TIE Networking Meet at Bangalore, India

TIE Networking Meets

This article contains learnings from the TIE meet last week. It was held by the TIE Bangalore Chapter. The meet had a mix of and entreprenures, aVenture capitalist and an Angel Investor as speakers. The talks were very intresting. At times during the meet the entreprenures had views very different from the captialtists. Anyway it was good to know what these guys were thinking and their intrests.

Analysis Paralisis
No idea is perfect and most ideas change alomost 60% or more before the first sale is done. So dont spend too much time Analysing stuff. If you believe that it worth doing this and that someone would be ready to take out their credit card and type in the number , then may be the stuff worth doing.

Advisors
Many VCs and entreprenurs turned Angel investors could be invited to be Advisors to your new startup. These guys can provide valuable advice on shaping the service/solution and more importantly open doors to take the company formward. You may give the advisor a stake in your startup. Say 2-5%

First Round Funding
When the Capitalists enter, as a thumb rule the company if broken up into 50-25-25, where the pie goes to investor-entreprenuer-employees. Seed investing will invalriably be a small amountand will grow if the company does well.
Disclosure- these statements are based on what was discussed in the meet by the speakers. Please feel free to comment if it is incorrect by any length

A Team with B Idea or B Team with A Idea??
Like it has been suggested many time over, surround yourself with strong people. Who know what they are doing and can make thigs work. The concept that the A team will be able to realise the flaw in the B idea and fix it over time. So, if you ever want to get funded the have the A team with you.
My Take -->Although this makes sence, it is just a way to play safe by the capitalists. IITs and IIMs have great brand value, but all that matters is wether you know your team and believe in it. At the end of the day you do not want to have high profile people who are not able to appreciate what you are trying to achieve.



My Final Take: "Screw It, Let's Do It "-Richard Barnson :-)

Refrence:
TIE stands for The Indus Entreprenuers. The organization is a club of entreprenuers, VCs, and people from services industries supporting the startup like lawyers, CAs etc. TIE arranges networking meets regularly. Some of the biggest names in Venture Capital and Entreprenurship have been speakers at the monthly meets. TIE Bangalore. This months meet had Speakers from Sridar Iyengar, President - TiE Global, Ajit J. Deora, Partner - Lightspeed Venture Partners, K. Ganesh, CEO and founder of TutorVista.