I am happy to announce the summer edition of Proto.in to Webyantra’s readers. This is slated for 21-22 July at Chennai and is in continuation of its first edition that took place in January earlier this year. For those who came in late, Proto is intended to be a springboard for upcoming startups in India. Modeled on the hugely successful DEMO that is held in Silicon Valley, Proto is organized by the Knowledge Foundation, a non-profit body started by a group of like minded tech enthusiasts.
The first edition of Proto was a good stepping stone. We did some things right, while there were some areas where we could have done better. We intend to leverage on its learnings and make sure that the second edition is a more compelling experience for all participants- startups, technologists, investors, media etc.
So how will ProtoSE be different?
– For starters, the event is being thrown open to startups from other Asian countries; we expect participation from South East Asia.
– There would be a better representation from the investor community; we already have confirmations from quite a few VC firms- Sequoia, Clearstone Ventures, Canaan, NEA-IndoUS Ventures, Gabriel Ventures, Mentor Partners, Ventureast, SVB, Plus Ventures, Matrix Partners, FootPrint Ventures & Bluerun Ventures.
– Prominent industry stalwarts have offered their support for the event- Samir Sood, the head of Google India M&A in the region, Ashim Roy of Comat, Subho Ray of IAMAI, Sean Blagsvedt of Microsoft Research besides associations like IAMAI, TiE, TeNeT, ASES (Incubation Cell Network based out of Stanford University), The Technopreneur Development Division of Malaysia (TeDD), IDA of Singapore.
The format of the event otherwise is likely to be the same as before – anybody can nominate, but only 30 chosen startups (selected by a expert panel) will get to take the stage during the event. The nominations are now open, so if you are a startup wanting to tell the world what you have created, go file your nominations right now. There is a participation fee of Rs 10K, but only if you are in the final 30. Registration for attendees will open shortly. The website for Proto SE07 is currently work in progress and should be ready in a week. We are also looking for event sponsors, so if that is you, drop me a mail.
Looking forward to a rocking PROTO SE 2007. See you there!
Earlier on Webyantra about Proto I
Proto…gets off to a solid start with its first edition
Proto.in…can it rival Demo?
PROTO…showcasing the best Indian tech startups
Update: My reference to TFK as a non-profit seems to have been met with skepticism from a few folks, hence this issue needs to be clarified. I don’t think I can explain this better than what Vijay has done in comment no 16 of this post; so please go through it to understand the correct picture. Other than that, I can vouchsafe that nobody from TFK is benefitting personally from this event; thats what I meant by stating that TFK is a non-profit.
Is the participation fee of 10k in dollars or rupees? If its the former, that’s a pretty hefty sum for a startup based in Asia.
Big V,
Thanks for correcting me; of course its in Indian rupees. I have since corrected this in the post itself.
10K $ would be insane, I agree.
amit
Nothing personal and sorry for cross-posting but:
It is a nice initiative BUT why charge a whopping 10K per finalist as participation fee? You say it is a “a non-profit bodyâ€. How exactly it is a not for profit? How do you spend all the “profits†that you are making from the participants fee and I’d assume equally huge sponsor fee?
Would you mind disclosing the facts?
Then, you say “group of like minded tech enthusiastsâ€. Who exactly are these “like minded pplâ€? The blog/site has no information about all these “like minded†ppl. It’d be nice if you could list all the ppl who have vested interests in this “non-profitâ€.
It is a nice thing that you plan to do but you can make it even better by being open before claiming yourself as a “not for profitâ€.
Right to information?
Satyam,
A sum of 3 lac Rs will be spent in no time if you consider the travelling and accommodation expenses for all the people coming for the event. Add the charges for the venue, facilities, and food etc. and I think the budget is reasonable.
Of course, if Proto has to become really successful, the investors are the ones who should be footing the bill. But then again, a small fee ensure that the panel has to evaluate only a small no. of genuinely serious applications.
cheers
nilesh
But when will we have the next Barcamp in Delhi?
Nothing to offend TKF, but I would appreciate if you can clarify that you’re really a non-profit
Now lets assume that your expenses are as follows:
(1) Guests (Travel, boarding, lodging etc etc)
(2) Venue – Rs 20k?
(3) Food – Rs 30k?
(4) Facilities (projectors etc etc) – Rs 10k?
(5) Misc – Rs 5k?
Now what is not clear is, who are your guests really? Nilesh, you said u’ll pay for travel etc. Now who r the guys u’re going to pay for?
Now your revenue part…
(1) From startup – Rs 3 L (Rs 10k X 30 startups)
(2) From attendees – Rs 1.5L to Rs 3L (Rs 500 to Rs 1000 X 300 participants)
(3) From VCs (Are you charging them this time? Last time you charged Rs 25k from each VC)
(4) From sponsors (I dont think your overall sponsorship amount will be lesser than min Rs 2L)
So your revenue is a minimum of Rs 6.5L to Rs 8L assuming that you do NOT charge VCs. Do you charge them?
And you expenses are Rs70k plus boarding, lodging & travel for your guests. But the big Q is, who are your guests? Lets assume that you’re going to spend Rs10k per guest (Rs 6000 for 2-way flight, Rs 2000 for hotel, Rs 2000 for misc ), how many guests are there for you to spend? Can you please list them?
I would request some TKF guy to fill in these parts
(1) Revenue from VCs
(2) Number of guests you’re going to pay
If you fill this, we’ll have the exact idea. Until now, its like your revenues are around Rs 7L and your expenses around Rs 70k. Unless you show us its balanced, its not a non-profit event.
Thanks,
Arun
Arun,
Good thinking on your part to try to work out the costs & inflows.
I think your estimates on the expenses (70K) are grossly underestimated. I was not involved in the financials last time, but there are whole lot of things that were done and which have been given the miss by you. e.g. one day before the event, there was a complete rehearsal in a fairly good hotel for all partcipating startups..thats one big chunk of expenses. There are fairly significant expenses that one would incur in paying for the event managemnet firm that will manage the show.
At a general level, if you are saying that you want more transparency, thats fine and I will make sure this gets conveyed to the core team behind the event.
amit
Vijay and Arun, you bring forward the exact points I had been wondering. Don’t know why they claim as a non-profit?
Amit, it is unfortunate that you feel there is no requirement of transparency until the public start questioning the motives. They should have been more transparent right from the start when so much of money is being collected as a fee for this event.
I do not want to offend any one as well but for us Indians it is quite common to see so many scams in our country that it makes us question the motives.
You say you are not involved in financials last time. What about this time? Are you one of the promoters/organizers? It is surprising that you don’t have complete information yourself.
anr
err I meant Arun and Satyam.
anr
Amit,
You trying to distance urself from the so-called ‘core’ team at this stage itself looks odd from an outsider like me.
Regards
Arun
Comon guys , this is India … Non Profit is just a SCAM everything is for profit.
As pointed out above the expenses dont match up the revenues – its just looks like proto is just an Idea to make money out of Idea’s.
I am smiling here looking at someone qoute 30k as the cost for food for two days.
Non-profit is the way the society is registered for auditing purposes of the income tax department. (It was misplaced to even mention it along with the event notice.) Someone who is experienced with the system would know that we are liable to show proper accounts – much more stricter than a for-profit organization – to quality for that. At the end of the day, proto.in will deliver value for the startups, and its the startups that need to be convinced that this is worth the 10K that they are paying.
Why is everyone else involved anyways?
I would strongly advise you to take part in the organization of a barcamp in your city, cause the costs are much different and reality is always different than what people imagine.
“Proto is organized by the Knowledge Foundation, a non-profit body started by a group of like minded tech enthusiasts.”
Arun, TKF does more than just Proto.in. And not-for-profit, is for the society, to declare that no one is financially compensated for their involvement. It is run by volunteers and by people who are keen in doing something about the things we complain about everyday 🙂
And on Amit’s defense, I would say that Amit is only involved with proto.in and not with the other initiatives of TKF, which involves Blogcamp, Wikicamp, the upcoming Podcamp.in, Mobile Monday events, Barcamp, Shoot! (A photography workshop), all of which are free events.
Mr.Arun,
Your Math is just mind blowing.You should seriously try your hand at career in math Research.
Can i ask you whether you attended the first event?
I did, and can tell you that you have no idea of what you are talking.Please organize a few birthday parties first before you start doing forensic accounting of large scale events.
No offense meant, but you and Mr.Alex are taking through your hats.
Vijay, quoting from your comments:
“Blogcamp, Wikicamp, the upcoming Podcamp.in, Mobile Monday events, Barcamp, Shoot! (A photography workshop), all of which are free events.”
I think you collected Rs 200 to Rs 300 per person for Blogcamp & Barcamp. How can you say that “all” of these events are free? Quite amazing that you didn’t know you charged for them!!!
I’m not saying its a wrong thing to collect fees for these events. They’re definitely worth it and appreciate the initiatives by TKF. But I’m always amazed at why you procalim to be a non-profit.
“I am smiling here looking at someone qoute 30k as the cost for food for two days.”
Exactly, even if its 60k or 70k, the difference is still very wide (pls come closer to 7L) and you can’t simply approximate the numbers to balance them up. It would be awesome if you come up with the real numbers. Or atleast stop claiming that you’re transparent. Because you’re not 🙂
“Why is everyone else involved anyways?”
Because you are doing it as a public event. You’re not compelled to answer. People will know the reality anyway only via discussions such as this. And there is also something called “Right to Information”.
To sum up to the public, I’m personally very happy about TKF’s initiatives and appreciate their initiatives. But the issue is, why are you projecting yourself as a non-profit when you’re not? And I would also appreciate if you stop saying that you’re transparent. I came to this conclusion after you asked “Why is everyone else involved anyways?”
In my honest opinion, claiming yourself as a “non-profit” is a mere marketing tactics on TKF’s part. You failing to agree that is not something people would not be happy about.
We’re happy to spend Rs 10k as a startup. But we’re slightly hesitant about spending that money with a team who are not transparent enough (or who have a different face behind the screens). Also, I would like to see many other teams like TKF to conduct many such events. I think your responses here are opening up chances for other like-minded folks to step in and initiate their own events.
For now, I would work with http://www.aavishkaar.org/ or attend an event in my city as published by actual VCs themselves at http://www.venturewoods.com/
Best Regards
Arun
Arun,
I think there is a misunderstanding here. Something that most people seem to be under. When a entity is registered as a “non-profit society” it means that none of those involved are monetarily profited by any of the money that comes in. It doesn’t mean that the entity either a) exhausts all the money that came into the event, or b) doesn’t raise funds at all.
TKF in most cases does keep an excess fund. We do have some leftovers from the last edition of proto, which is going into the expenses such as the website, the brochures, the giveaways that need to be ordered, the venue that needs to be booked – all the expenses that begin way before any of the sponsorship amount or the participation fees come in.
If you go by the traditional, revenue – cost = profit, then things don’t quite gel here. According to the income tax department, and as per the legal papers and the entities that are responsible for managing entities, “not-for-profit’ means something else.
That is what I meant as “inappropriate to be mentioned in the event announcement”.
Yeah, I think there was a fee taken on Wikicamp, so thats a fault on my part. But the way TKF works is that different people take different initiatives and spearhead them.. apart from proto.in, I am not too much into the finances and day to day operations of other events… except for the regular meets when we go through entire finances – which explains why everyone doesn’t know everything about every event.
Arun, at the end of the day, nobody is financially benefitting out of any of these initiatives. I believe I have publicly stated that I would love for people to take up similar initiatives and run with it in their own circles. I, along with TKF, initiated Proto.in because no one else was catering to that need. If more people do want to… nothing like it. Which is the same reason why I am completely with the effort of Venture intelligence with their initiatives, with the efforts of TiE and similar organizations.
I don’t think we ever competed, nor ever want to be the dominant one. Afterall, this is more to do with passion, than any other vested interests. I returned back from the west, hoping to make some changes, and its is just part of that.
Ideally speaking, I would love it if there are other groups who do the same task that Proto.in is accomplishing, in a better way, so that I could relax on my weekends 🙂
Does that clarify things a bit?
Not really but lets see how you stand on your words in long run. For now, TKF
(1) … is an interesting initiator of new ventures
(2) … is capable of coming up with worthy events
(3) … is NOT transparent (Pls don’t try to defend this!!!)
(4) … is NOT non-profit (You can take this as my rant because I’m worried abt the 3rd point above)
So, on the sidelines, will next blogcamp or wikicamp be FREE? 😉
Good Luck in your future ventures and glad to see you are open to encourage other worthy events. Way to go!!!
Best Regards,
Arun
Arun,
If you are in chennai, do touch base. Let’s catch up over coffee sometime.
I am always open to feedbacks, and how we can make this better. Would love to hear from you on that regard.
Vijay