February 3rd, Core Objects..

This weeks OCC meet was at Core Objects, Basavnagudi.

We bunch of Unconventi’es started out by trying to chalk out a theme, and just then we identified we had a lawyer on board.
So, Sharda Balaji ,Cofounder and director NovoJuris, touched upon a few ‘legal’ aspects that need to be taken care of.
To begin with, there are some legal key issues that “start ups” often tend to ignore. These are:

Why shell out the money right away when things can wait?

The start ups are always unwilling to shell out money, for the simple reason being they want to keep the costs low. It is very difficult to hire a good lawyer or legal consultant, and the entrepreneurs often have reservations about every penny, they think can be saved. So they try to do all the running around themselves. Right from getting the venture registered, to getting the Pan card ,the current account .While if they were to seek some professional legal advice, they could devote more energy towards working on the Idea, rather than setting up everything in place.(The work-Environment)
What entrepreneurs fail to realise is that time lost is not money lost alone, but is like losing the ‘Zen’ or the energy.

Trapped!

When entrepreneurs seek out angel funding or venture capital, or partnerships, they are more focused towards hitting the deal, so they often end up overlooking the catches, which a law firm professional would analyse from strategic perspectives.
The truth is that a Start up needs a legal advice or consulting right from the day when the registration is done, to its entire process of emanating.
Hence one should avoid doing all the juggling by one self and should definitely not overlook this aspect, so as to avoid future liabilities and setbacks.

Having said that we moved to the “Clinical Session”. This session is ideally for anyone who is “In” for an idea and is thinking to hit the road very soon, or has already hit it.

We discuss the painpoints , say from challenges in Marketing and advertising , to risk Management, to Customer discoverability, and surprisingly the loopholes in the Idea Itself!
For eg, we had a Idea on “Retail Management”, and this followed a good amount of brainstorming.

If you have an Idea, you have to groom it. Putting on different Hats, because you were the one who thought about it in the first place, so most probably , your Business Model will be overly Optimistic. But that‘s now how things work in a real domain. You will always have competition, and because they have hit the market before you, they will always have an advantage, unless you have identified that there are some gaps or solutions that your Idea can fill, which is what prompts the customer to come to you.

We had Sameerkanth, from NEN, who talked about different aspects of entrepreneurship, and how NEN is different from TIE and Pan India.
We then talked about the challenges and what is the vision of NEN. Noteworthy here is the fact that NEN is a Not for Profit Organisation, which is managed by the Wadwa Foundation.

We also had a reporter from Mint with us, Namitha, who writes on Venture capitalists, and she brought out some important points, as to why Start ups are not covered so well in and why Venture capitalists get an upper hand.
What everyone admired was the fact that she said “I would love to cover a story of a start up fighting against all odds, rather than a story which all journalists pen down in tomorrow’s newspaper.’
Now that was it, leave alone the fact that she was young (Read, Unconventional), but what was interesting here is, that we have never commercialized OCC, as the name says, “Open”, is the key.
So, interesting here is that, in spite of not having Branded OCC to this extent, she was there, not to report the event, but to know, what actually goes behind ‘Making It’,
Now this speaks volume about OCC and its image in general.

Towards the end we wrapped up the day with, a pledge, to support and promote Entrepreneurship.

All in all, just the place to look out for every Alternate Sundays.

See you there!
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!