Sushrut Bidwai

Since the resurrection of dot com phenomenon and with astounding success of youtube likes, many entrepreneurs dream of making it big.

There is no problem in such dreams.

But problem is entrepreneurs think that making it big in very quick time with not much efforts is very possible.

They dont realize, youtube like financial success is very rare and almost fluke.

It is not a repeatable success story.

You can never know if your venture will turn out to be a next youtube story.

So stop daydreaming.

People who always keep thinking that some Google will come and buy us out, all we need to do is have the product out there, are just kidding themselves.

People who think, even if we fail in dot com venture, some company will buy out our user base and hence we turn investors, are kidding themselves.

If you are thinking about what to do with your success or with your failure when you are running a company, then stop running the company.

You are not meant for entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is also not for retirement minded people, who wants to just make few lacks or couple of crore rupees and live the rest of life without doing anything, are the worst kind of entrepreneurs. In fact such people should join bureaucracy, as they dont even deserve to be in corporate life style.

Startup, philosophy philosophy, startup adivce, startups

Now this is completely through experience. I did not do any of the following mention things and it hurt us BIG time.

• Increase your online presence BIG time.
  • Start a blog. Even if you are not a great writer. Does not have stories. Just start the blog.
  • Put up information from other blogs with links to slideshares/youtubes/celebrity blogs.
  • Make sure you start sharing your URL with friends. Use simple SEO techniques to drive traffic.
  • Keep updating the blog at least twice a week or so. Make sure you reply to comments.
  • Comment on other blogs with link to your blog.
  • Make sure you start an independent blog. IE something like sushrutbidwai.com rather than sushrutbidwai.blogspot.com.

• Twitter
  • For now twitter in India is used by people who are very active on entrepreneurship scene.
  • Bloggers, entrepreneurs are very active on twitter.
  • Use it to connect with the community.
  • Have a conversation. Build your network.
• LinkedIn
  • Update your linked profile.
  • Increase your network.
  • Be active on groups related to the market your are getting into.
  • But don’t be open net-worker. Desperation has not given any one results.
• Unconferences
  • Barcamps and other tech camps like PHPCamp, OpenSocialCamp are great ways to connect with start-up community.
  • Make sure you are regular at these events.
  • Travel far and wide to reach out to the community across India rather than just your city.
  • If possible present something. Conduct few sessions.
• Customer relations
  • If you know who are going to be your customers, then start talking to them.
  • Find out events these people go to and attend those event.
  • Subscribe to groups related to your customers on linkedin and be active there.
  • Start preparing list of customers you have in second-degree network IE contacts of contacts.
• Competitors relations
  • Since you are just planning at this stage, competitors will not hesitate in talking with you.
  • Conferences and unconferences are great places to talk to competition.
  • Connect with talent working with competition.
• Investor relations
  • This is probably the most important thing to do.
  • You will find investors at conferences, events like Proto, HeadStart, WATBlog Mixer and many such events.
  • Angel investors are also great help in providing mentoring. They are much more approachable, available and willing to help out young entrepreneurs.
  • Do not mention funding requirements ever when you meet investors informally.
  • Ask for advice, pointers, guidance. People help you when they like you.

<This is going to be a series of articles. I will also talk about how to prepare for the entrepreneurship itself>

Startup entrepreneurship, networking, Startup, startup adivce, unconferences