Proto January Edition comes to a close.
I am sitting here with a open browser and my cursor blinking on screen, wondering how to capsulate the experience that I am hearing of, and personally had with this edition of Proto… ah, I mean Proto.in. Yep, thats the first one. We realized how important that “.in” is in our identity. We are about india, our focus is on India and Indian Entrepreneurs and our mandate is to do everything to make the best and differentiated startups here in India by giving them traction in the market. Did we achieve that? I am going to wait to hear from the companies and let them talk about it, but the response at first sight has been awesome.
The sessions on the first day were great. It was interesting to hear entrepreneurs speak and dig out of their own experience. During the later part of the day when I was talking to some of the folks from the Investor community, the discussion was on how a lot of folks are depending on ‘entrepreneurial resources’ from the web, and most of them are so heavily biased as per the valley tradition and don’t work here in India. It’s crucial to hear from those who have built companies here in India and understand what their experience has been. And I believe our conviction of having this as a forum “For Entrepreneurs, By Entrepreneurs and Of Entrepreneurs” is turning out to be right on the money and is going to be that way for the gazillion editions to come. As much as you don’t see “Investors” in that category, you would be surprised as to how many of the Investors do have an entrepreneurial background and they DO stand out. In my book, they are some of the corner stones who will make this ecosystem.
There are already blogposts turning up on the web about this event with the tags of “Proto, proto.in” etc. I will collate them later on in the day and add them here – both the good and the bad. I am much more curious and eager to get to the bad ones first, as they are the ones that point us towards giving us the guidelines as to shaping this movement in a better way.
One of the impacts for the presenting companies this edition has been the amount of buzz among the investor community as to which companies they like, with a secret rating going on amongst themselves, and also the way the investors, the veteran entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals were so openly providing feedbacks and leads on matters they should look into. That was the moment when the Proto philosophy of building the support system around a startup, truly came to life!
I am still recuperating from the past three months of work and effort that went into this initiative. But give me a half a day and I’ll be back on my toes, to write more about this and what we have in mind in regards to future plans.
May the startups win.
Prasanna K
on January 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am Said:
Vijay,
I said it there, and I’ll say it here.
You guys have provided an awesome forum for people like us. At the very least we’ve found and met like-minded people who understand the challenges we’re going through and are able to help.
At it’s best, we’ve personally met four or five organisations who we can partner with in the future! These are guys who we would have never met otherwise.
Frankly that’s more than what we were expecting from Proto
.
Your energy and enthusiasm is contagious! You are certainly walking your talk – One guy must lead for ninety-nine to follow.
Thanks!
And I hope for many more successes for you, and for Proto.in.
Dorai Thodla
on January 20th, 2008 at 10:08 am Said:
I was there the second day. I had a heady day with TiECON the day before and I walked in to find out what proto.in is all about. I had casual conversations with Sid a few times before but was not very familiar with proto.in.
What I saw, completely blew me away. The passion, the young energy, the conviction and the deep sense of commitment from each one of those companies made me sit up. I am glad that proto.in is really trying to create the ecosystem that is so much needed for startups to flourish. There was ozone in the atmosphere, a sense of pride, and a lot of excitement. I could see it in the corridors, in the discussions that were taking place outside the presentations.
Startups need cash. But that is not the only thing they need. They need encouragement, a forum to share their problems and achievements swap stories. They also need mentoring, a sympathetic ear and a way to benchmark themselves against other similar efforts in the world.
I would love to help since this experience is intoxicating and certainly makes me proud.
Dorai
P.S: I had my first two startups in India and the next two in the Silicon Valley. I am currently on my fourth. Every one of our companies was bootstrapped. Entrepreneurship has become a way of life.