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