HIRING IS EVERYTHING: FOLLOW THESE 7 TIPS TO GET IT RIGHT

Hiring the right people will make or break your business. As a serial entrepreneur who has built two highly successful companies, I would know. This isn’t my first rodeo. I can honestly say that since I started my career some of the smartest moves I’ve ever made have been hiring the right people. And, to be perfectly honest, some of my dumbest were when I offered the wrong person a job or, worse yet, let someone really talented get away. Like I said, this stuff really matters.

If you’re a new entrepreneur, or simply haven’t had much success hiring the right people, let me do you a favor. I’ve spent the last two decades trying to figure out how to hire and retain top talent, and I’ve boiled my experiences down into a handful of key takeaways. Of course you’ll have your own approach to talent acquisition, but trust me when I say that if you incorporate this advice into your hiring practices, you’ll be a lot better off.

1. Don’t hire brilliant jerks
2. Hire your weaknesses
3. Don’t get hung up on resumes, focus on results
4. Hire people who will challenge you
5. Understand that leaders bring armies
6. Remember that A-players are always free
7. Let go of the control

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13 things top startup CEOs do better than everyone else

Running a startup is hard, but the ones that do well usually have a great CEO. But what qualities make a CEO "good'? We went through Quora to find out what the best startup CEOs do to stand out from the rest.

Here's a look at 13 things top startup CEOs do better than everyone else...

1. They are good at both hiring and firing
2. Being street smart is more important than being book smart
3. Put your self-interest behind
4. It's okay to be unconventional
5. They are detail oriented, but don't micro-manage
6. Have the courage to do something big
7. Don't be delusional. Be realistic.
8. Be able to delegate
9. Every great entrepreneur is a salesman
10. They know how to motivate others
11. Enjoy a certain level of tension
12. They happen to be lucky
13. Willing to learn every day

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6 successful women entrepreneurs who rock the Indian startup scene

The first woman entrepreneur I knew was my neighbour who started a papad manufacturing business in the early 90s. I remember my mother being in awe of her and did her best to help out the budding entrepreneur.

But that was the 90s and these entrepreneurs were never glorified or talked about in the media. Even the choices for women in India were limited - most enterprising women built home-based businesses.

Over the turn of the millennium, a lot of businesses based on the distribution model were popularized, and empowered women too. Every other person you met was either an Amway or Oriflame distributor.

Fast forward a few years and we have women rocking the proverbial boat by trying their hands on so-called "male-dominated" businesses.

Let me introduce here six phenomenal ladies who rule the Indian startup scene with their disruptive ideas. From software developer to recruiter, from a woman who travelled alone for days on end surveying small city hotels to one whose mission is to pamper other Indian women, they have been there, done that and aren't slowing down anytime soon.

Of course, we'll talk about their work (and companies), which speaks for itself.

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The 10 most common mistakes startups make, and how to avoid them

The myth of the genius founder is rife in the technology sector. However, anyone that has seen David Fincher’s The Social Network can tell you that even the very biggest and brightest tech startups will make mistakes

Tech startups are generally run by smart, young people that have a great idea but no experience of running a company. Recruitment, management, finance and legal issues can all be problems for entrepreneurs that don’t learn from their mistakes quickly.

Here are just some of the mistakes that startups have made, from powerhouses like Uber, Tinder and Slack to fast-growing companies like Settled, Saberr and Laundrapp, and hopefully some advice on how to avoid them.

See the slideshow

How should you tap into Silicon Valley?

The roughly 1,800-square-mile area commonly known as Silicon Valley, southeast of San Francisco Bay, is home to just three million people—slightly less than 1 percent of the US population. Yet the Valley, seat of several world-class universities and numerous cutting-edge enterprises, has become an economic and innovation powerhouse whose importance is hugely disproportionate to its small physical size. If it were a country, it would rank among the world’s 50 largest economies, larger than those of Hungary, Vietnam, and New Zealand, among others. In 2013, Silicon Valley generated over 12 percent of US patent registrations and produced about 11 percent of new US-company IPOs, and the greater Bay Area attracted almost 40 percent of US venture-capital (VC) investment.1 More than a few ideas hatched in the Bay Area have paid off handsomely. Thirty-two of the 50 private start-ups with valuations at or exceeding $1 billion are based there. This is not a new phenomenon, of course. Bay Area enterprises have been creating new markets and disrupting a wide swath of industries for decades.

As companies everywhere strive to stay ahead of the digital revolution, the payoff from engaging with Silicon Valley can be substantial. BMW, which first arrived there almost 20 years ago, linked up with Apple to become the first carmaker to integrate the iPod into its vehicles—an initiative that likely would not have been possible without a physical presence in the area. BMW’s development of its i3 electric vehicle also benefited from collaboration with other Valley companies.

No silver bullet

But for every success, companies launch many haphazard “Valley initiatives” that yield little and end in disappointment. Consider, for example, the Bay Area networking offices beloved of many outsiders. These attempts to get a foot in the door typically involve establishing a small outpost charged with responsibility for networking with VC funds, leading area businesses, and promising Valley start-ups. Many companies find it difficult to make this model work. Even if employees in these offices can identify winning ideas—no sure thing, of course—their potential tends to get watered down or lost as the news is passed back to corporate headquarters and up the chain of command. Often, opportunities are squandered, and frustrated employees at the satellite office leave to join some fast-growing Valley employer.

Companies that set up their own venture-capital funds or corporate investment arms often report disappointing results, too. In the Bay Area, after all, money is generally less important than good connections; well-established entrepreneurs and VCs there tend to stick together and pick winners cooperatively. Even corporate-backed entities flush with money struggle to embed themselves in the local network. Intel Capital—launched by one of the Valley’s original corporate pillars—is a notable exception, but many more fail to make meaningful contributions to their corporate parents or don’t follow a coherent corporate strategy in training their sights on target companies. For many big businesses looking in from the outside, creating a venture fund is a difficult way to channel the Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit and generate fresh ideas.

A practical playbook

In our experience, there are three proven ways to engage with Silicon Valley and tap into its zeitgeist.

Read the article published in McKinsey Quarterly

How Will Startup India Help You?

In order to give a boost to the culture of entrepreneurship at a mass scale, Prime Minister launched the Startup India program on 16 January with a number of initiatives and perks for startups.

In last few years, India has witnessed boom in the etail or ecommerce sector. Thanks to the startups which manifested risk-taking ability and defied the tradition by adopting innovative ways to run business. Because of their unprecedented feat, India could surpass China for the first time in the race to garner the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Ecommerce is one part of the story which certainly boosted the morale of several individuals to experiment. As a result India has seen a wave of startups in many areas. Until now startups took the risk on their own, with little help from the government. Of course, venture capitalist have begun to invest and promote Indian startups. Largely young entrepreneurs have embarked upon the entrepreneurship on their own. However, it is important that this culture is preserved, prevailed and promoted. There is no one better than the government to do so.

The Startup India – a visionary program of the Narendra Modi government – can succeed in giving the much-needed boost. The Startup India includes new policies and initiatives that are aimed at making it easier for investors and startup founders to incubate their venture in the country. It is expected that the initiatives can bring a wave of innovative startups in the country.

Startup India: 12 Big Announcements

1. Rs. 10,000 crore fund for startups 
2. single point of registration for startups
3. simplified regulatory regime based on self-certification
4. fast-track mechanism filing patent applications
5. credit guarantee fund for startups
6. Three year tax exemption
7. Startup India Hub
8. Relaxed norms of public-procurement
9. Faster exits for startups
10. Atal Innovation Mission – Sector specific Incubators
11. Encouraging Innovation among students
12. An annual incubator grand challenge

Read the full article

Top entrepreneurs react to India's new startup policy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled his government's Start-up India policy at an event held in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on January 16, 2016. The 19-point Action Plan aims to take forward the startup culture, making it easier for young, aspiring Indians to build on their business ideas.

While the jury is still out on the fine print of the policy, here are some quick reactions from some of India's top entrepreneurial minds:

Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Education:
I think they have done everything that they could have through notification without amending the law, because amending of law will have to go to Parliament (that) is disrupted and not working. The disruption of Parliament has happened for political reasons. What is enthusiastic is that PM came; he spoke and announced many policies, which means that he cares. I think there is a bright future for technology, startups and employment in this country. The government is listening. There were 11 secretaries sitting on the dais and answering questions and telling us that ‘we are here for you’. I haven’t heard that in 20 years. The Revenue Secretary saying that ‘I will look into tax matters’, I haven’t heard that at all.

I think in Modi’s reign, everything is too good to be true but it is actually happening on the ground because we see it. We have been engaged with them for the last three-four months. The only thing that is lacking in a big way is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). We have been engaged with Governor Raghuram Rajan (and) he has promised to do things. I think we will (now) see some action from the RBI side.

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Glossary: Startup and Venture Capital terms you should know

The startup world operates on a lot of lingo. This guide will give you a better context to understand the language of startups, venture capitalists, angel investors, and incubators.

Acquisition: When one company buys controlling stake in another company. Can be friendly (agreed upon) or hostile (no agreement).

Agile: A philosophy of software development that promotes incremental development and emphasizes adaptability and collaboration.

Angel investor: Individual who provides a small amount of capital to a startup for a stake in the company. Typically precedes a Seed Round and usually happens when the startup is in its infancy.

B2B: Business to business. This describes a business that is targeting another business with its product or services. B2B technology is also sometimes referred to as enterprise technology. This is different from B2C which stands for business to consumer, and involves selling products or services directly to individual customers.

Benchmark: The process by which a startup company measures their current success. An investor measures a company's growth by determining whether or not they have met certain benchmarks. For example, company A has met the benchmark of having X amount of recurring revenue after 2 years in the market.

Read the full glossary

Funding your startup: Crowdfunding vs. angel investment vs. VC

Raising capital for a startup has traditionally been one of the most difficult parts of getting your idea off the ground, but new technologies and platforms have given entrepreneurs a plethora of new ways to make that happen. Nowadays, there are more options than ever to get a new company funded.

"One of the really cool things that's happening right now is this massive proliferation of ways to start a company and ways to get your company funded," said Aaron Harris, a partner at Y Combinator.

New enterprises were once only birthed by born-wealthy proprietors, or business leaders who could roll capital over from another successful venture. As the venture capital industry began to grow, capital became available to innovators who wouldn't have had access to it before. Then, as angel investors grew in popularity, founders had a new way to get capital at an early stage where some VCs wouldn't tread. Now, consumer crowdfunding has added another layer to the investment equation for entrepreneurs.

As funding becomes more and more democratized, we are seeing what Harris calls, "the progressive elimination of gatekeepers." But, the process can still be difficult to navigate, especially if you are a first-time founder.

"Entrepreneurs, whatever they're doing and whatever company they're trying to start, they're so different," said Bobby Franklin, NVCA President and CEO. "Clearly, some of the funding routes that one might go would be better suited for one type of entrepreneur, or one type of idea, than another."

As Franklin noted, certain funding options will work best for specific types of companies. Here are the three most popular forms of funding and how to better understand them.

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Why and How this Indian Realty Portal Exploits Data Science

While banks and ecommerce companies have tried their hands at data science and are benefitting from their initiatives around it, real estate appears to be the next big vertical that intends to leverage data science.

Housing.com, the Mumbai-based startup, is one among the top Indian online businesses that bet on data science and machine learning algorithms as a core priority. The realty portal, which raised $190 mn from Japan’s SoftBank, has come up with many tools such as Traffic Flux, Heat Maps, Listing Decay, and more in their efforts to present information to users in a visually appealing way that is more interactive than traditional plain listings.

Read the article

This Way To Start Up Alley

Bandra of Bangalore, GK-I of Delhi, that’s Koramangala. This is startup universe, the hub of ideas, inspiration and all the action.

It’s half past seven on a Monday eve­ning. The ‘footfalls’ haven’t begun yet in earnest at Prost Brewpub which has five home brews on the menu. A group of three is among the handful sipping their drinks quietly. Cut to half hour later, and the place is buzzing with activity. A large group of 11 troops in for what seems a reun­ion party. The tables fill up. Some step out onto the balcony with their beer mugs for a smoke. The din throws up snatches of a conversation. “Scaling up...demand hai,” one of the trio says to her companions. “....you need that value addition,” says another, a bit sceptically. Out comes a notebook and they rum­m­age around for a pen. Then furious scribbling and lots of questions and answers. Ano­ther round of drinks. It’s been an hour, but the conversation is far from over.

The discussion is about a startup idea (not surprisingly, two of them work with startups; the other, who didn’t have much luck with his first venture, is sounding out a new idea) and it’s unfolding at a microbrewery on Koramangala’s 80 Ft Road. Why? “It’s convenient. And, you can get some beer.” It’s the sort of answer you get anywhere in Koramangala, the place many are calling India’s busiest startup locality. The building next door to Prost shelters a couple of startups and there are a few more in the street across the road. They are all over rea­lly, and no one keeps count.

Less than 50 feet away is a Costa coffee outlet where headphone-wearing youngsters keep at their laptops all day. Twenty-seven-year-old Akshay Kingar says he knows of at least 25 people who work from there. He’s one of them. His firm foOfys creates mobile apps and his team sits in an office 10 km away where he hasn’t been to in over a month. He doesn’t need to: he spends Rs 12,000 a month to collaborate with his team—with tools like Wunderlist, Slack, Trello, Mockup, AWS—to be AWOL.

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9 privacy and security errors startups can't afford to make

Startups are risky. There's no sense adding to the precariousness of new business ownership by making the following errors in judgment.

With lots on their mind, startup owners tend to back-burner decisions that do not help the bottom line. More often than not that includes deciding how privacy and data security should be managed. Françoise Gilbert, a partner with the law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP suggests that is a bad idea, "A single error can undermine the trust of investors and customers, attract unwanted regulatory attention or litigation, and ultimately, derail a startup's success."

"Most startups cannot survive on their own without the help of third-party investments or contracts," continues Gilbert. "If they want to succeed and meet these third parties' requirements, they have to implement from the start and continue to use, the appropriate privacy and security safeguards that are adapted to their specific business model."

And Gilbert ought to know, in 30 years, she has seen plenty of mistakes; she outlines in her law firm's Emerging Technology Views blog what to avoid. So, startup owners, to steer clear of additional angst, here's Gilbert's list of whatnot to do.

1: Assuming privacy or security is just for the geeks
2: Ignoring relevant rules and laws
3: Thinking you are flying under the radar
4: Ignoring the benefits from policies
5: Believing you are not responsible
6: Assuming that more is better
7: Copying the privacy policy of the business next door
8: Making representations that they don't understand
9: Misunderstanding the effect of anonymization

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8 Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now

Which sectors are especially ripe for new entrants? Inc.'s list of the best industries for starting a business is a window into the fast-growing segments of tomorrow's economy. Read on to see where you can get in early.

1. Drone Manufacturing
2. Virtual Reality
3. Artificial Intelligence
4. Food Analytics and Technology
5. Biometric Scanning Software
6. Fraud Deduction Software
7. Corporate Wellness
8. Sustainable Building Materials

View the Slide Show

10 Tips That Will Help Launch Your Start-up Faster

The start-up culture is full of people who want to, and try to, but just can’t get their business off the ground. Why is this the case? Much of the reason has to do with the fact that many entrepreneurs don’t know how to take their business from point A to B. Point A is that brilliant idea in the mind of the entrepreneur. B is that subsequent, hoped-for state where the business is secure, established and making money."In between" is tough. In terms of strategies, one of the best ways to build your business is to take that idea in your head to market as soon as possible. Because, delays kill, Speed saves. Here are ten tips on how you can launch your start-up faster.

1. Just start.
2. Sell anything.
3. Ask someone for advice, then ask him/her to do it.
4. Hire remote workers.
5. Hire contract workers.
6. Find a co-founder.
7. Work with someone who pushes you to the extreme.
8. Don't focus on money.
9. Spend time and money on marketing.
10. Talk to your potential customers.

Starting fast doesn’t mean that you should force scaling. Scaling is something that happens carefully, in a measured cadence. Starting fast means that you leverage all possible resources to focus on one thing -- getting started. Getting started is the main thing. Once your business is up and running, anything else is possible. A start-up is a race. The faster you are, the more likely you are to win big.

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A Look At Startup Opportunities In The Container Era

The DockerCon user conference recently concluded in San Francisco, and the evidence of the container movement gaining momentum was clear — 2,000+ attendees, 70 sponsors and more than 40 exhibitors.

Add to this the approximately $500 million of VC investment in container-related companies to date; the lists of hot startups that are beginning to appear; the anointing of new paradigms by respected investors; and the user surveys with record-breaking buying-intention scores and there is no doubt that the container wave has propelled the DevOps engineer as a new power buyer in the enterprise.

I expect that the impact of containers will be similar to that of virtualization’s impact on the data center.

The key difference between virtualization and containers is well described by Mitchell Hashimoto, DevOps guru and founder of the data center automation and management company HashiCorp: “Whereas virtualization is like the sci-fi concept of terraforming a planet, embracing containers is more akin to building many isolated biodomes on a single planet.”

Here are some of the opportunities in the container ecosystem:Virtualization created one platform company in VMware, and it looks like Docker’s visionary approach has been rewarded with a first-mover advantage. However, just as how a host of other independent players who provided adjacent services were created in the virtualization era, I see greenfield potential for entrepreneurs founding container-related companies today.

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Big ideas from small towns

In this feature, published in The Hindu dt. 19th Jul 2015 under the column "Sunday Anchor", the writer profiles 10 tech ventures from small cities and towns across the country.

On Sundays, Rohith Bhat takes his daughter for a ride on a red Hero scooter through the temple town of Udupi. On other days, he is busy running a company that makes some of the best-selling Apple iOS apps from a traditional town known for its Krishna temple and a distinctive vegetarian cuisine.

“You don’t need to be in Bengaluru or Delhi to develop world-class products,” said Mr. Bhat, 43, the founder of Robosoft Technologies, the company behind popular apps such as Camera Plus. The app, used to enhance phone camera functions, has until now been downloaded 27 million times. “We could be in Udupi, and the rest of the world can discover and consume our products,” said Mr. Bhat, who hired local talent in the town to build the app’s technology.

Nearly 1,900 kilometres north of Udupi, in Jaipur, Nishant Patni’s start-up CultureAlley has till date helped 30 lakh users, mostly Indians, learn English through their mother tongue. Vadodara, the third largest city in neighbouring Gujarat, is home to Indusface, a small company in the business of protecting large customers such as Bharat Petroleum and the National Stock Exchange of India from cyberattacks and hacking.

Even as many new-generation start-ups sprout up in India’s metros, especially Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, the likes of Robosoft, CultureAlley and Indusface, among the hundreds of start-ups that exist today in the small towns and cities, are showing how ideas can be incubated and developed anywhere. These companies not only build products and services for a global audience, but their employees experience a far better quality of life compared to their metro counterparts. This is because cost of living is low, retention of talent is high, and there are hardly any traffic bottlenecks. “They are making their home in small towns because there is less competition for talent and it is much cheaper to operate,” says Sasha Mirchandani, managing director at Kae Capital, a venture capital firm that has backed CultureAlley. “Also, many people just want to work from their hometowns.”

At a later stage, though, when these companies grow and mature, they might find the small city environment challenging. That’s when they need access to more senior managers and also talent in large numbers. “They will have to move to metros like Bengaluru when they have to scale up their business and hire talent in large numbers,” said Rajan Anandan, Google India managing director and a top angel investor.

Thiruvananthapuram: Senzit -- crime detection

Bhopal: Appointy -- business of scheduling appointments

Hubbali: LabInApp -- interactive virtual laboratory tool

Tiruchirappalli: Dextrasys -- patent filing, prosecution and litigation

Udupi: Robosoft -- mobile applications and games

Coimbatore: Ampere -- electric vehicle manufacture

Jaipur: CultureAlley -- learn conversational English

Kochi: Sayabot Systems -- building robots for many purposes

Belagavi: SenseGiz -- create products that talk to each other

Vadodara: Indusface -- protect organisations from hackers

Read the full feature

When three is a company -- SEBI consultation paper on equity-based crowdfunding in India.

As SEBI tries to regulate equity crowdfunding, the Internet promises to play disrupter.

Roughly a year ago, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued a consultation paper setting out its proposal to regulate equity-based crowdfunding in India. Comments were solicited from the public. Earlier this week, SEBI announced that it was working on the norms and that a decision may be taken soon.

A quick review of the SEBI paper gives us pointers to what the possible regulations could be. Under the proposed terms, three entities, namely, the crowdfunding platform, the investor, and the issuing company, would be regulated. The issuing company is restricted in terms of its size, the amount of funds to be raised and its age. The investor is restricted in terms of its accreditation, minimum net worth and, in case of eligible retail investors, the maximum investment that may be made overall or in a single crowdfunding event. Crowdfunding platforms are also restricted in terms of who may set them up and the checks and balances to be put in place.

Read the op-ed article in TH dt. 7th Jul 2015

10 startups which are getting funds from Ratan Tata

Since stepping down from day-to-day responsibilities at the Tata Group, Ratan Tata has notched up 10 investments in startups.

Like the conglomerate, Tata's personal investment portfolio is also spread across India's hottest dotcoms, affordable healthcare and clean energy. The investments are typically between Rs 1-5 crore and made through RNT Associates.

Watch the Slide Show -- ET dt 5th Jun 2015

15 hot start-ups for 2015

The year 2014 marked one of the greatest technological achievements for the country when the premier space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully landed a spacecraft on planet Mars.

Hailed and applauded for doing it at a fraction of a cost and in its first attempt, ISRO's Mars Orbiter has produced a huge fillip to technology in the country. What has remained largely under the radar is that a significant part of the technology has in fact come from our small and medium technology companies from across the country.

As the year draws to a close and we set our sights on 2015, we feature 15 startups that hold great promise. From a startup wanting to land on the moon to a startup providing fully compostable sanitary pads, India's new breed of entrepreneurs aim to reach for the stars and at the same time stay grounded by solving various problems in our society.

Watch Slide Show -- ET dt. 29th Dec 2014

How to fund your own startup

This deluge has lasted several years, but no one's complaining. It has been raining startups in India for the past 3-4 years and has swept away all divides. From bubbling graduates to brainy professionals, from salaried staffers to sparkling housewives, in metros and small towns, all are hopping on to the idea bandwagon. There seems to be no venture too wacky, no business plan too flaky to succeed.

In fact, India ranks fifth in the world in terms of startups, with nearly 3,100 currently in operation. " India is seeing high quality of entrepreneurs giving up large opportunity costs and it has never been witnessed before. This, combined with the Internet growth story, makes it a very attractive investment market," says Gopal Modi, President, Investments, Orios Venture Partners.

In tandem with the surging enterprise, funds are flowing in like never before and the country is buzzing with options—venture capitalists, angel investors, incubators and banks. Currently, the number of active investors in the country include 172 VCs, 43 angel investors and 48 incubators. As much as $4.75 billion of VC funding came through in 2014 and it has already touched $3.18 billion in 2015. Flipkart made the biggest splash with its two rounds of $1.7 billion funding, the highest in 2014, ..

The business environment is also turning more conducive, with the government setting up the MUDRA Bank, which offers a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore for small and medium enterprises. Besides, various banks and finance companies have stepped up to encourage the trend.

If this has got you fired up to launch your own enterprise, hold on. Stories abound of individuals who have raised millions of dollars with merely ideas and passion as collateral, but these often overshadow the struggle, sweat ..

Full Story from Economic Tims Published on 29 Jun 2015