Roundtable Recap: June 23 – New Assessment Tool For Entrepreneurs

We have done almost 90 roundtables so far, and based on this extensive experience of learning directly from entrepreneurs about their core issues, 1M/1M has just launched a new assessment tool for entrepreneurs.

It is a quick self-assessment that you can apply to calibrate where you are in your business-building process. We have also provided relevant 1M/1M curriculum modules that you can use to bridge the gaps in your knowledge and understanding of a robust entrepreneurship methodology. Please note, curriculum modules are only accessible to 1M/1M premium members.

Before I jump into the presentations, let me also share a piece of news with you: 1M/1M premium company FreshDesk, based in Chennai, India has won the Microsoft Bizspark India Startup Challenge Grant of $40,000, topping the Cloud category. Congratulations to the FreshDesk team. They are executing very well. I have high hopes, as I discussed in last week’s India’s Big Opportunity in SaaS post.

ShareVolution
As for the pitches today, first, Daniel McPherson from Australia pitched ShareVolution, an app store for the Microsoft SharePoint community. Daniel expects SharePoint’s cloud based solution provider eco-system to develop over the next few years. He wants to provide both a branded app store and white-labeled stores for developers to put on their respective sites.

There is one problem with the strategy, though. The SharePoint cloud eco-system is not sufficiently mature, and for Daniel to be able to realize his vision, he needs to get enough application developers active soon. My advice was to keep doing the SharePoint solution development and consulting work the company does today and develop the store project as a side effort until the market is ready. Cash needs to come into the business. For now, it won’t come in through the store.

Acelerar Technologies
Then Anupam Rajey from Lucknow, India, presented Acelerar Technologies, an outsourced accounting services BPO project from India. Anupam has serious segmentation issues. He is heading straight into an intensely competitive market without adequate differentiation or competitive positioning. I asked him to review the TrueCFO project in my Vision India 2020 book. In it, I have mapped out a similar project, but with a clear delineation of the segmentation and positioning as well as a go-to-market strategy. I advised Anupam to come up with a 2011 strategy. He currently has a 1999 strategy.

MyTab
Next, Heddi Cundle from San Francisco, California, discussed MyTab, an online gift-registry of sorts to raise money for travel. Heddi wants to do this, that, and the other from wedding registry to charity donations. I asked her to focus squarely on just travel. In addition, her segmentation strikes me as incorrect. Those who need to raise money for travel, most likely, are the disposable income strapped gen Y, as opposed to the gen X or baby-boomers, whom she wants to target the solution to. The idea is interesting, but needs positioning and validation with the right set of target customers.

CareerDhaba
Then, Harshil Parikh, from Bombay, India, pitched CareerDhaba, an online solution for career counseling for the Indian student population in the 16-25 age group. This strikes me as yet another entrepreneur who needs a tightening of his segmentation big time. Age 16 kids have very different career counseling needs from age 18 kids. Age 18 is worried about college, and that in itself is a sizable market. I asked Harshil to focus his entire product and go-to-market strategy on the college-bound age 18 market and develop his assessment module, vertical search engine for colleges, and trust network to address the needs of that market and that market alone.

Green Earth Aerogels
Last up, Fortunato Cardenas from Barcelona, Spain, presented Green Earth Aerogels, a nano-materials company in Barcelona, Spain focused on developing insulation gels from rice. Fortunato is facing a dreadful economic climate in Spain — a meltdown of sorts, really — and is looking for U.S. partners to help bring his product to market. So, if you happen to be an expert in nano materials and green buildings, please feel free to contact him through his website.

You can select the business you like best of those discussed today through a poll on the 1M/1M Facebook page.

The recording of today’s roundtable can be found here. Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here. We will be holding future roundtables at 8 a.m. PDT on the following dates:

Thursday, June 30, 2011: Register Here.

Thursday, July 21, 2011: Register Here.

Thursday, July 28, 2011: Register Here.

And you can sign up for the 1M/1M premium program here.

 

This segment is a part in the series : Roundtable Recap
. March 25 – A Mixed Bag Of Advice . April 1 – Bootstrapping Tips . April 8 – A Focus On E-Commerce . April 15 – Small Is OK; The Goal Is Profitability . April 22 – The Original Runners . April 29 – Finding The Right Direction . May 6 – Defining Value Proposition . May 20 – Validation, Validation, Validation . May 27 – Is The Venture Worth Your Time? . June 3 – Defining Market Segments . June 10 – Efficient Targeting . June 17 – Online Education Startups . June 24 – Three Startups That Can Hit One Million Dollars . July 1 - Get Your Pricing Model Validated . July 8 - The EJ Methodology . July 15 - A Market Of Late Adopters . July 22 - Bootstrap Using Services . July 29 - Startups In Malaysia . August 5 - Paying Customers =>Validation =>Valuation . August 19 - Niche E-Commerce Is Great For Bootstrapping . August 26 - 85%-90% Of Search Traffic Comes From Organic Search . September 2 - Find High Velocity Channels . September 9 - Open Opportunities In Cloud Computing And Rural BPO . September 16 – 5 Cloud Computing Opportunities for Entrepreneurs . September 23 - Do Not Spray And Pray . September 30 - Investors Don't Fund Broad Ideas . October 7 - Try To Get At Least $2M Pre-Money In Seed Round Valuation . October 14 - Professional Investors Do Not Invest In $20 Million Markets . October 21 - Bootstrapping Comes In Many Flavors . October 28 – Convert Potential Competitors To Partners . November 4 - Premium Lounge Sneak Preview . November 11 - African Tech Entrepreneurs Emerging . November 18 - Not Coming To The Rescue Of Victory . December 2 - Niche Marketplace Businesses Can Be Interesting . December 9 - Where Should You Raise Money? . December 16 - Top 10 Tech Trends To Watch . January 6 - Top 10 Vertical and Social Web Trends For The Decade . January 13 - Top 10 Online Advertising Trends For The Decade . January 20 - Personalization Remains An Open Problem . January 27 - Non-Dilutive Financing Through Revenue Sharing . February 3 - Indian Entrepreneurs Are Maturing . February 10 - When Keywords Are Competitive . February 17 - Indian Company Plugs Gap In Google’s Enterprise Solution . February 24 - VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What Are You Doing With Your Rejects? . March 3 - Spotlight On The Northwest . March 10 - Spotlight On India . March 17 - Spotlight On Latin And Central America . March 24 - 75th Session Spotlights The Midwest . March 31 - Microsoft’s $100,000 India Startup Challenge Grant . April 6 - 1M/1M Announces Important Partnership With MAD Incubator, Malaysia . April 9 - 1M/1M Announces Partnership With TiE Chennai . April 16 - 1M/1M Partners With Indian Angel Network Incubator . April 17 - High-Octane Energy In Pune . April 21- Incubators Are Reaching Out To 1M/1M . April 28 - Guerrilla P.R. & SEO Most Profitable Customer Acquisition Strategies . May 5 - Ownership Matters . May 12 - Two Really Cool Companies . May 19, Making Money From Blogs . May 26 - Twitter, LinkedIn - Why Not Affiliates? . June 2 - 1M/1M And Incubators - What We Have Learned . June 9 - Silicon Valley . June 16 - Exciting Companies Lined Up For Microsoft Startup Grant Finals . June 23 - New Assessment Tool For Entrepreneurs . June 30 - Continued International Participation . July 21 - Crowd Sourced Funding Exchanges - An Emerging Trend . July 28 - Investors And Incubators Need To Look At Pre-Incubation . August 4 - How Do You Bootstrap Freemium Ventures? . August 11 - Menlo Park And The Silicon Valley Renaissance . August 25 - How To Use Twitter For Lead Generation . September 1 - Fall Call To Action . September 8 - A View Into Israeli Start-ups . September 15 - Do Your Homework First . September 22 - How Do You Catalyze A Region’s Entrepreneurship? . September 29 - From Poland To Argentina . October 6 - Dedicated To Steve Jobs, Reinforcing Mission To Restructure Capitalism . October 13 - FREE Is Not A Business Model . October 20 - Non-profits And For-profits . October 27 - Check Out Stanzr . November 3 - VCs Are Not Always Right . November 17 - Business Schools And Early Stage Entrepreneurship . December 1 - 1M/1M Premium Company Freshdesk Wins Funding From Accel Partners . December 8 - Three Open Opportunities For 2012 . December 15 - Web 3.0 And Social Dancing; Romania Emerging . December 22 - Free Apps, Ad-Supported Business Models => Dangerous! . January 5 - ERP Galore . January 12-13 - Spotlight On IIT Kharagpur, India . January 19 - Are Media Sites Fundable? . January 26th - Spotlight On Jacksonville, Florida . February 2 - YCombinator vs. 1M/1M . February 9 - Are You Fundable? . February 16 - What’s Happening In Turkey? . February 23 - Microsoft Israel To Offer 1M/1M Scholarships . March 1 - Strategy Gaps Need To Be Plugged . March 12 - Winners Of Microsoft Israel Scholarships . March 15 - Spotlight On 3 Day Startup Tel-Aviv . April 3 - Rendezvous In Bangalore . April 12 - More From Indian Entrepreneurs . April 19 - Tyranny Of The TAM . April 26 - A Rare Women-Only Session . May 3 - Some Wonderful Opportunities With Corporate Partners . May 10 - BlueSnap-Elance Contest Applications Deadline This Weekend . May 22 - Winners Of TechHub-A&N Media Battle Of The Startups Contest In London Win 1M/1M Scholarships