TiECon East 2010 Day 1 May 30, 2010

Reporting from the field – Vikram Venkatasubramanian says “I thoroughly enjoyed the first day of my first ever TiECon [East] event. I utilized the opportunity to gain some advice and mentoring as part of the eForum sessions, which kicked off the day’s proceedings.” – The complete blog is available at -> startapreneur

The formal sessions began with the keynote address by Robert Pozen of MFS Investment management. Robert had the audience completely captured with just the simplicity of his presentation of complex issues that affect capital markets today.  …

As entrepreneurs we are constantly told about what investors look for in terms of idea, team, validation, etc, etc. So, consider this, a start up which is actually a bank that was started by an entrepreneur who had no background in business let alone banking serving a consumer base which lives below the poverty line issuing loans that are backed by NO (yes, you read that right!) collateral. Would you invest? Well, it turns out that when Padmaja Reddy wants to raise capital today, she gets 30 term sheets from various capital sources in 15 days. She has raised Rupees 12,500 crores (i.e. 125,000 MILLION rupees), built a business that delivers 60% ROE and serves a customer base of several hundred thousand! She is looking to take the micro finance institution IPO in 9 months time and diversify her focus into expense reduction aspects of small entrepreneurs. Padmaja, displaying an unabashed propensity for verbose detail, completely captured the audience’s hearts with her strong, blunt viewpoints and a brutally frank assessment of the business climate and opportunities in India. It was very encouraging to hear from Sameer Manchanda (Chairman, DEN networks) about the ease of doing business in areas such as new media due to the lack of regulation in these areas. Another key point that captured my attention was Shantanu Prakash (Chairman and Managing Directr, Educomp Solutions) the use of IT to level the playing field in the realm of education in India, specifically in areas where the physical infrastructure is lacking, to enable an education experience that is on par with what is available in the cities.

I look forward to another productive day of opening up channels of opportunities for SIPtopics as well as learning of challenges faced and solutions developed by other entrepreneurs.

About the author: Vikram Venkatasubramanian is CEO and co-founder of SIPtopics, a stealth mode software startup company that is developing TopicPhone™, a soon to be released telephone service targeted towards seniors and visually impaired callers that allows them to state the topic of the call and be connected directly and in a hands free manner to end points in businesses and business services. He can be reached at vikram@siptopics.com