Tag Archives: morpheus

Purani jeans aur guitar

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Purani jeans aur guitar
Mohalle ki vo chhat
Aur mere yaar
Vo raaton ko jaagna
Subah ghar jaan
Kood ke deewar
Vo cigaretee peena
Gali mein jaake
Wo karna daanton ko
Ghadi ghadi saaf








A group of startup founders sang this college time favorite song during the starry, drunk, passionate and bindaas late night sessions, that went on till 0300 am every night, during Morpheus’ Startup Gurukul. Gurukul was organized with the purpose of bringing together the gang of morpheus founders at one place for 4 days of immersive experience. Away from the normal world, away from their hectic day-to-day schedules – just to hang out, share learnings and to know each other. The sheer energy in the atmosphere was intoxicating.  People were – talking, dancing, asking questions, listening intently, showing demos, discussing stuff , giving/ taking feedbacks, taking pictures, fooling around, jumping into the pool. But with all this as a backdrop they were all starting lifelong friendships – with folks who are also weird like themselves, those who have chosen the uncertain path of entrepreneurship – leaving behind the certainty & security of jobs. Because nature has cursed (or gifted them) them with the “entrepreneurial gene”. Be an Entrepreneur or Die – thats their calling. Just can’t do anything else. Gurukul is a world in which everyone is an entrepreneur – everyone inspires you, everyone believes in your audacious vision and the non-believers are totally absent.


I still remember the day we started the journey in Jan 2008 – 2.5 years back. Coming out of our 3 yrs as the founders of madhouse, we realized that this was badly needed in India and we had a kind of stupid confidence in our ability to figure this out. Most of the folks around said you guys can’t do this / this cant be done in India or some variation of a negative comment. Like all entrepreneurs – every time someone said that it increased our determination to crack this.


 From the Starting point to the Startup Gurukul – the ride has been a lot of fun but at the same time quite rough, things have moved a very rapid pace, there was always so much to do, so much to figure out, so many moving pieces, we just kept working 12-14 hrs everyday.  I never got a chance to step back and look at the overall picture. So at the Gurukul when I saw, at one place, all portfolio companies, all founders, our investors – and I saw people from outside morpheus who came to spend time with us, said nice things about what they saw. I had this realization that we are on to something important, we are starting to have a small impact on Indian Startup Ecosystem, our efforts are paying off. This has given me a lot of energy to keep doing this for many more years to come.


Thanks


On behalf all partners @ Morpheus I would like to give a big Thank You to all the founders in the morpheus gang – for making us part of their teams, their dreams and their families. Thanks guys for believing in us – for taking the chance. Together we can and we will change many things in the world around us.


Also a very big thanks to guys @ Sequoia Capital for supporting and sponsoring Startup Gurukul.







Enjoy the gurukul pics








					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Eyes closed, head shaking

			
						

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    Eyes closed, head shaking;

My girl-my girl, don’t lie to me, tell me where did you sleep last night – cobain coming into me frm iphne;

Feeling bodies all around  pressing against me;

Feeling the heat, Feeling the sweat under my Scopial tee;

Feeling the sweat under my beard;

Cobain Shuffles – You’re face to face the man who sold the word – tenetenu tenetu  – teneeeeee, teneneeeee, drum rolls;

Pressing of bodies increasing like thy want to crush me;

Aaah I love my life;

Borivilli to Churchgate;

Startup to Startup, Founder to Founder;

This is my Nirvana;

Cobain Shuffles – my girl my girl, don’t lie to me, tell me where did u sleep last night …….


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Barcamp Chandigarh (and looking for suggestions)

			
						

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    The startup ecosystem in Chandigarh, the city beautiful, is buzzing with activity. On 12 November the results of Business plan competition, Enterprize – organized by TIE Chandigarh & Chandigarh Administration,  were announced. The winners got place in the EDC setup by the Chandigarh Administration, in the IT park.


Continuing the good news for start-up folks, Fountainhead School of Business is organizing BarCamp Chandigarh – an extreme popular unconference, on 22 November. It will be a day long event that provides you the opportunity to attend some interesting sessions, meet like-minded folks, network and peek into the startup scene here.  Barcamp Chandigarh is also inviting folks who would like to conduct a session. Go ahead and signup to attend the event or to conduct a session at the Barcamp.


MVP is a supporting partner for the the event and we are doing our bit to make the event a good one.


I have signed up to do a session @ Barcamp, but have not decided on what all should I cover in the session. I am looking for some good suggestions from you on that, please leave your thoughts in comments or send a message to me on twitter @guglanisam.


What would you like me to cover during my session at the BarCamp Chandigarh?



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Commonfloor.com : Cool Weekend guide

			
						

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I have been meaning to blog about this for last 2-3 weeks. The guys at Commonfloor (MVP 08 company) have started releasing this really cool weekend guide for the members of commonfloor and other subscribed members. They send it every Thursday evening (great timing) and it has:


    

  • Selected list of movies coming on TV
    • 

  • Movies in theatre
    • 

  • Events happening in the city
    • 

  • Shopping sales, 
    • 

  • Weekend getaways 
    • 

  • and few other items. 
    • 



I have found it extremely useful, the design is also very thought of. The information can be found if one looks at various places, but these guys have done a good job of aggregating it in one place.


Check it out here and you can subscribe to it as well, if you have any suggestions do let us know in comments.


 





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morpheus – ContentSutra Q&A

			
						

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    Following questions were answered by myself and Nandini for Cerius Shah @ ContentSutra. Reproducing the Q&A here:


CS: Are you going to relegate Morpheus to start-ups or build it into a more generic web consultancy?

SG: Morpheus will be be focused only on early stage startups, our goal is to work with teams who are 0-12 months old or may be even at the idea stage. Teams who can build scalable and fundable businesses


CS: Why the YCombinator model as opposed to an Angel or Seedfund? 

SG: Because thats where we believe the gap is most wide. Today there is enough supply of capable entrepreneurs, folks who are taking the plunge – quiting their jobs, putting together a team, building prototypes and dreaming to build a big business. At the same time the supply of money to be invested in startups is also quite enough. Many VC funds, seed stage funds and plenty of angels. These guys are happy to investment in companies who are at the right stage, with the right team and the right model. So we add value to both the parties i.e. the entrepreneur and the startup investors using the morpheus/Ycombinator model. For about 4-6 months we work closely with the founders to build the right product, getting the right team, getting initial customer traction and have something impressive ready which will allow them to raise professional funding. To investors our value add is that we are helping in building high quality fundable startups, we will also be conducting demo events where all morpheus companies will demo the products and the investors can interact with bunch of high quality startups.


CS: What value does Morpheus Venture bring to a start-up? 

SG: For about 4-6 months we work closely with the founders to build the right product, getting the right team, getting initial customer traction and have something impressive ready which will allow them to raise professional funding. We make introduction to potential investors, partners, lawyers, accountants, domain experts. These only few main things, the real collaboration will include many more things, needs of each startup are unique and we will adapt to them.


CS: What is the average equity you look at obtaining? 

SG: Morpheus will be looking at taking 4-8% equity, there is absolutely no monitory fee that we charge. We are in for the long haul and willing to wait for 4-7 years, which a startup may need to reach the exit point.


CS: What is the average exit period Morpheus is looking at? 

SG: I would say average would be 5 years, assuming the M&A market continues to develop.


CS: Can you share some start-ups and their products with whom you have been working off late? 

SG: We currently have three portfolio companies, two of which have already raised venture funding ( www.Instablogs.com, www.commonfloor.com) and third one is profitable (www.foodathome.in)