This is a special session moderated by Indus Khaitan from Morpheus Ventures.
This is scheduled from 1130 hrs to 1230 hrs on 11th November 2010.
Overview:
1. The panel has 2 founding board members Rehan Khan & Praveen Chakravarty paired with their companies Sapience (represented by Shirish) & InMobi (represented by Amit) respectively.
2. The idea revolves around flushing out the '5 Things' (Team, Market / Market Size, Product, Secret Sauce, Exitability) Rehan & Praveen (the investors on the panel) looked for in these two companies before making a decision (and in general in other companies). We'll reinforce the 5 things supplementing with real-life anecdotes from the investors and entrepreneurs.
3. The role of the entrepreneurs (Shirish & Amit) is to supplant / debate (I'll facilitate!) these theories. They may also reveal the weak points brought out by the investors during the investment process and how they filled it
4. I'll bring out these 5 Things one after the other and we'll discuss. The content would come out after I talk to you individually and as a group in the coming 2 weeks.
Audience Takeaway
(a) The young entrepreneur is able to check whether his readiness to raise seed/angel money is now or farther away (b) The entrepreneurs who are already in business can learn from the panel about what an angel is expecting from him (c) Learn from the entrepreneurs as in how they made their venture ready for angels
Few discussion points of the 5 Things
1. Team
- Domain expertise
- Execution capabilities. If unproven then past roles & education
- Team dynamics.
- Communication skills.
- Complimentary skills. Does the team know how to sell? How to build? How to acquire customers
- How did the founding team came together? Buddies? Alumni? Friends? Colleagues?
2. Market / Market Size
- 1000 crore market? Or 100 crore market?
- If sizing data for new markets did not exist. Did you do your own assessment, gut feeling
- What is the growth? Who are the other players?
- How deep does the founding team understand the market
3. Product
- What is your product
- Did you talk to customers?
- Did you have sales pipeline? How much money someone is willing to pay
- What new markets can be created by your product? Will it create a ecosystem? Walmart has 100+ vendors who do not sell anything which is stocked on the shelves
- Has the team developed a similar product before
4. Secret Sauce
- Who can copy?
- What are your defenses? Patents?
- What is your lead time at competition?
5. Exitability
- Is the company going to grow at 10% or 20%
- Will it attract institutional financing?
- Can it exit in 5-7 years at 100 crore revenues?
- Can it give me 10x returns? (OK that's a myth but target the aggressive numbers)
- Who are the potential suitors in 5 years
If you have any thoughts which you would like to share with the panel...please contribute here.
Thanks.
Avinash
Reply to Topic
Permalink
