GET INNOVATIVE IDEAS AND BE A WINNER..

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”  –Steve Jobs, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple

GET IDEA TO START STARTUPS

Motivation and zeal to do is very important. Money should not be the primary concern whereas growth should be the top concern on the mind of almost anyone working in a startup. A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Just by starting a new venture does not really makes a company a startup. Millions of companies are started every year around the world, however only a tiny fraction are startups. To grow rapidly, you need to make something you can sell to a big market. We need to develop ideas and build and understand on that and work efficiently for the growth of the new venture. The only essential thing for any startup companies is their Growth and everything else linked with startups follows from growth.

We would always feel that it is better to start a startup than an ordinary business. Yes it is, but we need to completely aware about the market. We should always open our eyes and look around and see what most important people need is and how it could be reached to those in need. If you're going to start a company, why not start the type with the supreme prospective venture? The eye opener should be that this is a fairly efficient market. Startups are so hard that you can't be pointed off to the side and hope to succeed. You have to know that growth is what you're after and not money. The good news is, if you get growth, everything else be likely to to fall into place. Which means you can use growth like an extent to make almost every decision you face.

For a company to grow categorically enormous, it must

·         Develop innovative ideas

·         Understand the market

·         Startup something where lots of people need, and

·         Reach and serve all those people. 

The most important thing that the constraints on a normal business protect it from is not competition, however, but the difficulty of coming up with new ideas. A well know entrepreneur said “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”  

Well said statement and 100% spot-on. Just by dreaming on becoming the top company will not just suffice, working on it hard makes it successful. Space of ideas has been so thoroughly picked over that a startup generally has to work on something everyone else has overlooked. Initial struggle is most likely to happen to any new startup companies. Over coming those make them a winner to the rest of the world. The moment when successful startups get started, much of the innovation is insensible.

 The growth of a successful startup usually has three phases: [citation from Forbes]

1. There's an initial period of slow or no growth while the startup tries to figure out what it's doing.
2. As the startup figures out how to make something lots of people want and how to reach those people, there's a period of rapid growth.
3. Eventually a successful startup will grow into a big company. Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves. 

Most businesses are closely controlled, and the unique feature of successful startups is that they're not judgemental.Judging yourself by weekly growth doesn't mean you can look no more than a week ahead. Formerly when you know the pain of missing your target one week, you will become more interested in anything that could spare your pain in the future.

Get Innovative IDEAS and be a winner!!!

Flipkart Makes Seed Investment In Mobile-Technology Startup Cube26

BENGALURU: Flipkart has made a seed investment in mobile-technology startup Cube26, the latest in nearly a dozen such deals as the ecommerce giant chases innovations to stay nimble and gain an edge over rivals. Flipkart contributed a minority share in a Rs50-crore investment led by Tiger Global in Cube26.

"Our overall investment philosophy is around backing a phenomenal team trying to solve a hard problem in a large market through technology," Nishant Verman, head of corporate development at Flipkart, told ET, adding that the firm especially backs startups focused on mobile technology.

Delhi-based Cube26, which has built multiple mobile-based technologies since its inception in 2012, fits right in. The startup already assists Flipkart and other ecommerce companies in customer acquisition.

Verman said that while a few of Flipkart's investments were in companies associated with its business, others had zero overlap, such as home rental listings startup Nestaway."While we have a lot of great, prominent people in Flipkart, all innovation is not going to happen behind our doors. There are amazing entrepreneurs outside," Verman said.

"(Cube26) is a very disruptive company. We feel this can really impact the lives of users, both today and in the future."

Cube26 has worked with mobile phone manufacturers including Micromax, Panasonic and Karbonn to create customised operating systems for users and gesturelinked features.

The startup, which has acquired 10 patents, recently ventured into building technology related to Internet of Things, which are networks of connected devices.

Cube26 announced that it will make affordable connected devices, the first of which, a smart bulb, will be released in the market in November.


"We are elated at the trust showcased by our investors so early in our journey and glad to be associated with global leaders," Cube26 cofounder Saurav Kumar said.

The now-profitable company, founded three years ago by Kumar, Abhilekh Aggarwal and Aakash Jain, earns a monthly revenue of over Rs1 crore.

Disclaimer :- Following article come from ET

Could you run a startup with your best friend?

You grew up together, go out together, and have similar hobbies – but does this mean you’ll be good business partners? The idea of starting up with a friend sounds like fun, and could make business sense too. Businesses with more than one founder tend to be more successful, according to a report by Tech Factor.

But co-founding a business brings with it a whole host of responsibilities that can put the most tried-and-tested friendships under pressure. With many partnerships hinging on complementary skill sets, founders may have opposing approaches to problem-solving, increasing the risk of potential conflict.
Why business partners clash

Spending extended periods of time together is necessary and unavoidable when starting a business. And unless your co-founder is superhuman, it’s likely that little things they do will start to rile you.

“Being together constantly can be challenging,” says Susannah Jones, who co-founded Butchers salon in Hackney with Katie Knox, a friend and former colleague. “We know everything about each other and I know the way I breathe heavily when stressed can irritate Katie. I won’t reveal what annoys me about her.”

The likelihood of conflict increases after the first six months, when the adrenaline rush is over and the day-to-day reality of working together hits, says Christina Lattimer, leadership coach, consultant and founder of the People Development Network. In extreme cases, this can cause daily power struggles if co-founders have opposing personalities.

Tushar Agarwal, co-founder of Hubble, an online marketplace for London office space, met his business partner Tom Watson through Entrepreneur First, a pre-seed investment programme. Agarwal sought someone with complementary skills, but their different personalities mean they disagree daily over design and copy writing.

Sole Is Better, Even Partner Is Damn Good 

“I want everything to be perfect and nuanced before it’s seen by the world, however long it takes. Whereas Tom believes in solving the problem with a quick and dirty solution as soon as possible.”

Conflict can also arise over money when both partners have access to bank accounts, says Mandy Fitzmaurice, managing director of Purple HR. “I’ve heard stories about one clearing out the account and doing a runner or racking up debt without telling the other.”
What’s wrong with a little discord?

While not all clashes are detrimental, if they persist they can have a disastrous impact on a business’s success, says Lattimer. “Whatever the energy inside the partnership, it will inevitably seep out to customers and employees.”

Conflict can also damage personal productivity. “It’s impossible to operate effectively if you’re at loggerheads with each other,” says Fitzmaurice. “If left unresolved, disagreements can lead to terrible disputes, dishonesty and lawyers.”
How to reduce the risk of conflict

It’s important not to take criticism personally, and to settle disagreements through feedback from an external source. “Put it to the jury,” says Pip Black, co-founder of Frame fitness studios. “We have passionate staff and customers so if we need help making a call on something or want a sounding board, we ask them.”

Agarwal and his co-founder settle most disagreements with data. When they clashed over how important the “about” page was on their website, they collected data over two weeks to see how many people visited it.

Compromise can work if your disagreements aren’t settled easily with numbers. Missy Flynn and her two co-founders are equally opinionated but they have avoided arguments about their business, Rita’s bar and restaurant in Hackney. “Rita’s was always meant to be a sum of its parts and everything – the decor, the food, the drink, the music and our ethos has a bit of all of us in it.”

Black and her business partner Joan Murphy couldn’t agree on a name for their fitness studio – she wanted to call it Shake Studios while Murphy preferred Gym and Tonic, so they went back to the drawing board and Frame was a happy compromise.

To ensure your relationship doesn’t revolve around your business, make an effort to socialise together outside of work. Jones and Knox of Butchers salon schedule regular “date nights” when they’re feeling stressed.

“It sounds grown up but our last one ended with us climbing off a boat pissed at 7am,” says Knox. “Date nights remind us that we’re friends, not just business partners.”

For the team at Rita’s, it’s important to get out of the restaurant from time to time. “Sometimes you forget what you used to do when you were just friends without a business. Take a walk, drink a beer, or a coffee, cook dinner and watch movies. Anything.”

If you do find yourself in a blazing row with your co-founder, take a breather and move on as quickly as possible. “The longer the problem continues, the bigger the issue grows,” says Lattimer.

When Lucy Greene and Pandora Lennard, co-founders of modelling agency Anti-Agency, argue, “the eruption will end with the right answer and we just forget the argument ever happened and move on,” says Greene.

Lennard adds: “We both have very fiery tempers so arguments tend to burn out as fast as they flare up. We’re like siblings – we bicker but always make up with hugs.”

And while it’s easy to fixate on disagreements, congratulate yourselves when you work well together, advises Lattimer, and remind yourselves why you wanted to do it in the first place.
Trial phase

Agarwal recommends that entrepreneurs have a trial phase of working together to discover key points of disagreement and personality clashes before committing to anything. “Work on a few small, intense projects to test what it would be like when you’re both stressed in a high-pressure environment.”

And pick your co-founders wisely. Make sure they’re reliable and dedicated, says Eamon Jubbawy, co-founder of background-checking company Onfido: “Are they the type of person who would get out of bed at 3am to help you fix a bug or prepare a client deck? In the early days of a company, those moments define success or failure.”

Once you’ve established a partnership, set clear boundaries. Having more distinct roles from the beginning would have saved Frame’s co-founders a lot of time, says Black; and Flynn would introduce a “no work texts after 10pm” rule with her Rita’s co-founders.

It’s a full-on relationship, adds Flynn, and it won’t be perfect. You might not like each other every day but remember to look after each other – you’re friends after all.

Disclaimer :- Following article come from theguardian

Why Values (Not Perks) Define Your Startup Culture.

Entrepreneurship has exploded in the U.S. market in recent years. According a recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, there are now over twenty four million entrepreneurs in the U.S., making up 14% of the total population.

There may be a number of contributing factors to this trend. Entrepreneurs are often cited as modern day adventurers and explorers. They are willing to takes risks and push innovation. And for many, they exemplify the American Dream. That is, everyone has the opportunity to be successful, no matter how you started or where you might be from.

Unfortunately, glamorizing entrepreneurs—while flattering—doesn’t tell the whole story of what founding and growing a sustainable company entails.

Live With Purity, You Are Going To Be Success Anyway

Despite the number of entrepreneurs in the U.S., the country now ranks 12th among developed nations in terms of business startup activity. American business deaths now outnumber business births, according to Gallup and the U.S. Census Bureau.

As a leader of a growing startup, there are some brutal realities to face. These can include challenges obtaining capital to drive growth, an inability to attract the right talent, or the constant struggle of trying to manage an organization that looks fundamentally different every six months.

In order to grow a successful organization, knowing where to spend your limited resources is critical to success. Startups—especially in Silicon Valley—are often lauded for their culture. And unfortunately, “culture” in this case is many times defined by a set of borderline unbelievable perks.

You Are Not Your Perks.

With so much on the line for your growing business, you cannot put your perks above what you value. Perks seem great at the start, but they tend to lose their luster over time, leaving you with little of substance to sustain engagement, excitement and purpose.

With competitors grappling to offer some wild new perk in an attempt to attract talent, companies are getting sucked into a doom loop. Everyone will end up losing as they try to keep up with the Jones. The perks that were once on the cutting edge become the standard expectation, which only serves to put startups in an even worse position to compete for talent and sustain growth.

Disclaimer :- Following article come from Forbes

How Investors Choose Startup To Finance.

Many would-be entrepreneurs think that people who invest in early-stage companies have a complex and sophisticated decision-making process, akin to what happens on Wall Street. But, unlike the world of high finance where investors gather copious amounts of information and use complex computer modeling to make decisions, investors in early-stage companies spend very little time and gather very little information when making choices.
Perhaps perversely, this approach makes perfect sense.

Before I get into why it makes sense, let me explain how most early-stage investors make decisions. Venture capital firms and angel groups typically screen the business opportunities they receive on the basis of a couple of simple criteria. First, did someone they know and trust refer the deal? If the answer is “no,” the opportunity is almost always ignored or deleted without even being opened or read.

When investors do look at an opportunity, they tend to make a first cut by scanning the executive summary of the entrepreneur’s business plan or the entrepreneur’s pitch deck – the PowerPoint slides the entrepreneur prepares about his or her venture.

This initial screen is very fast. South African venture capitalist Keet Van Zyl explains in one of his posts on the topic that the average venture capitalist spends less than 30 seconds evaluating a business plan.

If the venture makes it past this hurdle, investors still don’t spend much time on it. They simply give the founding team a little time to make a pitch. A study I did a few years ago showed that the typical angel group allows the few entrepreneurs who make it through the initial screen 20 minutes of presentation time and 15 minutes of Q&A before deciding whether or not to proceed to due diligence. Venture capitalists generally allot similar amounts of time to presentations.

Only after this part of the screening process is over do investors spend much time at all evaluating investment opportunities. By then we are down to perhaps 1-in-200 venture

As perverse as it may sound, this approach makes a lot of sense for two reasons. First, early-stage investors will put money in a tiny fraction of ventures they see. Virtually every business they consider will be a “no.”

There are many paths to get to “no.” The opportunity doesn’t fit the investor’s expertise or her fund’s mandate. The team is wrong. The IP is too weak. The market is too small. The venture will take too much money to develop. IPOs never occur in the startup’s industry. The supply chain is too complex. The forecasts are unrealistic. The list goes on and on. A 30-second scan of an executive summary will identify a reason not to invest in 99 out of 100 ventures presented to an investor.

Second, the prospects of new ventures are uncertain. Not risky, but uncertain. As economist Frank Knight explained brilliantly back in 1921 in his classic book Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, something is risky when we don’t know what will happen in the future, but we know the probability distribution of outcomes. Something is uncertain when we don’t know what will happen in the future and we don’t know the odds of different results occurring.

Early stage investors live in a world of uncertainty. No one knows whether an entrepreneur will be able to build the product, or customers will buy it. No one knows if competitors will crush the startup or it will win; if the team will fall apart under crisis or come together; or if later investors come in and crush down the early backers of the company of those early financiers will escape unscathed. And no one knows the answer to a hundred other questions that matter for startup success or the probability distribution of their outcomes. Moreover, the probability distribution of all of these outcomes is unknowable.

If things are uncertain – that is, the probability of outcomes is unknowable – then spending a lot of time trying to gather information is unproductive. There is no information that you can find to know the unknowable.

Experienced startup investors realize this and don’t waste their time trying to know the unknowable. Instead of trying to calculate the probability that a string of unknowable outcomes will occur, they instead look at the upside. If that which is unknowable worked out in a positive way, they ask, is the investment worth it?

For example, they ask, “If I invested in this company, is it possible that it will be a unicorn that will go public in a Facebook-sized IPO?” Then they spend their time on looking more carefully at the handful of ventures where the answer is “yes.”

Disclaimer : Following article come from Entrepreneur

3 Ways To Accelerates Your Startup... Where? Obviously Success!

When it comes to running a startup, spreading your brand awareness should be your primary goal. Depending on your startup’s industry, a multi pronged social media attack may appeal to it and build loyalty in your customer base.

However, a more nuanced plan is much more effective than simply blanketing the market. Sites such as Facebook have more than a billion users, but a high-tech startup may be wise to work with a network such as Spice works, which caters more to tech consumers. Startups with well-conceived social media strategies aren’t as hampered by sparse funding and other issues that plague young companies. Remaining educated and engaged in social media is a great way to become a known quantity and make your startup viable.

Here are three reasons a high social business IQ can help your startup in the long run:

1. It builds credibility. 

A startup has to hustle to create buzz, or even be taken seriously by established companies. Social media is where a young company can distinguish itself as an expert in its field, rather than just a new competitor. Startups make waves by creating original, industry-relevant content and dispersing it through their chosen social media platforms. Pertinent content can also be something as simple as commenting on industry trends or corresponding with competitors.

But a strong social business approach isn’t just for startups looking to get their names out there. Companies such as Hertz, Life-Lock, Group-on and Red Bull all launched successful campaigns that helped them construct credibility with wider audiences.

Building a consistent social media presence for your company is a good start to establishing it -- and you -- as a thought leader.

2. It builds relationships.

A strong social media base can exponentially grow a startup’s limited initial network. Social media’s loose environment helps young leaders connect with industry veterans in an easier, more informal manner.

Receiving a tweet or re-tweet from an industry leader isn’t equivalent to closing a business deal, but it does make you visible to a person of importance in your field.
Additionally, social media can build internal relationships with employees and external connections with investors and prospective talent. A presence on social media is as valuable a tool as any startup has to build bridges inside and outside of the company.

3. It builds knowledge.

In the past, it was difficult to gain timely product feedback. But with the emergence of social media, a business leader can track and assess a product’s movement and engagement while also forecasting possible trends.

Social media can track lead growth, brand perception, brand search volume and the number of inbound links established by your company. Klout -- a service that uses social media metrics to tally engagement -- is an insightful tool for measuring your social media reach.

Researching inbound links reveals how site and product traffic fluctuate due to social media campaigns, contests and other variables. Understanding how particular social media trends affect your company will, ultimately, improve your understanding of which specific strategies yield the best ROI.
An active social media presence benefits startups in three major ways: it builds credibility, relationships and knowledge -- all of which play crucial roles in making a startup profitable. Social media is an extension of your company’s brand. Understanding it and using it well will only make your brand stronger.

Disclaimer : Following article come from Entrepreneurs

Drone Startup CyPhy Works Gets $22 Million Boost From Bessemer Venture Partners

Drone startups are beginning to take flight, at least in the world of venture capital.

On Wednesday, Danvers, Mass.-based CyPhy Works said that it had raised $22 million in a round of funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The announcement is the latest in a series of private investments in companies in China and the U.S. building unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the consumer market.

Led by iRobot IRBT +0.10% cofounder Helen Greiner, CyPhy (pronounced Sci-Fi) did not disclose its valuation following the round, which brought its total funding to more than $30 million. Previously the company had raised $7 million from Lux Capital in Nov. 2013 and concluded a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in June for its six-rotor LVL 1 drone, raising nearly $900,000.

The company is “looking forward to working closely with our new strategic investors to accelerate adoption of drones into public safety, construction, agriculture, journalism, mining, defense, and other fields,” said Greiner in a statement, citing not just Bessemer but also UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, a private investment arm of the shipping company, and Motorola Solutions Venture Capital.

While the likes of Amazon have stoked the public’s imagination of flying robots delivering packages, CyPhy Work’s investment partnership with UPS doesn’t necessarily mean the company will be jumping head on into drone delivery. However, as its previously announced relationship with Motorola shows, CyPhy is using deals with corporate players to gain exposure for its relatively new and experimental technology.

“We have a strategic relationship with Motorola’s public safety division [which covers] most of the nation’s public security,” said Greiner at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in San Francisco last month.” We want to leverage that to get drones into police, fire fighters and others, across the world and not just the U.S.”

CyPhy Works Series B round comes after other companies building drone hardware have raised millions. In May, DJI, the world’s largest consumer drone manufacturer, took in $75 million from Accel Partners at an $8 billion valuation. That was followed by fellow Chinese companies and competitors EHANG and Yuneec, raising $42 million and $60 million respectively, in August.

CyPhy Works biggest differentiator from its Chinese counterparts is that it has built tethered drones, connecting flying robots to users with a fishing line-type filament, which the company said allows for unlimited flight times, improved control and better video processing. Its Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) vehicle system, which was initially built for military-use cases, utilizes this tethering technology, and Greiner said that the funding will go a toward the commercial launch of that model. (The company’s Kickstarter drone, LVL 1, does not feature tethering.)

“CyPhy Works has produced the first truly differentiated drone and as we see more industries leverage this technology, we expect they will capture significant market share,” said Bessemer Venture Partners’ Felda Hardymon, who joins the company’s board with the investment.

Other participants in the $22 million round include Draper Nexus Ventures and existing investors Lux Capital and General Catalyst Partners.

Citation from Forbes : http://goo.gl/bq6g8n