While 2011 witnessed a big boom in ecommerce funding, 2012 is when we will witness the stories that will differentiate the boys from men (no sexism please). More than $400mn was poured in ecommerce businesses in 2011 and given the nature of ecommerce business,i.e. less margin, higher infrastructure/delivery cost – the consolidation has already begun as investors have started getting a hang of the real real numbers in this industry.

Recap – The Ecommerce Fortnight

The big news was of Flipkart’s $150mn funding. Tiger Global led the $150mn round in Flipkart (Accel Partners too participated).

Post funding, Flipkart’s first mega acquisition is LetsBuy, a company that was giving Flipkart a tough competition in consumer electronics category.

Junglee : The BIG Threat

Amazon entered India with a completely different plan – i.e. instead of launching a full fledged ecommerce store, they launched a price comparison service called Junglee.

Our coverage of Junglee

• Why Junglee is a Brilliant Move by Amazon
• This is why Amazon’s Junglee is gonna SMASH the B**ls of Indian e-Commerce players

Lotsa debate, but keep in mind that Amazon is known to be a long term player and while Amazon is taking its own time to understand what Indians buy, the big piece of news came from Indian government.

Amazon to Setup Courier Service in India

Indian government has granted Amazon approval to setup its logistics service in India and as we shared earlier, Mumbai could be the delivery hub for Amazon India operations. This is the last mile for Amazon’s entry in India and be assured that Amazon will acquire a few logistics player instead of overyhyped ecommerce sites.

Flipkart’s Acquisition of LetsBuy

Flipkart has been acquiring dead companies (weread, chakpak) for acquiring talent, but the most significant acquisition came with LetsBuy, a rival.

Read our coverage of LetsBuy acquisition:

1. Flipkart to acquire LetsBuy–Here is what really happened with LetsBuy [Updated]
2. It’s official: Flipkart Acquires LetsBuy. Our Take – “Welcome Junglee. You have set the Jungle on Fire”.
3. Letsbuy and Flipkart – A marriage of INCONVENIENCE!!
4. Why Flipkart’s Acquisition of LetsBuy is a Great Story for the Startup Ecosystem

Next: Exclusively.in?

After LetsBuy, the $19 mn funded Exclusively.IN is for sale. The team wants to focus on Shersingh label.

Myntra: $20mn Funding

Bangalore based Myntra raised $20mn funding, led by Tiger Global and the company is aiming revenues of Rs 500 crores in the financial year 2012- 2013. The company claims to be shipping up to 10,000 products every day and has received a total funding of $40mn.

————–

So what’s the future of ecommerce? If you are funded, should you run for more investment? And if you are unfunded, should you opt for a new industry?

Well, all we know is that this is probably the best time to build an ecommerce business in India. Having said that, it’s an Ostrich time for E-Commerce Companies in India?. That is, build more fundamental to the business than buying adwords.

What’s your opinion?

Forum Discussion: Predict future mergers and acquisitions in Indian E-commerce?

Here are some interesting observation Zopnow team has shared (emphasis:mine, humor:Birla, Zopnow cofounder):

- If you thought only Cinderella had an issue when clock stuck 12, think again. The time slot 12-1 is the most popular time slot for our customers to buy. Did I forget to add one minor detail, I am talking about afternoon here.

- 3 out of 4 customers come back within a month with a bigger order. As Schwarzenegger said – I am back.

- We have enough customers who buy SKUs in triple digits ( > 99 ) in one order

- Edible Oil and Home Care are top 2 categories. People spend twice on edible oil compared to Personal Care.

- Tea is twice as popular as coffee in Bangalore. Now that is a surprise for us also.

- Juice consumption is almost thrice of soft drinks. Who said Bangalore is not health conscious?

- We are sending a SWAT team to analyze that why is there a strong co-relation between people who buy orange juice also buy Harpic Plus Orange toilet cleaner.

- The average Gross Merchandise Value of a single order is 4-5 times of offline retail and this is when we are yet to launch the million features we have in mind to increase it.

- Expenses on diapers is 10 times of what it is on infant food. How do you explain that input/output balance Bangalore?

- Amount of Aata sold is thrice of rice. Now that sounds like a poem.

- Our customers like laziness.. almost 30% ordered maggi (hello software engineers/startups)

- Gross Margins in double digits is not a dream but reality once you get your category mix right

- Over 15% orders are “Sho Shweet”. I mean they have atleast 1 kg of sugar.

- Bangalore hates to take care of it’s shoes. This category reminds me of my rank in my class at IIT Kanpur.

- Our customer ‘like’ turmeric thrice as compared to chilli powder. Yellow yellow, lazy fellow.

- People spend twice as much on cleaning toilet over teeth. Get your priorities clear guys.

- Based on our deep research, we have come to conclusion that per Kg of toor daal you need to spend 22.346 grams of Turmeric powder to make a perfect daal

- Sorry Imran .. as per us Akshay Kumar is doing better. Thums up Sales are twice as good as Coke

- We are planning to hire PhDs to figure out why 27% of our customer buy organic food and “Act II Butter popcorn” in the same order. If you have a clue, write to us. I promise you Rasam Rice lunch with our team.

- And last but not the least, our sincere apologies to all the customers who searched for “dark fantasy” on google and ended up seeing the “Sunfeast Dark Fantasy biscuit” at ZopNow. This is as close as we can get to help you. [Reproduced from Zopnow blog]

So what do you make of these data points (keep in mind that Zopnow is currently active only in South Bangalore, but this is a well-about representation)?

The Economic Times today quoted a senior official from the Corporate Affairs ministry saying, “The RBI had made it clear to us in our several correspondences that they have their reservations about the LLP Act. We have decided to tighten some crucial rules under the purview of the current Act to win confidence of investors and regulators”. He said the changes will make LLPs more competent and easier to monitor.

LLPs are becoming increasingly popular as the new form of business structure because of the loads of benefits they enjoy. Unlike a regular partnership, an LLP partner is not responsible or liable for another partner’s negligence. This particular feature of this new form of business has made the RBI awry. The LLP Act had been introduced so that small businesses and law and audit firms could benefit from it but today many corporate houses are increasingly using the LLP law to save significant amounts of tax and side step regulatory burden.

The changes in the rules have been welcomed by the industry experts.  It is obvious that clearer and more elaborate solvency and auditing norms will make LLP a more credible business structure. This will ultimately lead to better financial structure and will lead to the growth of this form of business as banks would also have added confidence in lending to the LLP.

The government has now asked the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to draw out separate accounting standards for LLPs to avoid gray areas in functioning of such firms. We’ll now have to keep an eye out for what they come out with.

Related Read:

• What if things go south? How to shutdown Pvt Limited or a LLP Business in India
• LLP vs. Private Limited: How to Choose Company Incorporation

Discussion: LLP Vs Pvt Ltd from a tax efficiency perspective

» More Legal Resources for Startups

Amazon has taken a slow approach to build its India business and surprised everybody with the launch of Junglee, a price comparison service. While Amazon uses Junglee to understand the consumer behavior, they will be setting the logistics arm in tandem and do expect acquisitions in this space, as opposed to Amazon acquiring overyhyped ecommerce players.

And like we shared earlier, Mumbai could be the delivery hub for Amazon India operations (though Junglee team team is in Bangalore) and the company has been looking to hire delivery operations manager in Mumbai area.

Interesting times ahead for the Indian ecommerce industry.

What an interesting week, by the way?

Coming from a small town and hindi-medium educational background, he faced numerous hurdles all through his college days. Despite the challenges, he managed to start his small internet-based business while in college and later moved on to forming Xs Corporations in 1999. He later sold this to Lotus Interworks and continued working with them for a year. In December 2000, Sharma founded One97, a company which provides a platform for delivering mobile value-added services.

In this video, Vijay very candidly shares the highs and lows of his student and entrepreneurial life and this video is a must watch for all the passionate people who believe in creating something.

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» More at Pluggd.in TV.
» Subscribe to Pluggd.in Youtube channel.

Touchscreen tables @CCD

Watch this demo video of CCD.

Brilliant concept and can potentially increase the engagement by a good multiple – hoping that it translates to more coffee.
What’s your take? Are Indian retail outlets getting comfortable with technology?

Recommended Read: Interactive Group Buying Meets Touch At Touche Diner, India’s First Touch Table Restaurant

Also see: What Business Are you In – Case Study: Cafe Coffee Day

Pluggd.in’s deals for startups is back and we are glad to announce the first deal exclusively for Pluggd.in readers – 50% discount on Recruiterbox, a super cool job application tracking tool.

Deal Description

Hiring isn’t easy. You advertise a new job opening and soon enough you have resumes coming to your inbox, interspersed with all your usual email. It is tedious to download, open and screen each candidate’s resume, not to mention tracking interviews and the review process. Recruiterbox helps you to organize all hiring related information in one centralized online location. [you can read pluggd.in’s coverage of Recruiterbox].

Registration Link

Please register through this link only to get 50% Special Plans, exclusive to Pluggd.in readers.

Deal Expiry Date: Feb 29th, 2012.

More details @Deals.Pluggd.in.

[If you are a company whose business caters to SMB crowd, do connect with Pluggd.in’s sales team (sales@pluggd.in) to put up a deal on the site.]

Today’s ToI has a brief quote from Sanjay Guleria, cofounder of Exclusively.

Exclusively.in, backed by the same investors (Accel, Tiger and Helion), has sacked several employees and is up for sale.The founders of the fashion flash sales site are now focusing their resources on their private label portal, SherSingh.com. “Currently we are running Exclusively.in but we are focusing on our private label business which requires less human capital”. [source]

Exclusively raised $16mn funding from Tiger Global Management, with participation from Accel Partners India and Helion Venture Partners in May 2011 (and $2.8mn in November 2010) and pivoted from member only site to a traditional ecommerce model in October 2011.

“We saw the future of sales shifting on our site from a members-only to an open site due to an overwhelming demand for our products that short-lived flash sales could not meet. We felt the best way to service that demand was to move away from a consignment model in order to provide fully curated collections with a much broader selection and a full range of sizing to a wider consumer base.”  [Sanjay Guleria]

The company has laid off several employees and as per reports, the site is up for sale now. Exclusively.

As far as the company is concerned, they will now focus on Shersingh, a private label portal they launched in November 2011.

Recommended Read: Ostrich time for E-Commerce Companies in India?

Forum Discussion: Predict future mergers and acquisitions in Indian E-commerce?

People who have done it, never done it, have no plans of doing a startup, all together are calling a wolf in this deal.

This is the venture eco-system, this is how it is played. Companies are built, bought and sometimes brought down. Tejit, my previous startup went through two two (sic.) successive acquisitions in less than three years…and I’m still working. I am still below my quota of Fuck You money. Irrespective of what the end-game is, which seldom is a stalemate, the Silicon valley eco-system is built on two simple things:

1. Every startup is a success
2. No startup is a failure

This is exactly what needs to happen to India and this deal is one of the threads in arriving at that goal.

After the previous exits, the reason I was able to raise my hand and fill a gap in the Indian startup ecosystem because the startup experience gave me enough confidence to do another one, though Morpheus was on the other side of the fence and helping people getting started.

The current consolidation of Flipkart buying Letsbuy, irrespective of the dilapidated state of the latter is a good thing. Why?

1. It gives a necessary boost to the eco-system that bets can be paid off, when the vision is right but the markets are tough. If VCs are forced to write these deals off, it brings a black mark in their report card to their investors (LPs or Limited Partners). However, we as entrepreneurs need to keep the funding cycle alive and rotating every few years.
2. Venture Capital is an between food chain of money flowing from people who have it. Why have a spock mark when you can avoid it? While getting a degree, it’s okay to get a summer (or suppli) as long as you come out in that 4 years. Some of the startups are like that failed exam but the venture eco-system allows for “exits”. Would you want the annotation of “suppli” in your degree? Nor do they.
3. Entrepreneurs who did “okay” in the current startup become capable of taking even bolder bets. If the start-up simply fails, not that there are no learnings from the same, but parking an almost out of gas car securely is much better than leaving it in the middle of the road.
4. For the uninitiated who do not understand the intricacies of the deals, it’s a positive story and brings more people to take the plunge and start their own venture.

Yes, it’s a good PR. Can be written in bold in the resume and can even make you a VC, irrespective of the nature of the exit. That’s how sweet these exits are.

Off-topic: The most worry-some part of the current cynicism is not just the angst against the deals but the so called keepers of the ecosystem advising entrepreneurs to keep away from investors and also advising them to bootstrap their startups to death. They are at total loss to understand that these are venture startups and not a “baniya ki dukaan.”

[Guest article contributed by Indus Khaitan. Reproduced from his blog.]

[Adds Ashish: It’s not about being cynic etc – the key is to keep learning from others’ failure and frankly, startups cannot afford to run against wrong metrics. No matter who you are and what your venture is about, the market will decide your fate (and not blogs/media/Facebook comments/Tweets etc). At the end of the day, you will have to answer for yourself (and customers, investors). Like we have been saying ‘the access to easy money’ has been a culprit and no ecosystem evangelism will justify bad decisions made by entrepreneurs or investors. In short, exercise your due diligence. Don’t just raise money because it’s a cool thing to do, raise money because you are in a business of building business and not in the business of buying adwords/TV slots.]

Recommended Read: Notions in India on Startups – Are Few Startups Spoiling the Ecosystem?

Also read: A Perspective on Lifeblob-Printo Deal [Distress Sale vs. A Product Story?]

1. There is no “standard” term sheet. The reason for that is all deals are unique, dependent on the supply – demand characteristics between the startups and angel investors. If any of your investors say “That’s what the lawyers told me to put in the agreement. Its industry standard practice”, realize that there is nothing the lawyers can or cannot do without the consent of the investors. Everything is negotiable.
2. Just because other startups are able to get favorable terms does not mean you will get the same terms. Numbers and percentages are purely representational, not standard.
3. “Good” in the title of this post means, both entrepreneur and angel friendly, and one that’s not skewed towards one party.

In India seed rounds funding as convertible notes are rare and not the common practice.

[Recommended Read: The 3 Deadly Weapons (In Term Sheets) That Kill Entrepreneurs]

Liquidation preferences are one of the key areas for entrepreneurs & angels to discuss and negotiate

Liquidation preference: This means when there is an exit (company gets sold or goes public) what distribution of the proceeds goes to the investors as preferential payment (meaning, they get paid first) before any other shareholder.

[Raising Seed Funding? Use This Convertible Note Template]

Let’s take an example. If you raise 1Cr with a pre-money valuation of 4Cr, your investors will own 20% of the company after their investment – 1cr divided by 5Cr (which is the valuation of the company post their money). Now after 18 months another company decides to buy your company for 4 Cr (it’s a aqui-hire – hiring for resources). Since the investors own 20% of the company, with NO liquidation preferences they would get (20% of 4 CR) which is 80L. The other share holders will get 1.2 Cr (which includes founders).

If they had liquidation preferences (with a rate of return they mention in your term sheet), they will get 1 Cr plus their ROI, which might be 1 CR, plus 20% (example rate) and the other share holders will get 80L.

I think providing liquidation preferences to the amount of capital put into the company makes some sense, because you want investors to at the least get their money back if they can, but anything more than that is negotiable. A good term sheet will maintain liquidation preferences to the amount of capital invested at the most.

Recommended Read:

• Startup Financing (Part 1): How Much Money Should a Startup Raise?
• Startup Financing (Part 2): How to Value your Startup?
• Startup Financing (Part 3): Understanding Term Sheets, Government Regulations..and more

[Guest article contributed by Mukund Mohan.]

The investment will support nivio’s mission to bring the magic back to computing, by expanding engineering efforts in nivio’s Palo Alto office and further roll-out of the cloud platform across nivio’s operating regions in Europe, Middle East, India and Australia.

nivio sets the standard for cloud desktop performance with a downloadable, rich client experience for any device. nivio’s clients for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac will be available later this month along with the Ubiquity client, which delivers the entire desktop over any HTML5 browser. The Ubiquity client delivers the Windows OS and productivity software (such as Microsoft Office) from nivio’s Cloud to any device, eliminating the need for users to download anything. nivio’s App Store (nApps) lets users rent regular desktop software on any screen, and the nDrive provides 10GB of free storage into which they drop their files and have them synced across their devices.
nivio was founded by two friends Sachin Dev Duggal and Saurabh P Dhoot, who is Videocon chairman Venugopal Dhoot’s nephew and post funding, nivio will also get an access to 1,000 Videocon stores and reseller network to sell its desktop virtualization suite.
Watch this intro video.

This is what I believe, happened behind the scenes:

First the Basics

Let’s go with the report that letsbuy.com did raise 6 million dollars of funding from Tiger and Accel as Series A.

Any decent Series A round valuation dilutes the promoters by at least 30%.

So, 6 million dollars in Series A made letsbuy.com worth 20 million dollars.

Hmmm… feeling a bit charitable? Ok! Let’s say that letsbuy.com at the end of Series A was worth 25 million dollars.

Time and Burn

If letsbuy.com raised the money even a year back, and given the massive amounts of burns required to survive in the e-Commerce space in India, it would be safe to assume that the Company was nearly out of cash or had a few weeks or months of cash left.

In fact, this is exactly what Sudhir Syal had told me two weeks back, at the WAT Conference (that letsbuy.com had very little cash left).

Now, this is true for ANY Internet business. Cashburn runways for a business may last for a 1 year max (if you are burning).

Most Internet businesses do burn because they are growing. So there is nothing to be frowned upon on that.

Flipkart.com

They assumedly raised 150 million dollars at a 850 million dollar (post or pre) valuation. That means post money valuation is say 1 billion dollars.

Now, the last financier is hoping to sell the business for at least 2-3 billion dollars if any reasonable returns* have to be earned.

* 2-3 X in the case of Tiger would actually translate into a a much bigger IRR, since Tiger has been investing in flipkart.com from the early stages, so its net cost per share of flipkart is so cheap, it can afford to fund the last round at high valuations.

Now the deal

Imagine you are Tiger Global. You have the biggest bet of your investment portfolio in India on flipkart.com.

That Company has to exit and exit big.

Now, while flipkart.com is scaling and doing its best (and let’s not deny, a great job), some silly e-Commerce cowboys have begun riding on horses they cannot manage, and have started publicly falling down and making a fool of themselves.

What do I mean?

Imagine the situation

No one invests in letsbuy.com for Series B (as per the reports, they were struggling to get funded for many months).

They collapse – have a fire/distress sale!

The entire stack of cards of the Indian e-Commerce story comes falling down! Investors are alarmed. Valuations (always a function of sentiment) tumble hard…

Who gets most affected???

FLIPKART.com!!

So, the marriage proposal

Let’s play a Marwari groom!

I am sitting on a great business like flipkart.com and have made a massive impact on the social behaviour of how Indians buy online. I am a case study in every Business School in the world.

I am the No. 1 brand in India. I get a fab PR story every other day.

I have received enough in funding from my father (VCs) to make myself very very marriageable.

In my dreams, I hope that one day, a Rich Girl’s Father (acquirer) will come calling on the best groom in India  – that is me -  and propose marriage of his daughter, in return for lots and lots and lots of Dahej -Dowry (acquisition price) for the same!

Wow! This is what life is supposed to be all about!

Suddenly, a marriage broker calls me and tells that some silly, drunk and homeless girl is about to commit suicide and the only way to rescue her, is that I marry her…!

So, please say yes?!

What do you think I will say?

I will say – Get lost!

I mean, Flipkart doesn’t need letsbuy.com.

Like it doesn’t need so many other e-Commerce sites on the brink of failing!

Who wants the pain of marrying two Start Up cultures?!

Imagine trying to get headstrong co-founders of competing businesses together!

Who would want to buy an identical business that is barely 1 year old (and hence not at all that mature in processes and standards etc, etc.) and then spend precious time and energy figuring out how to reduce parallel costs; who to fire etc, etc?

What’s the need to do so?

If I were Flipkart and a distressed deal like letsbuy.com came to me, I would say, let them die.

After they collapsed and went away, I would simply hire their people. Rent out their godowns. Switch their suppliers to my network.

Advertise, ‘Missing letsbuy.com? Don’t go the cemetery – come to flipkart.com’

Acquisitions (usually) happen when two great value propositions come together. Not for other reasons.

On the other hand, vultures feast on the dead. But Start Ups like Flipkart are not vultures! They are growing scaling businesses that are chalking their own path!

What happened in this case?

The common investors must have really figured out that ‘adopting’ this girl, rather than letting her commit suicide, was the better bet!

Look at the deal

If Flipkart is worth 1 billion dollars (850 mn + 150 mn) = 1 billion, and the letsbuy.com deal was done for 30 million, then that’s barely 3% of Flipkart shares!!!!

Obviously this is a shares swap deal, with the promise that the next few months’ salaries of letsbuy.com will be paid. Now, think about it … if you were the letsbuy.com promoters – why would you wash yourselves out like this?

If you are selling your Company at par value, that means that that after ratcheting and adjustment for liquidation preferences, you will get nothing!

Also, can they work under 2 other co-promoters? Can they take orders from the Bansals?

Note – For the VCs who have common equity in letsbuy.com and flipkart.com, it’s a minor adjustment of equity positions. For the VCs who were not invested in flipkart.com but in letsbuy.com, this is a nice way of earning some small esop quanity of shares in Flipkart!

If Flipkart sells for 3 billion, then in effect, the letsbuy.com promoters will ‘have’ sold for 90 million US dollars!! Wow!! Such an amazing promise in the skies!

As Flipkart, if I have to spend 3% of my equity to make the e-Commerce bubble in India still look holy, I just might (or rather did) take the bait.

In short – this is a marriage made in hell.

My question is, how many other marriages with suicidal women will flipkart.com, or for that matter, any other healthy business Start Up manage to consummate???

Here is the official press release:

Flipkart.com, India’s largest e-commerce player in physical products has acquired Letsbuy, the second largest retailer in electronics. With this move, Flipkart has firmly established itself as the leader in the consumer electronic space.  This deal will also allow for a faster rate of expansion for both companies – giving the combined entity a much larger share in the consumer electronics market.

The acquisition is a combination of cash and equity. The founders of Letsbuy along with their 350+ team will continue to function independently, with the added advantage of now being able to access Flipkart’s superior technology platform and supply chain capabilities.

Speaking about the acquisition, Flipkart’s co-founder and CEO Sachin Bansal said, “This acquisition fits into our strategy of building dominant shares in all categories we operate in. We are already leaders in the books and media verticals. Given that we managed to build a leadership position in consumer electronics as well since its launch in early 2011, it made sense for us to consolidate when we saw this opportunity. This acquisition opportunity came at a very attractive price for us and the timing has also been ideal. The synergies will now allow us to accelerate faster and get to a share similar to what we enjoy in the online books category”.

Letsbuy.com founder & CEO Hitesh Dhingra said “Letsbuy.com has experienced a phenomenal growth in the last one year and holds a dominant position in e-commerce industry in India. We believe that our expertise in 3Cs* category matched with Flipkart’s superior technology and supply chain could be a killer combination. The Company had a choice to raise a large round of funding as well, however aligning our business with the largest player in the market made sense as the resultant synergies will guarantee our customers the best possible service, price and selection. ”

While the finer details on mutual synergies are being worked out by both teams at present, the move has been welcomed by investors of both firms. Helion, the lead investor in Letsbuy.com has said it believes that the combined strength of the two leading players is formidable and will be able to deliver a stronger value proposition to customers.
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* 3C’s – Computers, Communication and Consumer electronics

—

Recommended Read: This is why Amazon’s Junglee is gonna SMASH the B**ls of Indian e-Commerce players

Our take: Welcome Junglee! You have set the house jungle on fire.

We earlier profiled the launch of Rediff’s Real Time news, a service that brings latest news/images and a mag like experience to readers. In terms of experience, the service brings instant search experience and collates images from different sources – a job well done.

We liked the design and liked the simplicity of the product (think white). I had one strong feedback for the team, but decided to take it easy and was sincerely hoping that a big giant like Rediff will take its own time to implement more feature.

But one month into the product and the product team has ignored the most important reason to visit the site – the user intent.

Qn: Why do you visit a news site?

To know what’s happening, right?

So is it a search experience or a navigation experience?

Assuming it’s a search experience (which Rediff Realtime news is), the service basically assumes that you know what you are looking for!

Right?

But that defeats the purpose of the news site – i.e. if I already know what I am looking for, then what the hell am I doing here? After all, you visit a news site for information about things you probably don’t know.

What do I type?

Note to Rediff Product Managers: A news site should be navigational in nature and unless you implement ‘news’ site like feature, do not call it news service. Call it real time search or a ‘guided news service’.

In short, answer a very basic question: “Why should one visit the service? And with what intent?”

What’s your opinion?

Trademark Search

Since this is a question we get asked very frequently, we thought we could simplify things for you a little bit by explaining, step-by-step, how to get your Trademark Registered in India.

Step 1: A trademark application has to be filed before the Registrar of Trade Marks. It should be filed at the office of the Trade Marks Registry corresponding to the principal place of business of the applicant. (In India, the Trademark registries are in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Ahemdabad and Kolkata. So if your business is in Bengaluru, you have to apply before the Registry in Chennai).

Recommended Read: Explained: Why & How to Conduct a Trademark Search?

Step 2: An application can be filed by the proprietor of the business for use by the proprietor or his business. You can file either in the name of the proprietor or in the name of the business.

We often guide applicants to apply in their personal name if they are unsure about the prospects of the business but have a very catchy name. So for instance, if you have the name “Bangalore Bajji Balle Balle” (or any other funny and catchy name) but don’t know if your restaurant will succeed because of the competition, you should choose to apply in your own name. In case things do not work out, you can always use the name for your next venture. If the trademark is in the name of the Company, it usually dies with the Company.

Step 3: While applying for the Trade Mark Registration, the proprietor has to define the class under which he wants his product / service to be classified. The classification has to be done according to Schedule 4 of the Trade Marks Rules, 2002.

Step 4: Finally, once the work is done, you need to pay the fees associated with the Trademark. Today, as per the Trademark Rules, 2002, the application fees (similar to a tax) are Rs. 3500 per trademark.

Distinctive Features of a Trademark

The trademark to be registered should have distinctive features. Naturally, it cannot be blasphemous or obscene. It should also not make any reference to a living person without his consent or the consent of his representative, as the case may be.

So if you want to start an acting school called “Shah Rukh Khan Acting School” (although why anyone would do that is a wonder), you CANNOT unless you have his consent.

Recommended Read: Trademarks registration in India – The Entrepreneur’s Guide

What happens once I make the application?

The registrar will advertise the application, to find out whether the trademark has been in usage by any other person and to resolve any conflicts if they come to light.

Any person who wishes to oppose the trademark application has to give notice in writing to the Registrar within a period of 3 months after the advertisement has been published.

In an opposition, the applicant has to explain why the trademark should be granted to him. In case the applicant does not respond within two months after the opposition has been received, it will be assumed that he has abandoned the application.

If no opposition is filed or if the dispute is decided in favour of the applicant, the registrar issues a certificate of registration in favour of the applicant and the trademark is registered. Generally, the whole process of registration takes 18 – 24 months from the date of application.

[About the author: Contributed by Hrishikesh Datar, founder of vakilsearch.com, online legal services provider (Legal Advice, Legal Documents & more.]

» More legal resources for startups.

A general perception is that LetsBuy was doing quite well, though the reality is that it wasn’t. And here is why:

1. Cost of customer acquisition. At one  point, LetsBuy banners were all over the web and while it did helped in creating a brand, creating first time purchase etc- but that’s never a real business unless the margins are high. In the case of Indian ecommerce, cost of customer acquisition is extremely high unless you get customers to do repeat purchase.

And you need deep pockets to justify those customer acquisition cost.

2. Tiger Global: The real reason for LetsBuy acquisition is their prime investor, Tiger Global. Tiger pulled off from the company and attempt to raise further money couldn’t go through.

Reason?

High valuation. No other investor was ready to touch LetsBuy owing to the valuation they got during the first round.

LetsBuy : Customer Acquisition Cost Vs.ARPU Data

Data #1: ARPU
LetsBuy’s highest selling product was memory cards and 65% of the orders placed were of size less than Rs. 300 price.

Data #2: Customer Acquisition Cost
On an average, LetsBuy average customer acquisition cost was Rs. 750/.
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Add delivery cost etc, do the math and you’d know why ecommerce is a game that either needs deep pockets or you’d need to sell high value products. (we aren’t talking about margins yet).

As far as Flipkart acquiring LetsBuy is concerned, it’s no BIG deal. In all probability, it is forced by investors and not a conscious choice (the way chakpak acquisition happened). Given that there aren’t any complementary categories/skills between the two companies, this is actually a bad news for Indian ecommerce ecosystem.

But then, this was bound to happen [read: Are Indian VCs Hedging Their E-commerce Risk?].

Welcome 2012 bash. So what are ecommerce entrepreneurs wearing this year?

PS: Welcome Junglee.

• From Pluggd.in Forum: The coming e-commerce shakeout (?)
• Opinion: Stop Blowing Our [Ecommerce] Bubbles

Update: The news is confirmed by both the companies.

* – the deal was first reported by Medianama.

In the last round (Nov 2010), Myntra raised $14mn and in 2008, raised $5mn from NEA-IUV, IDG Ventures and Accel. Myntra started as a custom gifting service and later morphed into an online store fashion store selling lifestyle products.

The latest round of $20mn funding (Series C) will be used to build its logistics service (they have already started their own logistic service) and expansion into new categories.

More details as we get them, but if you are in the know – feel free to share here (even anonymously).

Recommended Read: Flipkart to acquire LetsBuy–Here is what really happened with LetsBuy

Lateral: The Art and Science of Negotiation [Explained in a sentence]

————

Update: Press release from Myntra.

Myntra.com targets Rs 500 crores revenue for the next fiscal

Myntra.com, the largest online retailer of fashion and lifestyle products in India, is aiming revenues of Rs 500 crores in the financial year 2012- 2013. The company which entered the lifestyle and fashion retailing segment in December 2010 has registered a 10 fold growth in 2011 and is relatively, the fastest growing company in the e-commerce space in India.

Mr. Mukesh Bansal (Founder & CEO) said, “Myntra has undergone phenomenal growth in the last 12 months and has emerged as the clear leader in Fashion/Lifestyle space. We have been consistently doubling every 4 months and have now reached a scale where we ship up to 10,000 products every day. We are planning to cross revenue of Rs 500 crores in FY 12-13 which will further strengthen Myntra’s leadership position in the lifestyle category. This is an exciting category with the total market size projected to be over $100 billion in 5 years with mid single digit portion being online, making this, possibly the largest online category in India.”

He further added, “We have built the largest catalog in fashion & lifestyle category with over 200 brands, have very extensive supply-chain capabilities including world-class warehouse in multiple cities and our own logistics network in large cities. We will continue to invest aggressively in our technology platform, supply-chain and the Myntra brand to rapidly scale the business.”

The e-commerce company has received overall funding of $40 million through top-tier Venture Capitalists like Tiger Global, IndoUS, IDG & Accel Partners.

Myntra.com is among the Top 5 e-commerce companies with over 2,00,000 daily visitors to the site. The company has already reached out to 10,000 zip codes across the country and is constantly expanding its network to support the growing demand.

In my opinion, it is largely irrelevant if a company has a rigid hierarchy or a more loosely defined and flexible structure. What matters more is to institutionalize a culture that promotes company building even at the junior levels. The bigger the organization, the more important it is to have a more democratized approach to solving problems or building new businesses.

Most companies that have evolved to large organizations employing tens of thousands of people have followed a similar path to success. After starting out as an innovative and nimble startup in the initial months and growing to a successful, emerging company, they tend to end up as an enterprise fighting to stay relevant. The battle of the middle-management bulge is a reality in almost all of the top enterprises and technology companies are not immune. Most technology companies employ a philosophy of hiring ahead of the curve, which is essentially increasing the pace of hiring without regard to the actual requirement for talent. The usual side effects of this philosophy include the emergence of a bureaucracy, under-utilized individuals and teams and subsequently less productivity per employee.

Companies once at the bleeding edge of technology fail to ideate, innovate, and execute faster than new players who look to disrupt the market. Even with their financial muscle and vast resources, many large companies just fail to compete in this age of hyper-innovation. This is partly due to the prevalence of a complacent culture that is all pervasive. The middle-management layer is often incompetent to spot a bright idea and bring it to market. This ensures that promising ideas are often nipped in the bud. This leads to disillusionment at the lower rungs and eventually the organization suffers. Many large companies fail to see the merit in fostering a hundred million dollar ideas in the quest for a single, potentially $100M bet. The small bets are often left to wither and die, as they do not account for more than a rounding error in the company’s balance sheet in terms of revenue potential. Often, the pressure of quarterly earnings adds to the problem with the company focus shifting from long-term growth to a short-term gain. Left to remedy too late and the organization runs the risk of turning into a vestige of the past.

As a startup, it is prudent to institutionalize processes to ensure that the pace of innovation is maintained as and when it enters the next phases of growth and avoid some of the problems that large companies so often end up in. It is far easier in the earlier stages of evolution of a company. It helps to have the right set of measures to encourage new ideas internally, help discover them, and productize the ones with promise. It is perhaps essential to eliminate the possibility of a decision maker to pull rank over rationale and veto an idea. Chain of command might work well in the military and government but could prove detrimental in a technology firm. It is more pertinent to have the right people in the right places to enable decision-making. It will go a long way in helping the company stay relevant for a long time.

Perhaps it is an idealistic argument but it is definitely worth a try.

What’s your opinion?

It is also worth having a look at what these companies have done – Fog Creek Software, IDEO.

[Guest article contributed by Shashank P S. The author can be reached on twitter: @shashank_ps]

Gamiana or House of Games, derived from Games and Aashiana (house), is one of the first companies in India to offer multi-player platforms and the ability to play games real time. This will address the new markets created by the synergies between the increase of internet on smart-phones, online gaming and social networking across the globe.

Post this investment, IAN member Chetan Shah has joined the board of Gamiana.

Gamiana is focused on many developing markets like Brazil, Turkey, and the Philippines and will use this investment Gamiana to grow its customer base, enhance gaming software development for existing games–Jamia Online and Vinashi–and bid for new gaming contracts in overseas markets.

VoiceGain is a cloud telephony solution that allows Indian SME enterprises to store, manage and track telephone sales inquiries and leads. It allows sales inquiries to be routed real time to their field sales personnel on their mobile phone – anytime, anywhere. It also helps such organizations to offer customer support with a virtual call center technology infrastructure on a pay-per-use model.

Currently, VoiceGain offers 3 packaged products:

1. VoiceGain Pro is a cloud telephony service that helps growing businesses provide a high quality and professional caller experience to their prospects and customers

2. VoiceGain Service is a cloud telephony offering that helps call centers, both captive and outsourced, ramp their telephony infrastructure without having to make significant capital investments in on-premise PBX, ACDs and IVRs.

3. VoiceGain Sales is a cloud telephony offering that helps businesses with a distributed sales force route, respond, and manage their telephone leads.

» Similar products in cloud telephony space: Kookoo, Exotel 

[Via]

Within a month of launch, forum has turned out to be a very useful platform bringing in insights from stakeholders across the industry – right from startups to VCs to industry professionals and helping entrepreneurs with answers to their questions.

Here are a few gems from the forum.

The Art and Science of Negotiation [Explained in a sentence]

“If you take a loan of Rs. 5,000 from someone and do not return, the person will threaten you (and even get goons for you).
If you take a loan of Rs. 50,00,000 from someone and do not return, the person will first threaten you, and then ask you to sit and talk about it“.
That’s negotiation. That’s muscle power. And it’s as simple as that.

The “we are a startup” Excuses

I continue to be amazed by the number of statements by founders I hear where “we are a startup” is used an excuse for something – either an excuse for blatantly copying, or not doing their homework on the industry, or not pitching to the right markets, or seeing their bigger competitors cash in while they focus on something else.

How many have you heard? What’s your typical response to such statements?

Where to get *INDIAN* Royalty-Free/Low-cost stock images?

I would like to use some good images for my website. Mainly it needs to be with Indian Faces. of course, google can give me some good links.  I still like to know where my fellow startup friends are getting it from. I hope your answers will be helpful for everyone else.

Startups and solutions for religious, devotional markets?

Its a pretty big business in India, with steady cash flows, across economic strata and geographies. What startups, apart from VAS players selling devotional content, have tried creating solutions for this space? Temple management, e-collections, appointments, etc?

What do you wear to office and does it make a difference?

We do the normal, monday to thursday formals, friday onwards casuals. I think its necessary to instill a sense of discipline in a person like me.
And I am sure its a person to person thing. Big companies including MS etc. do not have any kind of dress code. But for a leader its very important that the right message is passed on to his/her comrades. And my opinion is that formal wear goes a long way in achieving that.

Enable radio taxi like service for local transport (auto rick)

The idea is to connect locals with the local transport in a given area – something like a “location based app” using SMS as a channel (considering that auto drivers may not have App/ Wap enabled phones). Rick driver can check in or check out at a location indicating that he is ready to take fare in that area (say Brigade Rd or Jayanagar). Along with this he will specify few other details like which direction is more preferred (Towards Hosur or Towards Domlur / Indira Nagar etc), what is his minimum fare distance etc.

Help : Magento VS PHP for E commerce

Which is a better solution Core PHP or Magento for e commerce. Which is easy to customize??

Good to be a little ‘evil’?

..rather than just sit on or sell the tracked/collected data it should be used for a pervasive experience; for example if he logs into a traffic website from home VS he logs into it from his handheld device when outside, he is looking for different types of information in either case. If tracking information can provide for such an experience then so be it.

Can superb customer service be that winning shot in ecommerce?

Will a fantastic customer experience/service help you keep your customers and get more? I personally think the service standards in Indian ecom is pretty poor. Can somebody be the Zappos of India? As an end consumer what do you expect as a great customer service?

Water Cooler Discussions

• Unlimited vacation time
• “Apply Via API”? A Cool way to Rock Star Developers
• What made you join a startup?
• An Entrepreneur or the Family Person?

Useful Read

• How a restaurant menu is designed [typography]
• How to schedule your Gmail emails
• Why people hesitate/never quit
• How Tumblr’s David Karp built a £500 million empire
• HSBC Threatens a Techie, Sends Goons for Uploading a Hack Video
• 3 Numbers All Entrepreneurs Should Know!
• Who’s Your Customer?
• How iPhone was conceived
• Service Tax 101
• Where To Find Inspiration When The World Tells You To Give Up
• How a Business Team is Like a Tribe
• Missing the Wood for the trees – An awareness Test.

Join the super active Pluggd.in forum (login from your Facebook/Google account) – we will be announcing couple of new features/giveaways to the community starting next week and certainly aim to make Pluggd.n forum a very useful platform for entrepreneurs.

The company is betting on the fact that lower payment gateway charges will get more event managers to get online and start using the platform.

Here is an interview with Naidu Darapaneni, Founder of MeraEvents

Pluggd.in: In general, what has been your insight/market understanding before taking this step?

MeraEvents: We are seeing more than 200% growth YOY. The number of event are increasing very steadily. MeraEvents sees more than 1000+ new events added every month.  We know that MICE* Industry still not organized sector and not even 20% of the events are online now so we feel there is a huge scope for this industry to be online. As the convenience of buying tickets online increasing we are expected this industry would grow very rapidly. 

Based on our experience 5% is lot of cost for the Event Organizers from their ticket value. The penetration to online ticket sales are low due to this reason. We decided to reduce the price to more affordable way. Company might loose this additional 2.5% revenue but if the transaction volume increase it would benefit the industry a lot and in turn MeraEvents would be successful.

Pluggd.in: Are you getting specific discount from payment gateways? Still have a margin?

MeraEvents: As the volume of the transactions are increasing I am able to negotiate betters rates with payment gateways.  Right now we are passing the actual payment gateway cost directly to organizers but we still make some margin on CODs. The COD transactions also increasing, usually COD Transaction cost is half the payment gateway cost. As the volume increases we can able to negotiate better rates with payment gateways and it would leave some margin to us. Currently our primary revenue generation source is promotion of events, as more no.organizers are using the platform we expect to increase our promotional revenue. We would be charging Rs.1000 for event listing from now onwards and that amount would be waived off if they integrate our ticket widget code in their website. Combination of all above actions would increase our revenue as well as more more organizers would benefit from the system.

Pluggd.in: Future plans?

We are revamping our UI completely as more user-friendly. We would release our next version in next 2-3 months. We are in the process of Releasing iPhone App for MeraEvents and soon other Mobile versions too. We are enhancing the MoozUp – Event Networking Platform with more features and Mobile Apps. We are expanding Sales offices in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Chennai in next 3-6 months

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* MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions.

Will Ayojak and DoAttend follow?

LinkedIn launches localized hiring solutions for Indian market

Specifically for India, LinkedIn India is rolling out localized versions with India pricing for offerings like LinkedIn Recruiter, which will allow Indian recruiters to search and target profiles in India. The localised pricing is also an acknowledgment of the growing demand for customised solutions in the Indian market.

Microsoft acquires stake in 24/7, to harness the power of Big Data

Microsoft  and 24/7 Inc. have announced an agreement to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service for businesses. The agreement includes Microsoft merging its interactive self-service assets (clients, people and technologies) into 24/7 Inc. The agreement also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7 Inc. [source]

Video Conferencing Facilities find its way in State, Central Government

One of the State governments has procured video conference products for 450 schools for virtual class rooms or podcast. The Governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra are running a pilot for video conferencing facilities in the jails. In general, departments such as jails, courts and schools are switching over to video conferencing facilities. This is in addition to connecting district and State headquarters. [source]

Tulip Telecom and IBM Build India’s Largest Data Center

IBM has worked with Tulip Telecom Ltd. to design and help build the largest data center facility in India to deliver new cloud and networking services. IBM’s data center and SmartCloud infrastructure services will support Tulip in dramatically extending its existing offerings to quickly meet customer demand. Covering more than 900,000 square feet, and 20 Enterprise Modular Data Centers in a four tower building, the facility is engineered to support up to 100 megawatts of power, making it the third largest data center in the world.

Govt sets the ball rolling to lift the pause on multi-brand retail FDI

The government has decided to start afresh the process of consultation with states to build a consensus on allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail after it was forced to roll back a Cabinet decision by its own ally, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, in December 2011.

“All commerce and industry ministers from the four southern states will be invited for the meeting. The idea is to address the concerns of individual states on multi-brand retail FDI and also to listen to their ideas. We also need states’ support for setting up National Manufacturing Investment Zones (NMIZs). The Cabinet has already cleared the National Manufacturing Policy facilitating the setting up of such zones,” [source]

Well, wear a tie.

At least that’s what Mark Zuckerberg did in 2009.

From his timeline:

Wore a Tie for a Whole Year

–
Jan 1, 2009.

My 2009 challenge was to wear a tie for a whole year. After the start of the recession in 2008, I wanted to signal to everyone at Facebook that this was a serious year for us. Great companies thrive by investing more heavily while everyone else is cutting back during a recession. But great companies also make sure they’re financially strong and sustainable. My tie was the symbol of how serious and important a year this was, and I wore it every day to show this.

–

Brilliant, right?

Related Discussion: What do you wear to office and does it make a difference?

Apart from standard learning concept Skidos aims to impart broader skill sets which are essential for any / everyone and are at times not stressed upon in the school curriculum. These include creativity skills, hobbies, IQ, Entrepreneurship etc.

How Skidos works

Skidos platform can be categorized broadly into four sections:

1. Gaming: Once kid lands on the platform, he can select the section of his age group. With assistance of learning experts from NCERT, games has been designed which fit the requirement of particular age group.

2. Closed social network: Student can connect and communicate with peers and share his performance, activities and rewards. Communication is limited to educational information only.

3. Gratification: As student participates and learns, he is awarded with virtual medals depending upon his performance. Virtual medals can be redeemed for virtual rewards in this section which student can share with other students. As students of this age group like show-casing their accomplishments and belongings, these awards act as recognition amongst peers.

4. Report Card: Performance of a kid can be seen by parents and teachers in this section

Interview with the founding team:

PI: What made you start working on this idea and how long did it take to come up with a commercial offering?

A: Myself (Rajdeep) and Aditya, both alumnus of ISB Hyderabad have been gaming enthusiasts and wanted to build a venture into gaming. However, gaming is considered time wasting activity amongst parents and teachers. This made us think and come up with an idea into integrating gaming with academic curriculum.

We started working on project in Dec 2010, launched beta version in June 2011 and started selling in August 20011.

PI: How did you go about developing the content?

A: We involved kids and teachers. Topics to be taught and learning methodologies were contributed by teachers and subject matter experts.

Whereas, our design and creative team worked with kids of target age groups to come up with games which are engaging for the audience. e.g. we observed that boys are more excited about sports games whereas girls are more engaged with strategy games.

PI: How has been the response of customers especially teachers, parents and schools? How do you promote your product?

A: So far, response has been positive and parents / teachers are welcoming. Currently we have 6,000 registered users and 8 schools in Delhi region are using our offering.

In current curriculum, student has 2 computer classes every week (90 min). When we went to some of those computer classes, we found that there was nothing productive happening in these hours. So, we proposed schools to use our product in computer classes. This idea got support from the schools.

Sales is done to schools, which is challenging task due to involvement of multiple stake holders – teacher, principal board etc. etc. Each of these stakeholders has to be sold the benefits of our offering and this process takes months. We also do marketing on social media and internet to attract parents, however being startup in early stages have not spent on that front.

60% of registered users are from schools where we have sold the product and remaining are parents registering directly.

PI: What’s the revenue model?

A: We offer freemium and usage fee models. If user wants to use platform for free, ads are displayed else one can pay a monthly fee of Rs 199 student to experience ad free activities.

PI: How did you fund the venture and what is the current scale of operation?

A: We are a team of nine (including founders). It’s been funded by the founders so far. Operationally we have started making money but are yet to break even.

Our View: Initiative does serve a need which exists and is targeting the customers in the right fashion meeting needs of various stakeholders – parents, teachers, schools and students. Company also has done work in developing informative and engaging games.

Though, we do feel there can be improvement in UX especially navigation of the platform can be made simpler and intuitive. That will further help in attracting retail customers, who will not get training on how to use the product which might be the case in kids at school.

Do give Skidos a spin and share your opinion of the platform.

The one thing that you will often hear from fledgling startups to technology majors alike is the fact that it is rather difficult to hire good talent, especially good developers and designers. This has resulted in a competition to hire the best talent and companies are vying with each other to lure the best. It often takes months to fill a key position.

For startups, it can be extremely hard. It is not a problem of the lack of ‘qualified’ candidates for any given position. A job opening at any technology firm in India will have hundreds or even thousands of applicants. It is a problem of plenty. Moreover, with all résumés looking homogenous, it is a time consuming exercise to separate the wheat from the chaff. Our aversion to failure has ensured that applicants have mastered how to game the system and appear awfully talented and successful in their résumés.

I think it is time we recognize failure as a likely outcome of an ambitious project and encourage healthy risk-taking. The problem starts right from childhood. Parents often force their children to shun risk and opt for a safe choice when it comes to choosing a field of study or a university. In our universities, students are often encouraged to hedge their bets and opt for an easier project in lieu of an ambitious one. People are encouraged to opt for a conventional or a steady job upon graduation. Even those who are keen to work for a startup are advised to work for a mature or reputed startup and so on. Risk-taking is not encouraged at any stage.

The emphasis is on securing a future and in the bargain, many people are conditioned to take up structured, monotonous jobs with well-defined roles and a clear growth path. Of course, there is nothing wrong with people joining the workforce in the hope of a stable career. The problem arises when you want to hire people who can work in an unstructured environment, take on ambitious tasks and calculated risks and not worry too much about the possibility of a failure. This is where Silicon Valley, Israel and other hot beds of innovation have a huge edge over us. They embrace failure as much as they celebrate success. In fact, many VCs and technology companies prefer to work with people who have dealt with a failure and learned from it.

As I end this piece, I see more questions than answers and I am curious to know what others feel about this topic. Please leave your comments and thoughts below.

(The piece in no way suggests that there are no smart, talented folk with an entrepreneurial bent. The startups they have founded or they work for are indeed fortunate to have them. It only intends to suggest that they are very few in number and they are what they are despite the problems listed above.)

[Guest article contributed by Shashank P S. The author can be reached on twitter: @shashank_ps]

Recommended Read: Microsoft/FaceBook/Google from India?

Angel Investors - Where are thou?

What will increase the number of angel investors in India is simple – more people making big money (I can easily see another 15-20 employees of Flipkart, Snapdeal and InMobi becoming angel investors in 2-3 years) and specifically more entrepreneurs themselves having exists.

So if you are a HNI and are looking to help young entrepreneurs become successful, what else would make you an ideal angel investor that entrepreneurs seek out for money?

1. Relevant experience and knowledge of the space that entrepreneurs are looking to build companies in. This is the biggest value add you can provide, more than the money. If you have built a company in the same space, the value that you bring to the table is a lot more than any “dumb” money. In fact one could argue that your experiences are nearly worth twice the money you put into the startup.
2. Network and connections. Great angel investors don’t just write a check and disappear. Once you put your money in, there’s a responsibility to commit to the success of the company. The bevy of lawyers, accountants, bankers, marketers and other connections you have made in your career are worth their weight in gold. That’s an amazingly attractive incentive for any entrepreneur to rather take money from you than other investors.
3. Willingness to learn as much as you are willing to teach. Being an angel investor is more a lesson in learning than in teaching. I am pleasantly surprised with the insights I hear on hiring techniques, investor / board management and online marketing from young startup founders.
4. Ability to provide time and empathy during the tough times. Every startup goes through a sine-curve of emotions. In fact if you have been an entrepreneur you know the experience well. Besides requiring a flash report on sales, hiring plan, product strategy and other company related metrics, the angel investor has to be available to his entrepreneurs. This does not mean having to spend 10 hours a week on the startup, but being available for that call or having a cup of coffee with the entrepreneur when you have a moment helps go a long way.
5. Long range thinking. Angel investing is certainly not for the faint of heart. Market timing rarely works so most good investors I know invest the same amount every year for 5-10 years before they are able to spot patterns and obtain exits. The thrills of helping young entrepreneurs succeed though, more than makes up for the short term uncertainty.

Recommended Read:

• Give Confidence: The Best Thing An Advisor Can Do To Help An Entrepreneur
• The difference between visible and invisible elements of a startup ecosystem

A lower court in New Delhi told 22 social networking companies on Monday to put in writing the steps they had taken to block offensive content, and submit reports to the court within 15 days. It fixed the next date of hearing for March 1. The court in Rohini passed the order after the social networking Web sites asked for copies of CD’s which contained objectionable content and had been filed by the petitioner.

Facebook India on Monday filed its compliance report before the court. Google India also told the court that it has removed certain Web pages from the Internet on which objections were raised by the petitioners

[source]

Govt looks to PSUs for Aakash 2

The HRD ministry, which has developed prototype of Aakash, wants the public sector Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) to participate in the bid to supply Aakash 2 tablets from April this year.  What has prompted the government to look for public sector was inability shown by Datawind to supply Aakash 2 without cost escalation.

The new test specification proposed for Aakash 2 by Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan includes operation at -20 degrees, be water proof including heavy rains, and can with stand steep and sudden drops.

Our take: OLPC Founder’s Advice to Indian Government – “Make an inexpensive tablet, not a cheap one.”

IRCTC: SMS Can be Used as a Train Ticket

After announcing that Indian Railways will accept what it calls Virtual Reservation Message, which it defines as ‘a screen-shot of the e-ticket displayed through laptops/palmtops/ Mobile phone, IRCTC has now upped the ante and will now accept SMS equivalent to Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS).

So, please update your mobile number in IRCTC profile to receive SMS alerts for your ticket booking.

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