In this previous post, I had said that Proto is India’s first staged event for showcasing emerging technology startups. I am happy to report that the event lived up to its expectation. In a span of eight hours, 27 companies held the stage for 8 minutes each, presenting to an audience of 325 people, all of whom paid money to witness the show. At the end of the day in his concluding comments, Atul Chitnis, remarked that it was a striking achievement that such an event was held in India at all. In hindsight, I would still maintain that while Proto was no Demo, what we witnessed at the ICSR auditorium in Chennai on the 20-21st of Jan, 2007 was a first of its kind event in this country and a pointer to the shape of things to come.
The event featured 27 companies (original plan was 30, but 3 companies dropped out at the last moment) across various domains ; some of the demos were for finished products, while others were pre launch previews into upcoming ones. In case you want to run through the list of startups that were showcased at Proto, check out the slideshow below
(you can use the buttons in the slide player to navigate the slides)..
Kiruba has published an excellent visual commentary on Proto; Swarup has an exhaustive blog post covering the event including key features of each product demoed; WatBlog has a list of all the 30 companies that were featured and 15 others which made it to the first shortlist; Gokul has shown great perseverance in shooting a video of each presentation and uploading to YouTube.
I’d like to share my Proto experience through a bunch of candid expressions about things that went right at the event and a few areas where we could have done better.
Some highlights of Proto..
– Proto was a staged event, hence it was important to put up an efficient display on the final day. Staged events are about showmanship and about the visual impact. What we finally achieved on the day of the event left me really surprised. In the span of eight hours, 27 companies showcased their creations in front of a big audience; there were no delays, no stoppages, the laptops were shuffled over with an astonishing efficiency. Overall the proceedings were near flawless. And I feel, not just me, this caught a lot of other people by surprise as well.
– We had a practice session for the presenters one day ahead of the event. Mahesh Murthy and Atul Chitnis sat trough the entire day giving feedback to the presenters about their product, their presentation style etc. And it made a HUGE difference. I was present all along and the difference between the presenters on the day of the rehearsal and the actual day was remarkable. Moral of the story – for a staged event, practice is of paramount importance.
– Some products were being displayed publicly for the first time. Sloka Telecom set up their entire Wimax broadcast and receiving stations within the auditorium and demoed a short clip from the movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ using WiMax. SpotEazy and IXIGO showed off early stage prototypes of their work in progress products.
– The spate of BarCamps in the last year have built up people’s expectations in a different way. At a BarCamp, you don’t need to be selected. It is free & open and hence you get to see quite a few products, which don’t really make the cut. Proto was different. More than 100 startups filed nominations and finally the best 30 were selected. Some of the companies that narrowly missed out from getting selected would have felt the pressure to have been better. Thus while open/liberal events like BarCamps don’t put the pressure on products to improve, an event like Proto will.
– Before the event, we were constantly been pilloried for not disclosing the names of the selected startups. We were getting requests from potential sponsors, from the media, from participating companies, from outstation participants (who wanted to decide whether it was worth coming to) to disclose the names of the selected companies. Some people even tried to sweet talk us into divulging the names. But I think we did the correct thing by withholding that information. Maybe in future, we might do it differently but for a first day-first show, this strategy was correct.
– I think there was a lot of anticipation whether any of the startups would receive funding as a result of Proto. Check out the comments section in this previous post. This issue was brought up during the Q&A session at the end of the event as well. I think this is a superfluous question and displays a thorough lack of understanding of the funding process. Decisions like funding, acquisitions are highly orchestrated events and they happen after days/months of ground work. If your product has inherent potential, you will get funded, Proto or no Proto. But Proto is a good way of making a splash and catching the attention of interested stakeholders.
– I got a chance to interact with Mahesh Murthy during the rehearsal and see the ‘mind behind the man’ at work, while he was giving feedback to the presenters. I was REALLY impressed; he talks hardcore commonsense. I wish he had stayed on for the main day.
Some areas where we could/should have done better..
– Some of the demos/presentations were just too technical. There was little attempt to explain the business situation, the actual problem the product solves, let alone any talk about the revenue model. After all this was not a technical seminar, rather an event with a wide cross section of participants.
– As Atul Chitnis remarked, we did not publicize the event well enough. While Proto in the coming days is likely to be featured extensively in the mainstream and online media, what he said was true, we could/should have done much better.
– The participation from potential investors (VCs, angels etc) was not upto our expectations. One simple explanation was the fact that we had not disclosed the names of the companies, so people were unsure whether “it was worth coming toâ€. But still we need to understand this better.
– Because of my Webyantra experience, I am aware of many startups who are working on innovative products (specially in the web space) that they should have demoed at Proto, but they did not file nominations. I would like to understand the reasons that prevented these companies from doing so.
Overall I think what we achieved with Proto 2007 was a rock solid start in India, to the very concept of staged events that showcase innovative technologies and products. We hope this is just a precursor to an exciting journey in the years to come.
Amit, Some of your comments stand out as commandments 🙂 ..specially liked your “If your product has inherent potential, you will get funded, Proto or no Proto” line.
Thanks for the nice round-up and hey thanks for writing back to Darren.
Nag.B /at/
Startups.in
I still fail to understand the rationale behind the decision to not reveal the list of shortlisted companies.
From the reason given initially, it seems to have been dictated as per the needs of the ‘stealth’ companies.
But hey, come on — what strategic advantage is your competitor going to get in 2 days before the event if your name is announced in the shortlist ?
Fails to make sense.
-p
Pranav,
No the decision was not based on the stealth companies funda.
We did not disclose it because if people knew about the startups and their products, they would have started interviewing them or profiling them much before the event itself. Some of the products on display have been launched earlier as well. Hence it would have almost tantamounted to letting somebody else steal the thunder from the demo before the event itself.
However we are not hung up on this; we might handle this differently in future if the situation demands.
For the first event, this seemed like the best bet for us.
amit
Hi Amit,
Nice round up – especially the slide pack – nice and succinct. Really like the line-up of companies – lot of interesting ideas out there.
Hence it would have almost tantamounted to letting somebody else steal the thunder from the demo before the event itself.
Amit,
I disagree. I dont think that any writeup or any review (other than Webyantra’s) what so ever would have given the exposure that an event like Proto would.
Besides, one of the goals of an event like Proto is for startups to showcase their products and generate a buzz for themselves. Whats wrong with pre-Proto buzz ?
Besides, what an irony – To create a buzz for itself, Proto leverages blogosphere – but when it comes to the flip side, it suddenly becomes a one-way street ?
Bottom line is that we all are equally excited about Proto and the current Indian startup scene and I hope that going forward, Proto changes this policy.
-pranav.
Hi Amit,
Was a pleasure meeting you at Proto. However i must say that the Proto team could have done better at attracting media attention for the event and the startups (the profiles havent been updated on Proto.in as of this moment).
Great initiative Amit. Would have liked to cover it, but it was a crazy week. The thing with such events is that you start something and learn and build upon it year after year. I’m sure this isn’t the last.
Hi Amit,
Although I was not a part of it, from whatever I have heard, it was a stupendous success, funding or no funding. You are right funding is not the point. The point is visibility. Being a entrepreneur myself, i understand how difficult that is. :). And Proto was a great way. Kudos to the team who organized it. Great show!
Eagerly awaiting the next one.
-Rajiv.
First of all Kudos to the team who organized such a great event and all the people who have provided us excellent coverage on this through blogs. Special thanks to Amit for his valuable thoughts.
I agree with a lot of people here that it would not have harmed releasing the list of participants and a small profile. However what they were actually presenting can be concealed and that will create the required buzz & interest to get media, VC and other people to the event.
But as Amit said, event like this will grow with time and i am sure will provide an excellent platform to start ups
Cheers
Tarun
I agree with the decision not to reveal the names of the companies before the event, but I see this from a different perspective:
This event saw a lot of investment of time (by the organizers, to arrange the event as well as shortlist the companies) and money (by sponsors, investors, etc.). If the names had been announced before the event, many of these companies, now having been found “interesting”, would have been contacted by people before the event. There would have been the danger of deals being struck before the event, even causing some selectees to withdraw, completely undermining the event, and robbing VCs/investors from getting a fair shot at these companies. In fact, having already decided on which companies to contact, some VCs/investors could have chosen not to come as well, denying exposure to other delected companies.
From the even success perspective, the decision not to pre-announce the selected companies was completely correct and I would encourage this to be done in the future as well.
However, the profiles of the companies *should* be put up on the site as HTML pages now that the event is over.
Atul,
Point well taken.
Vijay
Atul, Amit,
Do not misinterpret my comment – I have no intention whatsoever to undermine / criticize the effort put in by all the organizers. It’s a huge and great step forward for the Indian startup scene. I was just trying to understand the reason behind the decision. And your comments answered whatever questions I had.
I only wish, I could have attended in person and met the equally enthusiastic people at the event.
-pranav.
Once launched, proto.in will be a major linking bridge between venture capitalists and venture seekers.