How to Assess Startups with Shalini Prakash

AngelHub chats with Investment Committee Member, Shalini Prakash about assessing great founders and startups.

Who is Shalini Prakash?

Shalini is the co-founder of Epic, India’s first Rewards based SuperApp. Epic is built to help enterprises optimize rewards based programs for their customers. Prior to this, Shalini was a Venture Partner at 500Startups, a global venture capital firm and accelerator based in Silicon Valley. She led 500’s investments across India and invested in the region’s most talented founders.

As an active member of the startup ecosystem, Shalini is also an Advisor to AngelList India and WeWork (startup labs). She has been involved with several initiatives including serving as a panel member Judge for the Xprize Safety Prize, mentoring at Facebook’s SheLeadsTech and in 2016, Shalini also served as the the Global Ambassador of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (UN supported initiative). Additionally, Shalini was also included in the “40 Under 40” India Alternate Investment Professionals list in 2018 and in 2017 was recognized as the Linkedin TopVoice 2017 for thought leadership for venture capital and startups.

How did you get involved with the startup world?

“I have always been intrigued by the process of ideation or creation. Be it a startup or an art piece. I wanted to learn about the process of taking a venture off the ground in order to understand what are the metrics and key considerations that make a startup successful. I followed my curiosity into the startup world.”

Wise Words

“I have always believed that a great idea is born out of the cross-pollination of several ideas and that every individual has a vast breadth of knowledge. That is, one should pursue multiple interests and hone different skills- it may or may not be related to your work. Pursuing several interest areas will provide a unique perspective which will be knitted into your personality and build your identity capital. My philosophy is to follow my curiosity (big or small) and invest time in learning new things.”

Building Businesses

“After interacting, investing and working with many entrepreneurs, I discovered that many first-time entrepreneurs make the same mistakes- most do not know what are the basic areas that early stage/ seed investors look for.”

Target market: “Every founder needs to know what is the problem they’re trying to solve” and if it’s a problem waiting for a solution. Every founder should have a deep understanding of their customer’s behavior.”

A well-defined problem often contains its own solution within it, and that solution is usually straightforward.

“The common mistake entrepreneurs make is not having a holistic view of who the customer is, and what are the key issues. What is the average age of your customer? Are your target customers male or female? Where do they live? Is geography a limiting factor for any reason? What is their average income? What are the critical aspects of their lives that matter to you the most? Other considerations to be made are- Can you describe the gap between the current state and the target state in clear and measurable terms, and if the market is large enough?”

Team: “An idea is worth a dime. We have all heard this several times. What this means in the context of startups is that the success of a startup hinges on the team’s execution capability. The team should have the right mentality for innovating on existing ideas to solve critical pain points. And other inherent qualities of a founder like perseverance, leadership style etc.. are important attributes that make a startup successful.

Timing: “We have heard many success stories like AirBnB and Uber- a big part of their success is attributed to the timing of their launch. Strike too early or too late, and you risk striking out.”

Founders need to do a reality check to see if the market or customer is ready for the product/service.

Why AngelHub?

“I am personally excited about AngelHub since it has a strong South East Asian presence. There are several Indian startups looking at HK, Singapore and other markets for their business expansion, and platforms like AngelHub will play a big role in helping these Indian startups understand the local market and open a network- I believe this relationship will go beyond capital raising.”