Heard at TiE Chennai Unconference Panel Discussions

At the panel on Scaling Businesses at TiE Chennai Unconference on Sep 18th.

The Panel

The panel consisted of  three charter members of TiE and two eminent people one from Thoughtworks and one from a Govt body.

  • Chandu Nair – ScopeKnowledge
  • J. Krishnan – Founder Unimity (popularly known as JK)
  • Sudeep Jain (IAS and chairman of MSME Institute, a government body),
  • Ketan –  ThoughtWorks, and
  • Raghu Rajgopal – Energeate (a serial entrepreneur and helps Chennai Fund).
  • Companies some times need to shed skin like a snake, Chandu Nair
  • Your first venture should not be capital intensive – some good advice from Sudeep
  • Scaling has been through customer reference as we had no marketing dollars – JK
  • Repeatability is very important. Can you repeat quality, delivery etc? – Raghu
  • You need to look at a model of non-linear growth – a way of building partnerships and ecosystem to grow – Ketan
  • You can grow not only by acquiring more customers but providing higher value to existing customers. Engage deeply, look at their business problems and see where you can help – Chandu Nair
  • Don’t build your business with VCs in mind – JK
  • Partners – Comfort must exist even before you start. You need to evaluate partners not only on their value system but also on their ambition levels to find a match- Raghu
  • Promotion of entrepreneurship is at a very nascent stage in India – Sudeep
  • Assess your readiness to scale. You can’t do that by just hiring a bunch of people – Raghu