Roundtable Recap: September 15 – Do Your Homework First
At today’s roundtable, we had entrepreneurs presenting from Brazil, Israel and India. In fact, I was pleased to even see an entrepreneur from Kolkata, India, the city in which I was born and raised.
Estate Lister
First up, Siddhesh Joglekar from Mumbai, India, pitched Estate Lister, a real estate portal along the lines of Zillow, targeted to the Indian market. Siddhesh has already validated his business and is catering to home buyers, sellers, and brokers, generating revenues from advertising and sponsorships as well as brokerage revenue sharing.
Real Estate is one of the best investment vehicles in India and is still a relatively unorganized market from a Web enablement perspective. The business looks extremely promising and with proper execution, can become a sizable enterprise over time.
JobVoyage
Next, Nir Savitzki from Israel, presented JobVoyage, a social CRM service for job seekers. Nir is contemplating various different business models and channel options, all the way from Freemium B-to-C to white labeling the solution for universities and colleges. He wants to penetrate the Indian market. I advised him to focus on the for-profit colleges and business schools in India and sell them a white label solution, hence a B-to-B business model.
ServiceSutra
Then Pradeep Chaudhary from Kolkata, India, discussed ServiceSutra, which aims to be an online provider of reviews and ratings and recommendations for local service providers like movers and packers, wedding planners, interior decorators, etc. Pradeep has already validated the model within the movers and packers space and asked questions about business models – lead fees versus commission on transaction. He also asked for guidance on positioning, like whether or not to have separate sites for separate segments. All in all, a very promising venture.
ledface
Up last, Leandro Telles from Brazil, pitched ledface, a knowledge management technology company that still needs a business strategy. We discussed all sorts of options, and I provided a basic framework to make the business decisions that are critical at this point. Ledface is not ready for financing, even though that was one of their first questions. As I keep reiterating, 99% of the businesses that go out for financing get rejected. One of the primary reasons they get rejected is that they go in to pitch way too early and without doing their homework.
In 1M/1M we ensure that you do homework, based on which a reasonable investment decision can be made, and that you don’t get dismissed prematurely. You need to learn what it means to be a fundable business. Please take the 1M/1M self-assessment test here, and see if you can answer the nine questions adequately. If not, please join 1M/1M premium and short-circuit all this bouncing around from door to door. We can help you prepare for funding. In fact, this is the fastest and most efficient entrepreneurship education system you would be able to access to rapidly fill the gaps in your understanding of how to bring a startup to market.
Overall, I saw several promising businesses. What is interesting is that international businesses are not only happening now with companies in Brazil wanting to sell to American customers, but also companies in Israel wanting to sell to Indian customers. The world we live in today is truly global, and I am proud of the 1M/1M initiative’s ability to support this global business network.
You can listen to the recording of today’s roundtable here. As always, I would very much like to hear about your business, so let me invite you to come and pitch at one of our free 1M/1M public roundtables. We will be holding future roundtables at 8:00 a.m. PDT on the following dates:
Thursday, September 22, Register Here.
Thursday, September 29, Register Here.
Thursday, October 13, Register Here.
We will be holding our 100th roundtable on Thursday, October 6th. To celebrate the occasion, the 1M/1M initiative is inviting a dozen 1M/1M premium members from all over the world to step in front of the camera to share their entrepreneur journeys — their ups and downs and next steps — as inspiration for other startup entrepreneurs. They will also share how they are using the 1M/1M program in that journey. You can register to attend here.
If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to join the 1M/1M premium program. If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program and the FAQs. If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note, that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs.
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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