I am looking forward to participate in IIT Roorkee E-Summit @ 18-19 April 2009. I am not taking my laptop, it will be a good break from my regular schedule, campuses are always good places to spend time at, students are so full of energy.
I am doing quite a few things as part of the event:
- Giving a talk on “Accelerating your Startup“,
- Participating in a panel discussion “What investors want?“
- Mentoring startups in the “Mentoring Clinic“
- And judging finals of the B-plan competition – ARTH
If you are planning to attend the summit, lets catch up this weekend @ IIT R.
Here are my notes for the talk on Accelerating your Startup, would love to get your inputs as well.
- Get out of planning and discussion phase
- Commit to deadlines
- Make decisions
- Execute, execute , execute
- Translating dreams to idea
- The art of zooming in: entrepreneurs always start with a grand vision, the art is to zoom into a small part of the vision and start by doing it well.
- Cost management, Time management (use tools like : spread sheets , desksway , white boards)
- Force yourself to release / launch fast
- Go get real users ->improve their life
- Start efforts to monetize the users
- Its possible to apply agile techniques to all parts of your business ( 2 week release cycles)
- Ensure Quality, quality comes with care. Build products that are dream come true for your customers.
- While building your products, go around with your laptop, show it people in in cafe – get feedback, talk about it
- Measure, Measure, Measure – what can be measured can be managed
- The winning formula: 10L and 12 months
- Upfront capital expense : 2 L
- One year running expense @ 50 k / month = 6 L
- Buffer: 2 L
- Ensure revenues of company are higher than 50 k / month before the end of 12 months
- You are cash flow positive, no dependencies on investors
- You have got people to pay for your service / product – you are in good company (All of the long lasting tech companies figured the monetization very early : apple , google, ebay, paypal, MS, amazon , skype)
- You have survied 1 year – you are on your way to success