Day three of the Startup, Technology, and Innovation B2B Meet of IISF 2023, has interactive knowledge workshops for upcoming and budding entrepreneurs. The workshops were centred around startup canvas, identifying problems, value proposition and differentiation, building on Go-to-Market Strategy, and fundraising. Various national and international delegates from incubators, business strategists and management from MNCs and management universities participated and presented their experiences and learnings.
Dr Nikhil Agarwal, CEO, SIIC, IIT Kanpur; Dr Meenakshi Shankar, Founder, Wise Owl Consulting; and Shri Satish Pandey, Chief Customer Officer, Siemens India & Country Head, Siemens Sri Lanka, Maldives in a workshop at Day 3 of Startup, Technology and Innovation B2B Meet at IISF 2023
In the first workshop on ‘Startup Canvas: Steps for startup success’, Mr Dhruv Gupta, CEO, of iTIC, IIT Hyderabad and Mr Saurabh Jain Founder, Fun2Do Labs participated as panellists. The session was moderated by Mr Ashish Jain, Founder, and CEO, of The Startup Board. Mr Dhruv pitched for the celebration of failures and the importance of teamwork for the success of Startups. Mr Saurabh Jain focussed on the 3 steps to start-up success- Product, People and Purchasing Power. He also explained how the utility is more important for startups than other parameters.
The workshop on ‘Identifying problems and value for the customer (Value Proposition and differentiation)’ was moderated by Shri Sachin Arya, CEO, PIEDS, BITS Pilani. Shri Satish Pandey, Chief Customer Officer, Siemens India & Country Head – Siemens Srilanka and Maldives; Dr Nikhil Agarwal, CEO, SIIC, IIT Kanpur and Dr Radhika Meenakshi Shankar, Founder, Wise Owl Consulting participated as panellists. The session incurred an important lesson of GOOTB: Get Out Of The Building and learn about the customers’ expectations, wants and needs, look at features being offered, and competition and get back to market.
The workshop on ‘Go-to-market Strategy’ saw participation from foreign universities as well. The main highlight of the day was the detailed comparison of the Indian and Vietnamese Startup ecosystems presented by Prof Le Thai Phong, Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration, Foreign Trade University, Vietnam. Prof Phong marked the gaps in the Vietnamese Startup Ecosystem. In the same session, Mr B Gopalkrishnan, Former Head- of Samunnati Startup Initiative, Samunnati Foundation discussed laying emphasis on the place where a product is set up and the art of selling the first 100 products.
He also focussed on the important elements of Access, Availability and Affordability for startups working in rural areas. The third panellist Shri Siva Ramamoorthi, a Management Consultant outlined the key elements for making a startup successful. He established the importance of sales executives in the success of startups and qualifying the leads through the EBANT strategy. The session was moderated by Mr Ashutosh Pastor, Senior Manager & Head-Incubation FITT, IIT Delhi. He summarised the session while establishing the need to capture the consumer Persona to understand the market well to establish a good sales and distribution channel.
The last session on ‘How to pitch and raise funds’ was moderated by Dr Nikhil Agarwal and Shri Pradeep Yuvaraj, MD, Prezantim Strategy and Shri N Dhanushkodi, Management Consultant. Shri Pradeep Yuvaraj established the importance of storytelling in fundraising for startups in a very creative way and through actual storytelling. Shri Dhanushkodi explained traditional and established ways of fundraising for budding entrepreneurs.
The Startup-Investor Meet is also set to be organized on Day 4 of IISF 2023 at the Startup, Technology and Innovation B2B Meet. The meeting would give the participating entrepreneurs to pitch the participating investors for funding using the strategies taught in yesterday’s workshops. Companies like Arc Robotics, Nishkam, Myways.ai, EV Urjaa, Aumsat, Liqsure etc. would be participating in the concluding day Startup Investor Meet.
The Science Media Communication Cell (SMCC) of CSIR-NIScPR is coordinating the media publicity and visibility of the Startup, Technology and Innovation B2B Meet at IISF 2023 for print, electronic and social media platforms.
Disclaimer: This is an official press release by Pib.