Why do Startups talk less?

Meeting around 100 startups on weekly basis, one question which always haunted me was, Why do Startups measure how much they speak? What stops them from talking about what is theirs after all?

Reasons, understood, through some close interactions, some heated discussions, some through understanding their actions and some through long late night discussions with entrepreneurs who have become close friends with time.. I have to warn you, because if you are a person who does not respect other's opinions, it is now time for you to close this blog now...

Lets start with the REASONS....

1. They are just reasons, entrepreneurs love giving reasons all the time...

2. Fear failure, failure of getting what they actually are looking for, fear of faulting, fearing others to copy what they have created. If its yours, why fear, if its not, why do it? Plain and simple FEAR..

3. Expecting the whole world to be able to do it for them. Thanks to the growing eco-system of startups, every category of work which a Startup needs to do is converted into a business model and for some reason most of the startups feel that, that service provider will take care of their talking. If the startup themselves don't talk, then how in the world can they expect others too.

Finally, Startups talk.. they surely do.. but they talk less and what little talk they do is surely not what will bring them to what they are looking for.. Don't fear mistakes, MISTAKES, make you what you will be tomorrow, it will teach you to do exactly the opposite to the time when you failed by your mistakes, so you will surely succeed...

So.. talk.. let the whole world be.. U JUST TALK.. & WATCH THE FUN.. 

Europe & Me

Work and responsibilities takes up so much of our time in life that we always stop to think what is that which covers most of our inner most thoughts.. l have realised mine is Europe.. I was destined to be there... I was destined to spend most of my best years there.. but other elements came in force. Others played a key role in keeping me away from where I was destined to be, not one but many years.. It took me lot of struggle, lot of fights, externally and internally to fight the demons and get the way cleared to where I belong. At this point of my life, I feel I have cleared those demons well enough for me to carve the path towards MY DESTINATION...

Why do we do that to ourselves? why do we make it a point to let other play our game? why do we feel its important, others take the decisions for us, even if it is going to be the worst for us? Why can't we be us? Why can't I be I?? Just I???

Saying that, I am sure that many have tried and succeeded, many have tried and failed.. which is okay?? but not trying at all.. is a sin.. Something which is unforgivable. You have been gifted with one life, if you don't dare.. who will?? Don't go down without a TRY...

Find your place... your destination.. a place on earth where you feel ur complete, does not matter with or without anyone... U r U.....

Europe... France.... more specific... South of France... is that special destination for me... How??? Why??? When???? just does not matter.. It is..

Every time I feel.. I have done enough and have had enough or just feel I have not connected with that ME, you will find me searching Lufthansa... Mariott.... Costs.. Budgets... Timelines.. I am doing it again and you will find me doing that many more times again.. If you try to find out why I do it, you will never come to know why, if you try to reason it out with me, you will never get me to give you any practical valid reason for it.. But you will find me there.. All very comfy.. coz it is for sure my DESTINATION..

Why do i love France??? Ohhhhhhhh its FRANCE.... Its me.... Love you 

DO STATISTICS SELL?

We have heard brands so many times pitch statistics to customers on how the industry is growing, how the product is performing in the markets they are in & etc, but lets give a thought.. does these statistics actually sell? I have always wondered that and I am sure we have direct, indirect marketers who have also thought of this. Ya, this is another topic of blog which I will cover in the next coming weeks, WHO IS NOT A MARKETER?

For now, lets run a reality check on the Q if Statistics Sell....

My Club, Startups Club is having its annual event in a month and I have been using every strategy in my book of strategies to ensure maximum participation. The pricing is to its lowest and the is totally sellable, an easy product to sell, its about entrepreneurship, its investors, its validation and BP pitch... you do not need a more sellable product. So, we have a winner in hand as a product. Finally the reach, ok, I am being humble when I say, I have a reach to around 40k souls across the world, all first connections. So we have the reach as well. So in this coming 1 week, all of us (meaning those who have read this Blog and are following it) will know if Statistics Sell.

I have just today checked out the exact number of tickets sold till this minute and have posted some exact statistics across my connects.. will be talking about it also in chats and blogs (such as this) for 1 week. Post the week, till the date of sales, that is 18th in Chennai, we will see, how many tickets gets sold in actual. I will conclude this blog on the 20th on the number of tickets sold through this presentation on Statistics. So, are we all in??? 

Here goes the Statistics for you as well...

Dear Members/ Friends/ Associates,

Very Soon, on the 18th of July, we will be in Marriott Courtyard, Chennai & 26th July in Hyderabad, for our Open House meetup, but most importantly, it is on that day, that you can come over and save your Rs.100/- and also lessen the chances of missing out on the availability of tickets for DemoDay coming up next month on the 9th. This a note to tell you that there are huge chances of you loosing on a great event, if you dont pick up the DemoDay tickets on the 18th itself. some fact;

1. The GRT Convention Center can accommodate only 150 people comfortably, and we have until now sold out exactly 27 tickets for the event, paid and confirmed.

2. We will have 10 Participants, so we will be mailing to the 10 participants that they can pick up the tickets for their family, friends and team members, last year the statistics show that each participant took around 2 Visitors pass, so that leaves us with 47 tickets sold.

3. Plus, it is also a tradition that the core committee team keeps around 50 tickets for last minute desperate requests and sudden walk-ins and their friends & associates. Last year DemoDay in Bangalore had 107 walk-ins apart from around 86 on line purchases. so that leaves us with a very small number of 53 tickets left.

4. We have a total of 78 RSVPs on Meetup from Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. We usually get an advance booking and on line purchase of tickets of around 20%, that means around 20 tickets could be purchased on line in the coming days by members. leaving us with just 33 tickets in hand for any pick-ups from all of you, who are sure that they will be apart of this event. 33 TICKETS MEMBERS...

So, if your having second thoughts or doubts about what this events going to be, it is not a regular monthly event by Startups Club, its our annual event for which we count down all our activities into this month. Its a whole day event. know more on www.scdemoday.com

The Startups Club FB group story - 1 to 1001

It had been 2 months since the core team of Startups Club had started the group in meetup and had around 200 members and core committee meetings were considered very important by the core team.. We had no idea what we had started off, was it just another run of the mill thing, just another meetup group, just another reaction which will die with time or something good.. Nothing great for sure.  After all, we were all a set of 5 strangers who knew each other just from 60 days.. We met at 6 pm.. Raining cats and dogs and we still did meet at Barista, Koramangala and we laughed and chatted for something.. Every one had just one thing at the back of our heads.. We are all fools.. We are making a hill out of a mole, instead of going back home and hitting the sack, here we were at a coffee shop in a rainy dreadful evening, traffic jams when we hit the road back home was a bigger problem for us than anything else.. Niladri.. Always the person other than me to start business talk in these meetings starts off.. All try to pay attention.. He says we are doing good.. Startups Club has had one successful meeting at Mr. Beans with 38 attendees and 200 members and counting and we had to now at least have some presence other than meetup.. I as usual, the attention seeker in meetings barges in and says "we do have a FB page and we have some 40 likes" very proud of myself.. He and the others are really happy and suddenly we all very interested to know things and our very own technically more qualified core team member Najmul comes up by saying we need to go on LinkedIn as it has serious business people and our marketing expert.. All fun guy Arnab jumps in saying it must be Twitter as it enables a lot of fellowship and within minutes we had all 5 of us talking together and loudly, trying to make our own point.. Just not aware or not caring about people around us, the rain, the time or our own urge to head back home.. Finally, the coffee shop boy cuts in to ask if we would order something (maybe that was his sweet way to let us know how noisy and chaotic we all were) that put all of us to silence, we brushed him off by lying to him and saying we were waiting for few other.. He was even more shocked to know that there were few more like us coming. We all sat silent and Vivek, our most intelligent and person with a knack for numbers, spoke " this Club is for members so that they could promote and reach out other members and a FB close group would be the best" immediately every one started speaking.. How many things can we handle.. Having is not the problem, managing is the thing, leaving it dead will even more demotivated our members blah blah blah.. Finally.. I do not know who spoke this but a line went like "WE CANNOT MANAGE A GROUP, AFTER HAVING A PAGE, LINKEDIN & TWITTER" that was it.. I looked so shocked that all thought I would faint.. The CAN'T word was used and I could not take it.. I proposed to the core team that we would try the FB group out if it does not catch momentum and it does not grow, we leave it and for some reason - no one opposed, maybe all wanted to go back home.. We parted off from Barista and headed home, long, wet and traffic clogged drive.. Vivek driving the car and I acted as if I was asleep but all I wanted to do was reach home and make that group of Startups Club.. How can anyone say we can't.. That was like sin, like the end of the world.. I kept playing a plan.. Reached home, did not even remove my foot ware, pulled out my system and there I was.. Created the Group.. Put a googled picture on networking as my group picture and then there is was.. 1 member.. ME.. Must I send an invite to the core team?? Would they be pissed off.. Would they feel I challenged them, I loved them all and my intention was not to hurt them but I had heard the CAN'T word.. I was helpless.. Anyway.. I decided that I was happy that I had created the group and would just share the link on my timeline and not invite any body and would talk to my core team and then do the rest.. I went to my room to change and freshen up and I heard 4 notifications came by on my phone.. My dearest core team.. All of them had sent a request to join.. I knew even more today why I loved them all so very much.. We stood beside each other for everything that is good for the club.. In 5 minutes we grew from 1 to 5. We had no plans, no SEO, no keywords.. All we, the core team did was just communicated to all our 200 members on meetup, our friends and contacts on FB and slowly it kept growing in numbers.. Every meetings we would tell our members, "please join our group & the page, and the Twitter & the LinkedIn".. We at times would feel so bad to make so many announcements..  Promote ur offerings there... Every day and every meeting.. Most importantly, even today.. What the group does to you is let's you talk about yourself, your idea, your offerings to a set of people who at times read it and at times just brush through but also at times who end up being your co-founders, ur customers and your trusted associations. 

So, this is the story of your Startups Club.. Your platform for your selling.. Your voice to the 1001  & counting pairs or eyes who could be one and all to you.. Love you all people for giving me this opportunity to share this little story of that rainy evening, the loud talks between trusted associations and the result got today and the great future for all of us....