BackEntrepreneurial woes
Entrepreneurial woes
Premium
Mumbai: The second Mumbai edition of Startup Saturday had two start-up founders making candid confessions about the hard part of being an entrepreneur. Hosted in the Kohinoor Hall on a rather rainy Saturday afternoon, it saw about 25 attendees, far fewer than the 60 registered on the wiki page.
The speakers were differentiated from the regular start-up presentations, in that each picked one aspect of growing a business and discussed its difficulties.
First up, Mohit Dubey, founder of online car-selling site CarWale.com, spoke on the company’s decision to add an offline component to its otherwise online business a few months back.
The company, which is backed by Seedfund and recently closed its second round of as yet undisclosed funding, wanted to try an online-offline model to extend the services it offers to prospective customers on the website. This meant targeting a larger market capitalization, but far lesser profit margins, and investors weren’t initially convinced, said Dubey. He also highlighted how the company’s obsession with data gathering gave it an edge in the market. “I even know how many kids my competitors have," he joked.
If the first speaker stressed on consumer services, the second discussed aspects of selling products to big businesses while being a start-up. Girish Saraph, founder of telecom networking product company Vegayan Systems Pvt. Ltd, spoke about thevarious rungs of hierarchy one has to scale while pitching your product to a large corporate.
“Being the CEO means nothing if they haven’t heard of your company. Credibility is important," he said.
KickStart, which organized the event, plans to make it a regular feature every second Saturday of the month.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
