PROTO4: I was there too...

It was a tiring day for me at IIT Delhi where I had a chance to see the India's upcoming Entrepreneurs who had been sweating off late to get themselves established to this open ended world. It all started with an inaugural keynote by Mr Kiran Karnik in which he emphasized some of the key areas which need to be looked into before going for an adventurous venture. He pointed 3 main key factors of Funding, Networking and Mentoring that one should consider and lay emphasis on.

A very useful and a healthy discussion that started proto4 in style. The charisma he brought into the hall was mind blowing. A simple person who having years and years of experience behind him and telling about the basics one should never forget while going out for a venture was simply amazing.

The discussion was soon followed by another presentation by Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman , Founder and CEO of Bharat Matrimonial who guided us through the path that he followed in starting with a small group of user base ending up in what is known to be the leading matrimonial site in India with a user base of close to 4 million and running the portal in 10 odd languages. Another great archiver who not only evolved in his domain but came out to be the leader in it. He gave important tips on the services sector, and the innovations one need to do from time to time to survive in this competitive world. Hats off man!!!!!!!

This soon was followed by another presentation by Mr Bhavin Turakhia , Founder and CEO of Directi. Man this guy was amazing, full of energy, enthusiastic and influential and the one who knew his stuff to the fullest. I came to know about him for the first time. He presented his own vision of what a business is all about.

The presentation started with a tag line "Business is like a game" . Now who the hell would believe that Business is a game, atleast I will not, but after his presentation I realized that it is indeed a game only if played in a correct way and with a correct goal with correct players.

The two most important aspects for the success of every business drills down to the following points
1. Gather the right players.
2. And enable them to take the right decisions most of the time.

Pretty much elaborative i guess. But if u analyze it u yourself would feel that they are indeed the only two factors that contribute to the major portion of the success.

He gave his seven Principle for the so called "GAME"

Principle 1 - Teach the game.
Principle 2 - Share the macro vision.
Principle 3 - Work for the near term targets and milestones.
Principle 4 - KEEP SCORES
Principle 5 - Define a well defined Line of sight.
Principle 6 - Celebrate your victories.
Principle 7 - Align everyone's interest.

Wooooooopppppp ..... Memorised them by heart, Just try and think over them and the answer is there in them.

Looking forward to play the game on these principles.

Then there was a by Mr Sameer Guglani , who talked about getting the products to the right consumers and making them love the products.

Mahesh Murthy , Managing Partner at Seedfund, another great person with an amazing histroy was addressed us on the various strategies one should follow while Marketing a product. "Correct Pricing" of the product while bringing it to the market is the essential factor that determines the success of the product. It was more of a discussion session with people asking him questions that touched nearly all the domains of a business. He was then joined by Kiruba Shankar who discussed on why people blog and what all people have gained through blogging and should one actually blog or if yes then what should be blogged.

It was more a mentoring session for me as I being a lazy chap would not have blogged in years to come. But guyz here i m writing this blog, this being just the outcome what I learned from the amazing and influential people. Thanks again to all of them for showing me a direction. Would just pray that my laziness does not hold me back from blogging.

Another amazing presentation by Mr Amit Ranjan , Co Founder Slide Share, on the virality over the web. I learned about a new term Viral Coefficient and how it is another most important aspect to determine the success of a business.
I signed up for Slide share today and added 961 accounts to it from my gmail id thus increasing its viral coefficient by 0.01 I guess :). Amit u owe me one for this man !!!!!!!

Then there was a sudden change in the schedule I guess. We had a speaker who had these patches of white and black hairs on his head and beard came to the party. After a few minutes of his briefing about himself I came to know that he was actually a film director and a story writer.
Mr Shashanka Ghosh , director of feature films (Waisa Bhi Hota hai) who is coming up with what seemed to be an amazing comedy Quick Gun Murugun . A cheer was their in the crowd seeing his venture.

The final presentation was by Mr Gaurav Bhatnagar , Founder and CEO Tekriti, who told us about what actually a startup business requires is not the greatest of Idea but it requires grabbing the correct opportunity at the right time. He told us about how his venture was actually started with they getting into an entirely new technology and developing "SOMETHING" out of it that "DOES SOMETHING". Another great presentation that actually might have helped a lot of those people who have vision and are building over it and yet to take a flight into this zone of successful startups. hats off guyz , u really have helped a lot of people today.

Feeling zzzzzZZZZzzzz guys after this hectic day. Would take your leave now and will join the PROTO.IN tomorrow at 9:00 pm sharp.