After the smashing success of Headstart Navi Mumbai’s relaunch, the August Edition of Startup Saturday was eagerly anticipated. This time, the event theme was Branding. The speakers were :

• Saurabh Kanwar, Founder, Flarepath
• Divesh Mehta, Brand Communications Manager, Wear your Opinion
• Shubham Dandwate, Marketing Executive, Atomberg Technologies Pvt Ltd

And a product demo by Amrut Deshmukh, Make India Read: Booklet App on Playstore

The event began with the product demo by Amrut regarding his initiative ‘Make India Read’ via the Booklet App where he uploads audio summaries of books. His concept was lapped up by the audience and referenced several times by the speakers themselves. He revealed that WhatsApp was his initial tool and he used it so frequently that he got banned! (temporarily. Mails to them resolved things.)

i: Amrut presenting his product

He was followed by Divesh, who came armed with his extensive background in branding. He spoke in clear concise points and elucidated them with relatable examples. He emphasized on offline work to supplement the online presence. Among several other things, he spoke of humor cutting through everything. His points were made with reference to WYO as a real world simulation of branding.

ii: Divesh giving insights on Branding

Next was Saurabh (A fellow Star Wars fan, complete with a Chewie tee), who delighted the audience with his hilarious presentation. To quote, “Apple doesn’t hold a CANDLE to the Church – they came around a time of a 3000 year old religion and KILLED it”. On a serious note – his session involved several branding ‘cheats’ including a brand prism, basic Tees in India, Facebook, and the power of a fan-base. He spoke of the attention span of consumers and greasing their wheels. His session was entertaining and hugely educational.

iii: Saurabh giving the formula for startup branding (It doesn’t exist.)

Finally, Shubham took the dais, and promptly dropped the mike – literally. He mingled with the audience and asked questions – prompting an interesting discussion right in the middle of his session. The crowd took a shine to him as he paced himself like The Flash 🙂 He spoke of the product – energy efficient fans, how they approached Energy Inspectors and electricians for effective promotions. His time in AIESEC was touched upon

iv: Shubham wowing the audience

The panel, newly christened Coffee with Aishwarya (After yours truly), began shortly thereafter.  The audience gave up all pretence of spacing and crowded in right in front of the panel, much to our delight. We spoke of social media, rebranding, conversion of traffic (Divesh – “If I knew the answer to this I would be a millionaire!!!”), original research and the crowd favourite – Pareto’s Principle.

v: Panel discussion in progress

While the panel had to be wound up swiftly – because the word ‘late’ couldn’t convey the depth of our situation – the audience this time was brazen, asking questions and contributing to the discussion itself. We are overjoyed at this development – glad to see the Navi Mumbai entrepreneurs opening up.

The event was interspersed with short networking sessions (Fancy words for Food. Yum.) wherein everyone produced a dozen business cards out of their pockets and sought advice from each other and the speakers.

The evening ended on a pleasant note – the mingling extending well after the event as we discovered alliances in our quest to success.

Below are the photos of the speakers being felicitated :

vi : Amrut being felicitated by Saurabh

vii : Smedha, the Navi Mumbai City lead from Headstart thanking Shubham

viii : Aishwarya from Headstart thanking Divesh

ix: Gaurav from Headstart thanking Saurabh

Blog by Aishwarya Meenakshi