TossCard

With the rising Sun, blossoming flowers, energetic people, the day 1 of BarCamp Delhi 5 started with great enthusiasm. On the entrance itself one could sense excitement & eagerness among campers to meet new people. BarcCamp was organized at IIT- Delhi this time brings together the burgeoning entrepreneurs from all over the country. It gives people like us a platform to share, listen and learn about the new ideas, new happenings, upcoming technologies, business models and what not.

The day started a bit late, but came on track after some volunteers paced up with their respective work. As the day progressed I realized that it was not just an event organized by few and attended by few, rather it was to be coordinated by the people present there at that moment of time. Each one of us was equally responsible for the things going on there…. so to blame about anything was to blame yourself. Best thing about BarCamps is that it’s so informal, a un-conference and exceedingly interactive unlike other startup events in Silicon Valley.

Everybody seemed to be very excited about the event and their gestures said it all. It had a diversified list of participants starting from great successful entrepreneurs like Bhavin Turakhia, founder Directi, Pankaj Jain of Teknatus Solutions, Fabian Rodriguez from Ubuntu, to school going kiddies like Prateek and Pratul from DPS, Delhi.
Many sessions were queued on the first day going simultaneously in three different rooms. Choosing one was a difficult task. We being three had the luxury of splitting up, Divya and Ankit attended other sessions while I attended Bhaven’s talk on scalability. Some of first time campers did not appreciate this as they had to miss others for one.
Varied topics were discussed including but not limited to technology, financial crisis, how to be a successful entrepreneur, challenges faced while establishing a startup, logo design, personal good/bad experiences in a startup. All the sessions were extremely knowledgeable and one could relate them to their own experiences.

Amarsh’s tech talk on J2ME, iPhone, Andriod was a good session for those working on mobile phone applications though he did portray a very gloomy picture about Java for mobiles. But overall it was good brain storming session that saw clashes of ideas, discussion on problems being faced during mobile applications development.
Bhavin’s session was the only session about core technology stuff. The way he explained about scalability issues and how you go after it was simple yet effective.
Pankaj explained about how the ongoing financial crisis set in and what could be its affects on Indian economy. The simple explanation which he gave for sub-prime crisis was understood well and appreciated by all. Going by the spirit of BarCamps it was extended well over an hour coz campers wished so.
Apart from above sessions, Piyush initiated a talk on “Entrepreneurs & Marriages”. It was great fun to be a part of that discussion. It was about troubles faced by an entrepreneur getting married and how difficult it’s for them to ‘settle down’.

Intrestingly BarCamp Delhi 5 was the biggest ever BarCamp in the history of BarCamps in India. First day attendence was well over 450. Though we did not go ahead with our product demo still attending my first BarCAmp was an amazing experience and looking forward to the next BarCamp…..BarCamp ROCKSSSSSSS….

Delhi’s fifth BarCamp happens this coming 11th and 12th October at IIT-Delhi. I am really excited to meet a number of campers who I know only through online presence or met them at recent proto.in or previous BarCamp. Attendee list is already 200 strong and am sure will cross the 400 mark by 11th morning.

Here at TossCard we are all working in full swing for our tentative product demo in BCD5. And because of this all our hands our working on our product and our site is not even up yet. But do not worry guys site is under construction and will be certainly up before BCD5. I am not so sure about our demo though. “tussi great ho” our devoted blog fan is going to be disheartened on hearing this.

This is going to be my second time at BarCamp Delhi and that too after almost two years. BCD has grown and for that matter Barcamps in India have grown from small techie meet-ups to large scale two day events attended by more than 400 people from very diverse domains. Events like these are going a great way in adding to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and bringing awareness in India about it. I first participated in BarCamp when I was fresh out of college and still with T6 at IIT Delhi. Now I am surprised to see number of students, young wannabe entrepreneurs registering on BDC5 attendee list.

For this awareness some credit needs to go to number of business plan competitions that has come up recently. I know they don’t mean much to startups who are already racing against time to reach market but as a student these provide a great platform for learning and exposure. One such event currently open is IIT Bombay‘s Eureka. What I found very interesting about Eureka is their separate category for clean-tech. This category will honor winners related to reduction in wastage of resources and enabling economic and balanced use of natural resources. In this tenth edition of the event they have increased the prize money to the total of 25 lacs with a chance to participate in MIT’s similar contest touted as world’s biggest B-Plan contest. Interestingly Eureka is being pitched as Asia’s largest B-Plan contest. Last date for submission was 4^th but it has been extended till 6^th midnight. I am sure they are going to break all records of registrations this year.

For companies which have grown little old for B-Plan contests like Eureka, there is for the first time NEN-TATA’s hottest startup contest. The nomination period is open till October 22, 2008. Companies nominated could be voted through SMS or by logging on to their site. Personally I don’t like the idea of you being voted by SMS like Indian celebrity dance competitions. There are three reasons for it; some one is making money through votes; why should a voter pay for voting? And third, most of the votes for a startup would be by friends, family and other known people of the startup team.

Initially we thought of participating in both these events but considering the time required, we decided to take part in just on of them.

A very interesting session on entrepreneurship was organized here at BITS Pilani few days back. And we three took out some time from our demanding schedule to attend it.

The speaker was an entrepreneur, innovator with great leadership qualities and awesome expertise in his field. He was Mr. P. K. Padhi, the founder/CEO of Global Entrepreneurship Development. He has more than 20yrs of experience in mentoring & fostering startups to self-financing companies, inspiring leadership in a multi-cultural environment, coaching outstanding communication & interpersonal skills. He has traveled to many countries and has established reputable relations with many corporations. He has M.S degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is alumnus of Wharton School of business and a Kellogg Executive Scholar.

The discussion started with how one can unlock the real potential of their innovative ideas through entrepreneurial skills and how one should go about writing a business plan. He emphasized on the importance of love and the determination to start a company. If it’s not there, then how hard you try, you will probably never achieve something. Mr. Padhi’s whole session revolved around Google story. How they started not to earn money but to solve a big problem that existed. I was not surprised to find most audience already aware with how Google started? How they got the name “Google”? & other famous stories about Google. He laid emphasis on the need to be passionate, dedicated towards your work and must have full confidence in yourself and your teammates. True devotion, high spirits are the key to success. Nothing but the confidence to reach the great heights will fetch us our world. And a true entrepreneur is one who is passionate about creating, growing and nurturing his/her startup, come what may.

He made it very clear that team is the most important aspect of any startup. It’s not all about one person. It’s about all the people working for the idea. It’s about the TEAM. It’s about the team spirit. It’s the team work, which finally leads to the path of victory. When people work for a startup, they don’t have any hierarchy. Everybody is equally responsible for everything that happens.

In startups, people are not hired. Actually without any funds, it’s impossible. So the best solution is to make them be a part of their team. I think, most of us will disagree with this. And yes, even I disagree. As every startup want to have experienced people when they think of expanding their team. And there are very few people who want to be a part of this, as among thousands of new companies, only a handful sees the success. So it’s pretty clear, nobody would like to work without handsome amount of salary.

Mr. Padhi, is a dynamic & vibrant speaker. He has that the influence to make the audience actually listen to him and not just hear him. He makes you feel that you are full of talents, extreme potentials, passion, and wisdom to make your dreams come true. He says, every individual have some unique, extraordinary qualities over other.

Throughout the session his emphasis was on soft skills and I totally agree with him on this. Talking about this in universities is the best thing that can be done for the upcoming entrepreneurs of this generation in India.

According to him, if you have an idea, and you know how to present it, then getting investment becomes a lot easier. VCs will only invest in a startup only when they are assured that the risk rate is very low (almost negligible). Sometimes a very good idea, with great revenue potential fails to get funding & mentoring, just because they lacked in putting up the idea in front of their investors. So that’s where the soft skills help you.

Most people suggesting you how to write your business plan give you a five, seven or ten points to focus on in your executive summary. Mr. Padhi advocated the ten point format. He talked about importance of team and I agreed with him when he said it is even important than your idea. But building that team is the toughest job. To build up a dream team, he advocated the use of OPM (Other People’s Money) , OPK (Other People’s Knowledge) and OPE (Other People’s Effort).

But on being asked, how to procure that OPM, he remained silent.

Mr. Padhi’s goal was to promote entrepreneurial thinking among the students so that they contribute as great business leaders in all spheres of global innovations. Some of the points he made are very often overlooked by startup guys like and us and so we found the talk very interesting as well.

The talk session was a kind of free two hours mentoring. ..:)… It made audience list down their weak areas, things at which we they lack. And let me tell you, people who missed it, really missed something worthwhile.

Off late India has seen a lot many start-ups in varied domains than in the past. My neighbors here at T.B.I are a consultancy on carbon credits and had clients even before they incorporated! So time is changing and new startups are coming up in all the sectors. But I think, people like Mr. Padhi (and other Indians from Silicon Valley) doesn’t realize, that things they tell are relevant in the American ecosystem but doesn’t necessarily apply in India. Start-ups in US thrive on innovation, risk taking ability, idea level funding and numerous other channels through which the things work out there. Things are a lot more different here. There is hardly any idea level funding here. Investors don’t like putting there money in startup which does not have a proven market or which are not already in market.

I bet, you can still get investment more easily for another air, bus or even three wheeler travel company in India then for a startup developing a new cutting edge technology that makes lives easier for people but doesn’t have a proven market.

After working from our living rooms and few temporary locations, we moved into our new office yesterday here at BITS-Pilani. Choosing BITS was an effortless decision for several reasons … which I’ll tell you in near future.

Before I talk about anything serious, let me tell you the recent funny things or you can call happppennnnningsssssssss , at our office. To get the Almighty’s everlasting blessings, we choose an auspicious day to begin our new journey. As per our customs, we started with breaking a nariyal (coconut) at the door step, which unfortunately took us more than the usual time. It was so much fun. We gave Mayank this venerated job but he didn’t prove up to the task. To be honest none of us did in first shot. But after, quite a few attempts by Rahul, Divya, Mayank and I, the ice started melting, and we managed to break it. It was an experience in itself, we trying hard to break it, but that little nut made us go nuts, it just won’t break :-( . 

We were sure Mayank would do it or were we?

Next came Divya and this time we were sure, it’s not her cup of tea!!

Next came my turn and I thought, "Let’s give others another chance". :-)

Finally we did it. :)

Another new development was registering our WWW identity, tosscard.com. Today I spent several hours creating email ids for the team members and making this blog go live. Yeaaaahhh I did it and here I am writing our first post. But before I carry on talking about ourselves, let me tell you who we are? & what we do?

We are a startup called TossCard based at TBI @ BITS-Pilani and we came into existence to kill. We are really trying hard to kill…….to kill.. “Business/ Visiting Cards”. Yes you got that right! We are determined to see an end of paper business cards, hassles of stacking them, tagging them, searching for contacts in drawer full of cards. And when you finally manage to nail the contact you were looking for, you find out the information is obsolete. A lot has changed in the way we meet and network with people today but these cards have seen little change.

For past few months we studied very closely how people exchange visiting cards and the problems they face. For instance, at Proto.in in July this year and saw people coming with stack of cards and yet complaining at the end of the day that they are running short of them. I alone had received more than fifty cards before the day was over and later it took me one hour, to go through each of them and tag them accordingly.

TossCard Team with friends at proto.in @ IITD.

Some cards were just useless for me while some were very important and needed to followed-up, so I wrote appropriately on the back of each card. There exist few hardware solutions in form of card scanners but they are not of much use. After returning from a BarCamp in Delhi last year I had tried one and it didn’t make my job any easier.

So we have a big problem at our hands (quite literally) and we have the solution for that which is going to be available in market soon. I know what you are thinking? What is the solution and how is it going to make this easier. That you will find out soon! And believe me it’s as intuitive and easy as a handshake.