I asked everyone out there,what do you do,they said,"I AM AN ENTREPRENEUR"

(left Mr .Atul chitnis, down myself among the audience)

Before writing a blog on this thrilling event, I would like to acknowledge few, first of all to Lakshman Srikanth,who encouraged me to write a blog on this "GREAT" event and to my enthusiasm to explore the stuff's. Well, as I am a Tech enthusiastic and aspiring to be an Entrepreneur, this thirst made me to Explore and Attend "Entrepreneurship and Technology" event called proto.in(http://www.proto.in/). As people call me a "skill full negotiator", I proved this by getting proto.in tickets for 500/- (for two) which was indeed 1000/-. This event was for two days ,let me pool out my experience that I learnt throughout this event.

ON DAY 1,

We registered ourselves and got"pocket diary +magazine" and an id card as well. First program was a keynote speech on "WORLD IS CHANGING" by Mr.Atul Chitnis, senior V.P ,Geodesic. This Gentleman was very smart and sensible in his presentation, Here is his story; He decided to enter software " BUSINESS " during 1980s ( as it was a struggling business ) , where people were contradictory to " SOFTWARE BUYING ". So he decided to focus on software which would address people's need ,and pay for the piece of code, and he sold his software initially for " Rs.100". His software market share grew when he met one of his friend at C.S.I. exhibition where he said " You are an Idiot ; you are not selling your product alone, but relationship too" and suggested to sell his software for higher price. Thus value to his software grew and his business grew up to the height.I wanted here to mark some of the sensible sentence that he made during his presentation.

1. " Today is history, anticipate for future".

2. " It is not the tool that you use, it's how smartly you use them".I still have lot to say on this "lightning presentation " , but due to time and space constraint, I will stop here and dive into next programme.

2Nd one was " Start up Showcase" ( which I was much anticipating for )

Here 6 start up's showcased themselves.

( 1 ) LIFE MOJO (http://www.lifemojo.com/) - It was a " NUTRITIONAL " ( LOL) Site.

They have great revenue model , SMS services as well. Co -founders invested 7 lacs of their personnel savings to start off this company.

2. YOPLR .COM ( http://www.yoplr.com/ )-

I really liked their approach, as it helps to plan your trip smartly.

3. I-FLOPP (http://www.iflopp/ ) -

This is a technology based company, which provides smart USB solutions.

4. LORDS -

It is an Automobile based start up .The Gentleman who presented this had a great leadership skill.

5.NODDLER.COM ( www .noddler.com )

This is a Technology based company as well.

6. INDIA KHELO.COM (http://www.indiakhelo.com/ )

This is an awesome web portal! do explore yourself and one more thing that I want to share with you all is" THE COMPANY CO- FOUNDER OFFERED ME A JOB IN HIS COMPANY AS A MARKETING MANAGER" ( I had a long conversation with him at the cost of my lunch ) ( lol ) This gave me a relief in these economic down turns .

Next we had a couple of sessions on " Co Founder's role" by palgalguy Co- founder; this was the best conversation that I have ever attended so far.

The next session was on " BUILDING A BRAND " and "product vs services ".Here we actually got the difference between start up and business company. Here are the key points on Start ups ( 1 ) High growth oriented ( 2 ) Risk is high (3 ) Concentrating on growing rather than surviving. By this time it was already 6 p.m , I was tired and left the place(A/C was irritating me a lot ).

After I was rained with those insurmountable information on Entrepreneurship, VC's, building company's , I had lot of expectations for the 2'nd day. "YES IT DID OVERCOME MY EXPECTATIONS".

2'nd DAY -

First programme was a key note speech on "HOW TO BUILD BUSINESS IN THE DOMAIN OF OPEN SOURCE ", by Robert Young ( RedHat marketing Honcho ) .Wah!Wah! what a "colour full" session it was ,we really did enjoy and learnt a lot.His keynote included

1) RedHat develops software ,but they are not into software business"

2)"Building brand is the core of business"

3)focusing on "reducing development cost"by creating an opportunity for open source.

Next ,we had talks on "scaling the business","incubation"(by IIM alumni) and showcase of the company's;

1)Oooha 2)inkfruit 3)fachak 4)taroby 5)nualgi 6)remindo .(xplore these on web).

At the end of the day ,we had "Innovation jam",which was very inspiring and innovative as well.

Here are the few punching quotes ,which i encountered during these 2 days .

1) "There is no product,which doesn't have market for it.It's you who have to create market for it".

2)"if the product is good and price is right,people will buy".

3)"smart software ,gets smart price".

4)"advertising doesn't pay"(i really doubt this!!!!!!).

5)"present computer industry is dying"(atul chitnis said).

6)"YouTube is a customer attraction by Google".

7)"Brand is experience ,delight,easy,elegance".

8)"Begin ,its not going to hurt".

9)"level of thinking what u have NOW,will not help u what u'l be in FUTURE".(i really luv this statement).

10)VC'S are not ready to fund ,if u are "LEARNING ENTREPRENEURSHIP".(meaning ,u can't learn entrepreneurship,it has to be xperienced).

11)"STRTUP'S should focus on growth ,not survival".

I met many Co-Founders of many company's on that day like ,Mr .Manikantan(Co-Founder of http://www.letzknow.com/) , Indiakhelo.com ,marketing chief,Varun Gupta,Mr . Ramanathan Purushotam(SMIP) ,Google chief marketing manager,Amith Somani(South Asia),many more on the list.It was an "LIFETIME "opportunity for me to attend this .

(myself signing off, i wrote -" it's a great event for students like me to learn about the difficulties and opportunities for the startup's")