The Startup Guy

Perspectives of an Entrepreneur from the Indian Startup Trenches.

Category: Chennai

The Startups Are Hiring.

Did you know that the best job for a fresher is in a startup? Well, it is. Did you know that the best job for a growing professional or someone who loves challenges, is in a startup? Well, it is. Proto.in is taking on new heights and I am quite proud of it, everyday that [...]

VC Firms, a wake up call.

I am observing a trend from what i am experiencing first hand and of what I am hearing from the startups I interact with. Well, this is how a typical VC firm is setup. They hire a well-to-do investment banker out of a large and well established investment group and ask him to put together [...]

The Valley Shells out Crappy Products Too!

The first rule in entrepreneurship is to kill your heroes. Unless you stop being a fanatic follower and stop the whining on how things are better for everyone else, and they could do it, but not you, things are not going to change. I am compiling a list of products that came out of the [...]

India, an option for Global Entrepreneurs

A friend of mine and I, had this elaborate discussion on some of the advantages of actually being in the valley. Well, Thomas Fieldman is proving himself to be right with the globe turning more and more flat as the years pass by and I am quite positively sure that position holds not that much [...]

Proto.in: Poised to Be the Signature Startup Event

The Mint, of Hindustan times has an article on Proto.in – quite a nice piece with a good coverage of where Proto has come from and where it is aiming to grow to. The Excerpt reads: Proto.in, the start-up showcase event that debuted this January, is going national. Chennai, the city that seeded the event, [...]

Ideas to Toss: College Blogging.

Yesterday friend and blogger Kiruba and I, met to discuss about some stuff that we have been mulling over. Eventually the conversation drifted over some of the “empires” people have built simply by using blogging as a platform. While on one end there are folks who are individual silos and building their own brand/authority, there [...]

Words. Words. Words. They Mean Everything.

We live in a day and age where words are tossed at the whisk of the wrist, to degenerate the substance of those letters coined together, all in the name of marketing. Saying too much, and talking without listening, seem to have become “essentials” to survive in this overly competitive market and in finding a place in this society. Is that really the way to go?

Proto.in January Edition: Nominations Open

Ladies and Gentlemen, The finally awaited moment is here – well, atleast the first of it. The nominations are open for companies that do want to submit their products for evaluation, out of which 20 companies will present before an esteemed audience – the creme de la crop, the movers and the shakers of the [...]

Bangalore based Headstart.in

When we first laid down the groundwork for Proto, one of the things that I sincerely wished to see was more initiatives like Proto spring up, so that – for one, we’d strive to deliver more value to the entrepreneurs who need all the support they can, and hopefully we can move on to focus [...]

The Gap in the Indian Innovation Ecosystem.

“There is a definite lack in the number of fundable ideas in the ecosystem. What we need is more incubation funds.” I am not sure if that’s so. Fundable ideas, in most cases denotes a team that is mature enough and has the market valuation and the credibility to be looked seriously by a VC [...]