raising angel investment - angel uncle paise de do
TRANSCRIPT
Angel Uncle Paise De Do Fundraising, Angel Wala - Annkur P Agarwal, PriceBaba.com
Starting Up In 2002
Startup What? Entrepreneur What? Money. Matters. Most. No Media. No Buzz. Ecommerce Without Payment Gateway.
The Startup Boom
We are in a Startup Boom. It is not a 1 year phenomenon. Yes … It’s a good thing But there is bad too. - More Opportunity, More Noise - More Media, More Mediocrity - More Events, Lesser Mentors Who Have Done It
Starting PriceBaba.com & Accidentally Fundraising
The Belief: - Solve a (India) problem, choose a personal one - Don’t Copy - Capture a niche & then expand - Play to your strength & Don’t Die
^ yes a bit Mahesh Murthy school of belief Fundraising: - Didn’t plan funds, started with personal money - Started pitching to angels, tougher than I thought (at least in 2012) - Used media to get early traction. Why not ride the boom J
Why We Raised Funds
Why PriceBaba.com Needed Funds What Kind of Investors We Were Looking For Why We Do What We Do
What We Knew, What We Learnt
Rules we knew: Take an introduction Have a product out there, no paper plans Know what you are doing ++ experienced founder(s) Solve a good problem What we now know: Have some traction But also have a story Confidence is key Believers will believe, don’t try to convince hard! Traction Rules.
HARD TRUTH
FUNDRAISING IS NOT EASY DON’T GET FOOLED BY ALL THE FUNDING NEWS DON’T GET FOOLED BY THE ACQUISITIONS (MEANINGFUL) NETWORK / ACCESS MATTERS TRACTION IS KING
IF FUNDRAISING
GET A LEAD, PEOPLE FIND IT SAFE TO FOLLOW ALWAYS RAISE MORE! - Ride The Boom - Accelerators Are Good Idea - Take small cheques to make big, pitch to 100 people, iterate every
pitch, sell concept if it sells, sell yourself, sell product, sell traction, sell what sells, take the money. PS: BE AUTHENTIC
- Angel networks are good / bad / who cares / take where you get money from
Ecosystem Out There
Accelerators: 500 Startups, Morpheus (was), Tlabs, Microsoft (no cash / equity)
Angel Groups: IAN, Mumbai Angels, Hyderabad Angels etc Entrepreneurs: Plenty – any founder who is Series A or B or Best
Exited. Also some (ex)employees of successful ventures Individuals & Funds: India Quotient (Anand Lunia), Mahesh Murthy,
Zishaan Hayath, Blume Ventures, 500 Startups …
PLEASE READ
Paul Graham’s Essays: Do Things That Don’t Scale: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html How To Now Die: http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html Books: The Hard Things About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz The High Performance Entrepreneur, Subroto Bagchi
PLEASE
DON’T BE A FOOL – Make a business Know why you are doing what you are doing Life is too short to do something you don’t love, but remember, startup
won’t be rosy Don’t get swayed away by all the funding news. Stick to the basics. Your
life is more precious than the bubble Don’t Copy. Solve Problems. Innovate Constantly.