Category Archives: Uncategorized

TATA NEN Hottest Startup Awards – Reality voting contest for India based startups

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The Tata Group & National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) are jointly running an online contest for voting the Hottest Indian startups. Called the Hottest Startup Awards, this works like the umpteen reality shows that are all over national televison (think BigBoss, IndianIdol, FearFactor et al). People can nominate startups & vote for them both on the web & through SMS. After the first round of voting, a shortlist of 30 startups will be made based on the most number of public votes, combined with the highest expert ratings. Finally top 5 winners will be chosen from these 30 companies. The expert judges includes 200 people including investors, entrepreneurs, academicians, professionals and representatives across industries.

What do the winning startups get out of this? Well quite a bit actually. Apart from getting on the media radars, prizes are
– Business training, mentoring and incubation support of upto Rs. 50 lakhs by IIM-A and CIIE
– Incubation opportunity to a befitting venture by IIM-B and NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL)
– Admission to Microsoft’s StartUp Accelerator Program for at least one winner
– All Shortlisted startups will receive direct admission to pitch to Angels courtesy Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels and admission to TiE’s nurturing program

In addition, all nominated companies stand a chance to be invited for the TATA NEN Hottest Startup Funding Challenge 2008. The funding will be provided by Seedfund and the winner could receive 2 to 3 crores of investment capital subject to evaluation from them.

The event has a broad sectoral focus- healthcare, retail, mobile, biotech, hospitality, lifestyle, IT and service providers.

Contest Timelines: Voting for first round has started on Aug27. Last date for sending nominations is October 22. In phase I, public votes and expert reviews will decide the 30 shortlisted companies, which will be announced on November 6. Phase II will comprise on-ground and online campaigning by the 30 shortlisted startups and culminate into a major voting drive where the public will vote for the Top 5 Winners who will be declared on December 23, 2008.

Requirements to be nominated: The company must be 5 or fewer years old; headquartered in India; and a stand-alone – not a subsidiary or division of a larger company.

The website has been put together very well; check out the page below where you review and vote a startup.

The event is unique because it is the first publicly voted startup contest in india. Startup showcases are quite a few – Proto, KickStart, TiECanaan, TiE-ISB, SmartTechie etc. but they do not have a voting component.

Noteworthy is the participation of the TATAs in the early stage entrepreneurship space. This may be a precursor for other big business houses to jump into the fray as well.

Ayojak… where venue booking meets event management

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Ayojak is a website where you can plan/manage an event and also book a venue for it. While there are many websites that let you do event planning (or ones that aggregate events), Ayojak claims to be India’s first Event & Venue Organizer.

Ayojak has a simple and effective layout & navigation. It contains tools for planning, conducting & promoting events- these could be weddings, parties, get-togethers, conferences et al. It is also aggregating the largest venue database across all Indian states, which users can browse and make direct inquiries to the venue owner to book it. The website lists a wide spectrum of venues- ranging from the usual conferences, parties, product launches to uncommon ones like boats & ships, film locations, churches etc.

The website wants to become a one stop shop for venue owners and offer them Lead Generation (via SMS, Email, Web Phone), Venue Booking Management, Venue Microsite (coming soon) and Venue Management. It went live a couple of weeks back and currently lacks critical mass in terms of data, but if it can get some initial traction going, this could be promising. I have not been informed of their go-to-market strategy; I guess it has to be a combination of online and off-line efforts to make venue owners aware of the service and participate in it.