvey: The 3-D Carver (NOT printer) for designers...)

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At the University of Southern California, a group of students with oodles of energy was frustrated that too mant campus clubs were stuck in a rut of speaking, not doing. “It’s easy to hold speaker events, panels, and other speaker opportunities but when does anything actually get done?”, says Alex Zhang. Read more at keshavpadia.wordpress.com

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Here at LavaLab, we believe that ideas mean nothing without execution.

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Research Assistants @ Innovate Delhi

Along with all the participants, organizers and speakers there was a team of research assistants that was working really hard from early in the morning till late in the evening. In Sharique's words, "We might be working really hard since early morning everyday, thinking hard, coming up with IDEA, making texos, but THEY are the ones because of whom IDEA is actually happening."

The team includes Karishma Babbar, Neha Sharma, Ashanvit Sheoran, Bhavna Nagpal, Neha Sharma (Mona) and Kriti Pandey. Yeah, there were two Neha Sharmas. These RAs worked hard to lay down the entire IDEA studio, maintained the studio every day after the mess we used to create, took care of the name tags (a new one every day), the extension cords, post its on each table and God knows what not. The most important thing, they spent 3 weeks of their vacations for us.

I also noticed a team called TASVEER taking photographs all the time. They were the ones covering the event with the awesome and more awesome photographs, missing not even a single picturesque event, be it a speaker session, a group photograph, ideation, brainstorming, feedback, or after hours meetups.

On behalf of all IDEAns (even you are ideans, so i would say: On behalf of all IDEA participants), I thank all the RA's and the team Tasveer for making our lives a hell lot easier and picturesque. Here is a token of gratitude from our side:

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Sharad Sharma, the founder of iSpirit Foundation speaks @ Innovate Delhi

Many years ago, I flew from Oakland to LA for $21. Back then, if anybody would have told me that this going to be the only profitable airline dominating 50% profitability of the industry, I would have laughed," he said refering to Southwest.

People are making complex products with little effort. This is a result of combinatorial innovation for business. Here he mentioned the Wright Bros. who invented the aeroplane before anyone else because of combinatorial innovation.

He also mentioned the 'Aadhar' program, telling that there were only 22 members in the entire team who brought the plan to life. Only two of the initial members have remained - Vivek Raghavan responsible for hardware architecture and Pramod Varma responsible for software architeture.

He then says that it is the mindset of people, that sets them apart. One needs to come out of his comfort zone to innovate and become an entrepreneur. He calls todays a world as full of problems. But that, he says is what makes it an exciting place, because the old system is fragile. It is ready for change. There are infinite opportunities for innovation. Then he again quotes a few examples as:

If anyone told me in the 80's that there will be a company which will have more international call minutes than AT&T, again I would have laughed. Skype that was founded in 2004 did this by 2009, and that too paid voice minutes.

There was a buzz about print media dying out. In the wake of it, Newsweek, the popular magazine called for a meeting in 2007. There they presented a lot of data that they were doing better than 2001 in all statistics. And in 2011, the magazine stopped printing. Back then, had anyone told me that there will be an era of the demise of print media, again I would have laughed.

Such is the change that Sharad talks about. The penetration of mobile phone in India is huge. But had it been only for an iPhone or other elite phones, this could not have been possible. It was made possible only by the cheaper ones that penetrated the market deep, the ones sold by the name of "Chinese Phone."

Siebel systems started selling CRM software at $125 a user a month. Then came salesforce, a CRM that offered its services on the cloud at prices as low as $25 a user a month. Then came into market, a disruption, when zoho, yet another CRM, started offering its services at as low as $0.0 per user per month for upto 3 users. This is the kind of disruption that is needed. Another company, Grexit, is working on making the technology even cheaper. Just imagine, cheaper than $0. Thus the software market has become like a car market, where, a merc has no fear of an alto but a toyota is definitely scared of honda closing-in.

Quickheal and Tally, two Indian companies have their CORPORATE customer base of more than a million users. Those are whooping numbers. Another company called Freshdesk is growing at the rate of a 1000 customers a month, that too, when its just 36 months old.

So many examples, it's not possible to quote them all here. But there is a change that made all these disruptions possible.A non-linear change that we are witnessing right now. Entrepreneurhip has become just like cricket. A game, touted to be the game of elites, that is now being played by people like you and me.

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There was a buzz about print media dying out. In the wake of it, Newsweek, the popular magazine called for a meeting in 2007. There they presented a lot of data that they were doing better than 2001 in all statistics. And in 2011, the magazine stopped printing. Back then, had anyone told me that there will be an era of the demise of print media, again I would have laughed.

Sharad Sharma, the founder of iSpirit foundation

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If anyone told me in the 80's that there will be a company which will have more international call minutes than AT&T, again I would have laughed. Skype that was founded in 2004 did this by 2009, and that too paid voice minutes.

Sharad Sharma, the founder of iSpirit foundation

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Many years ago, I flew from Oakland to LA for $21. Back then, if anybody would have told me that this going to be the only profitable airline dominating 50% profitability of the industry, I would have laughed

Sharad Sharma, the founder of iSpirit foundation refering to Southwest Airlines

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Vinod Rai, the ex-Comptroller Auditor General of India speaks @ Innovate Delhi

The youth today is full of energy. People like me (the bureacrats, the Babus) dont like to be told that we are wrong. And when a computer says "Bad Command" , it feels like who the hell are you. The people today are demanding, they want everything at the tip of their fingers and they want to sit in an air conditioned room. To become an entrepreneur, it is so easy, as just to build an app to cater to those wants.

Giving an example, he said, 'the government is the largest consumer of trees.' For a document that can be digitized, the government takes it in triplicate. Then comes a guy who says, just use a computer to find all the documents at one place. Why wouldn't I take it.

According to him, at the onset of the new millenium, the country was bustling with growth at 8 to 9%. The country was at the doorway of a golden era, all set for a double digit growth. But then something went wrong, may be the global meltdown or something internally. But something definitely went wrong in India. He then says that the worst is over. It is probably the best time for entrepreneurship.

He then gives another example of December 16, 2012. Something happened, that shook the capital. Youth, thousands in numbers, gathered all over Delhi, peacefully, without any intention of wrong-doings, to mark their protest.  He also says that "my old woman" asked him, for them to go there as well. But he refused, because he didn't want the title of the creator of the drama. They were not forced by anyone. Neither were they brought with any kind of petty greed. They came out of their own free will. Social media was a huge messenger of these activities. With this he explained the change in mindset that is coming.

The youth, be it the babus, the politicians, the minister or any other place desires accountability. Here, he mentioned the example of Durga Shakti Nagpal. He describes how everybody is asking for orders IN WRITING. Even the ordinance, as he said, that was torn by Rahul Gandhi was just a face saving measure. It was actually 17 young MPs from his party who started the uproar at the roots.

He promoted the people sitting there to generate great ideas and push them for the ideology shift that was taking place. He inspired the people to channelize their ideas and energy and use them to create a revolution. He promoted us to strive for perfection. Not just locally, not just nationally, but GLOBAL PERFECTION. Tolerating mediocrity is not an option. We have to be at the top. In the process, he also urged all of us, never to cut corners. Never to do things, that will make a portion of your past look black. Things which will make you regret, you did them.

He finished on a positive note, saying that innovate and initiate. Giving the example of Maruti, he said,

If the product is good, and if there is supply, demand will follow.

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If the product is good, and if there is supply, demand will follow.

Vinod Rai, ex-CAG of India on Product Entrepreneurship

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Mr. Kiran Karnik, director on the central board of RBI speaks @ Innovate Delhi

Mr. Kiran Karnik was one of today's esteemed guests and speaker. He is a prominent Indian administrator chiefly known for his work in the broadcasting and outsourcing industries. Presently he is also serving as a Director in Central Board of Directors of Reserve Bank of India.

According to him, 'entrepreneurship may or may not be a teachable skill.' But an exposure to startups will make you agree that a lot of it comes from regular thrive. Events like Innovate Delhi bring together, people from very diverse backgrounds to spend time together and ideate, take feedback and refine their ideas.

Out of the myriad of ideas, that are generated in such events, few come out to exist in the real world. The other ideas fail. YES, it is the IDEAS that fail. The entrepreneur never fails. He strives, re-iterates, and comes up with a new idea. Failure has been cliched to be a taboo. But the scenario is changing. People are mentioning failed start-ups in their applications, because this tells that a person has knowledge about what can go wrong.

He again mentions diversity as a tool for innovation. A diversified view at a problem helps you develop an innovative idea. He calls us fortunate to have taken birth in an era full of problems. Because all we need to do is find a unique solution to a common problem and we become an entrepreneur.  We need to tap the positive energy in and around us and translate it into some useful work.

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And the esteemed judges @ Innovate Delhi are.....

1. Vinod Rai, Former CAG

Mr. Vinod Rai took over as the Comptroller & Auditor General of India in 2008. His previous position was as Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, where he was responsible for managing the Financial Services sector, including banks and insurance companies.  He has been a Director on several Boards including the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank etc.

Mr. Vinod Rai (born on 23.05.1948) has a Masters Degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He has a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, USA.

  2. Navyug Mohnot, CEO & Founder of QAI

Navyug Mohnot is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. After his B.Tech from IIT, he went to the US on a fellowship, to do a PhD from the University of Rochester. He returned to India and set up QAI India to evangelize the concepts of Process and Quality. Navyug has been awarded the IIT Alumni Award for "Outstanding Contribution to National Development". In a survey by Dataquest, the leading IT trade press publication, he was recognized as 1 of the 50 leaders who have shaped and are shaping the Indian IT industry. He is a TiE Charter Member, a mentor on the NASSCOM Emerge Forum, on the editorial advisory board of India for India's first journal on consulting titled “Consulting Ahead” etc.

  3. Vishnu Dusad, MD, Nucleus Software

Vishnu R. Dusad is the CEO and Managing Director of Nucleus Software Exports Limited. He founded Nucleus in 1986 along with three other professionals and has since been steering the course of the company to its current success. It has been his vision and faith that established Nucleus as one of the few software companies with a very strong Product focus.

Mr. Dusad's experience encompasses areas of software development, creation of strategic alliances, business development, and strategic planning. He has technology background and 22 years of valuable professional experience in the exciting space of Information Technology Solutions for the BFSI sector.

In 2007, Forbes listed Nucleus amongst the Best 200 Under A Billion Companies in Asia. Mr. Dusad is a member of executive committee of FICCI and also a part of Indo-Australia Joint Business Committee, FICCI. -

  4. Rajnish Kapur, President, DMI (Former CIO of Makemytrip)

Rajnish is President (India Operations) at Digital Management, Inc . He is an internationally experienced technocrat with track record as a technology entrepreneur with successful exits. Created and managed organizations, developed & implemented solutions in various geographies and developed products for the global market. His previous positions include CIO at MakeMyTrip.com, Executive Vice-President at Kale Consultants among other prestigious ones. He has an Economics degree from Shri Ram College Of Commerce.

  5. Sharad Sharma - Co-Founder, iSPIRT.

Sharad Sharma is Co-founder and Governing Council Member at iSPIRT Foundation. Sharad is one of the active technology angel investors in India with about two dozen investments, and is a member of Indian Angel network. He has held a number of senior executive positions with leading technology companies. Most recently he was a SVP at Yahoo! and CEO of India R&D. He co-founded Teltier, now part of Cisco, and is currently the CEO of BrandSigma Inc.

  6. Shanti Mohan, Co-Founder, LetsVenture

Shanti Mohan is one of the Founders at LetsVenture. Her previous position was as Senior Program Manager at Hewlett-Packard, Cupertino.

Even though Shanti Mohan identifies herself as an Entrepreneur and Angel investor, she has hands-on experience in Product Design, Development and Deployment of solutions along with Strategy, Program Management across cross functional teams.

  7. Sumeet Kapoor, Founder & CEO, Employwise

Sumeet is a serial entrepreneur with a deep understanding of human relationship management in business. He is among the early ones to appreciate the power of SaaS (software as a service) as an enabler for taking automation to millions of small and medium businesses across the world.

Sumeet has over 26 years' experience in the IT industry. He started his career with Tata Unisys and went on to worked with Wipro Systems in its pioneering days as a product software company before promoting his first venture, Chipsoft Technology and helped build it into one of the most respected multi-vendor IT support services company. In 1999 Sumeet co-founded a software company that built first a CRM Product and then EmployWise.

  8. Arun Jay - SlideShare

Arun Jay identifies himself as “Designer wearing multiple hats. “ He is the UX Design Manager at LinkedIn, Principal Designer at SlideShare Inc and Co-founder at Mooco Bicycle Co. His interests and specialisations include Design Management, Metrics Informed Design, User Experience, Growth Hacking, Typography among others.

  9. Manish Singhal, Co-Founder, LetsVenture

Manish Singhal is one of the founders at LetsVenture and identifies himself as an Entrepreneur, Coach and Angel Investor. Mentor at CIIE (IIM-Ahmedabad), Start-up Village(Kochi) & Venture Lab (Stanford University)

Member Indian Angel Network. His specialities include Building excellence in all spheres of any business - starting from strategy to operations to people, "Whatever it takes" combined with "Do it right" approach,

  10. Sunil Goyal, COO, Sopra India

He is responsible for all functions including software delivery, HR, IT, Finance, and administration.

He earlier co-founded Momentum India with almost nil seed capital in 1993. Along with his co-founder, he became one of the largest channel sales partners for Wipro InfoTech for their IT products in India. He was instrumental in diversifying into software services business and, subsequently raising 1.5 million USD funding from Citibank.

He was part of the management team that engineered Momentum's acquisition by Newell and Budge in March 2005, one of the largest IT companies of Scotland. This company was subsequently acquired by Sopra Group in July 2005, a billion Euro French company with more than 13000 people worldwide.

  11. Rohan Malhotra, Investopad

Rohan is a co-founder at Investopad which is a complete ecosystem, campus and hub for breeding startup entrepreneurship for India’s next generation of tech stars.

Investopad has been commissioned as a 100,000 sq. ft. project, and provides entrepreneurs at the startup stage, training and access to state-of-the-art resources for learning, research and development in the field of technology entrepreneurship.

Rohan looks after the funding, as well as the managerial aspects of Investopad, including providing access to professional services such as Legal, Administrative, Managerial, Financial and Business and Brand Development to the startups working out of Investopad. Investopad also provide access to seed, angel and VC funding across a global network.

  12. Dr. Pankaj Jalote, Director, IIITD

Before joining IIITD, he was the Microsoft chair professor at Dept. of computer science and enginering at IIT-Delhi. Before that, he was a Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT - Kanpur, where he was also the head of the dept. from 1998-2002. From 1996-1998, he was VP (quality) at Infosys. He is also the author of the highly acclaimed book CMM in Practice.

  13. Ranjit Bhatia, Investment Analyst, Sequoia Capital

Ranjit Bhatia is an Investment Analyst with Sequoia Capital in India. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital, Ranjit was a strategy consultant with Booz & Company, where he served clients across sectors including financial services, telecommunications, industrials and agribusiness. Ranjit holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours from the University of Melbourne.

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The Top 5!!!!

There were 38 teams formed for the final week of innovate delhi. And they were all simply great. We were free to choose any industry as we wanted. Ideation was hot since Monday in the IDEA studio at IIIT, Delhi. People were taking feedback within and outside of innovate delhi. Extensive market surveys were carried out by a lot of teams. And I'm sure a lot of people out there have come to about the legendary innovate delhi. A lot of ideas were dropped and new ideas generated based on the feedback. Many were completely overhauled. Rem, Randy and Sharique had been taking repetitive pitiching sessions to make sure that all teams were upto the mark.

Today came the day, to select the top 5. And the entire audi was high on expectations, because there wasn't much magin to decide. In the words of Sharique, "it was a really difficult decision to make." But it had to be someone. So the teams that got selected were ZapApp, Ripple, Shoutstr, Aegis and Couch Surfing. I will be posting more about these in the further posts.

These are the teams that are getting to pitch in front of the VC's and other judges today at 11:30am. Other teams will also be given an opportunity to get themselves noticed at a poster session.

That's all for now. Will keep you posted. Don't miss out on this thrilling  journey.

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Stories of the Top 5 @ Innovate Delhi

I have been getting a lot of requests from different people to tell more about the top 5 ideas that were pitched before the VC's. So here are a few brief write-ups about each one of them (in no particular order):

  1. Team AEGIS (Shubham Sharma, Vijay Sirohi, Abhishek Upperwal)

The trio developed a wearable - actualy a watch - that could be used to relay location of the person in case of an emergencey. It was kind of a smart watch, which you could use to call the emergency response numbers. In case of any emergency situation, the watch could transfer the information to the angecies as well as the back up numbers given by them.

2. Team ZAPAPP (Divyanshu, Mahesh, Yatharth)

When you go to a fine dining restaurant, there is usually a delay in the process between when you get seated, and the waiter presents you with the 'carte'. What this team did was, to eliminate this delay. They provided an app with the menu of the restaurant and gave the user, the ability to order food directly from the app. An insight ful solution to a widespread problem.

3. Team RIPPLE (Hanisha Vaswani, Pratik Narang, Ritesh Bansal)

Most of you must have used coursera. So what they did was, they took the same model for semi-skilled workers, for example, taxi drivers with radio cab operators. The idea was to train the workers to provide a better consumer experience for the customers of the parent company which employs such semi-skilled workers.

4. Team SURFING COUCH (Sameer Sawhney, Rohan Katyal, Megha Arora)

Having trouble finding an open WiFi on the go. Contact surfing couch, may be they can help. These guys have planned to create a global-social WiFi network. Herein, every WiFi user can pledge a portion of their WiFi internet for the community, and in return, they can use the internet of others in the community making wireless internet access easy on the go.

5. SHOUTSTR (Raghav Manchanda, Radhika Dutt, Aman Singh)

This team came out with a really interesting, word-of-mouth marketing solution. Herein, they provide free samples of products to popular people like renowned bloggers or celebrated tech geeks in return for honest reviews of the product on their social network, thus bringing traction for the product.

  I would rather not reveal any more information about any of these (don't wanna be sued at such a young age), but if anybody is interested in more info about these startups, I can connect you directly to the co-founders.

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Anuradha Das Mathur of 9.9 Media speaks on Entrepreneurship @ Innovate Delhi

Entrepreneur (as the Oxford dictionary says): A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit. But does it meet your definition of it. I think it is a complete way of life, 'the entrepreneurial way of life', which cannot be described in words.

Some people don't want to work for others. They just can't take orders. Other's want to revolutionize an industry. Yet others wanted to mint money. But as Anuradha says, not working for someone else or making money was never a motivation. Instead she wanted to work the way she does, she says. She loves what she does.

How do you do it, entrepreneurship? You need take an initiative and be open to all kinds of experiences. Collect-The-Dots is smoething that should be remembered, she says even before Connect-The-Dots. Because you can only connect the dots once you collect them.

In early days of being an entrepreneur, you need to sell yourself. It is easy to sell an IBM, or a Cadbury, because there is something tangible there. But selling yourself is a great challenge. You don't have a tangible value. You become the brand. There is a very thin rope between arrogance and self-confidence which you have to walk. An entrepreneur finds an opportunity for success where others fail or see failure. You need to be comfortable with the notion of ambiguity/uncertainty. Anuradha mentions Fukrey and relates it with uncertainty. 'Music or Me', the actress asked just to be certain.

There are people who want others to believe in their model before they start it. There are parental problems all the time. Especially if you fail. 9.9 media thought to start with four verticals; dailies, insights, digital, and studio. But all that 9.9 Media is today is 9.9 Insights.

On new opportunities, she mentions 'The Three Buckets'.

1. How to do what you did so far - better?

2. What new thing will you do this month/quarter/year?

3. And what must you start thiinking about to do next month/quarter/year?

Ask these questions to yourselves, repetitively.

The three indespensible things you can't do without, are courage, stamina/energy and optimism.

On a question on investors, Anuradha emphasizes on inviting the negative feedback. Arrogance against it can lead to a huge failure. Therefore, be open to investors who question your ideology. They make you cut down your loopholes.

At the end she encourages the audience on women entrepreneurship. She promotes women to be financially independent.  "If women learnt to cope with three years of guilt", Anuradha recalls her mother as saying, they can end up really happy and independent.

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Week 2 @ Innovate Delhi, Awesome Business Ideas!!!

This week was all about business model. Revenue. Profit. Money, money and money!!! Obviously, because had it not been for money, how else would your venture survive? And the industry to be revolutionized this week was the health industry. Mind you, it was not the health care industry, but the health industry, and included gymnasiums, yoga, rejuvination, etc alongside the health care industry.

LMC (Lean Model Canvas) is one of the primary things that you are asked for when pitch your business. A case study about lean model canvas gave a detailed picture of the LMC and how to present it.

Pitch deck came out to be yet another necessity. Though I have been dealing with the start-up ecosystem for quite some time, I never knew what it was. For those who don't what a pitch deck is, the pitch deck is the first communication with a potential investor. The content of the pitch deck, and how you present it, determines if the investor should continue to evaluate your idea further.

There have been a lot of great ideas which were visible during yesterday's peer evaluation. Such great implementation. Sitting among more than 100 aspiring entrepreneurs, or even more, sitting among more than 30 great ideas, that are worth a pitch, is a chance that no one would want to miss. People used to stay in the campus, till late in the evening, and up in their homes, till late night, debating and discussing their business models point-by-point.

There were also, a myriad of inspiring speakers, who have carved a niche for themselves. Amit Ranjan of SlideShare, Ankur Singla of Akosha, P. Rajasekharan of v-shesh, Karan Gupta of Helion Ventures, Maninder Gulati of Light Speed Ventures and Sumeet Kapur of EmployWise, were notable ones. Randy Lubin has been an in-house speaker, who took various sessions on topics like coding, negotiations, etc.  Many of the speakers have been covered in the previous posts.

A few of the popular phrases have been "Brilliant Jerks" and "For every suucessful entrepreneur, there are hunderds in grave."

That's all for week 2. And we'll be entering the third and the last week tomorrow. Let's hope for some more funtrepreneurship.

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Randy Lubin speaks on Negotiating @ Innovate Delhi

Things that were deliberately not included in this talk are persuation ("Influence" By Robert Cialdini, List of Cognitive Biases - Wikipedia), zero sum game(win-lose) and bad faith. To Negotiate, figure out your interests in the negotiation. The reserve price is the chief interest below which, any negotiation is fruitless. Next look out for BATNA (Best Alternative To Negaotiated Agreement). Always look for options! Keep looking for as many of them as possible.

Know your enemy is a popular misconception. You should rather look out for the partner as you negotiate with partners, not with enemies. Start building rapport with that person initially. Try to find the interests of the partner rather than his positions. Positions can be changed but the interests can't be changed.

Know the levers. This helps you push for things that you feel can go through the negotiating table. Logrolling is a good phenomenon. Keep on logrolling to trade favors. Look for even More Options! Example: While consulting or other activities, the fees that we negotiate can also be partly in terms of equity. Always looking at cash is a bad move.

Things to Avoid

Piecemeal Negotiations: The process where the negotiation occurs in different steps (pieces).

Deal Fatigue: The inevitable point in a deal when too much work, too many arguments, and too many sleepless nights can lead to, at best, short tempers and, at worst, busted deals.

Sunk Cost Fallacy: The idea that a company or organization is more likely to continue with a project if they have already invested a lot of money, time, or effort in it, even when continuing is not the best thing to do: Economists would point out that the sunk cost fallacy is irrational, and could be described as "throwing good money after bad"

Have look at this article by Stanford GSB on 7 Negotiation Mistakes to be Avoided: http://stnfd.biz/rZQIx