Photographs: Rediff Archives
Entrepreneurship is hot in India. From college kids to MBA grads to professionals with work experience, all are jumping on the start-up bandwagon in a frenzy indicating a huge risk-taking appetite among India's youth.
And with angel investors like the Indian Angel Network and VentureNursery -- just to name a few -- opening their purse strings to fund 'unique' start-up ideas, people from all walks of life, across geographies in India are coming to them with their 'pitch'.
Here we present five start-ups with their 'unique' ideas that were chosen from about 150 applicants across India by VentureNursery -- India's first angel-backed start-up accelerator -- for their 13-week acceleration programme where they will undergo intense and customised mentoring by an elite group of serial entrepreneurs, angels members, VCs, technologists and senior corporate managers.
These five start-ups are:
- Catapooolt: A crowd-funding platform
- iLeathergraph: A personalised leather products company
- Peter's Pan: A Pune-based quick-service restaurant
- Perspective.ly: A news recommendation system and
- Trelta: An online patient management platform
At the end of the acceleration programme these five start-ups will get to pitch for seed funding.
What's YOUR start-up story?
Before you about the five start-ups
What's so 'unique' about these 5 start-ups?
Photographs: Rediff Archives
Varun Achar: Founder, Trelta
1. What is so unique about your start-up?
In the new age, doctors have to realise that running a clinic is not just about treating diseases. It is now service delivery. In India, 71 per cent of patients walk out of a clinic unsatisfied. That is why treatment acceptance and treatment compliance is at a low 50 per cent which hurts a doctor's practice. This can be directly seen through the number of second opinions sought from a doctor.
Trelta through its innovative tools allows doctors to build a trusting relationship with patients and provide an excellent service before a patient even walks into a clinic till after the patient has walked out -- without interfering in the interaction between a doctor and the patient. Excellent service results in improved trust, which directly results in increased treatment acceptance, compliance, repeat visits and recommendations thus benefitting both the doctor and the patient.
2. What is your business model and how do you plan to scale it?
We will provide the service on a subscription basis. We plan to reach out to doctors through national, local and community seminars and conferences, alumni networks and mailing lists.
3. Major challenges you faced as a start-up and how did you overcome them?
Since both the founders are not from the medical profession, it was hard to clearly nail down the right product to fit the market need. In order to overcome this problem, we read the minds of our customers through face to face meetings and interviews. We also spoke to some people in the healthcare space who have a similar vision for the healthcare market and learnt from their experience.
4. The importance of Venture Nursery for start-ups
VentureNursery isn't about money. It is about learning about how you should run a business, avoiding and overcoming the challenges you might face along the way. Most start-ups don't even know what they should be focusing on when they decide to start up. In the very first meeting we had with Ravi Kiran and Shravan Shroff, we discovered things that we immediately needed to do. VentureNursery helps promoters bring a clarity in their short term and long term vision which is extremely important because it is your vision which drives your company not just now but also 5-10 years in the future. Their contribution cannot be measured in terms of money.
5. Your advice to youth on building start-ups.
It is too early for us to give any advice.
What's YOUR start-up story?
Before you
What's so 'unique' about these 5 start-ups?
Photographs: Rediff Archives
Amit Sharma: Founder, Peter's Pan
1. What is so unique about your start-up?
Peter's Pan, a QSR (quick service restaurant), offers all day dining options to customers and the product offering covers unique products that are otherwise available at high end restaurants or star hotels only. It, therefore, offers more variety at an affordable price in a hygienic and clean environment.
2. What is your business model and how do you plan to scale it?
We currently have large format stores and shall be shortly opening express stores which will be backed by central kitchen to ensure consistent quality, cost control and optimum manpower requirement. At a later stage we plan to pursue franchisee model to scale up
3. Major challenges you faced as a start-up and how did you overcome them?
The key challenges faced by me were raising funds, non availability of skilled resources and, identification and tie up with the right vendors. I was able to overcome these challenges by leveraging available resources and seeking assistance from family and friends.
4. The importance of Venture Nursery for start-ups
Venture Nursery assists entrepreneurs to critically examine their business plan and helps in further strengthening their business model. Specialists from various fields like marketing, ops, finance work with the entrepreneurs and provide inputs in their respective domain which build their confidence and conviction in the idea.
5. Your advice to youth on building start-ups
We have to gain experience and expertise to offer real advice.
What's YOUR start-up story?
Before you
What's so 'unique' about these 5 start-ups?
Photographs: Rediff Archives
Satish Kataria: Founder, Catapooolt
1. What is so unique about your start-up?
Catapooolt brings the power of crowd funding and community engagement to India. Though launched in India, it already carries the distinction of being world's most rewarding crowd funding platform -- through its unique 3-Tier Rewards Module -- thus making it a winning experience both for the various projects seeking funding as well as their supporters. The platform -- which focuses on films, music, performing arts and creative entrepreneurs -- is also supported by leading national and international domain experts -- thus, not only giving access to funds to these entrepreneurs, but also other critical resources and to global markets.
2. What is your business model and how do you plan to scale it?
We are currently focusing on creative and entertainment related projects -- and are targeting projects across India as well as Asia (incidentally we were first-ever official crowd funding platform at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2013 -- which constitutes one of the largest film markets in Asia) -- and endeavour to connect them to their global diaspora. Further, we are also planning series of offline initiatives to promote the culture of creative contributions across these markets.
3. Major challenges you faced as a start-up and how did you overcome them?
One of the key challenges is the limited awareness of crowd funding in India and Asia. We are planning series of initiatives to enhance awareness of this concept and make it more relevant for Asian communities.
4. The importance of Venture Nursery for start-ups
When you are endeavouring to bring in new concepts -- it becomes very essential to connect with other innovators and industry leaders -- and work together with them to fine-tune your go-to-market strategies. Venture Nursery is playing a very critical role in this space and is enabling us to access industry leaders and strategic support.
5. Your advice to youth on building start-ups
We would wait to make a success of our venture before we give out any advice.
What's YOUR start-up story?
Before you
What's so 'unique' about these 5 start-ups?
Photographs: Rediff Archives
Ankit Goel: Founder, Perspective.ly
1. What is so unique about your start-up?
We provide news recommendation as a service for online publishers and content creators. In this era of "open web", where the user is not bound to a site or portal, it is our endeavour to empower publishers with a recommendation methodology to win and retain user loyalty. Perspective.ly's proprietary engine is based on advanced artificial intelligence and natural language processing techniques which would provide contextual recommendations as opposed to recommendations based solely on user browsing history. Contextual recommendations would provide users with a holistic perspective on news events thereby creating a smarter breed of online readers.
2. What is your business model and how do you plan to scale it?
As a startup we intend to collaborate with Indian dailies and bloggers providing their readers with our recommendations and then subsequently focus on the international market.
3. Major challenges you faced as a start-up and how did you overcome them?
The key challenge we face is acceptance of contextual recommendation over personalisation. We have been able to convince people that contextual recommendation is the way to go based on the strength of our engine which takes into account numerous variables.
4. The importance of VentureNursery for start-ups
Building a business is not just about creating a great product or service, but understanding the market in great detail. VentureNursery has been a great mentor helping avoid pitfalls and allowing access to industry leaders enabling get an insight on creating and running a great company.
5. Your advice to youth on building start-ups
Be passionate about what you do.
What's YOUR start-up story?
Before you
What's so 'unique' about these 5 start-ups?
Photographs: Rediff Archives
Rattan Joneja: Founder, iLeathergraph
1. What is so unique about your start-up?
iLeathergraph is a Identity Theme Leather Products brand launched in May 2012. The business idea is to carve out a share in the leather products market. The strategy is to embed customer identity, autograph or monogram on the product making it exceptionally sought after. The signature is meticulously crafted by hand, cut in metal and plated to give a culmination of craftsmanship, writing styles and contemporary aesthetics. iLeathergraph's personalised products is a form of personal recognition and ideal for both personal use and gifting.
The business process is completely made to order and we have a range of products relating to travel, mobile, digital, business, wallets, personal and bags. The concept is very fresh and very distinctive and the company aspires to create its own universe of products. The business has no geographical boundaries.
2. What is your business model and how do you plan to scale it?
Being a unique lifestyle and differentiated product and one of its kind there are opportunities to create various channels of sales and distributions both nationwide and international. These include:
- Online sales and online distribution
- Alliances and partnerships
- Retailing including franchising
- Corporate gifting
- Brand merchandising
The scale happens across geographies.
3. Major challenges you faced as a start-up and how did you overcome them?
Quick brand awareness at low cost. To overcome this I ran deep into my network to get some alliances and partnerships working for me to get the brand growing and carry reputation.
4. The importance of VentureNursery for start-ups
In a few words VentureNursery is "Partners in Progress."
- They give you three important platforms which is a must need for start-ups.
- An exposure to help you raise angel and series A funding. As entrepreneurship in a way is all about capital, capital and capital.
- Exposure to experienced entrepreneurs helps build and kick start the start-up
- Business connections help network
5. Your advice to youth on building start-ups
We would wait and learn the success mantras of entrepreneurs before we share them.
What's YOUR start-up story?
Before you
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