Notes from TieCon Delhi 2014

When asked if you want to attend TieCon, you simply say Yes. Thank you Asha for the opportunity and I am glad I attended. Here is a roundup of my experience of 2 days at TieCon Delhi 2014.

For those who maybe unaware, TieCon is TIE’s annual conference on entrepreneurship. This year’s theme was ‘Abki Baar Disruption’ and it had an interesting mix of keynote speeches, panels and AMAs with successful entrepreneurs.

While I tried to live tweet during some of the events, it’s simply impossible to capture the essence of the event through tweets or a blog post. It just won’t do justice as a lot of the nuances can only be experienced live.

So instead of boring you guys with a long winded discourse about my experience, here some key takeaways which I noted during some of the events.

Session on “Mega Trends that will disrupt your Industry (and create new industries)”

• India still a decade or so away till we see multi billion dollar product companies from india
• Education is about a 70 billion dollar market – Informal sector is about 20% which is ripe for disruption.The test prep market is ripe for disruption.
• Vocational type degrees in India are ripe for discussion.
• Digitization is breaking down barriers to entry- The shared economy is breaking down traditional constructs
• Unconsumption is becoming cool with a focus on the environment
• To be a disruptor, you have to have clarity of vision and bring special skills to the table e.g Tesla
• Its the era of the missionary entrepreneur instead of mercenary entrepreneurship
• Every business is generating huge amt of data – Real time monitoring and analytics of this data is a huge opportunity
• By 2020, 30 to 50 billion devices are going to be connected online – the internet of things is going to be huge
• Smartphone market in india is growing at 40% cagr
• Community word of mouth is a larger opportunity for building a brand rather than traditional advertising – entrepreneurs should look at this very closely
• You should strive for Brand Trust and have both purity and clarity of purpose
• Delhi is a hyper transactional society compared to Bangalore – e.g what can you do for me.
• Open source is going to drive the world and the corporate world will forever be catching up.
• There are more $20 billion opportunities outside of technology than technology… E.g pharma ( Mankind Pharma), Financial Services (Yes Bank) – look at traditional businesses and aim to disrupt rather than just building another app
• Evolution in India: Licence arbritage > Labour Arbitrage > Innovation arbitrage
• Building business to chase a profit pool is a very MBA type thought and won’t do very well
• The power is in the hands of the customer and technology has made the cost of switching extremely low – that’s why ecommerce will never make money in the forseeable future.
• Before you jump into into a pool looking for profits, make sure its deep enough

Keynote by Arunachalam Muruganantham – Inventor of Low cost sanitary napkin making machine

This was a very interesting session where he outlined how he started and succeded. It was also the ONLY session which got a standing ovation from the audience. Here are some gems from him

• If you are single and are planning to turn entrepreneur, make sure your partner understands what you are getting into – and you are in this together as a team.
• Else when you come back home after a long day at work, you will have another startup to deal with.
• To start a revolution you just need to do one thing with all your passion and involvement.
• I don’t have stupid marketing managers 
• If don’t know something and accept it , then nothing will happen. If you pretend otherwise, that’s when the problem starts.
• This is my presentation (a blank slide) this is like my mind – clarity
• I also made the same mistake made my by a lot of people – I got married
• Management does not come from IIM – it comes from living in a joint family with your wife and mother.
• If you are doing something and it becomes harder, then continue doing it. If it becomes easier, then stop doing it – it will turn into nothing.
• Measurable social impact – build your org around it

Disruptive Trends that are Changing Trade, Retail, Travel & Lifestyle

This was a panel on the future of ecom and the view is that ecom in India is yet to arrive – we are just scratching the surface at the moment.

• In 2014, the total merchandizing market is about 525 billion dollars
• Invoiced value of ecom in India is about 3 billion – ecom is yet to arrive in India
• You just can’t copy a us model here…you have to create unique solution for it.
• Our projections are a measure of what we can see currently rather than what we can dream it to be.
• If you stop learning and looking back to see why you are growing…you will get disrupted
• As you build businesses, don’t look for democracies, don’t look for consensus.
• You got to be anti democratic to build something magical.
• The more great people you have the larger you will grow – respect them.
• Don’t be greedy.

Kiruba Shankar conducted a mini ‘Unconference’, something similar to what happens at our Rodinhood meet ups –  You learn from each other’s experiences. Unfortunately, couldn’t jot down notes during this one.

Panel on Growth Hacking

This was an interesting panel with founders of Slideshare, CarDekho and Digital Vidya. While they busted the myth that ‘Growth Hacking’ is not rocket science, it could have been a bit more detailed oriented on the how of growth hacking

• Growth Hacking is not very different from traditional offline/online marketing.
• Its more of a non conventional way of growing your product / service
• You can’t really outsource it
• As a founder, you have to really push the envelope and think of creative ways to get new customers
• Copying others will not always work.

Keynote with Virender Sehwag

This was probably the best session of TieCon. And this is coming from me who is NOT a cricket fan at all. I have gained immense respect for Virender Sehwag after hearing him speak of his travails and outlook on life. Very refreshing and honest and the reason behind Sehwag International School is also very noble. Here are some key edicts which he lives by

• Leave your good guys alone and they will do the right thing.
• Form is temporary. Class is permanent.
• If it is your company, you are the best person to grow it and fix any problems. Trust your instincts and focus.

Keynote by Sanjay Kapoor, Chairman, Micromax
A pretty insightful talk on the changes that large organisations and startups who are scaling have to grapple with.

• You have to manage scale and complexity together.
• While you compete, you also need to learn to collaborate with your competitor’s
• Moving from a local mindset to a global mindset
• World is moving from Experience to relevance for the top job
• 3 types of people in an organisation – Data natives, Data immigrants (need to train to remain relevant) and Data aliens – what do you do with them ?
• Analytics is going to determine how you succeed vs of your competition
• AND choices
• I want to do this and this and this …
• You will have to make Or decisions..
• 60 to 70 families in India own about 60-70% of the wealth in India – however they still haven’t figured out the data business

AMA with Kunwer Sachdev, MD of Sukam and entrepreneurs.

This was again an interesting chat where he outlined that today, everybody is first running after raising money before starting a business. His POV is view is to just start and preferably without too much money as too much of it can make one complacent.

According to him, the more money you have, the more problems you will have.

Building the Personal Brand
Alok chaired this session along with Sairee Chahal, Tanvi Bhatt and Ajay Jain – All 4 repeatedly stressed the need for building your personal brand and also outlined how one can go about. Alok was his usual self and as always a pleasure to watch. Here are some pointers to keep in mind if you want to keep in mind as you get started:

• Stand for something
• Do something that appeals to you every day
• Be true to yourself
• Your personal branding is happening all the time you post on Fb tw Li or any other public platform

There were a couple of other interesting sessions on SMAC, Design Thinking for Success and Financing Options for startups –  but after 2 days of non stop sessions, my brain was a bit fried and I decided to call it a day.

One thing that a VC said did stick though, “If you are building a lifestyle company which will achieve a turnover of 100 crores in the next 5 years, you should probably not look for VC funding”

I also overheard one of the TIE charter members say to a delegate – “TieCon is where you come for the generic motivational stuff. Talk to us one on one if you need serious mentoring !!”

Saw quite a few specimens who seemed to have come there just to distribute and collect cards 🙁 , before you hand out your visiting card, speak to the person for a few minutes and look at the person when handing them your card.

Overall it was a mix of hits and misses, with more hits and misses and definitely worth attending (Just do your homework before which speakers you want to listen to)

Viru’s Video

Muruga’s Video

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About me: I run 2 startups, one in digital advertising called Experia Media and another called Finqa – where we help Individuals help invest their money better. Love connecting the dots.

@abhikprasad

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Editor’s note: In case any of you are interested in covering any startup event in your city; give sushrut@rodinhood.com or me a shout!

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