Start-up Saturday is a wonderful initiative from Headstart to foster and develop the spirit of entrepreneurship on a Saturday morning. The meeting conducted on Feb 12’11 was revolving around the theme of co-founders which was held at GINSERV at 10 AM.

Jyoti Ramnath, a senior volunteer with Headstart kick-started the meeting by briefing the audience about Start-up Saturday and it’s initiative. She also aligned the meeting to the theme for the event which was all about ‘Co-founders’. She introduced Ms Daksha from GINSERV to the audience who  spoke to the audience and gave an idea about the Incubation process that it undertakes. She also outlined details about  business plans, process profiles and screening by the panel in order to incubate those ideas.

The first speaker for the day was Mr Siddharth Shastri who is the founder of Phi Tesla. It was founded in the year 2008 with an aim to bring technology to India in the automotive sector. Siddharth, an MS from the USA pursued his interest in the automotive industry which resulted into the formation of Phi Tesla.

Today their clientele has names like TVS, Royal Enfield etc to name a few. He spoke to the audience about various challenges that the company faced and the kind of prospects they churned out during the course of time. The concept of ‘Digital Speedometer’ was his brain child.

Technical knowledge and prowess was his forte and so briefed the audience about how he effectively outsourced ‘Marketing & Strategy’ to carry on various operations. He hinted the audience about the learning curve that he had during his venture in the following bullet points:

• Have clarity in the venture that you are aspiring to pursue
• If anything can save you time, it is indeed worth the money
• View every hurdle as a speed-braker
• Dont hesitate to do the ground work and get your hands dirty.

After his talk, he took a few questions from the audience and answered them with practical examples.

The second speaker was Mr Zerin Rahiman. He is founder of Indigo Edge. Zerine is an alumnus from IIM-L and he took us through his journey of meeting and finding co-founders to execute his idea. He spoke about various qualities that we need to look for in a co-founder in order to make the venture successful. The three main look-out points in a co-founder  are listed below:

• Health
• Abilities
• Trust

He also spoke about mapping opportunities and competition during a co-founder search to support a venture.

This was followed by  ‘co-founder speed dating’. This is an exciting idea where entrepreneurs get an opportunity to find a co-founder suiting their venture-profile with the skill-sets and abilities.

After this, a general networking session was brought open to the floor where all participants of the event got an opportunity to know others and discuss with them. The meeting ended after the elaborate networking session. Over all it was a wonderful experience!

By Vinutha N