Over the 18 months, the Headstart Foundation, as part of their vision of creating this Ecosystem have, through their various events connected with over 5000 upcoming entrepreneurs. They also run an online collaboration portal, where the number of discussions exceeds 1000 members (and counting). The Foundation also manages a Startup Incubator at IISc ,Bangalore. Today's event will see over 500 people attending, including new age entrepreneurs , professionals and investors.
A Startup Saturday (since March 2008) provides a forum for entrepreneurs to discuss, present, network and learn from peers, prospective customers, adopters, partners and investors. Each Startup Saturday has a relevant theme that captures current issues dominating the markets and future potential of that sector. Each event will have a couple of insightful talks by experienced entrepreneurs / academics / professionals who share their life experiences apart from analyzing the current theme of the event.
There is usually one showcase talk by a young entrepreneur who has a product rolling and a few customers in the kitty. This startup is then reviewed and debated on by the audience followed by incisive questions and healthy arguments from all parts.
The sizzlers of the events are the lightening pitches (usually two) which are of ten min duration where a very young startup gets to introduce their product/idea and it is pounced upon by an enthusiastic audience.
Saturday’s event promises to be a gala event for entrepreneurs, businesspeople as well as professionals. Everyone will return from the event enriched, having been integrated into the 'Innovation Ecosystem'.
A brief about each Startup Saturday is given below:
Mumbai Agenda:
2:55PM - 3:05PM: Introduction
3:05PM - 3:50PM: Talk by Mr. Dheeraj Gupta - Founder & MD, Jumbo King Food:
If you're at any of the local train stations in Mumbai, you would notice Jumbo Vada Pav. Jumbo King is trying to be the McDonalds of Indian snacks through these outlets. Jumbo King is poised to have 500 outlets across India by 2010.
Mr Gupta, Founder of Jumbo King, would share his experience on how Jumbo King came into existence and how the extensive franchisee model to sell hygienic Vada Pav works.
3.50PM - 4:30PM: Lightening Pitches by Radii Rewards, TBA
4.30PM - 4:45PM: Tea Break
4:45PM - 5:30PM: Talk by Mr. Anaggh Desai, CEO, The Bombay Store
Mr Desai brings with him an overwhelming experience and shall speak about his outlook of the retail industry and the opportunities in this space. He is also known as a turnaround CEO for companies like traveljini.com, Gitanjali Diamonds and Damas Jewellery
Bangalore Agenda:
10:00 - 10:15 : Introduction
10:15 - 10:35 : Demo 1: FlipKart.com
10:35 - 10:55 : Demo 2: GoVasool.com
11:00 - 11:30 : Lightning Pitches: TBD
Attribo
BlumBlum
First10
Dont spend just send
11:30 - 12:30 : Panel Discussion "Opportunities & Challenges in Online Retail"
Vipul from Indiaplaza.in
Vijay from WisdomTap
12:30 onwards : Snacks and Networking.
Delhi Agenda:
1) BootStrapping a StartUp - the Mobikwik way. A talk by Bipin Singh, CEO of Mobikwik. He is going to share his experience of starting up Mobikwik. Its a presentation about the company profile, its business and a demo of the business model.
2) Opportunities in the Indian HealthCare sector. Manish Rathi from Global Logic is talking about his experience and research in the consumer space, especially focused for the Indian HealthCare sector. He has a precise list of opportunities that are available for entrepreneurs in this highly expanding space.
3) Trials and Tribulations...the RockeTalk story. Rajiv Kumar is the CEO of RockeTalk. He is talking about some of the most difficult problems that entrepreneurs face and some of the learnings from RockeTalk, how they went about their business while solving these issues.
