Chennai #Startupwalk2 — Route#1 Experience
Last year, I was a guide for route#4 of the first Chennai Startup Walk, conceived and conducted by The Startup Center. I enjoyed the experience so much that I have been pestering Vijay Anand about scheduling the next one. It took awhile and after a few hiccups finalizing transport modes, #StartupWalk2 sold out within days of announcing the list of host startups. I was reassigned as a guide and #Startupwalk2 got us moving around town on July 21st.
Inspired by Walkabout SG (in Singapore), the startup walk in Chennai attempts to give nascent startup founders, wannabe entrepreneurs and students a taste of the startup scene here in Namma Chennai.
Instead of walking, we had to hop onto a bus, visit 5–6 startups at their offices or co-working spaces, spend 30–45 minutes at each one of them and return to a networking dinner at the Madras Club.
With a chance to hear 5–6 founders, exchange ideas and cards with lunch and networking dinner thrown in, the Rs. 300 (early bird) tickets sold out faster than Kabali tickets for week 2!
The Routes and Startup Hosts — 220 participants had registered in total, and had picked or were assigned one of these routes.
Route #1: PipeCandy, Paypal Incubator, Unmetric, Chargebee, and FutureFarms.
Route #2: Entrayn, Hasura, Pick Your Trail, Fixnix, MadStreetDen, and IndiaProperty.
Route #3: Uniphore, OrangeScape, @Works, ReportBee, and Zarget.
I chose to be the guide for route#1 as two of these 5 companies were new to me, and also requested the reliable Arul Murugan (Co-founder of SnackExperts) to be the second guide on my route. Anusha Murthy and Jaydeep Halbe handled route#2 while Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy and Samson were tasked with route#3.
I was supposed to be at the Besant Nagar beach embarking point on the 21st by 9.00am, but with four of us carpooling from Tambaram, I arrived late much to my consternation. With a quick hi to Vijay, some last minute instructions and with nary a glance at the lovely beach, it was a quick jog to where the buses were parked. Not to worry, Arul had filled in nicely — badges, notepads, and snacks for the participants.
Three 21-seater buses from Sree Muneeswarar Travels (Kilpauk Garden) were assigned to route#1, and I quickly exchanged pleasantries with the drivers and wished them luck. Last year, my route (#4) had a run-in with a traffic cop, was handed wrong directions and had food delivered to the same wrong address — all of which lead to delays and reduced time at each host startup.
A silent prayer and I clambered onto one of the buses with Arul on the second, and requested yet another friend Gokul, Co-founder of Botminds to be on the final one.
Our first destination was Guindy to visit the sweetly named PipeCandy, an intelligent outbound prospecting tool for B2B sales reps. Here’s their expansive claim:
We are building the most important SaaS / Data Science company out of Chennai, that will disrupt the outbound marketing world.
Co-founded by Chennai startup veterans ashwinramaswamy (ContractIQ) and Murali Vivekanandan (Ideas2IT), PipeCandy has started off strong, but will they be able to sustain this pace in a market that needs some education?
You may know Ashwin for his crisp writing and no-nonsense style of business, but beyond the serious demeanor lurks in the brain, a whirling dervish of smart ideas to take his companies forward. Since I am a betting man, with this agile and experienced team (plus Shrikanth Jagannathan, an alumnus of IIT Madras and John Hopkins) at the helm, investors can soon expect sweet tidings. PipeCandy is on a hiring spree, so do look them up if you have the necessary skills in development and analytics.
Our next stop — PayPal Incubator, earlier known as Start Tank located on Futura IT Park close to the Sholinganallur junction. It was an hour long drive, and I soon got to know everyone on the van. It was an eclectic mix of students, startup founders and those aspiring to start on their own. I enjoy trying to draw everyone into interactive discussions about starting up and the joys and pitfalls therein, and today was no different. The conversation stopped abruptly as we had the dreaded ‘traffic stop’ just as we turned into OMR. A quick trip to the ATM, and after paying the legal fine, the lengthy OMR beckoned, but the drivers hit their stride and soon had the buses parked outside the massive complex that houses PayPal.
Guru Bhat, the new GM at PayPal Technology Center talked about the startup related activities there besides attempting to stir a bit of nostalgia about PayPal’s legendary founding team aka ‘PayPal Mafia’ (members include Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Reid Hoffmann). He also touched upon their recent split from ebay, making them two separate companies.
Pradeep Kumar, Consultant at PayPal Incubator spoke at length about PayPal being a strong supporter of the Chennai Startup Ecosystem having nurtured Chennai startups Kobster, DoPartTime, Fantain, Konotor, and Piqube, as part of their one-year program. The Incubator is described thus on PayPal’s website:
The initiative seeks to nurture and support the creation of a new generation of technology companies by offering them initial infrastructure, mentorship, direction and encouragement.
Hunger pangs gnawing, we shelved the idea of having the pizzas on the bus and devoured them at PayPal itself. The Q&A with Pradeep literally turned out to be cheesy affair! Pradeep is a good friend of the Startup Leadership Program (SLP) of which I am the Chapter Advisor. Click on the links to read more about Paypal’s involvement in Chennai Startup activities over the last month — Chennai Startup Ecosystem Panel discussion and UX Design Workshop.
With the traffic delay and the extended Q&A + Pizza luncheon, route#1 was now 45 minutes behind schedule. Was I going to be stung by the next company on my route — Chargebee?
Co-founded by the unassuming Krish | ChargeBee with its offices at SP Infocity, Perungudi has been notching up awards regularly, the latest being Startup of the Year 2015 from TiE Chennai.
My fears were unfounded as Krish spoke enthusiastically about early struggles and how Chargebee grew from a small flat, vacated by now Chennai SaaS giant Freshdesk, to become a 75+ strong team.
Once Krish’s talk was over, the participants could walk into any of the 4 designated ‘discussion spaces’ to seek more info or internships — UX design, Product Development, Marketing or HR. To nobody’s surprise, the guys and gals just swarmed (no pun intended) Krish, wanting to get more startup gyaan. After all, he is the brain behind Chargebee’s shrewd product positioning and marketing. The Tees & notebooks spread out for the participants along with Paper Boat drinks and tea, quickly disappeared, and we bid goodbye to the friendly team at Chargebee. Thank you Krish, you are in a different league.
In less than 5 minutes, we were at our next destination, Unmetric on the 1st floor of the same building at SP Infocity. ‘Neruppu Da’ was blaring from the speakers inside the huge hall that houses the bulk of the team. Lakshmanan Narayan aka Lux, their CEO welcomed us warmly. After some feedback on what should be presented, Lux’s rattling off anecdotes about his team-mates was faster than Virat Kohli’s running between the wickets.
Unmetric’s India team includes Lux’s wife Tina who handles HR & Finance, Vikram of Sales, Ranjani of Client Development, KK of Product Development, and Peter Claridge of Marketing. Peter is a British Expat and has recently authored and proudly published the — “Chennai Expat Guide.”
What struck me at Unmetric was the great camaraderie that Lux and his co-founders have built at the Chennai office. Truly a lesson for some startups plagued with egos and role-conflicts. Lux would not let us leave until he walked everyone through Unmetric’s Series A slides that he must have assiduously (and successfully funded) prepared! Sadly, no copy of Peter’s book for me as he zealously guarded the ones he had! I will have to check it out on Amazon. Since we had made up good time, the guys chilled in the relaxed atmosphere at Unmetric and stayed hydrated just before our final stop at the aptly named FutureFarms in Kottivakkam.
Here’s FutureFarms claim in the colorful brochures handed out to us:
FutureFarms develops and implements state-of-the-art urban and alternative farming systems. We empower commercial growers, educators and home gardeners with the best in hydroponic technology.
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using nutrients in water, without soil. Sriram, the Founder & CEO enthusiastically engaged us thrice (split due to space constraints) as we wound our way checking and smelling the Thai and Italian basil plants grown on the factory rooftop, in a laboratory like setting.
I questioned Sriram about the feasibility of such a venture, and he responded that with infusion of money reducing CAPEX, hydroponics was indeed viable.
Group photos over, time to get back to the beach. Even as I was thanking the drivers and shaking hands with the participants, trouble was brewing for a few. Their bikes had been towed away by the police. Wow, was this going to unsettle my quest to better last year’s performance? Some quick thinking resulted in hustling the perturbed bikers to the Adyar Police Depot in the same van. Fines paid; cops mollified; issue sorted, the guys were at their best behavior at the dinner!
It was time to unwind and share startup stories over a glass of burgundy red wine or coconut juice at the Madras Club. Graciously hosted by Mr. Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman of TVS Capital Funds and Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, we had luminaries from the Chennai Angels and the Chennai entrepreneur community for company.
I spotted Rajini fan Suresh Sambandam of OrangeScape, Vikas Chawla of Social Beat, and several founders from the other two routes indulging in animated conversations.
My legs were on fire by the time I reached home but it was well worth the trouble. Spending time with budding entrepreneurs is a tonic and energizes my old and tired bones.
Quoting Vijay Anand, “ the ecosystem doesn’t build entrepreneurs, it’s the entrepreneurs who build the ecosystem.” — we are slowly getting there makkale!
