Ahmedabad Rodinhooders Coffee Meet: 21 People, A few problems, 2 Hours & 1 Forum

In the scorching heat of Ahmedabad, where entrepreneurship is in the DNA of everyone you meet, 21 people from various businesses gathered to network, discuss and create a lifelong relationship of helping each other. It was 2:30 PM on 15th March 2014 and I reached AppItSimple’s office, where I met the co-founders Ankit, Piyush and Dhruv.

How it happened?

Piyush posted it on therodinhoods.wpengine.com and then our own rodinhoodni Asha’s tweet and personal message to every Amdavadi she knows made it viral. There were about 31 people who wanted to attend it and finally 21 made their way to the venue. Piyush created a Whatsapp group and added all of them. 

The Day It Was

Asha messaged Piyush and me just a few hours before the meeting to inform us on what should be done and to plan for the next structured meet. This is the real entrepreneur in Asha – even before we’ve met for the first time, she wants us to plan for the next meet-up. I messaged Piyush informing him that I’ll be coming a bit earlier so that we might become a bit friendly and that might help in steering the meeting properly.

When I reached at around 2:30 PM, Piyush, Ankit, Dhruv and Dhaval were having a conversation. We had a casual discussion on 2 problems that startups in Ahmedabad face:

1. Risk appetite is less. Employees want salary and are less concerned about the work, culture and the passion of founders.
2. Good developers are not willing to join a startup.

Then I just opened my book and started writing about everyone.

Piyush: A simple and shy guy, Piyush met his co-founder Ankit during a Rodinhood meet last year and launched India’s first of its kind portal Softwaresuggest.com that lists software and helps Indian businesses and SMEs find the best software solution. 

Ankit: An outspoken, sharp and quick-to-crack-a-joke guy, Ankit comes from Pharma background and listened to his heart to start his own venture. He was concerned about one thing at his startup – how to make revenues. He had heard Alok at NMIMS, Mumbai and that’s how he started following therodinhoods.wpengine.com.

Dhruv: An expert in data and content, Dhruv is pursuing his final year in BBA and will be joining Ankit and Piyush full time from April 2014.

Dhaval: A thin guy with an analytical mind and a Rodinhood tee winner, Dhaval is a technical lead at Jaxtr.com. He also runs his own social stock market investing portal stockarchitect.com that analyses the data from Twitter and suggests stocks. The site has garnered over 70k users in just 3 years. Active rodinhooder Gurpreet Singh Tikku introduced him to therodinhoods.wpengine.com. He met him in 2004 via online medium and met him personally after 9 years in 2013. New age entrepreneurship and friendship work like this 🙂

Sagar: Although he doesn’t know therodinhoods.wpengine.com, he came there to meet the enterprising minds.

Harshal: Working with TCS, Harshal came to know how entrepreneurship works, as he had never heard of therodinhoods.wpengine.com. I presume, now he’ll never forget therodinhoods.wpengine.com, where thinkers, doers and dreamers reside.

Rupesh: A tall guy, Rupesh runs his own educational startup where he guides students who want to study abroad. He has been in this business since 2004 and now wants to start his own web-portal for the same. He heard Alok at a lecture at Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) about 7-8 years ago and has been following him since then.

Mihir: A young and enthusiastic chap, Mihir works at AppItSimple and takes care of the online marketing. This is his second job in the past 9 months. The cofounders of AppItSimple introduced him to therodinhoods.wpengine.com.

Nitish: Coming from a Gujarati Jain family, he says he was meant to do business and hence he started his entrepreneurial journey with INR 400 with 4 friends while he was still in college. He was initially into outsourcing business but later realised that it’s more important to create a value and hence he is now focusing on products and has launched his first product LocateCaller.

Neeraj: He is into IT and Education sector for the last 8 years.

Daniel: With an overall work experience of 3-4 years, Daniel is now working in online marketing. He wants to build something that is easy to sell and less complicated to create.

Neelkanth: He works as a web and graphics designer.

Vivek: He is a game designer and developer.

Anand: He works in the healthcare industry, providing surgical products to ENT specialists. He is into business for the last 5-6 years. His current company is 1.5 years old. The reason for him joining therodinhoods.wpengine.com is that he felt that the best way to reach maximum people in minimum cost is to go digital. I’m sure we all second that..

Ashish Parik: Very interesting, witty and quick-to-respond guy, Ashish has just 1 vision – to deliver everything to everyone. Although his first venture didn’t pick up well, that did not deter him from doing something else and he launched cakehunt.com that delivers cake at anytime of the day. He says he doesn’t deliver cakes. In fact he says he delivers feelings. An awesome thought.

Vishal: Some people are supposed to come to Ahmedabad while some are forced to. He came because his wife is from Ahmedabad 😛 He recently came here to start something on his own in government consulting for corporates. He is a pure sales guy with 14 years of experience.

Hitesh: He works for his clients in the US in embedded systems in motion technology and smile detection technology. He knows therodinhoods.wpengine.com since he has been reading a lot of blogs about entrepreneurship.

Kinnari: The only lady power in the house, Kinnari is working on something amazing that might be the next big thing. She is working with 3 IIT Mumbai guys and has modified the Android OS to produce localized mobile devices. She has worked closely with Alok during the early 2000s.

Jatin: One of the most popular guys in the entrepreneurship arena in Ahmedabad, Jatin is the founder of eChai and Point 9 Ventures.

Ashish Chowdhary: While I am writing this, I have an award winning educational app on my name i.e. CATapp and an amazing product for marriages and how beautifully we solve the problems related to marriages i.e. Shubh Vivaah (it’s not a matrimony app) and a yet-to-be-released app that connects the alumni of various colleges. I love everything entrepreneurial. Unfortunately, I forgot to wear my rodinhood tee in the meeting 🙁

What we discussed?

We discussed about our startups, the problems we are facing and how we can overcome those problems. While the major time was utlised in discussing about each other, we did suggest each other a few ways to solve their issues. That’s what Rodinhoods is all about. We bid adieu with a new ‘josh’ and ‘shakti’.

Key Takeaways

1. People might praise your idea but when it comes to buying they will have their own reasons NOT to buy from you. Be ready to convince and sell them.

2. Everyone has a problem. Network and you might just find a solution.