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In the last few months I did not publish any proper posts (other than cut & paste event announcements) . I guess it was a combined effect of writer’s block and a super hectic schedule both on personal and professional front. Professionally – during last 3 months we selected and started working with the 10-11 new portfolio companies for MVP-Batch 3. Personally – I and Nandini adopted a cute little baby girl – her name is Sanaa.

Well this time around I was away from blogging for so long that I nearly lost the habit of working regularly on my blog.

A couple of days back I saw a new mail from Jason on his mailing list and towards the end of the mail he wrote about the fact that he was writing after a long time because of XYZ reasons. After reading the mail something clicked in me also and I realized how badly I am missing blogging, decided to get back. and Here I am. I plan to first complete a number of posts that have been around as drafts for a couple of months now and then start some new stuff.

What do you guys think. Also looking forward to interacting with you (yeah I am smiling ear-to-ear)…

Oh yeah here are a couple pictures of Sanaa

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Xtreme Startups startup evening — Chandigarh edition — 11th July, 2009

Xtremestartups team is excited to invite you to another edition of Startup Evening in Chandigarh on 11th July, 2009

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes of best practices of building businesses!

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Date / Time
11 July, 2009 (Saturday)
15:00 – 18:00 hrs

Speakers Start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level.   * S P  Rangi, Founder, Clarity Medicals
* To be confirmed  

To get an invite Contact Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkara.edu.in

Format * Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs
* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner. * Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem. * Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event.
* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Nominations:

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com OR shahnaz.jerathATchitkara.edu.in

See you on Saturday!

XtremeStartups Chandigarh: Startup evening on 20 June

Xtreme Startups – a Non-Profit initiative to support / promote entrepreneurship is back again in Chandigarh with this months edition of Startup Evening.

Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) & Startupnews.in

This month Xtreme Startups will be on: June 20, 2009 Saturday

Between: 15:00 – 18:00hrs

Audience: Startup founders and select students

Discussion topic: Crossing the Chasm – how to scale the business once you have a few paid customers and initial traction. Everything from expanding the team, building products to raising funds and the challenges post that.

Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.

If you want to bring XtremeStartups to your city / campus, do get in touch with us!

Format

  • Event will be attended by 20-25 founders of start-ups from Chandigarh-tricity area and around 20-30 students
  • The event brings together Startup Founders from the region to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
  • The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
  • Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
  • There is no fee for attending the event

What will you gain from the event?

  • Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
  • Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
  • Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
  • Opportunity to build a strong startup community in the Chandigarh Tri-City region

Want to be a part of this event?

Send a mail to nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom with a brief introduction about you and your venture.

Feel free to invite / bring along other entrepreneurs / startup founders you know.  Spread the word!

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Xtreme Startups team is excited to announce “Startup Morning” in Bangalore

Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. In all events we were more than houseful on the capacity, participation was intense and interesting discussions took place. Read coverage here.

Recently, these events are organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. Xtreme Startups is a Non-Profit initiative to support /promote entrepreneurship. This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by NSRCEL – IIMB, Chitkara University , Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in.

The first Xtreme Startup event was organized in Chandigarh a couple of weeks back, details

Date: 24 May, 2009 (Sunday)

Time: 10:00 am – 01:00 pm

Speakers: Three start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level.

Phanindra Sama, Founder & CEO www.redbus.in

Phanindra is the co-founder and CEO of redBus, India’s largest bus tickets aggregator in just over 2 years of operations! He has a honors from BITS Pilani, and worked with Texas Instruments before he co-founded redBus. redBus was born out of a personal need and a market failure. Today redBus’s distribution spans across 75000+ outlets in the country! More…

Prateek & Nithya Dayal, Founders www.muziboo.com

Nithya and Prateek Dayal, a husband and wife duo run Muziboo. Prateek, a B.Tech graduate from IIT Guwahati takes care of technology and Nithya, the community. Both the founders believe in bootstrapping and harnessing the online medium to grow an internet business. Muziboo’s success lies in its emphasis on building a “community” for musicians & music lovers, as against being another file sharing platform. Professional & non-professional musicians ranging from free lancers & audio-engineers to enthusiastic hobbyists use the muziboo platform extensively! Prateek blogs at www.prateekdayal.net/blog and Nithya at www.nithyadayal.com/blog.

Himanshu Khurana, Co-founder & CMO www.lifemojo.com

Himanshu Khurana graduated from NSIT Delhi and worked at Trilogy for 3 years. He later went on to experience the startup world at ngpay(JiGrahak). After 2 years, he founded iStrait with two of his friends, Namit Nangia and Varun Gupta.  LifeMojo provides easy access to preventive health care experts and necessary tracking tools. It also has a platform that helps preventive  health care providers to run and scale-up their existing operations. Launched in November of 2009, they are adding users at a fast pace. Himanshu blogs at hkhurana.wordpress.com. Lifemojo is a MVP portfolio

Audience: Start-up founders / entrepreneurs

Format

  • Event will be attended by 30-40 start-up founders / entrepreneurs
  • The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
  • The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
  • Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
  • There is no fee for attending the event
  • Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?

  • Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
  • Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
  • Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
  • Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Invite Only: It’s an invite only event. In case would like to attend write to indus AT morpheusventure DOT com OR info AT startupnews DOT in, with your full name and a brief introduction of your startup / venture.

See you on Sunday!

Yuva Parliament Chandigarh

(Very good initiative by & for the youth of Chandigarh)

When: Saturday, 9th May 09  3:30 PM – 5:45 PM

Venue: Auditorium, Government Museum and Art Gallery, Sector 10, Chandigarh.

Event Description: Q & A and discussion session amongst the youth of Chandigarh and city’s key electoral candidates.

Confirmed participating candidates

  1. Pawan Kumar Bansal (Congress)  www.pawanbansalforchd.com
  2. Satya Pal Jain (BJP)  www.satyapaljain.com
  3. Harmohan Dhawan (BSP) www.harmohandhawan.com
  4. Ajay Goyal (Independent)  www.ajaygoyal.in

Questions to electoral candidates : Questions could be both about the party’s national policy as well as candidate’s manifesto for the city. Please inform yourself of the candidates past and proposed manifesto by studying their websites. Please word your question to be crisp, to-the-point and brief (45 seconds or less)

Further Details : See doc


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Xtreme Startups presents: Startup Morning

Announcing the first Startup Morning event in Chandigarh. The event is being organized by Xtreme Startups – a Non-Profit initiative to support / promote entrepreneurship. Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University , Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Event Details:

Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. In all events we were more than houseful on the capacity, participation was intense and interesting discussions took place. Read coverage here.

Xtreme Startups team is excited to announce the first “Startup Morning” in Chandigarh Tri-City:

Date: 10 May, 2009 (Sunday)

Time: 10:30 am – 01:00 pm

Venue: Chitkara Educational Trust, Administrative Office: Saraswati Kendra,  Plot  No. 11-12, Dainik Bhaskar Building,
Dakshin Marg, Chandigarh-160 014. Phone: 91.172.4617770

Audience: Start-up founders and select students

Invite Only: Its a invite only event. In case would like to attend write to sameer AT morpheusventure DOT com

Format

  • Event will be attended by 20-25  founders of start-ups from Chandigarh-tricity area and around 20-30 students
  • The event brings together Startup Founders from the region to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
  • The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
  • Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
  • There is no fee for attending the event
  • Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?

  • Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
  • Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
  • Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
  • Opportunity to build a strong startup community in the Chandigarh Tri-City region

See you on Sunday! (for invites write to sameer AT morpheusventure DOT com)

The dream indian manifesto

(Republishing with permission. I received this via e-mail from a friend of mine. )

Dear, dear fellow countrymen!

No day could be more auspicious to share with you certain concerns regarding the coming elections which I and a few of my friends have in our minds keeping in view the future of our great country.

On the one hand, recalling our mastery in the software designing field in the last few years, our economic surge on the world scale, our winning the first-time gold and other medals at the last olympics and to top it all our taking the Hollywood world by storm today by winning 9 straight Oscars one is left in no doubt that the time of India to regain its ancient glory and be one of the leading countries of the world has arrived.

While on the other hand, from clouds of anarchy and instability in our neighbourhood made more monstrous by the possibility of nuclear weapons slipping into wrong hands leading even to the possibility of making the area an arena for a third world war, to the possibility of more and more Mumbai-like terrorist attacks as a consequence, to the almost uneducated, self-centered and criminal-like behaviour of most of our politicians sends a shiver down one’s spine as to whether this country can remain even united not to talk of its becoming great.

Any sensitive soul of India would have wept from his heart if not publically hearing sage-like speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s helpless words a few days ago cursing certain politicians for their unruly, goonda-like beahviour in the Lok Sabha.

“May you all be defeated,” he had lamented.

No doubt we are at the crossroads of history.  Wise say such are the times to make or break something, somebody, an individual, a country, a nation.

Either we can think right thoughts, take right decisions and follow them with right actions and make our great country jump to a new level of awarenes and work-culture compatible with the great possibilities enumerated in paragraph first above, that is, of achieving its ancient glory and leading place in the comity of nations, or,we can let ourselves be taken over by lethargy, laid-back devil-may-care attitude or even worse, by our own local self-interests to let the things drift the way they are so long as they serve our own petty interests and behave as if nothing really worrysome is happening. With the inevitable result that sooner or later it will go the way of neighourhood, into anarchy, into divisions and ultimately into death as a country.
It is time to choose. It is time to choose almost between life and death as a country.

We, some friends, have made our choice. We have chosen life.
We have found ourselves unable to forget the India of yore, the India which gave birth to almost God-like gurus, rishis, munis, fakirs, saints, fighter-saints, kings and princes; the India which gave birth to Vedas, Upanishadas, Gitas and Granths full of wisdom derived from the wisdom-wells of all regions and religions, the India whose spiritual reach touched the godly heights of seeing all as One, indeed seeing all as God. While in the West one William Wordsworth talked of seeing the world in a grain of sand and was celebrated for that, here it is the reality for almost everybody thanks to it.

And so here we move further to choose what right thoughts to think, what right decisions to take, what right actions and work-culture to adopt and then share them with you. With the full hope that just as we have brought these words and thoughts right from our hearts, similarly, you too will follow them right from your heart, that is, with utmost earnestness, as if your very own life is at stake and not of some distant entity called country India.

Now below I will enumerate what right thoughts to think, what right decisions to make, what right actions to adopt for your kind consideration.

A. Right thoughts:

1. I am an Indian first and Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian etc later. No doubt I cannot forget my religion which is really the core of my being but for this very reason I will keep it strictly to myself. I will take it as my most secret pact with God. So that I will not take part in any of those religious affairs/activities in the open which will have the potential to harm my country in any way.

2. I am an Indian first and Utter Pardeshi, Punjabi, Haryanavi, Himachali, Bihari, Maharashtrian, Gujrati etc later. No doubt I cannot forget my state but I will think of my state only as a part of India and not in isolation. If I am really honest I am sure I will not face any difficulty in serving both equally well at all times.

3. I am an Indian first and my individual-self later. I recall that it was not always so and understand and accept the necessity of it being so now. Because extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures and moreover, I would better try to keep my country alive even at the cost of myself now rather than lose my country and make my life even more miserable alive than dead like Palestinian people later. By so doing I will at least be ensuring a home for my future generations not to forget the future generations of India.

4. I would not blame anybody because of their past/past actions, but only because of their actions from now on. I will keep myself free from any depressing thoughts regarding past if any by constantly reminding myself of Lord Krishana’s words in Bhagvad Gita “What happened was for the good”. I know paradigm shifts in people’s awarenesses cannot be brought about by keeping them bound to their pasts. It is an experience really of the soul and for it to happen people’s souls will have to be set free of their pasts.

5. I will envision more and more role for youth in the future because I know that not only are they full of fresh energy but even more importantly, are free from the burdens of the past. Yet I will not allow this at the cost of respect for the elders, because I know that elders did no less in their own times to bring us to the state where we are now and where we can at least breathe, think and act freely.

6. I will prefer inner wealth of knowledge and wisdom over outer wealth of assets and luxuries. And so will expend  far more energy on gaining the former compared to the latter.

7. I think it is time to be leaders unto ourselves and improve whatever things we want to improve rather than wait for the leaders from outside. I will have to be the leader at least for my small world around me myself. I am sure this way some day the whole of India will stand up on its own feet to improve things to really usher into a revolution from within.

B. Right Decisions:

1. I will take decisions concerning the coming elections and even later guided by the above-explained right thoughts. As a consequence, I will not caste my vote on the basis of my religion, region, self-interest or under the influence of anybody’s past. I will judge everybody what and how he is doing now.

2. I know I cannot decide about the goodness or badness of parties in general, especially the main parties and, moreover, know that there are good and bad people in all the parties. So I will choose the best available candidate from my area to caste my vote irrespective of to which party he/she belongs. I am sure good people in any party will do good/spread goodness all around while bad people will do/spread badness. I am sure going ahead my this decision will discourage parties from giving party tickets to bad people in future.

3. I will not be influenced by anybody’s money nor of muscle power and would keep in mind that nobody will be watching me while casting my vote so that I will caste my vote in favour of the person I have freely decided and not out of any fear.

4. I will neither make any vulgar display of outer wealth and luxuries myself nor appreciate anybody doing so. I will educate people to shun it in favour of inner wealth of knowledge and wisdom. I will not vote for the candidate who does such vulgar displays.

5. I have full faith in the ancient philosophy of India that everybody is wise from the core of his being so I will always stand by the idea of democracy even if sometimes its results may not look apparently that good. I am sure people’s inherent goodness/wisdom will show itself sooner or later.

C. Right Actions:

1. I will act as per the right thoughts and decisions given above.

2. I will acquaint more and more people of my area with the ideas contained in this paper even by publishing and distributing it if need be. However, for the time being I will take care not to fall into unnecessary confrontations with anybdoy to ensure my kind of people grow in numbers enough before we act more freely.

3. I will educate people as to the good points and bad points of candidates of my area and will urge them to vote for the good and comparatively honest candidate. I know it will be very difficult to find completely honest candidates so long as people have to spend money on elections and so, I will term comparatively honest candidates those candidates who collect money only for elections and not for making personal assets. I will not be easily swayed by the mere outer goodness and honesty of people because I know there are some people who look good and honest only because they are more clever at concealing their bad actions than others. I will go deeply into this aspect with my friends as time passes.

4. I will shun earning money or other perks by wrong means from now on myself.

5. I will shun giving or receiving favours.

6. I will not approach anybody/people in power for any personal gains.

7. I will work to the best of my ability, power and efficiency.  I will do my best to remove the notion that “work to rule is like strike” from people’s minds. I will put greatest value on performance with honesty rather than on mere honesty.

8. I will set examples for people to follow and will patiently wait for them to follow on their own by overcoming their past prejudices/weaknesses step by step rather than force myself on them and expect immediate results. I know paradigm shifts are led at first only by a few people, not by crowds. Crowds will first have to be mentally prepared obviously by persuasion, by helping them understand certain things at their own pace, by motivation rather than by force. Force can be used only later on the exceptional few who prove themselves to be beyond reformation by persuasion or by any other means.

With this my dear dear countrymen, I close my paper.  I earnestly hope that mother India shows you its inherent mysterious ‘light’ at this critical juncture which enlightens you enough to see the truth in the above words and gives you strength enough to follow them in true spirit.

contributed by Harbhajan Singh
Jai Ho, Jai Hind

Startup Fair’09: Hire talent

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The Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC), IIT Roorkee is organising a Startup Fair’09, in association with CSI, NSIT Delhi, to facilitate Startups to recruit.

Date:      Saturday, 25th April’09
Venue: Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT), Delhi

The  Startup Fair will be a platform for established startups, looking  to expand their team, to hire interested talent from IIT Roorkee and NSIT Delhi as fresh recruits (final yr students) and internees (pre-final yr students).

An excellent opportunity for Startups to reach out to the active student community. 15 startups and 150 student candidates are expected to participate in the event.
Spread the word!

RSVP:

Sudhir Manchanda
Entrepreneurship Development Cell,
IIT Roorkee
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Participating in IIT Roorkee E-summit

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.

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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

Interaction @ Chandigarh OCC : 17th April, 2009

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CHANDIGARH

Chitkara University, one of the most popular educational institutes in the Punjab/ Chandigarh region, are initiating the First Open Cofee Club in Chandigarh.

The inauguration and and first OCC Chandigarh meetup is backed by Chitkara E-Cell (Entrepreneurial Development Cell).

Details below:

Date:       17 April, 2009

Time:      3pm to 5pm

Venue: Chitkara Corp Office, Plot No-11-12, Dainak Bhaskar Building, Sector-25D, Chandigarh

Nandini and I have been invited to interact with the OCC Chandigarh members.

If you are around, come by. Lets meetup and share our experiences as startup entrepreneurs!