Building Tech Startups in India: Observations

In my conversations, I focused on the interaction between entrepreneurs and the external environment. i.e., primarily around the activities of reaching customers, hiring employees, seeking advice and raising funds. Accordingly, the key issues center on the following four factors: Market Money Mentors Manpower

Building Tech Startups in India: Introduction

By Aparna Chennapragada, Guest Author There is near-unanimous agreement on the ‘India story’ (at least in direction, even if there is disagreement in magnitude). Given the role of high-tech entrepreneurship in wealth and job creation, it is not surprising that there is growing interest in entrepreneurship and technology innovation in India.

Do We Need More Funds in India?

Someone posed this very appropriate question in response to my Incubator Fund series. The answer is No. However, what we need is two things:

Incubator Funds in India: Synthesis

My first experience of technology entrepreneurship in India was in 1994 while I was still a grad student at MIT. The most vivid memory I have of that experience is that it took me 6 months to get a phone line. It was before wireless. It was, most certainly, before venture capital in India. Things

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Incubator Funds in India: Management Team

This is going to be the last segment for this series on Incubators in India, and it tackles the key to making such incubators work. We have said, that we need concept engineering, engineering management, product marketing, sales, biz dev, legal and financial talent in the incubator management team. I am going to, therefore, propose

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Incubator Funds in India: Fund Structure?

Typically, venture funds pay out 2-3% of the capital in annual management fees, and offer 20-30% in carry (profit sharing). So, let’s look at the table below of various fund sizes, and what those numbers amount to:

Incubator Funds in India: Adult Supervision?

Okay, so we are talking about designing an incubator that will give entrepreneurs access to concept engineering, engineering management, product marketing, sales, biz dev, legal and financial talent and resources that is well beyond what a small startup could ever dream of attracting. This definitely is starting to sound too good to be true! Wait,

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Incubator Funds in India: Real Estate & Infrastructure

Pretty much wherever you look to set up your entrepreneurial venture in, at this point, in India, you are looking at expensive real estate. I have heard from entrepreneurs who are struggling to rent 1,500 sq. ft of space to start their ventures up. Therefore, imagine how valuable it would be if you could sublet

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