The Guru sessions at the TiE Summit benefited a fresh bunch of entrepreneurs with the knowledge coming right from experienced minds
The TiE Summit held in New Delhi between December 11 and 13, 2007, was attended by some of the best-known names in government and the corporate sector, besides a whole new generation of entrepreneurs.
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| Rohit Chand Co-founder, Xansa (formerly IIS Infotech) |
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| Sanjeev Bhikchandani Co-founder and CEO, Info Edge |
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| Rehan yar Khan Founder, Flora 2000 |
The ‘gurus’ at one such session were Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Co-founder and CEO, Info Edge, which runs naukri.com; Rohit Chand, who Co-founded IIS Infotech, and later sold it to Xansa; and Rehan yar Khan, Founder, Flora 2000.
The session began on a Shakespearean quote from Chand. “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” “I always sought to apply this to my own life,” he said. This was followed by brief introduction by Chand, Khan and Bhikchandani about their entrepreneurial journeys.
Bhikchandani moderated the session and opened the floor for questions. The first question was for Bhikchandani himself. “What were the difficulties you faced in the preliminary phase of naurki.com, in terms of advertising and awareness creation?” asked an inquisitive member of the audience.
Bhikchandani said he made the most of the first mover advantage. “When we launched naukri, we were the only Indian website across all categories who were targeting Indians in India. All the other players were targeting overseas,” he said. Journalists, at that time, had begun writing about the Internet for Indian readers. And naukri.com was also been written about. So this helped Bhikchandani spread the word about his job website.
Khan too said media was the best vehicle to piggyback on. “If you are early in any field, the media writes about you,” he said. One of the gurus mentioned the importance of developing a niche, “as it helps save media spend and you gain popularity.” The veterans said they betted big on media publicity, which is crucial for startups.
Another question was about how to evaluate a business opportunity. Is it all about combination of a business idea and technology? Bhikchandani fielded the question by saying that a “if a business is solving a problem” and it is doing something different, it made sense to put money there. This followed a series of other questions relating to diversification strategies, studying trends in overseas market and the criteria for mergers and acquisitions.
On the question of studying the trends in the overseas market, Khan, whose company sells flowers in the overseas market, said “we deployed a very robust process, which included numerous visits to the overseas market. You have to be close to your target group.” He cited an example too “Say you are a manager in Hindustan Lever, and you have to sell a shampoo in the overseas market. So, it is a classic management kind of a problem. You have to connect to your target group,” he said.
How much does it cost to set up a website? Khan fielded that too. “The cost of a software is a very small component today. Setting up a website is like opening a store on the backstreet. The challenge is how to get the customers there,” he said.
Chand, who sold his startup firm, IIS Infotech to Xansa, was asked about the successful mergers and acquisitions. “Who to merge with is a lot to do with synergy,” he said. On the question of a dotcom vs a brick-and-mortar company, Bhikchandani tried to break the myth that starting a dotcom was very cheap. “Today when we say we’ll launch a website, we set aside a large sum of money. It is a lot more capital intensive today than it was some time back,” he said. He said a lot of money goes into advertising and marketing the website. Khan said a lot of “below the line” work is needed to be done to make a website a hit.
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