Building Tech Startups in India: Observations (Contd)

· Mentors Entrepreneurs, especially first-timers, gain much from having access to experienced executives and academic experts either as informal advisors or as members of a formal board. Entrepreneurs I have talked to have either 1) tapped into US/Silicon Valley entrepreneur networks they were previously part of, 2) leveraged their connections with previous companies, universities and

Read Full Article »

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.

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 8)

SM: How does the entrepreneur network in Latin America work? Are there many entrepreneurs in Latin America now? MG: Yes, there is a foundation called Endeavor Foundation. They select entrepreneurs in their region and then supports them. This foundation was founded by Linda Rosenburg and Peter Kelner, two Harvard graduates. They got the big private

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 7)

SM: Does PayPal operate in South America? MG: You can withdraw money but you cannot fund a PayPal account. They do not have a Spanish speaking site either. SM: What is your dynamic with eBay today? Competitive or collaborative?

In France, Failure Sucks

We have had some discussions in the past here about how Silicon Valley’s success owes itself to the fact that risk-taking is encouraged here, and failure is not a stigma that you have to carry throughout your career. I recently attended a roundtable at Stanford with a delegation from France, where this topic came up

Read Full Article »

Indian Entrepreneurship Blogs

Here are some of the blogs that report or reflect on the Indian entrepreneurship phenomenon. I tend to keep an eye on these (and others), along with numerous offline conversations, to stay on top of the trends developing in the business. Venture Woods: India’s leading VC and Entrepreneurship blog with a vast host of experienced

Read Full Article »

Building a Telecom Equipment Startup from India

Sujai Karampuri sent me his recent piece, Ground realities from a technology product company in India . Sujai’s company Sloka Telecom is building Wimax base stations, and recently, they have won an important validation in France at Saint Medard en Jalles (5.8 GHz Wimax deployment). I know that Sujai is pounding the doors of the

Read Full Article »