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The CII Startupreneurs awards, 2014- ReBooting Entrepreneurship

In case, you had missed this event, TheStartupVideos did a brief coverage on the event, Startupreneurs organized by CII. Many of the Bigwigs from the Industry had attended the event and shared their startup journey and success stories enabling the startups to take their ideas off the ground and kickstart. The event was attended by 130 startups who were shortlisted from among 500 applications, 200 delegates, 30+ investors and mentors and speakers who are big names in the Industry like Kris Gopalakrishnan of Infosys, Lakshmi Narayanan of Cognizant, Arun Jain of Polaris, Naval Gupta from IOB and many others. Top level investors like Sasha Mirchandani and T.c Meenakshi Sundaram had also attended the event and shared their thoughts on what makes them invest in a startup.

The startup Ecosystem

The host Anand Surana had been a very engaging host and did an awesome job bringing together the speakers and the audience. Mr P Ravichandran of CII insisted on the startup ecosystem to focus on inclusive growth and sustainability and should see many student, rural folk and women take up the startup journey. Mr Arun Jain put forth his idea of a “Startup Hub” to be started in Chennai where startups could meet up at regular intervals to get mentored and share ideas and gain exposure. Mr Lakshmi Narayan spoke about the Macro-situation of promoting entrepreneurship through skill development and allocation of funds by Government. He also advised that at a micro level the entrepreneurs should gain knowledge on how to run and manage a business. Mr S Chandramohan had commended the idea of “Make in India” and asked the startups to work towards it.

Startup to become a household name in India

Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, one of the thought leaders in entrepreneurial development wished for Startups to become a household name in the country with people transforming from being Job seekers to job creators. We need to have a vibrant startup culture which will enable startups to move to midsize and large size companies. Local business must be in the forefront and should translate research to innovation.

What to do to get funded?

The investors had shared their insights on a Panel Discussion. The following is a gist of the same:

• The idea should impact at least 2 million lives.
• A strong team with different complementary skill sets.
• Well laid out plans for the future.
• Listen and adapt to the market trends.
• Should have an unfair advantage.
• The business plan must create wealth. There must be a value proposition.
• Lay out an exit path.

Tales of Success

Successful entrepreneurs like Mr Sridharan Sivan, Mr Murugavel, Mr J Krishnan and Mr Gaurav Singh had shared their success stories with the budding entrepreneurs and all four of them had insisted on the importance of building a strong team.

The stars of the event

Many startups emerged as stars of the event with innovative products and excellent vision. A few of them were Lab P53- works on cancer research, Lunch box- easy packed lunch and Animaker- A DIY animated video making tool. Kripa Devi Dhramaraj, the founder of MC’s Lunch Box could be seen visibly excited after the award ceremony. Talking about his startup, Mr Raghav of Animaker said “The Journey towards developing such a app had been exciting and the traction so far had been excellent. The CII- startupreneurs platform had helped us gain a lot of wisdom from experienced entrepreneurs.”