The words technology and India are now synonymous to the rest of the world. India has proved its mettle time and again when it comes to technology and its application for a better life hood. While we all know this, we are even aware that India still lags behind in this hot market when it comes to establishing successful ventures. With success, India and technology we also associate tags like brain drain and high paying MNC jobs.

The Made in India label is yet to get its due credit. The Startup Saturday Mumbai was themed specifically for Technology Startups. People who decided to ditch that lucrative corporate cheques and took the plunge to establish a true Indian technology venture. This post is a gist of the events that happened at Startup Saturday Mumbai. The show started with a big bang, as one of the regular Startup Saturday speaker/visitor/friend (he fits well in all the categories) Rohit Nalawade from Consumer Vision / Keeptrack Research labs took the stage. Rohit is a story of how ambitions and a craving desire can drive an average college student to become a tech honcho people like to hear. Today Rohit runs Consumer Vision and is donning a new hat of VC. Rohit described each and every instance where he faced challenges and how he surmounted all of them with sheer desire and a bit of jugaad.

One of the best thoughts that people discussed post the presentation was how Rohit managed to sell his first startup with the help of his employee (An employee who was recruited while Rohit was completing his education!)

A file photo of Startup Saturday Mumbai

Next in the list was Dhwani Mehta from Opportune.in. Dhwani took the discussion ahead from where Rohit concluded. He described how he and his partner are trying to come up with the best solutions in multiple domains where he believes there is a derth of high quality solutions. A great lesson to learn from Dhwani is about synergy. How he is able to get the right stuff done, the right contacts made and a conducive situation created for his startup. With this level of dedication we are sure Dhwani can meet success in every phase of his life. Once Dhwani shared his advice, on the podium was Mr Shiladitya Mukhopadhyay from Rasilant.

Shiladitya’s story was really inspiring to the youth present at the meetup. While we all have heard that to run a successful business you need to find a craving need and satisfy the same with the best foot forward. What we heard from Shiladitya was a step by step implementation of the same. Shiladitya narrated his journey from starting small with college projects till Rasilant. With a very approachable spirit Shiladitya tied the audience together while he was discussing his journey towards success.

Once the startup lovers were back post a small networking break, the session continued with an amazing presentation from Professor Dipankar. Dipankar is an IIT professor and has founded Treelabs along with his team of students from the same institute. Dipankar raised very relevant questions on innovation, invention and utilizing tax money. As per Dipankar public money can be put to good use if some part of it can be utilized for providing innovative products back to the society. With such a rich pool of renowned institutes like IITs why are we not able to create World Class products with the Made in India label? Dipankar has merged his access to IIT resources, a craving need for the hour – energy conservation and knowledge about existing inventions all into one and has founded Treelabs.

The best part of the presentation was a live demonstration of a Metal welding machine. Less than 2 kgs in weight, it doesn’t require a face/eye protection cover, and doesn’t even get heated! Dipankar actually went ahead and welded 2 metallic pieces to demonstrate the innovation. Now that’s what we call hands-on!

Post the Entrepreneurial Journey and the Business Showcase sessions were done. It was time for some quick lightening pitches. First in this section was Ashwin from Incept. The session concluded with yet another great showcase. LocoBuzz from Spatial Ideas was indeed worth a talk at the Event. Vishal Agarwal along with his partner has come up with a very intuitive product which utilizes the power of Social Media and delivers insights that can assist corporates in understanding their target markets. How a simple tweet can impact your box office collection? Or how is the world reacting to your new ad campaign? No more complex surveys to be done. With the power of Social Media and insights from LocoBuzz, all your decisions are just a click away!

So with this we saw yet another timely, effective and impactful Startup Saturday. Impactful not just because of the awesome speakers we had but also the right theme at the right time. Going ahead we do look forward for more impactful technology ventures being incubated out of India. Remember the takeaway, let us have world class products with the Made in India label!

Jump over to our Slideshare account for some presentations from Startup Saturday.

Post by Himanshu Chanda