Startup Saturday Navi Mumbai : Growth Hacking

Headstart Network Foundation

November 18, 2016 8:58 AM

(aka the one where this blogger turns into a Timekeeper and is baffled by Steve Jobs.)

Heya!

“Dearly beloved, we be gathered here today, to celebrate and exclaim growth this Startup Saturday!” I wish I had opened with that – alas, I am trapped in an endless cycle of embarrassing myself in public.

Joining us in our quest to hand growth hacks aplenty,on November 12th, were:

Amol Ghemud ,Marketing Consultant and Growth Hacker
Ajoy Vakil ,Strategy & Marketing Consultant, DirectMart India
Tejinder Singh ,Co-Founder at M3 Business Mentors Pvt Ltd

We began with a product demo from Akhil, Co-founder, Cyra India. It is a HealthTech startup aiming to digitize the medical industry by changing the traditional system of patient records. His pitch was followed by a series of questions on legal and privacy concerns.

Akhil, Co-Founder Cyra India.

Our first session was with Amol, who began with dissecting the perceptions of the audience regarding growth hacking. Steve Jobs himself was invoked multiple times.

A long discussion ensued on the Power of Google AdWords, Long may they reign.
The superweapon that is Google Analytics, and myriad tools it hold underneath
A conversation about the growth funnel, and its components.

Amol Ghemud, Digital Marketing consultant and Growth hacker.

Ajoy took to the stage, and then promptly began with an ode.

He implored founders to maintain a degree of self-awareness regarding themselves and their vision
His advice was to keep a destination in mind, and not simply ‘figure things out as we go along’
“Different strokes for different folks”, he said, as he suggested that one solution does not fit all start-ups and spoke of the strategic approach to growth and importance of adaptability to implement any good strategy

Ajoy Vakil, Strategy & Marketing Consultant, DirectMart India

Our final speaker was Tejinder, who gave sharp insights on strategy and team building.

“I don’t believe in team building” he said, much to our alarm. “I believe that each member must be hungry for growth.” Okay, much better.
He emphasized categorization of weaknesses to reflect on an efficient strategy.
His advice : Focus on self-growth and securing a team that supplements for weaknesses.

Tejinder Singh ,Co-Founder at M3 Business Mentors Pvt Ltd

The final item on our agenda was the panel ‘Coffee with Aishwarya’-named after yours truly.

Tejinder gave insights on measurement of success of team members – Acquire their personal goals, and see them met. (Note to self : Find an R2D2.)

I asked Amol how to design and promote mobile apps with the intent to make it go viral. His answer: Prepare in advance. It’s probably too late if you are thinking about virality without prior data analysis and product testing. (And Aslan said “Do Your Homework, Queen of Narnia. How else is this blog getting out there?”)

Ajoy was questioned about the edge an MBA gave to start-up founders – he remarked on the networking opportunities granted by reputed institutions and generated an understanding of the ecosystem.

We also spoke about idea validation. Ajoy and Tejinder disagreed on the basic fabric of the question to my unbridled glee. Amol gave the sensible suggestion to download your LinkedIn & Facebook data and get those questions out there! (Mind = blown.)

‘Coffee With Aishwarya’ underway

We threw open the networking session after a few audience questions (and invoking Steve Jobs YET AGAIN.) I then tried to drown myself in coffee! 🙂

Shoutout to the Navi Mumbai entrepreneurs, who came out in droves to connect and conquer!

@ghemudamol @AjoyVakil was great hearing you talk about #growthhack at the #startupsaturday event yesterday. Thanks @SS_NaviMumbai

— Yashni Kothari (@YashniKothari) November 13, 2016