Proto.in Chat: Democratizing Entrepreneurship

Its not a rarity these days to hear talks about turning entrepreneurship into a lifestyle. As a matter of fact, we – everyone of us who are involved in shaping the startup space in India – are quite glad that thats happening, because it just shows that things are changing, very much for the better.

Even as Barcamps, Open Coffee Clubs, Startup Saturdays and several forms of informal support groups are emerging in this country, one of the biggest problem that we seem to be facing is the fact that we are still very urban-centric. All these meets happen in four or five of the major metros in the country – whereas we probably should be a bit more inclusive about it. There are issues such as the lack of experienced entrepreneurs to share from their life’s tale and help out emerging and aspiring entrepreneurs that seem to be stiffling some of the productivity in some of these informal meets.

Well, technology can solve that problem in some aspect, and we are going to give it our best shot.

We are opening up this Chat Application that we’ve had built, and testing in some occassions to see how we can spin this to solve this issue. Every Saturday between 9am and 5pm – and without fail, every week, we are planning to keep the Proto.in Chat [Link here] open and anyone can visit the site, and interact with entrepreneurs from across the country. We understand that Startup Saturdays happen on the same dates, so if possible we will get someone who is attending the sessions to live chat in the sessions so that the wisdom share can be spread to a larger audience if possible.

So, we’ve done and are doing our part to solve this problem. Now the request is that you be a part of this, to be there, spend sometime in the channel, interacting with, and helping out one entrepreneur to another, and in truly making entrepreneurship a lifestyle choice for those who wish for it – even beyond the metros.

Looking forward to seeing you there. And spread the word.

PS: If you dont want to eternally hang out, but keep an alert for whenever the channel gets active, visit the site, or the blog, and you can set an alert to remind you as certain number of people come online.

Regards,
Vijay Anand
Curator, Proto.in

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admin, February 20th 2009 | Posted in Proto.in Update, proto, proto.in, resources, startups

Weekly Reading: Some Nuggets on Starting up, and Scaling Out

These are links to some presentations that were part of Startonomics, a conference for Startups. There are some very good nuggets that most of our companies could benefit from:

These are links to some presentations that were part of Startonomics, a conference for Startups. There are some very good nuggets that most of our companies could benefit from:

1. Moving out of the Garage:

2. Product Development 101 (Fast Track Product Development)

3. Five Questions You Must Answer

4. Pitching and Packaging for Partnerships (The Bare Essentials you need to get right to think partnerships)

5. The startup Process (Basics on Starting up, Venture Funding, etc etc)

6. If you are in the Internet space or have a site, this might be useful. How to grow traffic to your site:

  • Beginners Guide to SEO
  • 7 Ways to Get Traffic to your Site
  • How to Make Users Beg for More

    • 3 Comments

    admin, February 9th 2009 | Tags: , , ,
    Posted in proto, proto.in, resources, startups

    The Showcase Companies of the Fifth Edition

    1. Lifemojo:

    Website: www.lifemojo.com

    Based on the belief that ‘Prevention is better than cure’, LifeMojo helps you to achieve your fitness goals by helping you keep track of all that you eat and maintain a fitness regimen. Keeping an eye on the calories that you consume and burn, LifeMojo helps you have a healthy lifestyle. A user typically registers on LifeMojo and starts tracking his/her daily food intake and workouts. LifeMojo aims to bring on board a lot of nutritionists with different cuisine specializations that a user can associate with and begin Nutrition consultation.
    One can also check the calories that a person is about to consume on LifeMojo, or by simply sending the food item’s name to calories@lifemojo.com using GTalk. They also support a SMS Calorie lookup feature.

    2. Yoplr:

    Website: www.yoplr.com

    Yoplr is essentially a travel planner with extended features. When a user picks a source and a destination, it suggests places to visit en-route and supports with details like time required to cover that place, detours if any, distance covered etc. They also provide the extra cost required for that and also the choice of added luxuries that you can fit into your travel plan. Yoplr also takes into account details like traveling with family, kids or alone while giving suggestions. Currently their services are for Karnataka and Goa only.

    3. iFlapp

    Website: www.i-flapp.com

    Intelligent Flash Application is what the company stands for and they endeavor to provide a complete solution for portable devices. They help making applications like Photoshop, Office, Adobe reader and others portable on any USB drive or hard disk. Their application Apps D needs to be installed on the external storage device and can be ported to any location. It is compatible with any Windows system – 2000 and above.

    4. Green and economic fuel kit for two wheelers

    Website: none

    An initiative by Lords Automotives, it is an LPG fuel kit for 2-wheelers which would be sold to bring in revenues. They are looking at being an answer to alternate fuel systems for two wheelers.

    5. Noddler

    Website: www.noddler.com

    This product is by Uniphore software systems and claims to be the world’s first intelligent voice response system. It aims to provide the services of the internet over a phone through voice. Its “Sandbox” feature caters to online businesses; helping them customize the voice interface to suit their offering. It is a web interface for developing multi-lingual voice based applications for any web service. The Voice User Interface is highly customizable and personalized. The callers can set their preferences on the website and are greeted by an intuitive interface on the call post that. Unlike traditional Voice Response systems, Noddler remembers and learns from each call that a user makes and personalizes on the fly, thereby eliminating the necessity of having to go through long menus each time.

    6. IndiaKhelo

    Website: www.IndiaKhelo.com

    IndiaKhelo is a system trying to empower the grass-root sports structure in India. It promotes outdoor games in schools and corporate environment. The website makes the process of keeping scores and storing them interesting for users, creating a credible portfolio for each player alongside. A representative usually monitors the scores of the other players and ensures the authenticity of it. IndiaKhelo also organizes Indian Regional Leagues and gives local talent an opportunity to showcase their caliber and be noticed.

    7. Inkfruit

    Website: www.inkfruit.com

    Inkfruit calls itself India’s first democratic product brand. Members registered on Inkfruit get to upload designs for T-shirts, Posters and other products on their website. The community votes on all designs submitted and collectively decide on the products to be included into the Inkfruit range. These are then available for sale. Through this process, Inkfruit empowers students, freelancers and professional designers – their work is showcased and stands a chance to actually enter the market. It is amazing to see that an un-controlled group of designers across the world can come up with really awesome products.

    8. OOHA Kiosks

    Website: www.oo-ha.com

    Founded in 2007, Ooha today is a Free Internet Access provider in Chennai. Ooha’s provides businesses advertising and promotion programs, while providing FREE internet access for users. Ooha will deploy 50 Internet enabled kiosks in Chennai in the next 3 months and plans to extend the same services to the rest of the country. Placed in prime locations like malls and entertainment centers, these kiosks host applications from select providers too. The kiosks serve as advertising platforms for businesses through which Ooha plans to make its revenues

    9. Nualgi

    Website: www.kadambari.net

    A clean tech company, which looks at reviving water bodies which have been polluted. Nualgi is used to grow diatom algae in any water including sewage polluted water. The diatoms produce oxygen, in turn consuming nutrients like nitrates and phosphates. Nualgi is made by a complex process and the same has been patented. Nualgi has been tested thouroughly over the past 4 years and is being used in Aquafarms in South India.

    10. Remindo

    Website: www.remindo.com

    Remindo is a FREE online platform that merges productivity and social activities in offices. It is a collaborative suite of Web-based tools which aid professionals to get things done, socialize and communicate informally across the office.

    11. Taroby:

    Website: www.taroby.com

    Email management in SMEs is made simpler by Taroby with the concept of Team Inbox which would help organizations to work more efficiently. Taroby is a SaaS based messaging and collaboration suite that enables sharing of email accounts among team members. This implies that emails are accessible to all team members working on a particular assignment or project, with the possibility to assign messages directly to individual team members. Using Taroby as a Team Inbox brings in transparency within the team. The entire team knows who is responsible for a particular email. Internal communication within the team is handled by notes which can be added to each message.

    12. Fachak

    Website: www.fachak.com

    Fachak is a content sharing service that connects with existing platforms like Youtube, Slideshare and Flickr, providing the user with one single unified interface which can be used to view, upload and share content. Be it video, presentation, doc or images, Fachak ensures that the user does not have to worry about the format of the content. They believe that the user consumes content and hence should not be encumbered by the format. They acknowledge that while building a multi-format platform was a necessity, providing a front-end for the existing services and not ignoring them was the optimum solution.

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    admin, January 30th 2009 | Posted in Proto.in Update, india, proto, proto.in, startups

    All Ready, Set for Shotgun!

    ShotGun Startups Banner

    How many times have you had a cool idea that never saw the light? Or that amazing conversation you had with your best friends which resulted to nothing? It can be that amazing facebook application to solve all the problems of your single friends, or that Iphone game that will rock the world, or an android application, or that robot which will help elderly people remember their pill times. Whatever it is, this is a time to build it and ride the wave with the support of the entire startup community. Surprised?

    Well, we hear ya! We call this Shotgun Startup and its your way to huddle together for 48 hours and work on something which will change the world.

    Who Can Participate:

    1. You are a college student, with this whacky, neato idea and you have the confidence and talent to build it?

    2. You are a team in a corporate’s internal incubation program, and just need a platform to launch your idea.

    3. You are working for a corporate and want to “experience” the feeling of entrepreneurship

    4. You are a corporate and want to show off the engineering capabilities of your workforce. In which case you can send in a corporate team.

    5. You are a very smart entrepreneur who has the charm and capability to build a product and launch it at Proto.in and sway the audience to your will, and get them marketing your product.

    How do YOU participate you ask?

    Step1 : Get those scribble books out and start going through all those ideas. Once you have decided on the idea you want to implement go here and submit it. This is where the fun begins, The ShotGun Team will go through all your proposals and pick 20 ideas which have the most potential – In other words, that which sounds uber cool and useful.

    Step 2: Now that your idea is shortlisted, you need to put together a team which helps you realize this idea. All shortlisted projects can publish list of open roles and participants can apply to be part of this team. You get to pick the ones you like! Use your blogs, twitters, facebooks to find these people and get them as part of the team.

    Step 3: Its 22nd January evening and there are 20 teams eager to make it happen. We have experts on various platforms like Android, Iphone, Php, ROR etc, Just in case you need some expert advice. This is where we give you plenty of wifi, coffee (maybe food) and get out of your way. For the next 48 hours its you, your team and your product. Make it happen, and breathe life into your idea.

    The Proto.in attendees will start voting for your ideas on the 24th, The top 5 teams will then move to Innovation Jam where they get 5 minutes to present the idea and then the audience can suggest enhancements to the product so it can move towards being a full fledged product.

    As the adage goes “Let the Startups win”, sharpen your pencils now! and for more information head to http://shotgun.proto.in Now!

    PS: Have you registered for the event yet? if not, head to www.proto.in/register

    Proto.in January edition is in the dates of January 23, 24 2009 in the Nimhan’s Convention Centre in Bangalore.

    1 Comment

    admin, January 3rd 2009 | Tags: , , , , , ,
    Posted in Protofe09, proto, proto.in, startups, upcoming events

    Nomination Deadlines Extended. Server Downtime.

    Hi Everyone,

    We have extended the deadline to the end of this week. It seems that our host (Dream host) has gone down under and is failing to recover. We are doing the best from our side to bring it up, and I hope it will be back soon.

    In the meantime, I am getting a lot of mails from panicky last-minute nominations as to missing the deadline. It really would have helped to nominate a day before, you know! :) In any case, no worries. do take your time, and do write to me, if there is any clarifications required.

    If there is anyone that you know in dreamhost, could surely use a hand (Contact Kausik at Kausik@proto.in) to get the servers back and running again. Thanks again.

    New Nomination Deadline Date: 19th December 2008.

    1 Comment

    admin, December 15th 2008 | Posted in Protofe09, proto.in, startups, upcoming events

    December: TES ‘08, NEN Hottest Startups, WATBlog Mixer, NASSCOM Innovation Awards

    December is seeing a lot of interesting things happening in the startup Scene. The Annual event of The Indus Entrepreneurs, is finding its home in Bangalore this year on the dates of December 16, 17, 18. The lineup of speakers, seems impressive as ever. If you are in Bangalore and do have the energy to network, this is an event you should check out. Visit the site for more details and for registrations.

    The People’s choice awards for the hottest startup in the Indian landscape is still going on, and it seems that the initiative has exceeded the expectations that it set out to fulfill. The final 30 are selected and the voting process to choose the final five are going on. Do visit the site for more information on the same.

    NASSCOM has been the most active this year, and if this is a sign of things to come, we do have quite some great years ahead of us. NASSCOM is putting together a multi-city showcase of some of the interesting startups and emerging companies in some of the cities across India. There are different categories of businesses showcased in various cities acrossed the country and the details can be found following the link. The Roadshows are planned from December 15th – 23rd.

    The Best part, saved for the last comes up in the form of the WATBlog Mixer that is being arranged by WATMedia (The stars behind WATblog, WATshow etc). The mixer is to have a sole focus on the Startup audience, and invites the local entrepreneurs and investors from the region to join for a free evening of socializing and getting to meet and greet. The event is planned on the 17th of December. Visit the site and register (for free), if you’d like to attend. They have limited seats, so please do hurry!

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    admin, December 13th 2008 | Posted in india, startups, upcoming events

    Bloggers! Help us Promote Proto.in Jan Edition ‘09

    Proto.in, the startup event, has grown to be because of the community – there is no doubt about it. It has been the sheer effort, and need of the entrepreneurial landscape that has defined what this platform is able to accomplish for the benefit of the startup community here in India.

    This January, as we come together for the fifth time, we ask for your help; From Bloggers, to tweeters, microbloggers, to mobloggers, to folks who are passionate about entrepreneurial evangelism, we ask for your voice to help spread the word.

    If you are a blogger, or run a website, do feel free to host one, or all, or some of the Proto.in badges here and link it to the main site. Leave the url of your blog or blog post in the comments section so that we can link back to your blog. Could surely use your help in this regard, and do eagerly anticipate your support.

    Click for Larger Versions:

    If there are any questions in this regard, write to us?

    34 Comments

    admin, December 5th 2008 | Posted in Proto.in Update, proto, proto.in, proto5, resources, startups, upcoming events

    PitchCamp! Coming this January @ Proto.in

    Have you ever wondered how to impress an inscrutable Venture Capitalist, convince a doubting journalist or perfect the guaranteed door opener for a partner?

    Then this workshop is for you. Learn the inside scoop on how VC’s, corporate partners and journalists think. Hear tips on how you can compellingly explain your business to each audience—whether it’s raising money, trying to close partnerships, or getting attention from the media. Watch as fellow entrepreneurs develop concise, and unique value propositions that generate fever and excitement in their markets. And personally participate with industry experts to find the best ways to position and pitch YOUR company.

    This Proto.in, we are having a workshop for startup companies to hone their skills in the art of Pitching. And it will be something to look forward to. This is how it works (Follows the same model as Pitchcamp in Oreilly Conference):

    This is a highly interactive hands-on workshop where you will have the opportunity to refine your own company’s message, learn more about how to pitch the people you need to impress, and have fun at the same time – the expert panel will help coach you to success and be judges at the end of the workshop, awarding prizes to some lucky participants.

    8-12 Companies will be selected to officially participate. The selected companies will be assigned a pitch coach from a list of highly experienced marketing team. After a general overview of the do’s and don’ts of pitching, the individual companies will go into a break out session with their assigned pitch coach to refine their pitch. Other attendees of the workshop will be invited to participate in the breakout sessions as well. The final hour of the workshop will be the companies presenting their revised pitch to the entire panel of experts who will critique and evaluate the new pitches.

    The companies with the top two scores will receive prizes that might include Marketing and PR Services, VC Pitch Consulting or Premium memberships to various networks.

    While the team here at Proto.in is busy putting together an elite team of marketing and experienced entrepreneurs to drive this workshop, spanning all the way from the world of advertisement, film industry, technology and pure business, do let us know if there is someone who’d make the perfect fit for this activity.

    We look forward to more of your feedback. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below.

    Regards,
    Vijay Anand
    Curator, Proto.in

    6 Comments

    admin, December 3rd 2008 | Posted in Protofe09, india, pitchcamp, proto, proto.in, proto5, startups, upcoming events

    Proto.in Captains: Growing to the Next Level

    Gentlemen and Ladies,

    Our Volunteer list is growing rapidly. It crossed more than a hundred people on the Volunteers list and close to about forty people in the Core team. I’ve been thinking about making some structural changes to give people some opportunities to contribute more activiely, and apart from Proto.in, the event, we have a lot of new initiatives coming up. If you are one such individual who’d like to get not just your hands wet, but want to dwelve right in to make a change, this is for you.

    Some of the current Initiatives.

    Proto.in Chat
    I believe it has great potential for connecting people from anywhere together for advise, mentorship, and peer support. Most of the folks from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities never get a chance to be part of the entrepreneurship talks that go on. This will be a great platform to create the “entrepreneurship anywhere” mantra.

    The Proto.in Blog
    Currently being used for Proto.in related stuff but perhaps could be more – also it could be revamped well with widgets and such. This blog has quite a high amount of traffic as of now.

    Proto.in Conversations
    The videos from Proto.in talks, but we are also looking at creating series of videos – such as the basics of fund raising, etc etc. It will become a one stop resource for entrepreneurs. There is good potential on this.

    The Startup Faces Project:
    Its coming together in an amazing way. Have close to 50 faces now. They will all be up on the wall this Proto.in

    The Stellar Graphics Team.
    We’ve become quite known by now for having an amazing design team for everything from the logo, the website, the brochures and all the social media campaigns that we create. If there is a designer who’d like a wider audience, or just recognition, I’d love to hear from you. We have a few designers who help us out, and thats what keeps us going, but would like one person to take over charge on this efforts.

    .. and there are many more in the pipleline.

    What we are looking for:
    1. Someone with very good managerial skills. There are lots of volunteers that we have, so should be able to work with them and keep a cool head.
    2. Someone who has some experience building and growing a product – helps, to give directions and has some credibility.

    Why This is a Fabulous Opportunity:
    1. The opportunity to interact with the entire startup community.
    2. Having some of the most passionate startup community builders working with you.
    3. A chance to build a product or service and build users for it around the country
    4. If you are a techie, but need Marketing experience, or the other way around, this is a great opportunity to grow.
    5. All Captains will be given due credits as part of the team on the Proto.in Website. It will be the way to separate the doers from the rest.

    Think about it. And Let us know, by leaving a comment on this blog. If this is a community that we are building, and one with the common goal of helping, nourishing and supporting startups, we all have a role to play. Don’t we?

    Vijay Anand
    Curator, Proto.in

    10 Comments

    admin, November 5th 2008 | Posted in proto, proto.in, startups

    October, October Here We Come.

    Its October, and it seems like this month is full of things happening for the startup community. Barcamps, showcases, talent hunts, etc etc etc – name it and it all seems to be moving in the right direction for the startup folks. Here’s a quick gist of things to keep you all abreast of things.

    Barcamps:
    Barcamp Hyderabad, , Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai are all happening this month. Barcamp bangalore had closed last week and I guess all the rest of the major cities are going at it this month. Do a quick google search and the results should throw up. If you are a startup, I would strongly suggest and recommend for you to be a part of these groups. It is essentially the one most important place to be at to get the support, talent and notice that you want to – especially in your formative years.

    Open Coffee Clubs and Startup Saturdays seem to be going on as usual in Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai etc. Do ping your local chapter, or leave a comment on this post and someone will get back to you if you have any questions for those folks.

    Proto.in Fifth Edition.
    So yep, its final. The fifth edition of Proto.in is slated in Bangalore this time. Yooohoo!. (Okay, that was quite close to some other sound that could have gotten me into copyright issues!) But yep, we are excited to bring the fifth edition of the event, and the community together in Bangalore. The event is planned for the month of December and the nominations open in a few days. Keep an eye on the website (which will go through some massive overhauls in the next few days), and do drop us a note if you need any clarifications or information.

    TiECon Delhi : Deal Flow Session.
    The Delhi chapter of TiE is organizing a Deal Flow session during the TiECon for companies that are looking for funding. Here are the details:

    There is a deal-flow session scheduled as part of TiEcon Delhi 2008 from 22nd-24th October, this is an ideal opportunity for folks looking for funding & wanting to showcase their business plan to over 50 international & national investors.

    For more details you can connect with Manish Joshi at
    manish@tienewdelhi.org or +91-9971766455.

    I believe that’s it for this month’s quite update, but that’s quite a lot happening for the startup space, especially given the economic climate in some regions. In fact, the funding and capital raising activities have infact climbed in the entrepreneurship space and its even more aggressive and the number of deals are climbing, as compared to other times. So take heed, its still a very good time to be building a startup. The time when you head out to make sales, the situation might be tough, but lets hope that the tide passes through before that stage. Hang in there, and as always… keep winning.

    Vijay
    Curator, Proto.in

    ———————————————————————————————————–
    The Blog: blog.proto.in
    The Event: www.proto.in
    Twitter: www.twitter.com/protodotin

    3 Comments

    admin, October 5th 2008 | Posted in india, proto, proto.in, proto2008se, resources, startups, upcoming events
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