Month: December 2019

Motivation is the number one thing founders are looking for in their team

A few weeks back I was struggling with a question – what are the top challenges faced by Indian startup founders?

I tried searching online but most (sorry, all) of the data points were from either the US or Europe. That left me frustrated. And I wondered if there are others like me who want this data. More so, if we really want the Indian startup ecosystem to grow we really NEED data!

Then, I thought of it as an opportunity to start collecting this data for the larger benefit of the Indian startup ecosystem. Consequently, I put up a few questions on a Google Form and published it online.

One of the questions is – What qualities do you associate with the team you have/want to build?

Till now “Motivation” seems to be the top choice!

If you are a startup founder, please fill-up the survey here and help improve the Indian Startup ecosystem. You can as well visit my blog post here and do the same.

A big thanks to all of the amazing 50+ startup founders who have already filled it up!!

Building a fundable pitch deck

As an entrepreneur, I have been making pitch decks for a few years now. While a few of them got funded, a lot of them went into a black hole. In contrast, when I started my new avatar as an angel investor, I started on the other side of the table. Now, every day I see pitch decks from a lot of interesting startups. While almost all of them are doing something really amazing, a lot of the times it doesn’t emerge out of the pitch deck itself.

My Design Thinker friend Atin Kumar heard my rants. And he told me, if I see people are struggling with pitch decks then I should think of a way to help them. That’s where I thought of taking a session on “Building a Fundable Pitch Deck”. We brainstormed a bit and decided to launch a small event. Here is the link to register for the event.

This was two days back ( 3rd Dec, 2019 ). Yesterday something interesting happened.

Ratan Tata posted a pitch deck template on Instagram.

The timing could not be any better 🙂 Here is the link to the template. Now, if Ratan Tata himself shares a pitch deck template for startups, imagine how important it is for your startup!

Getting the template was the easy part. How to follow it for your startup? How to make it work for your pitch?

This is what I am going to cover in the session. If you are a startup in Pune trying to raise funds and are struggling with your pitch deck, please register here and join us on 15th December (Sunday) at Alacrity India Innovation Center, Baner.

One reason why a lot of startups fail – building the right team

According to different studies in Europe and the US, anywhere between 23% to 60% of startups fail due to problems with the team. I could find some data about startups in the US and Europe but nothing comparable to India. And that got me thinking.

I believe the first step towards solving a problem is to acknowledge it. To acknowledge one has to “know” and for knowing we need data. This is an attempt to collect some relevant data from startup founders in the context of the Indian startup ecosystem.

The idea is still evolving – I put a simple google form and initially just shared it within the different WhatsApp groups. On crossing 25 responses I thought – can we really collect some meaningful data from a few hundred or thousand startups across India? I believe it is worth taking the effort. Also, my own selfish motive is to be able to connect with that many smart entrepreneurs and share our mutual learnings.

If you are a startup founder please take out 3-5 minutes and fill this up. The results will be published online and shared with all the participants. Thanks a lot for your participation!
More importantly, please do share it with other founders in your network. More the merrier 🙂

Here is the link to Google Form – https://forms.gle/m4qrnQCMHWBzcbQK9