StartupTalky

Tag: entrepreneurs

  • Grow as an Entrepreneur in the College for Successful Future

    To become a successful entrepreneur, one needs to dedicate time and energy to a business venture. Starting working on business gives a lot of time to know the in and out of business. But it takes willpower to start a business at any age as starting your first business while still in school is quite challenging. Balancing schoolwork and the entrepreneurial dream are often troublesome for students. But if you follow the right steps, starting a business in college can be easier.

    If you want to grow as an entrepreneur while in college, one needs to take appropriate steps. In college, an aspiring entrepreneur can learn the tactics and develop their network. You will have an opportunity to interact with all kinds of entrepreneurs and professionals in the market while in college, which helps you guide on how to start business in college and the journey forward.

    The world’s biggest names share more than just a few enviable accomplishments. Be it Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin or Bill Gates. They all are billionaires who they made their fortune in the technology industry, as an entrepreneur in college when they started their business. They are living proof that you don’t need to be a graduate to start your own business.

    But if you’re contemplating on becoming an entrepreneur in college, then you should have a plan. Like any other venture you undertake, planning is a must. Research is the key to a successful planning. So, here are some tips on how to start successful entrepreneurial journey.

    7 Tips to Start Your Business in College

    7 Tips to Start Your Business in College

    More than 80% of students interested in starting their own business do not have the experience or the knowledge to do so. If you think of joining entrepreneurship classes, they teach an orthodox lesson “make it work the first time or it’s not for you”. Contest and classes generate a feeling that the first venture of the students is the one and only chance to prove themselves as an entrepreneur. Instead, they should teach to plan, apply, fail and repeat the process again until they get success. To be an entrepreneur in college is a tough journey but it is a matter of time which will be fruitful as per your hard work.

    Pay Attention

    When still in college pay attention as well as make the most of your time with your educators. While colleges have the duty to connect students to mentors, offer real-life experiences and send employable graduates into the workforce, students have the duty of making sure that they get the most out of their college investment as after college these mentors or experts are called consultants and will charge for the same information.

    Assess and Weigh Your Own Abilities & Disabilities

    Don’t rely solely on the entrepreneurship classes make your own evaluation regarding your skills knowledge and the goals you want to achieve. Rather than relying primarily on classes or in-house competition good entrepreneurship programs give leverage to local entrepreneurship communities for an internship, workshop and speaker events. The more you will know about your abilities and disabilities the better you’ll be able to maneuver yourself.

    30 No Investment / Low Investment Business You Can Start in 2020
    It’s true that many of us are not happy with a 9 to 5 job and more interested tohustle and develop a business which can assure a high return on a long-termbasis. Whereas, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to start a business from scratchand make it an empire. However, if you have the will and enthus…
    StartupTalkyChayanika Goswami

    Find Business Ideas That Suit You

    Research the market thoroughly for the business idea which will suit you best. Your idea doesn’t have to be a million dollar idea to start with. Let’s say it’s an application which links the customer’s credit card and allows them to get grilled pizza delivered to their hotel rooms or paying guest accommodation with the click of a button.

    Test Your Idea

    The main mistake that new entrepreneurs make is putting a lot of time and money into ideas that are bound to fail. One of the reasons this happens with entrepreneurs is because they work and exist in isolation once they set up their businesses. Favorably you are still in college, surrounded by smart people whom you could ask for suggestions. If your business idea is fairly inexpensive you can make a rough scaled down version of it and test it out. Say in the case of the grilled pizza app, you can hang flyers and hand out the telephone number and see if somebody calls.

    Research Your Competitors

    Have knowledge of your competitors. You can add features to your product or services that your competitors do not have. This way you will get more leverage for your product or service. This is the strategy that is generally used by any competitor company.

    Search for a Suitable Mentor

    One of the most important and valuable assets an entrepreneur can have at any given age is a business mentor. A business mentor is a person who has functional knowledge and who is ready to offer his/her advice, guidance and support to run your business and help speed up your success.

    Use your Status as a Student for Leverage

    Finally, use your status as a student who is starting something cool to get tons of leverage and publicity. Start out by approaching your local radio station and newspaper. You can use the internet also in many ways for your promotion.

    Best ways to find Business Ideas
    It’s easy for some people to come up with an idea but difficult for others.Generating a new idea is subjective to many things and circumstances, but it allgenerally depends on how an individual reacts. Human being often struggles tofind motivation and inspiration, be it to formulate goals or obj…
    StartupTalkyAshwini

    FAQs

    What business can a college student start?

    You can start a business of anything from sales & marketing copy, SEO content, essay writing, academic papers, or even simple proofreading.

    How can I start my own business with no money?

    Choose a small business idea with low startup costs. If you still don’t have enough money, you can finance your business idea through crowdfunding or investors.

    How to start a college business?

    Six steps to launching and growing a profitable business before you graduate college:

    • Step 1: Create a customer base
    • Step 2: Build an inexpensive prototype
    • Step 3: Create a simple one-page website
    • Step 4: Find your audience and get in front of it
    • Step 5: Keep your audience engaged

    What are the most successful small businesses?

    list of most profitable small businesses

    10 Best Tips for Building an Amazing Freelance Portfolio
    There can be a thousand reasons why you would want to make an impressive portfolio. You might be looking for a job, an internship or simply you want toupdate it to include all of your latest projects. No matter what your purpose isit is too important to build your freelance portfolio to land high…
    StartupTalkyPiyush Mishra

  • Brand Positioning Strategies for Business | How to Make Customers Loyal?

    This is the 21st century. You cannot expect a good profit unless customers think about you. Although there is nothing like negative marketing, you still have to make people think about you. It can be anything. They just have to think about your brand. And all this comes under the term “brand positioning”.

    Brand positioning refers to the reason for people buying your product. Or how your brand is different from your competitors. 89% of B2B marketers say brand awareness and positioning is the most important goal, followed by sales and lead generation. To describe brand positioning, let’s look at some examples. Patanjali is known for organic products, even though they are literally in every product line. Mercedez is known for its class and luxury whereas BMW has its power and performance. If you think brand positioning is important for your brand, then these are some ideas to position your brand in the market.

    Reason for Brand positioning
    Things To Remember For Brand Positioning
    5 Ways to Get Your Customers to Actively Promote Your Brand
    How to Make Customers Loyal to Your Brand

    Reason for Brand positioning

    • Strengthens the positions of the brand.
    • Helps to specific target method.
    • Helps in making creating decisions more effective.
    • Targets a specific market.
    • Creates a well market differentiation.

    Things To Remember For Brand Positioning

    Uniqueness

    To position your brand in the market, make sure you have something unique to deliver. If you are doing the same thing as everyone is doing, then you will be just “another” brand in the market. You don’t want to be that “another” brand in the market, you have to be that “wow” brand in the market. Even though you are not selling something new, add something which will make it unique. If there is nothing unique in your product, then you can make people think it is unique, like just give it a unique look. Remember that people should need your “unique” feature. Because no one needed a juicer which runs while connected to wi-fi. Millions were spent on marketing and launching this juicer. But the investors faced a very big loss. So, don’t solve the problems which are not there.

    Brand strategy

    Brand Strategy
    Brand Strategy

    The brand strategy or the tagline you use for your product should be relevant to your product. If the customer has your tagline in his/her head but doesn’t remember your brand, then how can they even buy your product.

    Make It Clear

    Your slogan or tagline should always be clear and easy to understand. If the customers had to think too much to understand your brand, then there is a strong possibility that they are going for another brand, even for that brand which has no slogan at all. Just make it easy to understand, thinking that all your customers are stupid.

    Differentiable

    Point out the difference between your brand and the competitor’s one. Your customer should be able to make his/her decision quickly. They should not need to do a deep research to decide the brand they want. Focus on your selected category, and of course, your strength.

    It Should Be Recognizable

    You have to make your brand recognizable. Create an amazing logo. Add awesome features to your product which scream for attention. People should quickly remind of your slogan and your advertisement as soon as they see your logo anywhere. Make people think of your brand again and again.

    Create A Buzz

    Create an advertisement which can be controversial. Not in a negative way, but something like funny or which can touch people’s emotions. Just make sure people talk about it. Giant companies do not advertise to show their product, but all they want is to create a buzz among people. It is strongly possible that Patanjali’s messenger app, “Kimbho” was launched just to create a buzz. When people talk about a brand, they get attracted to that brand. For instance, imagine you go to the market to buy a chocolate, in the days when “kimbho” messenger launched.

    You might ask for Patanjali’s chocolate. Why? Because you want to talk about that buzz. You will subconsciously try to show off your general knowledge and your humor. Be Updated Keep analyzing the new trends on social media. Create something which is very popular among millennials. It is more or less similar to creating buzz. As of these days, you can focus on creating memes. Try to make it funny, because if you can make them smile, you can make them buy.

    How to get Media’s Attention Towards your Startup?
    Media runs the world. They can make someone billionaire, declare someone dead,make you believe in fake news, etc. No matter how much you hate or love media,it becomes the same for everyone when it comes to business. Many media houses might be so negative, but they still are important for everyb…
    StartupTalkyParnas Ghosh

    Don’t Be Creepy

    Being funny does not mean you make fun of your customers. If anything makes your brand creepy, customers may talk about you a lot, but will never come to you. The following image says it all.

    Re-frame The Market

    Use the brand to re-frame the market to what it actually looks like , by being creative and solving a problem which the product  is not fulfilling. This will give the product more visibility than the other products, making it more on the shelves or  more on the talks.

    5 Ways to Get Your Customers to Actively Promote Your Brand

    Entrepreneurs are fanatical with their creation. They time and again set out new goals for themselves and then make sure that those are achieved. In the start-up arena, there are some doctrine principles which are responsible for the overall success. Entrepreneurs today understand the value of their brand. Entrepreneurs are perusing something called as branding strategy, which till now was completely neglected. Companies today are spending with deep pockets on marketing, advertising, public relations and more. The best way to promote your brand is to let your customers do it for you – and the only way to do that is by addressing the pain points of the customer by giving them a practical solution to their pain points. Once this is done by anyone, the customer will go on his rooftop and do nothing but will shout your name.

    Differentiate your brand

    Anyone and everyone want his or her brand to be different and stand out. Brands say that they want to be different and distinctive in the eyes of their customers, but in reality, the brands just want to align themselves with their competition. To differentiate from others, the enterprise can depict themselves as an enterprise away from its competition or rival. Over a period of time, if the same continues combined with disciplined efforts, the brand can be marked different. Standing out from the competition is not making them enemies. But, with persistence, the consumer can make out the difference noticeable.

    Focus on loyalty

    A customer or a consumer telling about you to someone is in the Last leg of his experience. It starts with brand familiarity coupled with loyalty. The sky-scraping cost of bringing in fresh business compared to retaining existing clients is unquestionable. Increasing the customer retention can extensively heighten the profit bar. Customer loyalty schemes are an effective way to improve your customer retention levels. If you want to build a loyal clientele – the trick is simple, keep the customer satisfied. Apart from that, the customer needs to be rewarded. A loyalty scheme can be used to incentivise and delight the customers.

    Create a community

    Build Community - Brand Positioning
    Build Community – Brand Positioning

    Having a customer community built offers the customers a hub to interact and support one another. Customer communities are platforms for customers to unreservedly exchange opinion, reactions and pose questions about products and services. A highly busy customer community helps to improve customer retention and encourage acts of advocating. These customers community acts as a news source about products and company and a place to gather tips from the users. Customer communities also breed ideas to improve products or services. Giving the customers a say on a product or service gives them a deeper connection with the company. These days the community can be online. This increases preservation rate and overall profitability.

    Incorporate Feedbacks

    Getting and generating feedback from clients is the most important thing for a business builder. It helps the company at all levels of brand building and management.  It helps in knowing the existing position of the business in the market and also helps in the future prospects of the business. Feedback helps clients and entrepreneurs to communicate with each other. Most of the feedback is to draw the data about the sales, performance, drawbacks about products and services. Owing to thriving technology and internet, the importance of feedback has been highly soared. Internet has become the principal instrument for promoting business and branding. It plays a pivotal role in reaching to the mass and endorsing products beyond the international boundaries.

    Make it easy to be an evangelist

    Consumers have a hell lot of things to do. The last thing they would do is to be an evangelist. Even if they become, they won’t go out of their way to evangelize or promote your brand. So it has to be an easy task for them to do it. The easiest way to promote evangelist is to give as many as opportunities. The same can be done with contests, discussion opportunities on the social media channels of the brand.  The participant has to be rewarded in some or the other way.

    These tips are not the only way to make the customers work for you. But these tips will equip your startup by starting the community of brand evangelists. Also, it is important to understand that every customer you make cannot be your brand evangelist. However, with efforts in the right direction, a community of brand evangelists is certainly to make a huge difference and would be certainly effective on the profitability.

    How Big Data Is Transforming Sales And Marketing
    Big data is a field that is used to analyze a large amount of data of a companythat can not be analyzed with traditional computing or software. It thecollection of data of a company. Let us take an example to understand the wholescenario of Big Data. We are using our smartphones in our daily lif…
    StartupTalkyAvinash kumar mahato

    How to Make Customers Loyal to Your Brand

    The soul of every business is their customers. Your customers can make you or break you. Even though the inflow and outflow of the customers are the basis of business but having loyal customers is also essential. Loyal customers are the reason a business or a brand becomes what it is. So, here are a few small but highly impactful ways in which you can make customers loyal to your brand.

    Making personal relations

    Treating your customers like your family is the way to get them to like you and your services. Getting to know your customer will give you an idea about their likes and dislikes which will eventually help you in serving them better. It has been found in a recent study that the customer remembers the first and the last part of your conversation. So it is very important for you to strike a conversation on a happy cheerful note and also end it in a happy goodbye. Send them greetings on their special days. Or if you find out anything they like, mail it to them. This will only take a little effort on your side but will have a big impact on your customer.

    Know your customer

    If you have a blog or a site or any other social media account of your business, make a note of what kind of customers does your business or brand attract. Get to know about their likes and dislikes and then post content on your sites according to that. If you are a beauty brand, posting easy tutorials and looks with your products can be good. Similarly, if you are a clothing brand, styling tips etc. can be done. Also keep posting about the various offers so that your customers are not left uninformed. Also, communicate with the customer in a way they prefer. If your customer wants to communicate through email do it. If they prefer social media attend to their queries there. Keep all your options open.

    Invest in your customer

    Invest in your Customer
    Invest in your Customer

    If you have a regular customer that visits you or uses your services, try knowing theirs likes and dislikes. Research about them and then do things that they least expect like send them small gifts as a thank you for their loyalty. Or give them a free upgrade if you have a customer upgrade program. You could even give them small goodies or small things like hand written notes with every purchase. This will not only make your customer fond of you but this will also help you gain more customers. If you do not want to invest in giving them anything, you can always provide your customers with special services like the first preview to your latest collection, or bend some of your policies for them if they have a genuine issue.

    Take customer advice and feedback seriously

    Feedback -Brand Positioning
    Feedback – Brand Positioning

    It is very important to take customer feedback on your services. But it is even more important to implement those feedback in improving your services. Also, having a FAQs section on your websites or blogs where customers can resolve their queries and give you feedback is very helpful.  If you have employees who take care of the customers, ask them to be on proper behavior and solve customer issues without creating any problems.

    Maintain quality

    The most important part of keeping your customers loyal is maintaining the quality of your product. Many companies sell good quality products at the start of their business and then degradation the quality to earn profits. This only helps in making short term profits. Because your customer keeps leaving you and in the end, you have no customer to earn profits. So it is very important to maintain the quality of your product throughout so that people want to buy it again and again.

    Conclusion

    These were some roads to brand positioning. You can use some of them, or all of them, it depends on your business. Digital marketing is the ultimate tool for brand positioning. Although, these were some ideas from our side, you can also comment on your one below. And also, keep exploring new ways to position your brand. Brand positioning helps you to reach the potential customer. And also remember, being at number 2 is not very bad. But, keep trying to come in 1st position. If there is too much competition in the category of your product, then create your own subcategory and position your brand.

    With these little changes in your public dealing methods, you will have a strong loyal customer base in no time. If you know any hack to make customers loyal to your brand please comment down below!

    FAQs

    What is customer loyalty?

    Customer loyalty is the act of choosing one company’s products and services consistently over their competitors. When a customer is loyal to one company, they aren’t easily swayed by price or availability.

    Why is customer loyalty important?

    Loyalty can stem from many things, but in general, a loyal customer will associate favourable experiences with a brand, therefore, increasing their likelihood to make repeat purchases with that business. Loyal customers spend 67% more on products and services than new customers.

    How to gain customer loyalty?

    Ways to Increase Customer Loyalty

    • Make customer service a priority
    • Reward your customers
    • Ask for advice and listen to it
    • Offer conveniences
    • Don’t just ask for money

    How to maintain customer loyalty?

    • Provide outstanding customer service
    • Reward customers with special offers and discounts
    • Leverage user-generated content (UGC)
    • Create a unique customer loyalty program
    • Know your customers
    • Create a sense of community

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    StartupTalkyShubham Kumar

  • Common Problems Entrepreneurs Face and The Truth About Startup Life

    Everyone knows that being an entrepreneur is not easy. But, everyone thinks of becoming one with their “One in a million” idea. Everyone thinks that “this is something no one has ever done”. Everyone has a unique business idea, but there are very, very few people who really give it a try. It doesn’t matter that they achieve success or not, at least they are trying.

    As you are reading this post, I am assuming you are serious about being an entrepreneur. So, here are some problems you will face in your entrepreneurial journey and some truth about startup life.

    Problems Faced By Entrepreneurs
    Brutal Truths About Startup Life

    Problems Faced By Entrepreneurs

    Getting First 10 Clients

    This may seem easy to start, but when you do it, you face many unpredicted things. And one of the main things is getting the first 10 clients for your company. You can’t just rely on advertisements. Advertisements may work, but unless people talk about you, it will never work. And to make people talk, you need a real customer. You need someone who uses your product or service.

    To get your first 10 clients, talk about your startup with people you know. They could be anyone, your friends, your neighbors, or your colleagues. Let everyone know what your product or service is. Do not be introverted while talking about your startup. Startups are not a shame, they are pride.

    Marketing

    Getting the first 10 clients is not enough. It is not written anywhere that once you got some customers, they will market your product. You have to put in effort to market your product. And believe me, you will have to go through each and every kind of marketing process if you don’t have tons of money lying around. You will have to bargain for pamphlet printing, bargain with vendors, tell people about your product or service on roads, and literally everything.

    Startup Marketing
    Startup Marketing

    You will feel uncomfortable, but it will totally worth it. Some people think marketing is only limited to online marketing or creating ads. But marketing is a very vast process than you think. And as an entrepreneur, you will have to map all the roads of marketing.

    Lack Of Experience

    It is much easier for a salesperson to go and acquire customers, but not for others. You will need each and every type of knowledge and experience to really stand a chance to succeed. Try doing as many jobs as possible. Or you can also go for internships. It can be any job. On-field Marketing job is the best as they will make you uncomfortable. And once you are comfortable with being uncomfortable, you are full of “you”.

    If you are going to have a tech startup, it is still advisable to gain some experience first. Gaining experience not only increase your knowledge, but it also increases your network. You cannot really tell that your old school or college friend will buy your product, but your office mate might buy it as they are more mature.

    How to Overcome 8 Most Common Challenges as a Freelancer
    When talking of the freelancing scenario in the country, it is widely estimatedthat by the year 2025, the ‘freelancers’ market of India will grow to whopping$20-30 billion. Another amazing fact? Nearly 23% of these Indian freelancershave annual earnings of ₹60 lakh and lie under the age of 40. W…
    StartupTalkyNiku Mandal

    Finding A Business Partner

    “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

    This quote is totally indeed. When you have a partner, and they say “we should do this instead of your plan”, it really sucks. You might think “Man! It was my idea. I’ll do whatever I like”. But believe me, partners are important. However, you cannot go on the streets and ask someone “will you be my business partner.”

    That is why it is very tough to get a business partner. You might have a big friend circle, but not all of them are interested in entrepreneurship. You have to find someone who is as passionate as you are about your business idea. Although there are many websites which let you find your business partner but believe me, they are not worth it.

    You can’t partner with someone you don’t have any emotional relationship with. You may partner with your best friend, they even may like your idea too much. Just make sure they don’t leave you in the middle of anywhere. Many people think they are passionate about entrepreneurship, but internally, they just want money. You can’t be an entrepreneur if you always think about money. So chose your business partner wisely.

    Facing The Awkwardness

    Yes, it is true. There will be many times when you will feel awkward because of your business. It can be anywhere. Like, at a party, someone asks you about your startup which is in its initial stage and not making any profit from months, people will say “get a life man”. You have to understand that they are saying “9 to 5 sucks but we make better money than you”. It is true, but not for a very long time.

    Not everyone understands that great things take time to build. Everyone wants quick results. You may also feel awkward to pitch your product in front of rich and successful people. But you have to understand, once they were also a “nerd with funny dreams”. So, be confident, and don’t stress if you couldn’t make it.

    Brutal Truths About Startup Life

    The Depression

    This is one of the most brutal truths about startup life. You have to face so much depression. Mostly as it is a very time consuming profession which will lead you to lose time spent with friends and family. It can be very alienating at times as your top priority will be only on your startup idea. So, you will need to find proper ways to have a work life balance to ensure you don’t slip into a depression. Read, play or do anything you like and smile more.

    Getting Backstabbed

    Not once, not twice but many, many times you will be backstabbed by your own people. You literally can’t totally count on anyone. There is no guarantee that your partner will never pull his hands back from his responsibilities or even abandon the startup. Or, your friend who told you to provide raw materials on the debt will never file a complaint on you. You really can’t trust anyone.

    This is a startup, this is everything about money. Everyone who is with you in this, are there just for money. And if it will take time to show a profit in the balance sheet, everyone will get frustrated. So, they will see you as their enemy. They can do anything to create problems for you. However, there is no solution to it. You have to go through this. So, keep calm – this is just one more hurdle in your startup story.

    Challenges faced by SaaS Startups
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    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    You Will Fail

    Yes, you will fail! The startup is less of a science and more of an art. And an artist doesn’t make masterpieces in each and every attempt. They fail but they learn. You have to understand that if you have a very unique idea, you will succeed.

    Only 1 out of 10 startups succeed. But that one has failed 10 times. And that is why that is the “one”. And don’t think that you should not give too many efforts as you are going to fail anyway. Exceptions are there. So, do your best, don’t stress, and smile more.

    You Will Face Hate

    Try pitching your product to anyone in the crowd or cold calling anyone, they will curse you to hell. And this will be constant in the journey of your startup till you turn it into a “company”. Hate is nothing but an emotion. So always remember, if someone is hating you, they are thinking about you. Which is so beautiful in itself.

    They are giving you their time. So, don’t stress about it. Even if it’s your best friend who is hating or making fun of you because of your startup. They don’t know what effort it takes to actually working on your idea.

    “All Because Of You!”

    When anything will happen to your company, it will always be blamed on you. And the brutal truth is, you have to face it. Because you are the one who started it. Each and every partner will point their fingers to you in low sales, bad marketing, etc. Even when you are not the in-charge of that area.

    So, instead of arguing in those matters, try finding a solution. Try to back the situation up. And learn from it. If you will try to argue, everyone will be against you. You are the leader and the only string which unites the company.

    Conclusion

    There is nothing wrong in having a dream, but make sure they make you sleepless. Every big entrepreneur was once “another startup nerd”. But they made their way from the social norms.

    Do you have an unique idea? Make sure you give it a chance. And don’t wait for the “perfect moment”, just put your step forward. You can start just now, at this very moment. Later never comes. Just call the person you think can be your business partner, now. Or call the person you think needs your service. Just do something which pushes you forward to your dream. Best of Luck!

  • Elon Musk: The Real Life Iron Man

    This figure needs no introduction. The man with the citizenship of South Africa, Canada, and the United States, the entrepreneur is without second thoughts the most talked about man in the tech industry now. There’s nothing that this man can achieve. At 47, he has achieved almost everything one can dream of. Starting from launching rockets into the orbit, making cash payment easy (through PayPal), launching electric vehicle, and building Hyperloops, Musk has had his finger in all possible pies. His appearance in television shows and gracing award shows makes him a favorite for tabloids. His appearance in Rick and Morty, a television series that has gained a huge following, attests to his popularity. Elon Musk is the real-life Tony Stark!.

    Elon Musk”s net worth is $176.4 Billion as of April,2021.

    Elon Musk Story
    Elon Musk Companies
    Elon Musk-Zip2 Corporation
    Elon Musk-PayPal
    Elon Musk-Space X
    Elon Musk-Tesla Motors
    Elon Musk-The Boring Company
    Why Elon Musk is Famous?
    Elon Musk – FAQs

    Elon Musk Story

    Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Elon always wanted to do something big about his fantasies. He was lost in his imaginary world so much that his parents had to consult a doctor to have his hearing checked.

    To see your parents getting separated is the last scene a child would like to see. It leads to all kind of trauma. Elon, who was ten at the time of his parent’s divorce, kept himself from getting distracted by immersing himself in the world of computers. At twelve, he created his first software, a game called Blastar.

    As a child, Elon was an introvert and a bookworm. Unfortunately, he was bullied at school until he learnt karate and basic wrestling.

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    Elon Musk Companies

    Elon Musk has founded and has been associated with many companies. He founded Zip2 Corporation in 1995 and later launched other companies like X.com, Space X, The Boring Company, and more. He is the CEO, and product architect of Tesla.

    Elon Musk-Zip2 Corporation

    Zip2 Corporation - Elon Musk Company
    Elon Musk Zip2 Corporation Logo

    The startup Zip2 Corporation provided Elon’s first shot at becoming a household name. Elon and his brother, Kimbal Musk, were the founders behind Zip2 Corporation. Zip2 Corporation was an online city guide and provided content for companies like The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. A division of Compaq Computer Corporation brought Zip2 Corporation for $307 million.

    Elon Musk-PayPal

    PayPal - Elon Musk Company
    Paypal Logo

    His next step to fame was introducing X.com, which later became PayPal. He worked with Kimbal Musk and the brothers used the money received from the sale of Zip2 to set up X.com in 1999. X.com (PayPal) was an online financial services and payments company. Acquisition by another domain of the same name lead to a name change and the company was renamed to PayPal. Elon’s net worth saw a steep rise in 2002 when PayPal was acquired by the giant eBay for $1.5 billion.

    Elon Musk-Space X

    space X - Elon Musk Company
    space X Logo

    The name Space X will be forever associated with Elon Musk. Space X stands for Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. Space X was launched in 2002 with the intention of exploring the outer world for commercial purposes. The rise of Space X wasn’t linear, there were many obstacles in the path. Numerous rocket failures during launch plagued a smooth sail. The invention of Space robots and much more space equipment made headlines all around the world. In the year 2008, when Space X had cemented its reputation, NASA awarded the company a contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space station. This move was made to replace NASA’s own space shuttle missions.

    2012 was a grand year for Musk and Space X when the Falcon 9 rocket was launched into space. Falcon 9 was sent to the International Space Station with 1,000 pounds of supplies and extra backup for the astronauts. This was a significant synergy as a private company was collaborating with the International Space Station. A successful attempt to carry a satellite into the geosynchronous orbit was achieved by Falcon 9. It was a landmark achievement since this was a distance at which the satellite would lock into an orbital path matching the earth’s rotation.

    There were more successful attempts by Space X to revolutionize the spacecraft industry and recently, they launched a batch of 60 rockets into space which was followed by another batch of the same size in November 2019.

    Safe to say, mankind wouldn’t have seen such rapid achievements in a decade had it not been for Elon Musk.

    Elon Musk-Tesla Motors

    Tesla - Elon Musk Company
    Tesla Logo

    The automotive industry is another domain Elon Musk has established his dominance in. Elon is the co-founder, CEO and product architect at Tesla Motors. Tesla Motors was founded in 2003. This company develops affordable and eco-friendly mass-electric cars and battery products.

    The unveiling of the iconic Roadster in 2008 was a milestone for Tesla. Roadster can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.7 seconds and has upset many sports cars brands that were unchallenged till now.

    Model S, the company’s first electric Sedan was another offering that took the industry by storm. Model S was awarded the 2013 Car of The Year award due to its capability to cover 265 miles between consecutive charges.

    Elon Musk-The Boring Company

    The Boring Company - Elon Musk Company
    The Boring Company Logo

    The most recent offering by Elon Musk is The Boring Company that was launched in 2017. This company is devoted to boring and building tunnels to ease traffic. The foundation of The Boring Company was laid by a test dig on the Space X property in Los Angeles.

    In 2019, the company received a $48.7 million contract from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to build an underground loop.

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    Why Elon Musk is Famous?

    Achieving multimillionaire status and envy worthy success in mid 20s is no less than legendary. At the age when children spend most of their time mugging up science theories, Elon Musk had created his own software. With the wish to work for the betterment of humanity, Elon has already garnered a dedicated following. While most billionaires indulge is philanthropy for publicity, Elon Musk has his sights set on doing noteworthy deeds that would be remembered for generations to come. The kind of inventions Elon Musk is coming up with makes him a real life Tony Stark!

    Elon Musk – FAQs

    Who is the richest person in world?

    Elon Musk is among the top ten richest people in the world as of March 2021.

    When was Elon Musk born?

    Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971.

    What is net worth of Elon Musk?

    Elon Musk has a net worth of $176.4 billion dollars.

    What is the Education of Elon Musk?

    Elon Musk is a graduate in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science and  Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

    What is the Elon Musk age?

    Elon Musk is 49 years as of  April 2021.

    Why is Elon Musk so famous.?

    At the age when children spend most of their time mugging up science theories, Elon Musk had created his own software. Elon Musk came to the limelight in May 2012, after his founded company SpaceX launched a rocket that would send the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station.

  • How Tier 1, Tier 2 & Tier 3 Audiences Differ – Entrepreneurs’ View

    Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning – the STP approach is a model used by businesses to cater their customer segments in a more sophisticated way. Based on the the nature of organisation, objectives, industry, market scenarios etc., the STP approach differs. The overall market is catered by the businesses based on the audiences in Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Well, there isn’t any distinct definition of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 based audiences, it is mainly based on the perception and understanding of the market by the diverse businesses.

    We asked the people who can answer these better than anyone else. Entrepreneurs from diverse field were asked – “What is the difference between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 audience from the perspective of your field of expertise?” and here’s what we got to know –

    Shalabh Upadhyay – Founder & CEO, NEWJ (New Emerging World of Journalism)

    Difference between tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 audiences
    Shalabh Upadhyay, Founder of NewJ

    The availability of affordable data, particularly with the advent of Jio, has ushered in a paradigm shift in the consumption of content online. It has led to the democratization of journalism and content creation in the truest sense. Opinions which were earlier molded by the residents of ‘Tier-1’ are now predominantly defined by the masses residing in the ‘Tier-2’ and ‘Tier-3’ cities and towns. For NEWJ, as a media-tech enterprise, this shift marks a threshold moment because it has levelled the playing field in mass communication and has in fact diminished the ‘differences’ between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3.

    Sudha Anand – Founder, Swaas

    Difference between tier 1, tier 2 , tier 3 audiences
    Sudha Anand – Founder, Swaas

    Tier 1 customers look for the quality products with international look & feel along with the brand’s USP’s / brand story and what the brand stands for. Tier 2 customers are more drawn for product quality and design. Tier 3 customers expect value for money.

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    Amit Nigam – COO & Executive Director, BANKIT

    Amit Nigam – COO & Executive Director, BANKIT

    The main difference according to our expertise in working with Tier 1 and Tier 2/3 cities is the consumer behavior. The products and services that may be common in Tier 1 are not so common in Tier2/3 cities. Taking fintech in perspective we have seen that the typical Tier1 consumer uses more of cash-in services while cash-out is more common in the later. Another most common example of this difference is Tech knowledge, the customers in Tier2/3 are as tech-savvy as the customer is Tier 1, thus reaching the customers becomes a little challenging. BANKIT tries to reach this segment of the audience through retailers who are already familiar with the customer and can reach them more effectively. This also helps in overcoming the most common challenge that companies face while reaching consumers in Tier 2/3 areas: Gaining their trust. The other most commonly-faced challenge is the language. India with its varied cultures has different languages in the same state and district and due to lack of exposure people in smaller cities and towns understand only one language that a company may not be versed with.

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    Sanjay Tiwari – Co-founder, 21CC Education

    Sanjay Tiwari – Co-founder, 21CC Education

    We are only just venturing into tier 3 towns and that too via Distribution partners who own physical assets in these locations and have a local presence. As you go further into India’s tier 2 and 3 cities, the skill development agenda gains urgency and simultaneous challenges. Almost 70% of India’s population is in tier 2,3 and 4 cities and can prove to be phenomenal growth drivers. But as you go deeper into these cities, the gap emerging from the unmet demand for quality education creates roadblocks to skilling. Limited literacy, the diverse local dialect, societal norms—all come together to impact skilling motivations and response.

    Our solutions—that ride on smartphones and easy internet access—are designed to overcome India’s unique challenges. These cities are seeing increasing attention and fast infrastructural growth. You now have state of the art warehouses coming up on what used to be farmland. When we create content for these audiences, we use our expertise to explain the process, ie what has to be done, along with why it has to be done-why keeping something chilled matters or why a bar code matters, why it’s important to be able to trace something. So you have to explain much more of the context.

    Then there is language to consider that requires a constant feedback loop and intelligent design to ensure that the platform’s UI is flawless and simple without being simplistic.

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    Krishna Murthy – Founder of Teach My Lesson

    India has significantly progressed in the past decade both in terms of internet connectivity and socio-economic status. So, the difference between T1, T2, and T3 is getting more and more nuanced. A few of these factors include:

    1. Against popular belief, affordability is no more an issue – across tiers, people are willing to invest in education solutions.
    2. Across tiers, value for money is critical criteria, but what differentiates better solution in T3 and T2 context compared to T1 is how well they address the emotional (peace of mind) and social (talkability and status bosting) needs of the consumer
    3. The degree of receptivity to trying new things reduced as we move from T1 to T3
    4. Mobile-first solutions are imperative for lower tiersWhile the luxury of time that consumers enjoy is diminishing across, there is a downward trend as we move from T3 to T1

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    Shivram Choudhary – Founder, Codevidhya

    Shivram Choudhary – Founder, Codevidhya

    From our perspective, Tier 1 cities are well-aware of the technologies and resources that are available in those cities or over the Internet. But on the other hand, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are very less aware of the resources that we offer or are available.

    Raj N – Founder, Zaggle

    Raj N - Founder, Zaggle
    Raj N – Founder, Zaggle

    Tier 1 companies are the big guns, and the Tier 3 ones are the more modest firms. Over time, companies can move up the tiers if they fit the criteria.

    Amit Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OckyPocky

    Amit Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OckyPocky

    In India, the Edtech segment has gained a humongous amount of traction from the past year as most of the edtech start-ups were targeting audiences from Bharat. Whereas earlier, online learning was just focused on urban areas because of the differences that Tier 1 cities had when compared to Tier 2/ 3 cities. People from Tier 2 and 3 cities have a higher demand for vernacular content and want deeper customer support and they also favor smaller price points before opting for bigger packages as they lack trust in digital payments. By considering their demands, the Edtech industry made education accessible and affordable to help the people of Bharat and it was truly transformational to see the huge demand upsurge that came from Tier 2 & 3 towns.

    Tanul Mishra – CEO, Afthonia Lab

    Tanul Mishra – CEO, Afthonia Lab

    FinTech players are redefining the business models across different segments of the financial services industry, helping improve service delivery and contributing to digital financial inclusion. As per the latest BCG FICCI report, India’s fintech industry is seen at $150-160 bn by 2025. Due to pandemic, India has gone through the digital revolution and it is growing at a fast clip. In such a bullish market of startups, incubators and accelerators play a vital role in streamlining founder’s  thoughts and plan the road ahead.

    Consumption in India will reach $4 trillion by 2025, the growing internet penetration in India is also expected to push consumer spending. While the consumption of fintech in the metro cities is high, there has been a great push in the adoption of fintech in tier II and III cities as well. In non-metro cities, we are seeing startups building some unique opportunities and solving very specific problems. These smaller cities in India are emerging as business pivots, opening up peculiar job opportunities, for instance- cities such as Ahmedabad (31%) and Vadodara (20%) witnessed a positive hiring in February  2021, because of the higher consumption rate. This is especially evident from the share of luxury retail spending, which grew from around 9% in 2013 to 55-60% in 2018 in non-metro cities, especially Jaipur, Udaipur, and Chandigarh.

    Tier II and III cities have grown at a brisk pace on the back of an increase in disposable income, and deeper penetration of mobile internet. I believe that apart from digitizing the payments ecosystem, there are other potential areas where fintech can focus to drive major business from, in tier II and III cities especially in tier III, by providing lower-cost services to underbanked and unbanked masses.

    Mahadev Srivatsa – VP of Marketing & Brand Strategy, Practically

    Mahadev Srivatsa – VP of Marketing & Brand Strategy, Practically

    The difference between marketing to Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences is narrowing by the day, as aspirations are increasing across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. As a society, education is of paramount importance to us and every parent, irrespective of geography, wants their child to succeed and have the best means to do so. However, disposable income, access to quality education, regional/cultural influences and content consumption are still some key differentiators that one needs to be conscious about, while marketing a product.

    Conclusion

    Hope that the distinction between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences has become more understandable, based on the insights given by esteemed entrepreneurs of the industry. Be it Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3 audiences, businesses always come up with a unique way to to cater its unique market!

  • Challenges faced by Entrepreneurs while Operating in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities

    Wondering what are Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities? Based on population density, Indian cities are classified as X (tier 1), Y (tier 2) and Z (tier 3) categories. Where Tier 1 contains metropolitan cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai & so on, Tier 2 has cities like Gurgaon, Vellore, Kochi etc., The remaining cities fall under Tier 3 i.e., Kanpur, Chandigarh & more.

    Normally, businesses use different strategies and techniques to cater to different customer segments residing in any of the tiers. This makes operating in different cities difficult. To understand the challenges faced by businesses while operating in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities, StartupTalky reached out to entrepreneurs from diverse fields to get their insight on the same. And here’s what we got to know –

    Sanjay Tiwari – Co-founder, 21CC Education

    Sanjay Tiwari – Co-founder, 21CC Education

    We are operating in these locations on behalf of logistics and supply chain brands that are gaining attention and interest in these locations. While we are aware of the challenges businesses face when it comes to skilling and employability in these areas, since we ourselves aren’t approaching these markets directly yet, it is too soon to comment from an informed lens.

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    Sudha Anand, Founder, Swaas

    Problems in operating in tier 2 and tier 3 cities
    Sudha Anand – Founder, Swaas

    We find it at times difficult to give the best of quality and price, which is
    a basic requirement for tier 2 & 3 customers.

    Difference between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences – By Entrepreneurs
    Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning – the STP approach is a model used bybusinesses to cater their customer segments in a more sophisticated way. Basedon the the nature of organisation, objectives, industry, market scenarios etc.,the STP approach differs. The overall market is catered by the…
    StartupTalkyJeenal Jain

    Amit Nigam – COO & Executive Director, BANKIT

    Amit Nigam – COO & Executive Director, BANKIT

    BANKIT tries to reach this segment of the audience through retailers who are already familiar with the customer and can reach them more effectively. This also helps in overcoming the most common challenge that companies face while reaching consumers in Tier 2/3 areas: Gaining their trust. The other most commonly-faced challenge is the language. India with its varied cultures has different languages in the same state and district and due to lack of exposure people in smaller cities and towns understand only one language that a company may not be versed with.

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    Shalabh Upadhyay – Founder & CEO, NEWJ (New Emerging World of Journalism)

    Amit Nigam – COO & Executive Director, BANKIT

    The biggest challenge (and an opportunity at the same time) for homegrown startups is to build in-house, India-centric expertise and capabilities and not solely be governed by tech and social media giants for reaching their audiences. With the Government’s clarion call for Atmanirbhar Bharat, I believe that our time has arrived to rise to the occasion in terms of shaping the larger global narrative and discourse through ‘Bharat First’ solutions.

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    Amit Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OckyPocky

    Amit Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OckyPocky

    Considering the lack of resources in rural areas, there were several challenges that we had to face. It was difficult to invest in local content and customer support and there are still a lot of areas with no high-speed broadband which makes it tough for us to reach them effectively and students completely relying on a device for all their educational needs could be restricting at times”

    Shivram Choudhary – Founder, Codevidhya

    Shivram Choudhary – Founder, Codevidhya

    Self-awareness among the parents was not there. The need to teach kids to code was not a priority in these cities. Also, due to inevitable circumstances, kids do not have proper laptops or computers to learn to code.

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    Krishna Murthy – Founder of Teach My Lesson

    Krishna Murthy – Founder of Teach My Lesson

    Challenges vary depending on the degree of reliance the solutions have on technology and what proportion of the delivery can be managed remotely without compromising consumer experience.

    • In our case, the most significant challenges are Tier agnostic. While there is no shortage of great talent in India, the biggest challenge we face is the need for instant gratification. Loyalty from talent is coming at a considerable premium. It is less about remuneration and more about the talkability, the halo effect, and the prestige the job provides to the recruited talent.
    • Tactically speaking, finding T2 and T3 talent that is both an expert in vernaculars and proficient in English is not easy to find.

    Raj N – Founder, Zaggle

    Raj N - Founder, Zaggle
    Raj N – Founder, Zaggle

    They say that real wealth of India lies in its villages. “If the village perishes, India will perish too”

    Brands need to understand that the rules of game are different when it comes to rural markets, especially in India, where diversity rules. The rural environment is vastly different from the urban and therefore communication to potential customers requires a specialized and integrated approach.

    Tanul Mishra – CEO, Afthonia Lab

    Tanul Mishra – CEO, Afthonia Lab

    I believe that today’s world is knowledge forward and as such is a catalyst for driving a rapid pace of advancement and innovation in everything we interact with. And while there are many great startups with path breaking ideas that can truly come from anywhere, getting the right support from the right quarters to help sustain and grow that idea is critical to the survival of that venture.

    What I have seen is startups at least in the initial stages require intense support for the right kind of network access to the experts and industry stalwarts who can share knowledge and insights with them from their wealth of experience helping them avoid the pitfalls of starting a business from the ground up. This support may not necessarily be easily available in tier II and III cities – especially the tier III cities and can be the difference between the startup thriving or perishing.

    To my mind, therefore the first challenge to solve is the lack of access and thankfully we have the resources today to digital create a borderless support ecosystem, wherein an incubator like ours based in Bengaluru can easily spot and support a great idea emerging from a tier 2 town in Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh. This is crucial as instead of waiting in the wings these startups from smaller towns in India get an equal opportunity to be heard, to be nurtured and eventually find their own space in a complex market like India and even venture towards international markets with the right support ecosystem in place.

    Conclusion

    Problems are inevitable. It is the knack of cracking the solutions that takes people ahead in life. As per the above views from well-known entrepreneurs, though they face various challenges along their way while catering to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, ‘Never Give Up’ becomes their motto!  

    Hope you got an understanding on the problems faced in entrepreneurs in various industries while operating in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

  • The Growth Of Startup Ecosystem In India

    India is one of the fastest emerging startup ecosystem. The Indian technological landscape has seen a tremendous growth towards creation of innovative startups which has lead it to become the 3rdfastest growing hub for technology startups in the country. The current article analyses the India’s position as a global startup hub that is becoming attractive for investors startup, and corporates.

    From having just a handful of tech companies to couple dozens and now thousands of innovative new ventures, India’s startup ecosystem has grown immensely from the past decade. India now has 55,000 startups with more than 3200 startups raising $63 Billion in funding in the last five and half years alone.

    The internet has helped paved the way for thousands of startups to rise over the past decade, address unique problems, transform entire industries and create new segments. With deep data insights to influence strategic decision making in governance, investments, growth, and other core aspects driving the Indian startup ecosystem.

    Indian Startup Funding
    Indian’s Unicorn And Soonicorns
    Infrastructure And Resources That Help The Startups Growth in India
    Government And Regulatory Landscape
    The Main Hubs of Indian Startups
    The Indian Investor Landscape
    Fintech Boom
    The Growth of Innovation in India

    Indian Startup Funding

    Over the years the growth of startups has brought in more international investors and boosted their confidence towards India. Fundraising reported by SEBI registered ventured capital funds grew from Rs.326 Crore in 2014 to over Rs. 2,703 Crore in 2019 showing the increase which is up to 8 times more now. The share of actual capital raised to commitments in 2014 was 35% compared to 61% in 2019, indicating the growing investor interest towards investments opportunities in India.

    The most beneficiary sectors are EdTech, fintech, online gaming and OTT, ecommerce and enterprise tech. But because of the covid 19 scenario in 2020, the total capital inflow in Indian startups expected to dip in 202 by as much as 36.2% compared to 2019 to reach $8.1 billion. The total capital inflow in Indian startups for the year 2020 is expected to be the lowest since 2017.

    Indian’s Unicorn And Soonicorns

    India only a single unicorn in 2012, but in 2016 the number increased 10. It is now the home to 34 well known Unicorns with a combined valuation of $115.5 billion, 52 Soonicorns with the potential to become unicorns by 2022. With an overall funding skyrocketing to $63 Billion from 2014 to 2020. In the past decade, India has shown a great appetite for technology, data and the internet.

    Some of the popular unicorn companies in India
    Some of the popular unicorn companies in India

    Excluding that India has 53 startups in India that have the potential to achieve $1 billion pus valuation by the end of 2022. Out of these numbers the fintech sector has 19 unicorn which is different from the unicorns where enterprise tech startups which have 7 unicorns

    Infrastructure And Resources That Help The Startups Growth in India

    India now has an estimated 100 plus startup incubators across the country, mostly housed in academic institutions; this number is likely to cross 300 by 2020. This means that there will be a startup incubator in every state, city and town in the country are enabling entrepreneurs to access resources and solve problems in their local areas. Next, we have Co- working spaces that are growing at an exponential rate and this helps entrepreneurs to have office spaces in their neighborhood.

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    Government And Regulatory Landscape

    Many states are coming up with policies in 2020, as the government at the central and state level have recognized the potential of startup as a driver for job creation and are hence enabling a better regulatory environment for starting up. The startup culture in India and other policies are looking at addressing the problems of B2C entrepreneur level.

    NITI Aayog is in the process of making the necessary infrastructure and resources available through the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). AIM is adopting a more B2B approach by supporting in the scale up of the existing incubators such as NSRCEL, C-CAMP etc.

    The Main Hubs of Indian Startups

    In 2020, Bengaluru the silicon valley of India is still the startup capital of the country with a total funding amount of $28 Billion across 1,876 deals 2014 to 2020. It’s the startup hub in India for startups. In addition to that the other top hubs are Delhi and Mumbai, while the emerging hubs are Pune and Hyderabad as they have recorded an annual growth rate of 45% and 37% respectively.

    Top startup hubs in India as of 2020
    Top startup hubs in India as of 2020

    In the tier segment Jaipur and Goa have outperformed cities like Hyderabad and have earned their spot in top 10 startup hubs as of 2020 based on the number of funding deals.

    The Indian Investor Landscape

    From just a handful of investors and a few startups to over 49 thousand startups and over 2,000 Indian and International investors, the startup ecosystem have come a long way in past five years. The International investors now routinely come to India to invest in the burgeoning tech ecosystem. The frequency of participation by the existing investor is on the rise.

    The total count of unique investors
    The total count of unique investors every year

    Many corporations have played a major role in the funding trends, according to Datalabs by Inc42 analysis, 2019 was not one of the good year for venture capitalist. In 2020 however, there are approximately 4,640 active investors in India. Among these 59% (2,751) are angel investors and about 18.3% (849) are venture capital firms. Overall there is a downward trend in terms of unique investor’s participation similar to what has been observed in 2019.

    Fintech Boom

    The fintech sector continues to grow at rapid speed. Paytm can easily be called a pioneer in fintech as at gave the power of choice and how to spend to people who never had wallets or bank accounts. Following the success of Paytm, many other wallet companies have shown promise. We believe this sector will continue to attract investors’ interest in 2019 as the business ideas in fintech.

    The Growth of Innovation in India

    The interim budget conveyed the message that India youth should constantly innovate to drive the country growth. Towards this end, the government has pushed for the use of digital technologies through initiatives such as the National Program on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the establishment of nine centers of technological excellence.

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    Conclusion

    While the first decade of 21st century was all about bringing India’s cities and metros online, the past ten years have been about using the internet to create businesses and startups and take the digital torch to rural India. India is today the home to world’s largest working population and startups are expected to take full advantage of this in the next five years.

    The country has more than 500 million internet users. Which is why we can expect an active implementation of block chain, AI, IoT and data analytics across multiple technology sectors. For example the IoT in India has reached $15 billion by 2020. It will account for approximately 5% of the total global market. On the other hand, AI is predicted to become as big as $ 15.6 trillion by 2030.

    Nevertheless, 2025, the number of startups in India is expected to cross 100K, creating more than 3.25 Million jobs in the process. At the same time, the total funding in Indian startups is likely to increase to over $150 Billion and with the total value creation exceeding $500 Bn. Once the medium and long-term pandemic impact subsides, there’s no stopping Indian startups.

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    FAQs

    What does startup ecosystem mean?

    A startup ecosystem is formed by people, startups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create and scale new startup companies.

    What is entrepreneurial ecosystem?

    Entrepreneurial ecosystems or entrepreneurship ecosystems are peculiar systems of interdependent actors and relations directly or indirectly supporting the creation and growth of new ventures.

    What makes a good ecosystem?

    A healthy ecosystem consists of native plant and animal populations interacting in balance with each other and nonliving things, for example, water and rocks.

  • Inspiring Quotes By Indian Entrepreneurs [Exhaustive List]

    Sachin Bansal | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “Rules of Hiring #1: If there is doubt, there is no doubt. Rules of Hiring #2: Always hire people who are smarter than you.”

    -Sachin Bansal, Founder of Flipkart

    Shashank ND | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “Never hire someone to do your initial sales. In fact you should acquire your first hundred customers yourself”

    Quoted by- Sashank ND, Founder of Practo

    Abhishek Goyal | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “Raise money from investors who are more excited about the BUSINESS or MARKET than the TEAM. They can help discover amazing opportunities”

    Quoted by- Abhishek Goyal, Founder of Traxcn

    Kunal Shah | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “I strongly believe all students should have a startup during college. Doesn’t matter if successful or how big or small. Worst case scenario it will make them 10x better employee than someone with no exposure to how a business works”

    “If you fully accept the worst that can ever happen in your journey, fear won’t ever be an obstacle in starting-up”

    Quoted by- Kunal Shah, Founder of Freecharge

    Kunal Shah is the founder of FreeCharge, which  recently got acquired by Axis Bank for $60 million. Before that, Snapdeal had acquired FreeCharge in the year 2015 for about $400 million. He has done his MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and studied at Wilson College, Mumbai.  

    Girish Mathrubootham | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “Building a company is similar to building a product. Culture is the UX for employees & Support is the UX for customers.”

    “Don’t be a jerk! Even if you are brilliant, don’t be a brilliant jerk.”

    Quoted by- Girish Mathorrobootha, Founder of Freshworks

    Girish Mathrubootham is the founder of Freshworks which is a software-based service company. Prior to this, he was the VP of Product Management at ZOHO Corporation.

    Rahul Yadav | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “There is no secret ingredient. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.”

    Quoted by- Rahul Yadav, Founder of Housing

    Shradha Sharma | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “It’s a long long road. Sometimes all you need are people who pat your back and say, carry on. Thank you to everyone who encourages.”

    Quoted by- Sharaddha Sharma, Founder of Yourstory

    Ritesh Agarwal | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “Building predictability on top of market place economy is how new age businesses will get built. Super excited”

    “It is extremely important to build something that a 100 people absolutely love using rather than making something that a 1000 people would just, kind of, like.”

    Quoted by- Ritesh Agarwal, Founder of OYO

    Ritesh Agarwal is founder of OYO which is India’s largest marketplace for branded and budget hotels. OYO Rooms worth over $1 Billion. He began working on the project in 2012. Agarwal started his venture in Gurgoan and it is now spread in 230 cities in India and also in countries like UAE, Nepal, China and many others.

    Kunal Bahl | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “Scale is important for a startup. Think big, but take one day at a time.”

    Quoted by- Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder of SnapDeal –

    Co-founder of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl, did his schooling from Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram and went to Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He and his friend Rohit Bansal launched this Indian startup in 2010. He worked with Microsoft at the beginning of his career. Today, his e-commerce platform is a huge success and is competing with Amazon and Flipkart.

    Deepinder Goyal | Inspiring Indian Quotes

    “The fundamental model of our business is that in mature markets we should make profits and they shouldn’t need any more outside money to grow.”

    Quoted by- Deepinder Goyal, Founder Zomato

    “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together.”

    “I don’t believe in taking right decisions, I take decisions and make them right.”

    Quoted by- Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group

    “However big or small, make it a good business, make it a clean business, make it a business you are very proud of.”

    Quoted by- Deep Kalra, founder of MakeMyTrip

    “Today I see a billion people as a billion potential consumers, an opportunity to generate value for them and to make a return for myself”

    “It is important to achieve our goals, but not at any cost.”

    Quoted by-  Mukesh Ambani, CEO & Chairman of Reliance

    “If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small”

    “Leadership is the self-confidence of working with people smarter than you.”

    Quoted by- Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro

    “Whether ecommerce companies make money or not, these logistics companies make revenue which is guaranteed for them by ecommerce transactions.”

    Quoted by- Arvind Singhal, MD of Technopak

    Arvind Singhal is graduate from IIT Roorkee and did his MBA from UCLA, USA. It is India’s leading Managing Consulting firm focusing on retail, consumer product, fashion-textiles and apparel and many more.

    “The trade market is the place with the least scope for emotions, especially of fear and greed.”

    Quoted by- Rachit Chawla, Co-Founder of Finway Capital

    Rachit Chawla from Aston Business School has done his Bachelor’s in Commerce. He is the co-founder of Finway Capital. Finway Capital talks about loan funding.  It funds people and helps creating wealth and give personal loans and insurance.

    “Entrepreneurship is akin to riding a dragon – there are more ups and downs than you can ever imagine. But every challenge on the way only makes you stronger, and every failure only bears new learnings.”

    Quoted by- Yatin Hans, Founder of Bigsmall

    Yatin Hans, Bigsmall.in which promotes gifting culture in India. It gives unique and fun gifts to the Indian public. He has done his schooling from Heritage School and B.Com Honours from Delhi University. He later went to ESADE Business School to complete his Masters in Marketing.

    “Human capital is the most precious of all forms of capital available”

    Quoted by- Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Ryerson Futures Inc.

    Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director of Zone Startups, is promoting Indian operating system as well as initiatives including corporation innovation programs and thematic accelerators and has raised around Rs. 150 crores. He has done his MBA from Mumbai University in Finance and Marketing.  

  • Top Shopify Tools Entrepreneurs Need to Use

    With the emergence of online stores such as Amazon and Flipkart, and their success, more entrepreneurs have realized just how profitable an online store can be. Although, until a few years back, you would have needed an extensive coding knowledge in different frameworks to build your own online store, the game has changed now. Many online eCommerce websites offer a platform allowing you to create your very own Online Store; and as of now, Shopify is the most popular one.

    Shopify

    Shopify
    Shopify

    Shopify is an online platform that offers users all tools and functionalities to create an Online Store and run it efficiently. It allows you to start your online business, market and sell your products, and manage your store in day to day business. Statistics have shown that about 1 million businesses have delivered using Shopify, and have generated a combined sales of over $200 billion.

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    Google Shopping

    Although Shopify gives you everything that is quintessential to run an online marketplace, you still need tools for other relevant work. Be it resizing an image, automation of trivial tasks like marketing, or making business cards, attention to detail is what makes anyone successful. This is why every Shopify user should also use the below mentioned tools, not just to run an online store, but also make sure to make them professional enough to generate revenue.

    Kit
    Burst
    Slogan Maker
    Hatchful
    Image Resizer
    Oberlo
    Printful
    Klaviyo
    PushOwl
    Shopcodes

    Kit

    Kit is a tool offered by Shopify to help you with the social media marketing of your online store. Social Media Marketing is one of the leading marketing techniques and has by far helped most business users in advertising their products and services. Since essentially every internet user has a social media profile, chances are that you will find most of your customers through social media marketing strategies. From launching your store and growing business to email marketing along with sales and conversion, Kit is the extra set of hands you need to focus more on your business.

    Relevant read:

    Burst

    Burst is a free Stock Photo Platform, and is powered by Shopify to offer free and high resolution pictures to users for a perfect blog or website. The photos can be found by category including Home, City, Education, Food among others, with new photos posted every week to keep the stock fresh. The pictures offered by Burst are all free for commercial use for designer, developers, bloggers and entrepreneurs, while also being editable. Burst also offers users some amazing business ideas to choose from a collection of trending and fresh ideas through case studies, marketing analysis, and business model insights.

    Slogan Maker

    As the name suggests, Slogan Maker helps you find and develop eye catching slogans and catchphrases to use in your business. All you need to do is type in the word that you need in the phrase, or the main keyword of your product or service, and the Slogan Maker will automatically generate a slogan for you. A slogan shouldn’t be taken lightly, since some of the most popular brands are recognized by a slogan, and a good catchphrase might also help you grab some of your customers’ attention.

    Hatchful

    Every business, online or retail, needs a good logo to first have an identity and mark its presence. This is where Hatchful comes in handy as a tool, Shopify has to offer. Hatchful is a free logo maker for creating professional-looking logos and allows you to choose from a plethora of free and professionally designed templates. It allows you to add icons and edit the logo as you please with an easy to use interface and let the logo brand your niche.

    Image Resizer

    The worst mistake one can make while starting an online store is taking things lightly, and even worse, disregarding the picture of your product or other images you use. Image Resizer is the tool that takes care of this situation for you. A customer, when purchasing online, literally has to bet his money on the image of the product you have to offer. Resizing the image comes quite in handy, as it optimizes the image for use on the web, while also setting it in accordance with the configuration of the website, to make your online store more professional and appealing.

    Oberlo

    Oberlo is a dropshipping application that works in a business model where you can sell on an online store without having to maintain an inventory. With Oberlo, you can find products to sell online and sell them directly from the manufacturer to the customer. Moreover, with millions of products to sell online and an automation tool like Oberlo, you can focus more on marketing strategies to enhance and scale your business, and create more revenue. Also, once you have made sufficient sales, selling products with Oberlo becomes as simple as clicking a button.

    Printful

    Shopify is a platform to sell your products and sometimes they can include t-shirts, mugs, and other accessories which need on-demand printing. This is where Printful comes in. You can connect Printful with your Shopify store and generate an image of the product with the desired print or embroidery from a collection of 228 different products. It is more of a dropshipping service where all you will receive is the order notification and Printful will take care of the rest.

    Klaviyo

    Klaviyo is a marketing platform that helps you enhance your marketing and advertising strategy with a more personalized approach. Klaviyo offers trigger flows based on dates, events, and memberships for a more optimized and targeted marketing campaign, and needless to say, the better the marketing, the more is the revenue generated. Moreover, with the use of data science to predict risks, sending time, and product recommendations, users get the most out of a marketing tool with Klaviyo.

    Also read:

    PushOwl

    On multiple occasions, users abandon their shopping cart, and this could be the case even with your online store. PushOwl is a web push notification application that comes quite in handy in such situations. It sends out automatic notifications for cart recovery, keeps tabs of and retargets regular visitors to send notifications regarding price drops, product availability and shipping, and offers users with the best push notification services as the most integrated browser push application. PushOwl also helps users with retention marketing as well as CRO.

    Shopcodes

    Shopcodes is a tool built for creating QR codes for customers so they can simply make a purchase by scanning the code. QR codes are making rounds on the internet as the more convenient method to make payments and purchases, and this opportunity is offered by Shopify to its users through Shopcodes. When you make easy purchase and offer users a better customer experience from other websites, you create more loyal customers even without affiliate marketing. Moreover, you can analyze the scans and look into how many purchases were made through the QR code.

  • NorthMist – Bringing in the Gorgeous Fusion of Fashion and Sustainability

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.

    Recently we have been quite seeing a trend about using organic products. Also, there’s been a lot of buzz about how great these products are for human health and also society at large. Following the same insight, Smrity Gupta and Arijit Mazumdar launched NorthMist in 2018.

    NorthMist primarily offers 100% organic cotton t-shirts, in three categories- polo neck, round neck full sleeves and round neck half sleeves. They are priced at INR 1199 each, INR 899 and INR 799 respectively.

    NorthMist – Company Highlights

    Startup Name NorthMist
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Sector Clothing
    Founder Smrity Gupta and Arijit MAzumdar
    Founded 2018
    Website NorthMist

    NorthMist – About and How it works
    NorthMist – Target Market Size
    NorthMist – Founders and Team
    NorthMist – How did it start?
    NorthMist – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    NorthMist – Startup Launch
    NorthMist – Business Model and Revenue Model
    NorthMist – Startup Challenges
    NorthMist – Competitors
    NorthMist – Funding and Investors
    NorthMist – Advisors and Mentors
    NorthMist – Growth
    NorthMist – Future Plans

    NorthMist – About and How it works

    All the products at NorthMist are made of 100% organic cotton, sourced from exclusive and certified vendors, and manufactured in a pro-sustainability strategy. Also, all the products are ensured to be supremely authentic of being environment-friendly products. NorthMist procures raw materials in-house, from vendors, who are under the sustainability umbrella and supply only to it. Having multiple vendors for each of the raw materials, it picks the best and thus gets the best price in the industry. Moreover, it operates on a low inventory model with a turn-around time of 7 days. Through real-time orders and fast processing, which are pretty uncommon as well. Combined, this makes it stand apart from the present competitors.

    Low inventory levels, less stock, a small and efficient team and faster turnaround time pull down chances of loss while promoting faster decisions and cost-cutting opportunities. And that’s how it works at NorthMist.

    NorthMist – Target Market Size

    The apparel landscape in India is believed to be ruled by startups in the near future and going by the consumer preference pattern, eco-friendly start-ups will soon be at a better position, compared to bigger brands. Indeed, these are the reasons behind this startup venture too.

    NorthMist – Founders and Team

    Smrity Gupta and Arijit Mazumdar are the Founders of NorthMist

    “Smrity and I were co-workers. Shared philosophy and zeal to do something big allowed us to become friends.” Says the founder, Arijit Mazumdar.

    Arijit has a master’s degree in power engineering and has excelled in many fields including business negotiations, business development, and sales. Smrity, the co-founder of NorthMist is a fashion technology graduate from NIFT and holds immense knowledge of the industry. Her insights about the industry, her keen eye for detail and her experience made the journey of starting a fashion business easier for this duo.

    NorthMist Founders
    NorthMist Founders

    NorthMist has an in-house team that consists of about 15 people, encompassing different arena of expertise. It has a sales head, content marketer, visual designer, digital marketer, operations executives, and a production team. Eco-warriors as the venture identify the team. All decisions are taken by the in-house team of experts, who share a similar outlook towards sustainability. NorthMist also has an extensive network of freelancers working for it. At this moment, NorthMist has a strong team of 25 individuals.

    When the founders hire people, they ensure that the candidates believe in the concept of sustainability or are at least familiar with the concept of sustainability. There is no hierarchy in the office. Though every individual has their own role to play, when required, everyone can contribute. Every Saturday the core team conducts “brainstorming” sessions, where every team member shares their ideas for brand growth. From birthday celebrations to team outings, playing games to fun sessions, the work environment at NorthMist is all about being happy and content.

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    NorthMist – How did it start?

    “My co-founder and I shared the same philosophy- to make the world sustainable. This motivated us to come up with the idea of NorthMist.” Says Arijit Mazumdar. Both of them were working, however, their ambitions were different. All they wanted was to start their own brand. Since both of them were quite inclined towards adopting a sustainable lifestyle, their aim was to start something around it. And hence they started brainstorming on what they could do to bring about change in the world. And this motivated them to establish NorthMist.

    During the inception days, they were just 2 people. They worked really hard, supporting each other through all hurdles, which honestly were in abundance. The founders worked hard to realize our dreams. The first few months were all about tight schedules and deadlines. They would conduct surveys and get direct feedback from the customers. The focus was to create awareness and they ensured to do so using various channels. They kept the product line limited to draw more attention to the quality of the same. It was difficult, but fun nonetheless. When you have your friend by your side, sharing similar ambitions, everything becomes easier!

    The etymology of NorthMist is such- “North” is the head of directions and “Mist” is often associated with nature. Put these two terms together and one gets “NorthMist”, which literally means ‘to head towards nature.’

    Northmist Logo

    The founders wanted a name that was simple and relatable, yet strong in its resolution. And let’s not forget, a name that would convey the concept of being eco-friendly perfectly. NorthMist fitted the bill effortlessly.

    “It took us about a month, a self-determined deadline and suggestions from our friends to come up with an impeccable name for the brand. And today, we can say proudly that we have it.” Added Arijit Mazumdar

    NorthMist – Startup Launch

    After launching NorthMist in March 2018, the founders started participating in co-working events. We Work, CoWorks, Coho, 91 SpringBroad, they went everywhere to showcase the products. For the first eight to nine months, they were dedicated to doing events. This helped them to create a strong customer base. Then, they dedicated their efforts to retargeting these customers. They also started collaborating with marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart to create more awareness.

    The founder’s equally used social media platforms to garner the attention of the target audience. This helped them scale the brand and add visibility to the products. NorthMist’s journey from 50 to 5000 has been extraordinarily inspiring and only motivates the team to do better every day.

    NorthMist – Business Model and Revenue Model

    The business model of NorthMist follows can be classified broadly into B2B and B2C categories. Under the B2B model portion, it has wholesale, dropshipping and inbound corporate. B2C model, on the other hand, relies on its own website and e-commerce platforms like Flipkart, Amazon and The Better India for the sale of our products. NorthMist is also registering on national and international online marketplaces like LBB, Step Set Go, Ajio and more. In terms of offline presence, its products are available in Organic World and Go Native stores pan India.

    NorthMist – Startup Challenges

    Major challenges in the Indian apparel and fashion industry lie on factors like poor infrastructure, limited reach and unorganized market. Furthermore, for startups in India, the criteria to meet for Government funding are extensive and slow.

    Another major challenge is to create awareness. Considering the fact that sustainability is a relatively new topic with very less exposure, convincing customers to make a switch is fairly difficult. Not impossible though. “Our motive was clear, to reach as many people as we can and motivate them to make a shift to sustainability.” Says Arijit. The process was time-consuming, but their constant efforts have ensured that they are reaching the right. Communication plays a major role in a business such as NorthMist’s, and the core team seems to have mastered it. Garnering attention can still be challenging yet they are doing it quite well.

    NorthMist – Competitors

    Competition is quite huge as more than 300 international fashion brands are expected to create a footprint in India. Besides, the Indian apparel market predicts growth to $124 billion by the end of 2020. Also, more startups are certainly on the pipeline as the apparel space in the country is projected to be ruled by startups in times to come. Eco-friendly startups will occupy a big share, as consumers these days are increasingly making sustainable choices.

    When it comes to sustainability, the number of brands is quite limited; however, to name a few, NorthMist is in direct competition with No Nasties, Turmswear, and March Tee.

    NorthMist – Funding and Investors

    NorthMist has a set of angel investors, who have invested Rs. 1 crore inequity of the business.

    The first round of our series of funding came from Sanjay Koul, Managing Director and chairman of a top US company; Birju Gala, CEO of a leading company; Soumendra Biswal, Head of Corporate Affairs of a leading export company; and Srinivasan Sarangpani, Director of Supply Chain at a US company. The majority of the funding has been invested in R&D of our products, hiring the right team for delivering the best, marketing and creating awareness among consumers about the brand identity and sustainability goal.

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    NorthMist – Advisors and Mentors

    The list of advisors and mentors of NorthMist include:

    • Venkatesh Maheshwari
    • Sriram Sundaravadanan
    • Rajiv Mehta

    NorthMist – Growth

    In the last fiscal year, NorthMist has had a turnover of 30 lakhs. It has also got tremendous responses from conscious customers from cities across India. Metros and Tier 1 cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore have together recorded maximum sale figures for NorthMist.

    NorthMist – Future Plans

    Staying pivotal to the sustainability factor, NorthMist has plans to diversify. Adding to the existing men’s t-shirt categories, it will be launching women’s wear and a new range of sustainable hoodies soon.

    As for short term goals, NorthMist looks forward to having a total turnover of 500 crores in the next five years; expand in terms of products under the sustainable lifestyle category. It wants to grow the business within India and beyond the geographic boundaries through different distribution channels and multiple branded outlets.

    “We are a pro-sustainability company; hence, sustainability is our long-term vision. The planet belongs to each of us and saving it from further damage is surely our responsibility. Instead of combating against brands, a collaborative effort of all sustainable brands making conscious choices of environment-friendly products should be the future.” Concluded Arijit Mazumdar.