Startup Saturday Delhi

Startup Saturday Delhi is gearing up for another great event on July 11th, 2009. We’ve got a great group of speakers coming in to talk about entrepreneurship in India, both online and offline.

Agenda

The agenda for the 11th of July is below. We look forward to seeing you there.

1. “My Rules of getting Funded” – Rohit Agarwal of TechTribe fame. Rohit is an experienced entrepreneur who has co-founded many a startups. He has seen both ups and downs, one constant being – his ability to get funded. He will share some of his ways with money.
2. “How we got here? From here to where?” – Harpreet Singh from CoCubes. He is going to give us the CoCubes story. How they started, Where they are now. Also a quick roundup of their business model, revenue streams. Why getting funded is not the end but the beginning.
3. “Entrepreneurs and VCs to focus on Offline Businesses” – Sameer Guglani from Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP). There is a much larger and untapped market opportunity in businesses that do not operate out of the “internet”. Sameer will get talking about the space and such businesses.

Registration

To register for Startup Saturday Delhi on July 11th, please sign up here.

Startup Saturday Delhi is just around the corner. We’re holding our next event on the 14th of March at the American Center from 2pm to 6pm. The goal of Startup Saturday is to give startups a place where they can showcase their products and their businesses. Our goal is to also allow entrepreneurs and those considering a life as entrepreneurs to share information, learn from each other, and be a part of building the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India.

If you’re a startup or know of any Indian startups that would like to publicize their products/services, please fill out the Demo Nomination form so we can get you on the Startup Saturday Delhi agenda.

Looking forward to seeing you at Startup Saturday Delhi!

Delhi's first installment of Startup Saturday is scheduled for the 13th of December 2008. The event will be held from 2pm till 6pm at the American Center, New Delhi.

We're very excited to be working with the gracious team at the American Center to help add a little something to the burgeoning entrepreneurial community in the Delhi/NCR region.

The American Center is located on KG Marg, right next to Connaught Place.

Please sign up if you'd like to demo at Startup Saturday Delh. Please sign up here, f you'd like to present on a specific topic related to starting and running a startup.

Registration and additional details will be coming soon.Registration for Startup Saturday is now open

Please check back here for updates.

We look forward to seeing you at Startup Saturday, Delhi.

To help the Indian Startup Ecosystem in some small way, we’re going to be involved in setting up the Delhi chapter of Startup Saturday which is a part of HeadStart. We’d like to use this forum to help startups in the Delhi/NCR region showcase their products to a community of peers, media, and investors.

If you or your company is interested in demoing, please complete the form below.

Here are a few recent posts on Teknatus.

• Saul Klein’s European Venture Scene and surprises about New Delhi
• A To-Do List for Startups
• Hiring and Firing at a Startup
• Perl for Beginners from BarCamp Delhi
• The Financial Crisis and India a presentation I gave at BarCamp Delhi

BarCamp Delhi is set for October 11th and 12th. IIT Delhi is playing host to this two day event. The location will be the Bharti building on the IIT campus. There are two rooms on the first floor, two rooms on the second floor and one room on the third floor available for campers. There will also be plenty of space available inside and outside for ad-hoc meets and networking.

Remember, everyone attending BarCamp must should participate in some capacity, whether it is presenting, taking pictures or videos, live blogging, or just volunteering for various tasks in organizing a BarCamp. Please take a look at the BCD5 Sessions page and add yourself to the list of presenters.

If you’re one of those people who get inspired at a moment’s notice and aren’t sure what you might be presenting on right now, you can still add your name to the list of Campers for BarCamp Delhi.

Looking forward to meeting you at BarCamp Delhi, the 5th edition on October 11th and 12th.

Update 2008-09-21: Some of the volunteers for BarCamp Delhi had our first face to face meeting today at the Teknatus office. We discussed quite a few items, settled on some open issues, and handed out various tasks. In the immortal words of Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

This posting doesn’t have anything to do with tech or other geeky stuff. However, being a foodie, I just had to write about my experience at Wasabi in New Delhi.

Wasabi is a fairly new Japanese restaurant located at the Taj Hotel on Man Singh Rd. in the heart of New Delhi. I first heard about the restaurant a few months ago from my wife. I was fortunate enough to have dinner at Wasabi yesterday. It was a special occasion and Chef Vikram and the rest of the staff at Wasabi made it extra special.

We started out with vegetarian sashimi and vegetarian sushi rolls. Vegetarian sushi rolls are fairly common at most Japanese restaurants around the world but this is the first time we had heard of vegetarian Sashimi. Vegetable sashimi is a platter of raw vegetables such as cucumbers, papaya, radish, asparagus, avocado, seaweed, and a few other items. Chef Vikram came up with the idea by adapting the idea of traditional Japanese sashimi to the Indian palate. Raw vegetables might not sound all that interesting until you have the chance to eat them the way Wasabi serves them. All the vegetables are freshly imported from Japan and they taste incredible. Combine them with some fresh wasabi and soy sauce and you’ve got a combination that will surely bring your taste buds to live. Accompanying the sashimi were vegetarian sushi rolls, also extremely fresh and very tasty.

After our appetizers, we were brought a combination of vegetable teppanyaki, a very special order of rice made with matsutake mushrooms, and one of Chef Vikram’s specialties, a tofu steak. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the names of all the dishes. I was a bit more focused on gorging myself on great food. All the food was exceptionally tasty and really had no need for extra garnishing or condiments of any sort.

To top off our incredible meal, we had a bit of the Wasabi Green Tea cake. Wow is about all I can say! Unfortunately, we were so completely stuffed, there was no way we could have any Japanese tea after dinner. I’m saving that for next time.

I highly recommend going to Wasab when you’re in Delhi. The decor is very pleasant, the service is exceptional, and the food is the best vegetarian Japanese food I’ve ever had. Thanks Vikram, Deepak, Sumitra and everyone else at Wasabi!

Preparations for BarCamp Delhi are under way. The date for the fifth installment of BarCamp Delhi has been set for the 4th and 5th of October 2008. Please join the BarCamp Delhi Google Group.

Finding decent quality office space for any company is a challenge. However, the space challenges that a startup faces have a far greater impact on the business than most people realize.

In Silicon Valley, it's mostly expected that a startup of less than ten people will work out of a garage or a basement. However, in other parts of the world, such as India, technology startups are almost required to have a "proper office".

Because of the bull market in India over the last four to five years, more and more people have gotten into various aspects of the technology business and employees now weigh, environment as high as they weigh compensation. Many prospective employees will not show up for an interview if the location of your office is not in a "suitable" location (locale as well as building).

Many recruiters and vendors will turn down working with you unless you're in a suitable space, plying that you're "too small" for them to work with.

In a recent report called The Global Markets Report by CB Richard Ellis, New Delhi was listed as the seventh most expensive office market in the world. Mumbai was at fourth place, London's West End was at first place. Midtown Manhattan in New York City was at number thirteen (you will have to register to download the report).

With the cost of office space in places like Mumbai and New Delhi soaring, it is becoming increasingly difficult for startups to find affordable and decent office space. In parts of New Delhi, like Nehru Place, rentals are going for Rs. 100 (roughly $2.38) to Rs. 150 (roughly $3.57) per square foot per month.

The problem with most of these spaces is a lack of power backup (availability of electricity in India is not very reliable), a lack of stable current (a UPS and current stabilizer are imperative, especially for computers and air conditioners) and overall appeal. Infrastructure costs for diesel generators and a UPS can run lakhs of Rupees (tens thousands of dollars) in CapEx and a few lakhs (thousands of dollars) in monthly maintenance costs. All of which, a startup typically can't afford.

I've been searching for affordable yet presentable office space in New Delhi since January 2008 with almost no luck. Those spaces that are affordable are very poor quality spaces. Those spaces and locations that are, relatively, decent quality are completely unaffordable.

Not being able to find decent space in Delhi has severely impacted our ability to hire the ten to fifteen people we've been aiming for. Hence, it has a hurt our ability to get products completed on time and on budget.

I think, and hope, that is going to change over the next twelve months. With credit tightening, growth slowing, and inflation rising, I believe that commercial office space will become more affordable but will it be affordable enough, fast enough? Your guess is as good as mine.

OSSCamp Delhi is just around the corner. On Saturday, 21st January, 2008 Open Source enthusiasts, users, and businesses will be gathering for a BarCamp-esque information exchange at The Indian Social Institute on Lodi Road in New Delhi.

Details of OSSCamp Delhi Summer Edition are here. Join Us.