5 Ka 500 – Open House at Dalal Street

161 years ago, 4 Gujarati men and a Parsi gathered under a banyan tree outside the Mumbai Town hall with an idea. Over the years, their meeting locations changed, many new people joined-in and their idea slowly became bigger. Today, with 5749 listed companies, and a market capitalisation of over 1.7 Trillion USD, BSE or the Bombay Stock Exchange is a global juggernaut to recon with.

In the heart of the same BSE, in the International Convention Hall, met 500+ Rodinhooders for the #TRH Mumbai Open House.

The Dream

Though no one remembers the people who started BSE, everyone knows what BSE stands for. A very similar dream was shared by Alok with the attendees. He wanted #TRH to become so big that one day, when he comes to an Open House, there is absolutely no space. While he struggles to adjust himself somewhere in the back, he hears a soothing voice of a girl, “So, you’re a Rodinhooder too?…Nice…..when did you join?”

#TRH Mumbai Open House, held at the BSE International Convention Hall at the hallowed Bombay Stock Exchange on 16^th Jan 2016 was bigger and more awesome than ever before.

Many reached late, thanks to a certain 45 year old, who decided to take a Padyatra that day, bringing the traffic around Bandra to a grinding halt. More on him later perhaps.

The introduction was done by Alok (founder).

Driven by Shivalik

The First on the block was a very driven Shivalik Sen of BeDriven (BeDriven.com). Many a brows were lifted when he talked about a possibility to track and rank the quality of the drivers based on which, a differential pricing model will be implemented. A few people wanted to know if there was value in just providing drivers when companies like Uber were providing the car too. All-in-all, the BeDriven team got a positive round of applause. We hope BeDriven shares more success stories in the community in the coming days.

Ninjas always win!

Next in line was Mubaid, the real Ninja of an Entrepreneur from Hyderabad. His story had drama, emotions, suspense and lots of learnings. Right from the days when he and his friends were operating from the College Dorm room to the days when he decided to raise funding – losing his focus on the business. Lazy Ninja not just earned fans but also many a few prospective customers, thanks to the inspirational journey shared. We hope Mubaid will keep us updated in future as well.

The Zen in Orange (Pants)

Just when we thought meeting Mubaid and Shivalik was the high point of the day, in came a guy in an inspirational pair of orange pants. Father of Shaadi.com, Makaan.com, Mauj Mobile, CEO of the People’s group, Angel Investor in Justride, Interactive Avenues, Ola Cabs among many others. Founding Member and past chairman of IAMAI, The name was Mittal, Anupam Mittal.

Anupam was frank and had a brilliant take among others, on the Food Tech companies. He quipped – “He who can find Tech in food tech would be the next billionaire”. He shared his insights on the horizon, about the importance of luck along with hard work and even shared some of his secrets – those who missed should make a point to attend the next Open house…:)

Zamin se Chaand Par – Team Indus – Salute!

After dollops of inspiration, it was time for some Patriotism and Pride. In came the members of Team Indus, a living proof of what curiosity, audacity and perseverance can achieve, if mixed in the right quantities. Team Indus, the only Indian team leading the charge to win the Google Lunar X Prize is a case study on entrepreneurship of the highest order. Team Indus plans to land a rover on the Lunar Surface and send back verifiable data and pictures back to earth.

To explain this in colloquial – While you and me were worrying about client payments and tax filing – Ye log chand pe jhanda gadhne ka business plan submit kar rahe the – Indian Jhanda – Tiranga!

When they win – India will win. They got maximum applause for their story of how they were made to sign the contracts which barred them from landing near the previous NASA landings, as those areas were supposed to be US territories. Team Indus quipped by saying that the same rule thus will apply to them and thus, the place they land will become an Indian territory! Please do check them out – visit their website, teamIndus.in.

Chaand se Zamin Par – Bootstrapping!

After the surge of patriotism, we were exposed to some ground realities, in came a Marwari from Ballad Estate, Shailesh Jain and the Pure Energy incarnate, Sudeepta Sanyal. Shailesh along with his partner Anup Nair, run Mirraw, India’s largest Ethnic Store. Sudeepta runs Blueberry Trails, a travel company with a difference. While Shailesh emphasized on asking why, reducing overheads and cutting costs as much as possible, Supdeepta emphasized on never giving up and giving it one’s best.

Post the Bootstrap session was time for the Class Act by Suresh Venkat and 3 Fintech entrepreneurs from Tavaga, Invezta and Nudge.

The Fintech session was followed by Sanket Bhatt’s second coming – Dhinchakwale and Shailendra Dhakad’s inspiring story of starting Carmel Organics.

While it was exhausting, everyone in the room was convinced, it was all worth it. We met some interesting and inspiring people, heard stories of courage and success. We all had our own take-aways – and smiles. Just to add-in – The Chai and the Samosas were just out of the world.

Thank you all who came – Thank you all who made it a possibility.

A special shout out to Alok and Asha (co-founder) for being awesome as usual.

About me: I’ve Co-founded 4nought4 and Founded Goonjlabs. You can follow me at @heisme

Note: 5 Ka 500 notes the rise of the Rodinhood community from a mere 3-10 people meeting in Alok’s office to the current #TRH Open House which was attended by over 500 people.

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