Indore, 28^th May 2016: Indore Entrepreneurs Network (IEN) hosted an event to help budding entrepreneurs to understand essential points to be considered at the early stage of a growing startup. IEN is a Start-Up Chapter of the Early Stage Entrepreneur’s and Start-Ups from Indore to support Start-Up Ecosystem in the City. They are firmly progressing on their goal of creating an engaged Ecosystem in Indore. The honourable chief guest Mr Swapnil Kothari shared his valuable insights on the topic ” Evaluating Business Concepts & Ideas” with the community. Mr Swapnil Kothari, Founder, Chairman & MD of Indira Group of Institutes, with the 11 years of experience in Education sector has guided numerous people in their entrepreneurial journeys. He is a visionary entrepreneur, who founded and provided support for multiple education groups in the city.

In the session, We covered four important aspects at the initial stage of starting a Startup. Mr. Swapnil Kothari elaborated the points with key examples. Let’s have a look on each of them in detail.

• Product, Service, and Experience
• Business Objective
• Understanding ROI
• Communicate by setting examples

1. Product, Service and Experience:-

Mr. Swapnil Kothari shared that emphasis on product quality, consumer service and consumer experience with the startups is of paramount importance. It matters to gain an experience first to understand the requirements and meet their needs with quality service. This is explained well in three examples below.

1. The first example is Café Coffee Day, a popular chain of Café shop is capable of gaining reputation because of its eminence environment it offers. They spend a good amount in setting up a comfortable environment for people to sit, relax, discuss with a motto of a ‘lot more can happen over coffee’.
2. Another example is of Shreemaya Hotel, a 5-Star Luxury hotel in Indore, never let-down anyone if it is completely occupied. In case anyone does not find a room, it arranges a room in another hotel and bears an additional cost, an ideal example of hospitality that really cares for people.
3. The last example was given of SpiceKlub. The hotel brings some twist into Pani Puri by serving the pani in a test tube and a unique Bubbly Kulfi.

Key Points:

• Give the best experience to people who will be buying your product or using your service.
• Emphasize on the quality to keep them satisfied.
• Good service helps to build a long term reputation.

2. Business Objective:-

 Next part is to understand the business objective and finding the right reason why it is so important. Looking ahead to find the core reasons that pushes an entrepreneur to start a venture. Later the next big thing is to figure out the amount of time required for starting it. Happiness matters the most and following your heart in your work, will help you to take an important decision. As quoted “An entrepreneur is not the jealous but courageous”. He ends with research, analysis and gathering information on the business is extremely important while doing business.

Key Points:

• Always remember why you had started the Venture?
• Are you ready to invest time more than money, in finding solution and building reputation?
• Work for Happiness and follow your heart, instead falling in the vicious circle of money and fame
• Always be courageous and keep moving forward, is what matters the most. Don’t get into the pitfall of jealousy
• Starting and ending is easy, but it is difficult Continue

3. Understanding ROI:-

For every entrepreneur, it matters a lot to understand ROI. Gathering capital today, via various sources is possible. It matters more to work with skill and passion on the idea. Every startup has the aim to become a successful venture in time. Success determines a good return on the investment. New entrepreneurs must study and understand all the aspect of ROI and Overhead Cost.

Key Points:

• Developing Skills with time and Working with the same Passion matters a lot
• It is important to understand all the aspects of Overhead Cost
• Every Entrepreneur must understand what ROI is

4. Communicate by setting examples:-

Mr. Swapnil Kothari discussed a few crucial points on fundamentals rules of business. For entrepreneurs, it is necessary to focus more on the action part. Building up a good venture and later sharing the success.  He mentioned an idea or venture can grow successfully if you are able to invest more and more valuable time on it. His suggestions involved communicating by setting up examples.

Key Points:

• Learn and understand all fundamentals rules of Business.
• At the initial stage action matters the most and then comes sharing success.
• Investing time in a product or idea or strategy will bring valuable results.
• Focus on communicating at lowest possible cost.

Q&A with Mr. Swapnil Kothari:

1. If someone wants to evaluate a business idea, how important is the “scalability” factor for any new venture?

• Scalability must not be an issue, one can start with the limited audience only. It totally depends on how much good you are at your service.

2. These days we see many startups coming in food-tech space – swiggy, foodpanda, tiny owl etc . Still more people are trying to come in this crowded space giving competition to old startups. So how important is “Uniqueness” factor of any business idea?

• To say that many startups are there in one category, it depends on how much good and innovative you are. That Uniqueness will definitely make you different.

Shishir Trivedi (District Reporter, Startup-buzz.com)