Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 6)

Sramana: At this point, India has developed a digitally savvy consumer base which is very affluent. How will this impact the future of Flipkart?

Sachin Bansal: I expect that people will adopt e-books, but at a rather slow pace. The digitally savvy consumer base may have money, but most of them have the same background as ordinary Indians and have kept some of that mentality. They are misers. >>>

Near Field Communication On The Verge Of Realizing Its Potential (Part 1)

By guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala

Wallets and key chains appear to be next on the list for convergence as the smartphone juggernaut rolls on. Near field communication (NFC) is the technology that promises to enable this. The promise and allure of NFC in phones are to not just make the wallet leaner and the key chain lighter, but to make the experience of using a phone more enriching and to enable use cases currently not possible. The possibilities are numerous: NFC has the potential to enable a wide range of applications, and many ideas yet to be conceived. >>>

1M/1M Strategy Roundtable For Entrepreneurs On October 14

Entrepreneurs looking to discuss positioning, financing, and all aspects of a startup venture are welcome to attend the next FREE online strategy roundtable for entrepreneurs with Sramana Mitra.  The roundtable will begin at: 11 a.m. EDT/8 a.m. PDT/8:30 p.m. IST on Thursday, October 14, 2010.  Please join us and let other entrepreneurs know. You can find more details and register here.

October 7 Roundtable Poll Winner

Rajan Chandi’s Hireplug was chosen the best business of those presented at yesterday’s roundtable through a poll on our Facebook page. Congratulations! In case you missed it, you can read Sramana Mitra’s roundtable recap here.

Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 5)

Sramana: Internationally, the book industry is going through huge changes. Now that you have years of experience in the book industry, what are you hearing in terms of dealing with e-books and e-readers? Amazon expects that e-books will overtake paper books in the near future.

Sachin Bansal: I have been following that, but as I am focused on India I follow that news in terms of the Indian market. India is slower moving with e-books. >>>

Roundtable Recap: October 7 – Try To Get At Least $2M Pre-Money In Seed Round Valuation

At today’s roundtable we had some interesting companies and a lot of fund-raising discussions, and I will review them shortly. Before I do, however, I want to talk about a thumb rule that I’d like to propose to entrepreneurs about raising money.

Bottom line, early stage equity is very, very expensive. So at any point, if you are trying to raise money, and you are hearing from investors that you are too early and have too little validation, it may be a good thing.

As a thumb rule, try to get enough validation so that you can get to at least a $2M pre-money valuation before raising equity capital. Sub-$2M pre-money, it is better to bootstrap. If you have to raise money, try to do so as convertible notes. That is debt financing that converts into equity at the Series A valuation once the price for that is set. [I believe Jeff Clavier and many other seed investors are in agreement with me on this issue.]
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Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 4)

Sramana: Let’s fast forward to March 2009. How have the relationship with the distributors and the operational mechanics of your business changed?

Sachin Bansal: We actually opened another distribution center in Dehli. To our surprise, almost every distributor in India knew about us, so it was not hard to make a new relationship in Dehli. >>>

Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 3)

Sramana: How much money did you put into acquiring inventory to sell?

Sachin Bansal: They had computer systems which maintained inventory of their stock. We received a download of that every day. >>>