25 - 26 September 2015: Bengaluru

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Young Indians organised the #GrowthHack: National Entrepreneurship Summit on 25-26 September 2015 at Hotel Leela Palace, Bengaluru. The summit was inaugurated by Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, Confederation of Indian Industry & Co-Founder, Infosys.The summit was curated to cater to the diverse needs of the audience which included Yi members, early entrepreneurs, established entrepreneurs, angel / venture capitalists, representatives from the government and students. “GrowthHack” was structured with the objective to trigger an entrepreneurial passion and culture across the society and to create awareness on the process of entrepreneurship among the youth and professionals and to encourage more dynamic start-ups by providing a platform for entrepreneurs, angel investors, VCs and other stakeholders.

Shaurya Veer Himatsingka, National Chairman, Young Indians & Deputy Managing Director, India Carbon Ltd welcomed the members to the summit. In his opening remarks, he spoke about Young Indians and the role Yi played under the Entrepreneurship & Innovation vertical. Ha also mentioned about an ambitious agenda of organising Start Up Expos and Blue Ocean Dialogues to bring out simple solutions to common problems. ‘Yi during the ‘Global Entrepreneurship Week’ in the last two years has immensely contributed to the entrepreneurial eco system in the country and will sure have an effect on the participants in the long run’ he said. He mentioned that this summit was certainly one of the brands that the Bengaluru chapter had nurtured

over the years and stressed on the theme “#GrowthHAck which meant ‘reaching the goals faster than the others’. “Bangalore is at the forefront of entrepreneurship in India,” he said.

Ravi Raghavan, Vice Chairman, CII Karnataka & CEO, Bharat Fritz Werner Ltd on delivering the special address congratulated Young Indians for picking the theme of Entrepreneurship for this summit. Raghavan said that India was and is an entrepreneurial country, but that its entrepreneurs have had to overcome various challenges to create and grow their business ventures. He also shared his association with some of India’s leading rst generation entrepreneurs at CII and how interacting with them had always helped evolve strategies.

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Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, Confederation of Indian Industry and Co Founder, Infosys in his special address pointed out that the 4th Yi Entrepreneurship Summit by the Young Indians, Bangalore Chapter was a milestone and the forum has gradually emerged as a springboard for ideal thoughts and insights. With his observations on young enterprising entrepreneurs owning companies and generating sky rocketing revenues, he pointed out that initiatives carried out by Yi would enhance the impact of such capable entrepreneurs. He also shared how technology had become an integral part of todays’ world and spoke on the rapid progress being made around the world because of IT. He urged the young people to think out of the box and look at newer opportunities amidst areas where many saw few or none.

Rajesh Kumar B, Co-Chair, Young Indians (Bengaluru Chapter) & Founder & Managing Director, Fomax Information Technologies Pvt Ltd in his concluding remarks conveyed his sincere thanks on behalf of the organisation to all speakers for providing valuable insights and expressed wholeheartedly to carry forward these suggestions in the future.

The inaugural session of the summit was followed by a power packed panel discussion on ‘Perception of Entrepreneurship’moderated by Sandeep Maini, Immediate Past Chairman, CII Karnataka; Founding Chair, Young

Indians (Bengaluru Chapter) & Chairman, Maini Group. The panel looked at the various stages in an entreprneur’s journey including how they think and how their family and friends played a critical / crucial role in the same. To trigger the entrepreneurial passion, Maini through his discussion with the entrepreneurs on the panel sought to understand what their objective was getting into entrepreneurship and how the ecosystem had changed over the past decade. The panel also brought together a diverse set of entrepreneurs.

Kris Gopalakrishnan mentioned that Infosys started because of the team effort of 7 people working together when there were no role models for entrepreneurship in India. ‘Entrepreneurship in India started in 1970’s and

80’s in the IT Sector as technology had been democratised for better and for cheaper. India has a great operational opportunity with 1.3 billion consumers and an entrepreneur should always be impatient, demanding and building it in the right way’ he mentioned. “Growth is not just about revenues, geographical scale or number of employees but about becoming “faster, better and cheaper,” said Gopalakrishnan. “The entrepreneur journey is full of ups and downs and unsuccessful exits – get used to it, since the risk and effect of failure will only increase with the company’s scale”. He spoke on the sleepless nights spent on

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creating Infosys from 7 people to its scale up into 100,000 employee mark in 2007. “Tier 3 and 4 cities like Erode and Salem are giving rise to new kinds of startups, not just the earlier traditional industries. The optimism of youth and their ‘can do’ attitude should be replicated in every industry and city” he urged.

R K Misra , Serial Entrepreneur & Winner of ‘Lead India Campaign’ dened entrepreneurship to be identifying deciencies and creating opportunities. He also mentioned that Entrepreneurs should fundamentally solve a problem and not to copy and emulate and that bv doing so, one should look at scalable solutions rather than ‘Jugaad’. ‘When you start a company, there is no time for worry – but this worry about failure creeps in as you scale. Money should be only one of many objectives for a founder. Money should not be your sole objective because you will never make enough money to keep yourself happy. Success comes only when you keep making yourself a better person. I was so busy traveling for work that I did not get to know my rst kid,” recalled Mishra. He also said that the situation was different for women entrepreneurs, as covered by authors like Rashmi Bansal in her book, ‘Follow Every Rainbow: Inspiring Stories of 25 Women Entrepreneurs’ ‘Generally, it is easier for a husband to get his wife’s support than for a wife to get her husband’s support in an entrepreneurial venture in India’ he said.

One reason India seems to be in a political mess is the fact that many successful entrepreneurs and professionals prefer to avoid government as much as possible. “India also needs political entrepreneurship,” said Misra. He previously founded Tenet Technologies and one of India’s rst travel portals, TravelJini.com. ‘Entrepreneurs have the skills of building things from the ground up, and these should be used in political contexts as well – for example, in promoting business-friendly policies’. Misra later engaged with politicians by founding the Indian Council for Public-Private Patnerships (SAHYOG) to dialogue with citizens in the matters of public policy.

Richa Kar, Founder & Chief Executive Ofcer, Zivame was all about the impact of a brand if it goes out. However, she provided a valuable insight of anticipating the market regardless of the status-quo and to always measure the intuition. Relentless focus on improving the customer experience helps rapid growth, said Richa Kar. “While working with clients like Victoria’s Secret when I was at SAP, I realised there was a huge opportunity to improve the lingerie shopping experience for Indian women,” she recounted. The company now claims to sell a bra every minute and has recently raised a Series C round of investment. “Pull out and change your approach if you are not able to reach your goalposts, don’t end up going nowhere,” added Kar. “As you scale, you have a moral responsibility to your employees. Some amount of fear will always be in your head, you don’t want to make employees regret joining you,”

advised Kar.

Sunder Ashok Genomal, Managing Director, Page Industries stated an important fact of always reaching for the stars but in keeping the feet on the ground. He mentioned the importance of ‘Sensitivity Analysis’ and the mantra of ‘Sometimes the best investments are the ones we don’t make.’ As you scale, it is important to rene your decision-making skills so precisely that you can act by instinct. “Reach for the stars, but keep your feet on the ground. Do market research and interpret the data. Be passionate but don’t get emotional about your projects and products – move on if the data says otherwise,” advised Genomal. Genomal grew up in the Philippines and worked in the UK, Nigeria and Indonesia before starting telecom company Page Industries in Bangalore. “It is a joy to work with the people of India, they can become the best talent in the world,” he said. “The India growth story cannot be ignored,” joking that his Sindhi roots and business mentality also helped his move back to India. ‘Sectors like e-commerce will continue to be hot growth areas despite concerns about excessive valuations, simply because technology and the need to organise retail are strong drivers’, he said.

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Following this Raghu Kailas, National Vice Chairman, Young Indians & Managing Director, Unimo Exports Pvt Ltd thanked the panellist and congratulated the host chapter who exhibited enormous success by organising / facilitating national event.The tone for the evening was set with the stand up comedy act by Sanjay Manaktala.

The day two of the summit witnessed discussion and deliberations on ideas, visions and aspirations that formed an integral part of an entrepreneur’s journey. George M Alexander, Chair, Young Indians (Bengaluru Chapter) & Senior Vice President, Muthoot Group welcomed the delegates to the meet. One of the most recognised entrepreneur from Bangalore, Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Mindtree delivered the keynote address on how the IT and IT enabled industry enabled are leveraging the entrepreneurial surge in India. KK as he is fondly referred to elude that, “Earlier, common myths about business in India were that one could succeed only if born in a wealthy family or that global businesses

cannot be created out of India or that most industries are saturated. These myths have been demolished by Indian entrepreneurs and should no longer prevent growth and scale. The life span of incumbent companies is decreasing and there is plenty of room for disruption in every sector’ he said. ‘Intellectual arrogance and complacency are dangerous’ cautioned Natarajan.

He continued that scaling an organisation required scaling the intellect of the leaders, managers and employees through practices such as knowledge management, hiring a board of advisors and succession strategies. “Relentless positive optimism” will keep leaders and companies in high gear. He expanded on the scaling lessons from his predecessor, Subroto Bagchi, well captured in his book ‘The Elephant Catchers: Key lessons for breakthrough growth’. KK advised that founders should also focus on successive waves of innovation and even be prepared to let go of early products; otherwise one shall be disrupted by competitors. He also highlighted that Mindtree had an internal intrapreneur program to groom and fund successful creators. “There is no better learning ground than a well-managed large company” he quoted. “A

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growing number of large corporates are seeing the advantages of engaging with start-ups, so it helps founders to tie up with corporate to scale up, particularly those with B2B2C offerings. It is certainly important to have money to take care of family and employees, but passion and overall fullment are as important. There is nothing wrong in loving money, but don’t be greedy” he said.

This rst panel discussion of the day was on ‘Building a Foundation for Growth’ was moderated by Muki Regunathan, Founder & Chief Executive Ofcer, Pepper Square. The session had Amuleek Singh, Founder & Chief Executive Ofcer, Chai Point; Rajnish Pal, Partner, Fox Mandal; Madhusudhan Ranganathan, Investor, Start-up Mentor & Senior Strategy Consultant, Vigyanlabs Innovations Pvt Ltd and Raveen Sastry, Co-Founder, NudgeSpot as panellists. This session focused on the challenges and opportunities for a start up in the age group of 0–3 years. Muki Regunathan started the session by setting the tone for the session and introducing the speakers.

Amuleek Singh focused his conversation on his journey of a ‘Start-Up: From Idea to Growth’. He spoke about how “Tea” despite being the largest consumed beverage in the world after water had no last mile access. ‘However fragmented the tea market may be, a grain of simplicity coupled with sheer consistency is involved in the growth story of Chai point. I created a storyboard- India runs on Chai which became a central point of my business. Reaching the right consumer and developing the idea of grab and go beverages for the new market were some points they considered when we were evaluating the idea of Chaipoint’ he said. Singh added that one must be able to pivot and pick up a new thread. “The CEO

is not always the rockstar of the company. Founders should surround themselves with people smarter than they are” he mentioned.

Rajnish Pal spoke about the legal framework for start-ups for the due diligence of an entrepreneur and focused on the entities that are scalable. “Many start-ups are understandably unaware of legal and regulatory approaches in their early days, but must keep them in their radar screens.

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You have to be prepared to talk to a lawyer in the morning,” joked Rajnish Pal. He also highlighted that many start-ups in scale stage tend to switch home base to Singapore, Mauritius, Delaware or Ireland for better tax breaks.

Raveen Sastry talked about getting ready for growth: tactics and tools to identify and capitalize on new opportunities His speech focused that a team needs a perfect mix of audacity and humility. The methods on how to solve the ‘heat problem’ was also discussed. Also, an important aspect of his speech was in talking to potential customers and about ‘The Entry Strategy’. “Be married to the problem and not the solution” recommended Raveen staying focused on the customer’s changing pain points and market experiences will help ensure sustained growth.

Madhusudhan Ranganathan spoke about s tar t -up surv iva l : cha l lenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs to attract investment and spoke about how to gure

the ‘buy side’ of things when approaching a venture capitalist and the ways to identify the nature of the problem. He stressed an idea is not a company. “The best approach to scale is if you can change consumer behaviour at their own will, where the customers themselves change their attitude and habits because of your offering,” he said citing Ola Cabs and Uber as examples. “Passion blinds you to your mistakes.You must learn to be dispassionate also,” advised Madhu. Muki concluded the panel discussion by requesting the members present to become a thought leader being invited to give inspiring talks, getting on advisory boards and giving back to society as successful parameters of successful growth. “You create meaning for yourself through your entrepreneurial journey,” concluded Muki Regunathan.

The session on “Boosters for Growth” moderated by Vijay Sambamurthi, Founder & Managing Partner, Lexygen had the panellists in Mithun Sacheti, Founder & CEO, Caratlane; Mariam M Mathew, Chief Operating Ofcer, Malayala Manorama; Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman & Managing Director, TVS Capital Funds Ltd and V S Parthasarthy, Group CFO, Group CIO & President (Group Finance and M&A) & Member of Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

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This session focused on challenges and opportunities for a start-up who has survived early stage challenges and are looking to scale up. The session discussed issues related to start ups in their scaling up stage and until their next stage which could be either exit by way of M&A or IPO or making it further big.

Gopal Srinivasan spoke on the secrets to crack a new age angel, venture capital and PE funds .His speech in a line can be comprehended to the fact that the growth of a start up had a very deep relation with the venture capitalists. “One should aim to be a catalyst for growth then be a mere venture capital establishment. Council without fear and support without restraint. Relationships with investors can vary from dining partner to live-in relationship and marriage and sometimes even divorce” said Gopal

Srinivasan. He mentioned that irrespective of whether one had a slow-burning internal re or an exuberant expressive style, one’s ambition will drive your route, he mentioned. “Ambition is the mother of success”.

V S Parthasarthy spoke on the exit strategy: Rules of M&A for Start-ups. He spoke about the 75 M&A transactions that Mahindra and Mahindra has done and the way it was a growth booster shot. He stressed the importance of M&A and that it was an inevitable strategy. “The team diversity that can be brought to the business will always benet overall. Good examples to learn from include China’s infrastructure policies and deployment” suggested V S Parthasarthy. He also spoke about the Mahindra & Mahindra experience in funding start-ups and highlighted that this was the best time for the young people in India to take up the entrepreneurial route.

Mariam M Mathew spoke about how Manorama had been innovating constantly and leveraging technology. “There is a tremendous increase in the pace of innovation across different sectors and many creative models and techniques can be adapted across industrial boundaries. You can pick up innovative products and even internal workow processes. You have to experiment yourself, you can’t keep doing the same things again and again,” said Mariam. She also mentioned that bootstrapping was great, but sometimes cannot take the organisation to the next stage. It is important to gure out which approaches to take for funds, such as debt or equity and which investor to go with advised Mariam.

Mithun Sacheti laid the foundation for his dream company with a vision of changing the way diamonds and solitaires were bought in India. He stressed the importance of a pure investor ecosystem and how the diversity in the group could help boosting the growth. He spoke about the gamechanger methods used by CaratLane like 3D printing with real gold. When asked about one criteria they look for, their reply was “Team, Team and Team”. “The Internet, mobile, cloud, open source and related technologies are making it easier than ever to not just start a company but scale it rapidly – but they also favour your competitors, unless you can come up with your own technology edge.

We were early in differentiating ourselves through e-commerce and then 3D printing for jewellery” Sacheti said. “At times, you may need the money more than anything else, at other times you may want more of a partnership with the investor,” said Sancheti.

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As in the past year, this year’s summit also showcased the nalists of the ‘YuStart’ – National Student Startup Challenge focussed on students. Around 100 entries that Yi has received were evaluated and 12 teams shortlisted to the preliminary presentation, of which the 5 best teams made their nal pitch during the main summit in front of the jury and the audience. The top 5 teams were from:

1. Indian Institute of Management ,Trichy2. Sona Polytechnic, Salem3. Care Group of Institutions, Trichy4. Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai5. GKVK, Bangalore

The jury for YuStart comprised of Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman & Managing Director, TVS Capital Funds Ltd; Ravi Jagannathan, Serial Entrepreneur & Angel Investor; Hariprasad Hegde, Senior Vice President & Global Head – Operations, Wipro Ltd; Ganapathy Venugopal, Chief Executive Ofcer, Axilor and Raveen Sastry, Co-Founder, NudgeSpot.

The nal presentations by the top 5 teams were judged based on the quality of overall business plan & presentation; understanding of problem / need and target market; quality of solution, viability and scalability of business; understanding of nancial requirements, quality of nancial projections, sales and marketing strategy and competition analysis. Post the presentations by all the teams, Care Group of Institutions, Trichy was announced as the winner of the competition, followed by the Indian Institute of Management ,Trichy as the rst runner up and Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai as the second runner up.

The summit concluded with an inspiring session on “My Story” – An Entrepreneurial Journey. A dialogue between Arvind Hegde, Founder & Lead Partner, Done & Partners and Meena Ganesh, Chief Executive Ofcer, GrowthStory was the ideal start to this session. Meena Ganesh is one of India’s foremost business

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leaders and most successful entrepreneurs with nearly three decades of experience in industries including healthcare, consulting, technology, outsourcing, education and e-commerce. As a partner of the platform, Growthstory , she is a co-promoter of nearly a dozen new-age technology /internet enabled startups . A few of them that are leaders in their category like BigBasket and Bluestone.

Meena brought out the fact that one should nd an area to create a difference. ‘Portea Medical was created on one such problem and it strives to help individual consumer. During the journey of a start-up, one must be willing to be emotionally entangled yet be willing to change for customers. Don’t chase valuation but create an area which makes a difference. Create the ability to build a global business and a robust support system. The possibility to build a global business out of India has increased dramatically over the last ve years” observed Meena Ganesh. She went on to

mention that there were new contexts and opportunities emerging in different sectors like education. Entrepreneurship can be a long and lonely journey and it is important for founders to get help, surround themselves with people who can challenge them and get ideas from counterparts in other industries” she added.

This was followed by a session modelled on the TED format. Madan Padaki, Co-Founder, CEO & Managing Director, Head Held High Services and Co-Founder & Director, Sylvant Advisors described “Making a good impact is the best source of happiness for an entrepreneur. That should be your core purpose. It is easy to believe that much of entrepreneurship is about good luck (though good timing certainly helps). You have to create your own LUCK – Location, Understanding, Connections and Knowledge,”

said Padaki. There is a huge boom in rural entrepreneurs as well and many of them are solidly focused on business basics and not on Series A funding, he said. “It is possible to do good, feel good and make good money by doing the necessary and possible. There is never a right time for you to become an entrepreneur – just do it now,” urged Padaki.

The last speaker on My Story was Ravi Jagannathan, Chief Executive Ofcer, Y-Cash Software Solutions Pvt Ltd . He spoke about his entrepreneurial journey from humble backgrounds and highlighted the importance of memory and his journey from a vernacular medium to where he stood at the moment. “If you have chosen a good problem to solve,

emerging technologies will present an opportunity to scale even if they are an unfamiliar domain,” said Ravi Jagannathan. To understand how the delegates had assimilated the knowledge gleaned from the various resource persons, an impromptu ‘Elevator Pitch”, contest was held. 7 shortlisted delegates presented their idea in 2 minutes. The summit concluded by the announcement of the awards of the YuStart Competition.

The two day summit ended with a vote of thanks by Dr Kaushik Murali, Chair - Entrepreneurship, Yi (Bengaluru Chapter) and President, Medical Administration, Quality & Education, Sankara Eye Foundation India

Glimpses of recognition to the top 5 teams of ‘YuStart’ Nationwide Start Up Challenge