As a member of TiE, Bangalore and Sun’s Startup Essentials Program, I was invited for the SSE workshop that happened in Bangalore on 31st May, 2008. It had many flavours starting with the key note speech to panel discussions to guest speeches to one-one sessions with VC’s.
I had jotted down a few points from the meet. Will try to list list them out in this post and the next one.
Key note speech by Sanjay Nayak, CEO of Tejas networks:
Sanjay gave a background on Tejas and how they have got to where they are. His “lesson’s learnt”:
- Set a grand vision but stay focussed.
o Set aggressive but realistic milestones
o Critical to focus on few things but try to be the best in it
o Start-up should think themselves as a “zero billion dollar” company
- Markets/customers:
o Global ambitions starting from India
o Be open to partnerships for a global reach
- Sustainable advantage through aggressive R&D and innovation
- Team is the Key
o High-energy talent (need not be IIT’s) with a “can-do” attitude
o High quality board of directors
o Regular communication and updates
- Funding
o Quality of investors is important. They must understand, appreciate and add value to the business
o Always take more funding than less!
He also mentioned about the Chinese competition (Huawei, ZTE) and how tough it is to compete with them because of the unfair government support they get. (He mentioned about a friendly credit policy where these companies don’t have to bother repaying them…don’t think it can get any friendlier!)
The key note was followed by a talk on the SSE program by Sanjay Sharma, Worldwide Director of the SSE program. Will cover that along with the other things in the next post…
