It makes a lot of sense to get right people involved to validate the idea and business-model. A lot of startups are driven by bias of founding team, which is not good for them in long-run. For any business getting customers holds the key and what is the purpose of business if there are no customers/end-users. It is evident that in initial phase getting some reference customers helps a lot.

Its not about more companies nominating. I am perfectly happy with anything more than 15 nominating and we picking the finalists for that edition – actually the closest to 15 it stays, the less process that we need to go through and make tough decisions.

Knowing when to go public is the key point. Too many companies have products which are nowhere close to even being validated with the market (in other words, no living soul needs it), and they apply. Makes everybody’s life tough.