Category: events

Dear Student, If You’ve Got an Idea, then Just Do It!

Posted on by Abhinav

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at an event where the objective was to spread awareness about Entrepreneurship among students. First of all, kudos to IIT Kharagpur students for starting an event with such an objective. All I can say is that I wish there were such events when I was in college 🙂

After I shared my journey, during the Q&A round I found a pattern of questions. Honestly speaking, I could not relate to the problem initially, but when students kept asking the same thing in one manner or the other, I realized it’s got to do with a basic human problem, Fear.

Students in 2nd, 3rd year of engineering wondering whether they should build their idea/product or not? My feeling was, why not? What’s there to lose? I just couldn’t get it! You’re not leaving a high paying job, you don’t have family responsibilities, you don’t have to quit college to start something, then why are you not doing it? All you might lose is a little bit of sleep and maybe some pocket money.

  1. One group said, “parents are not allowing it”,
  2. Another said, “they were not sure whether they will get funding”,
  3. A third said, “they were not sure if their idea will work”

And some other similar excuses is what I heard. Yes, I call them excuses because those are not real reasons which can stop you from doing anything.

To those questions, my questions were:

  1. Why do you need to tell your parents right now?
  2. If you’re building something only to get funded, then probably you shouldn’t be doing it at all!
  3. Unless you try it out, how will you know whether your idea will work?

Probably, there’s just one answer to all of them, just work on your idea and build something, and (in simple code):

if it works, then {

  1. your parents will be happy to know about it
  2. investors will trace you down and fund you
  3. you will know that it can work!
    }

If it doesn’t {

  1. you don’t need to tell anything to your parents
  2. anyways you don’t need funding
  3. either you will know that it won’t work or you will find out more ways to make it work
    }

Bottom line is what Nike says, Just Do It!

Remember, you’ve got nothing to lose!

Why (and how) should entrepreneurs attend events

Posted on (Updated by Abhinav

I was at a startup event last year, my first as an Entrepreneur, where I learnt a tip from a fellow entrepreneur. He said, at each event he plans out what sessions to attend, prepares a small question beforehand and then enters the hall. This is what he said next, “During or after the session, I take the opportunity to ask the question, for the first 45 seconds I introduce my startup and then ask my question in the next 15 seconds. After that I’m not even bothered about the speakers response, my job’s done”. Apart from his point about not bothering about the response, I feel, every individual, entrepreneur or not, should follow what he said. The 45-15 second rule can really work out.

Since then I try to go at any startup event I can possibly attend. Next week also comes another event, a big one though. Its the Nasscom Emergeout and this time a lot of focus is on startups and/or SMEs. There are about 13 sessions and the entire agenda can be found here.

Since there are parallel sessions, the ones I am interested in are the sessions on “Big business decisions”””, a discussion on “Scaling up your product” and the one on “Effective sales strategies”. Of course, this is apart from the Keynote sessions where speakers are of the stature of KrishnaKumar Natarajan, CEO – Mindtree, Aditya Ghosh, President – Indigo Airlines, Venky Mysore, CEO – Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajan Anandan, Managing Director Google India.

You can register here. I know, its slightly expensive if you are a startup, but then there’s a deal for startups! Also, there are a few contests running on Twitter, check out the Emergeout hashtag.

Still if you feel the fee is high, here’s a small tip I got from a VC sometime back. “Don’t register for the event, just express interest. Most of these payment forms would be tracking who all fill the details but don’t pay. In most cases, event managers contact these guys and offer them a low fee entry on last days”. That’s what he told me, I don’t know how often does that happen though 🙂

If you are coming, great! See you there, I would be available @AbhinavSahai

My first blogger meet, that too in Bangalore

Posted on by Abhinav
Indiblogger meet
Indiblogger meet

Though its been time now but I finally find time to blog about this. After thinking for so many days and missing out on a few events, I finally found time to go to the Indibloggers bloggers meet held at the Microsoft office on the last day of february.

Bangalore, though is not a much happening place but for those who have a presence in the online world, this place is not that bad either. Regular blogger meets/camps take place which is what i love. 3 of them i’ve heard about , 2 out of which been able to attend. Also came across a writers group meet, though I coudnt go even there.

My first meet courtesy the Indiblogger community was a good one. Though it was held at a place which is a hated place in my dictionary, still target being something else I went there. Although my image of the  Microsoft (read as M$ from now) even became more downgraded. Supposedly a bloggers meet it became a M$ Product presentation for most of us there.

It started well with the group introducing themselves and then trying to introduce everyone. We were given a timer of 1 minute and had to complete in that. Though some people had enough to say and made their presence felt in that minute, I finished off in a flash and had nothing much to say. It lasted only a few seconds, dont know why but I didnt gather enough confidence even though it was an informal meet I just cudn’t pull up the confidence. Anyways, had some interesting things to hear during that period.

The meet would have been awesome had the second session been held at the last, the windows 7 presentation. Bah !  As soon as it started people started leaving the room and as it went on and on it was really turn off. Normally I am not one of those who get out in the middle of a presentation as being a presentor I can feel how that person might feel, but even I couldnt control and got up to ask anwin that “how long is going to last and what is next on the agenda, because this is not what i have come here for!!”. Only thing he could tell me was there are no more sessions like this and there are there because they are paying for pizzas. Huh. Nothing much to say I sat down again and had to listen to one of the most arrogant presentors I have ever seen. Sorry fot that but can’t help it. Infact, there were two guys, 1 of whom I got a chance to interact with during the pizza time, actually told that even he had ubuntu on his laptop, though a dual boot machine.What an irony !

Anyways after the pizzas the meet continued and we had some brainstorming where everybody sat close and discussed about  blogging, twitting and all those things which regular bloggers talk about. I was a bit unhappy because the main topic that everything revolved was about how to earn from blog. I, on a personal front, dont blog for money. Its all about sharing experiences and things like that. Probably most people who came there were not there for money as well, but again it was the M$ guy who started all that shit and being the presentor previously, took advantage and had a substantial presence on the discussions. he even asked foolish questions as to “why should i use twitter??” Well answer to him is, as i could not say this there- “M$ guys can never think of sharing knowledge, what they want is to know how to earn the $$”. Probably now I am clear why M$ is the most hated company in the world as well. Apart from a few contacts and nice people and ofcourse a list of blogs of those who attended the list I found …

Phew, my summary of the blog meet turned out to be against a company, sorry for that but thats how I am, I write my experience and what I felt. Hopefully wont go to a meet that involves the M$ thing.

Till then cheers.

P.S. Pics of the meet here.

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