People Speak - Meeting the founders at Startup Blink
It was a busy Thursday evening but I knew that I had RSVPed for a Meetup. As the clock stuck 6 pm I quickly saw the Meetup page and remembered it was an event planned by one of the organizers of StartupBlink. Having heard a lot about StartupBlink as an ecosystem that supports Startups and incubators around the world , I was eager to attend it this time.
What stuck me about the Meetup was unlike other Meetups which were topic driven or formal gathering, it was more of a networking event at a pub which seemed as casual setting for meeting up. I quickly contacted Sumit who was the organizer of the event, and got the directions to the meetup. I quickly drove through the busy Bangalore traffic and finally made it to the location.
The location was Throwback Pub, Hosur Rd, Langford Town Bangalore, it had a typical English Pub like ambiance and there was not much crowd at the time, they helped me with the registration and the directions to where others were.
I walked to the outdoor area of the pub, which overlooked to the busy traffic of Hosur road and the flood lights of IPL match that going on little far from there. It was initially hot and then the cool breeze started flowing bringing much needed cool in the April heat. Now when I came, there were 2 people including Sumit, then more people joined and as we were busy introducing ourselves some more guys join. Sumit like a maverick host, set the stage for the meetup giving a background of how he took over as the organizer for the StartupBlink meetup group and how this was one of his first meetups as the organizer and how he came about selecting this place.
With commanding personality and an ever present smile, he engaged with us in polite conversation as we all settled with bottles of beer in our hand. And taking small sips we went through a round of introductions and explaining our ideas and getting to know each other.
Meet the People
Sumit Sharma, Founder Adhyayan Ventures
He introduced himself as a Entrepreneur who having worked in Diamond and Brewery Industry for a large part of his career, was actively exploring opportunities in Travel & Holiday Industry. Having traveled a lot over the last year, he found the need for a customized planning for people who either were tired of going through packaged deals of tour operators or wanted to explore “off the beaten path” and needed help in planning it out.
Yes there are many sites that provide reviews and ratings but his plan is to go further and provide a more in depth help with planning their trips that sometimes ratings or reviews can not also help. With experience in corporate strategy and years of enterprise knowledge, he also helps other startups and founders in their business planning and is in active search of a technical co-founder for his idea.
As the organizer of StartupBlink he wants to provide a platform where every month founders can meet, network and talk on key topics that impact them and help each other in their Startup journeys.
Konark Singhal, CEO MockBank
An IIM & IIT Alumni, with a distinguished corporate career, and working with MockBank for last 4 years, he is actively looking out for Co-Founders for his next venture which is a very novel idea based on providing a launchpad for Graduates and Engineers get Industry ready and helping them get placed in various companies and enterprises. The unique thing is that he want to achieve this without putting undue financial burden on the un-employed graduates which is the social enterprise aspect of his idea. With a tone that showed his experience and with a humble personality, he gave lot of good inputs on my Startup idea and helped boost my confidence. I am sure I will be meeting him soon to for more motivation and help.
Praveen K Sharma, COO, Fulltank Technologies Pvt Ltd
As COO of FullTank, Praveen is helping establish FullTank App as a one stop shop for all your service & maintenance needs of your car. Having started the business in Coimbatore last year and then expanding to Bangalore this year he has been able to achieve a significant amount of success, in short span with focusing on providing great car service with the ease of Mobile App where a client can book for Car servicing, car wash and other support anywhere in these 2 cities. Much of his growth has been through word of mouth and also they have gained many repeat customers. With a value proposition of helping Garages get more revenue and making sure he delivers a delightful customer experience, he has been able to setup a good network of garages and customers which I am sure bound to grow.
Balaya Moharana, Co-Founder Dovo Health
Working on Dovo App (Doctor’s Voice), their mobile apps platform connects the doctors, patients and clinical establishments provides better care for patients and better operational efficiency for doctors and clinics. For patients, they are trying to provide confirmed accessibility to their own Doctors for follow-up advice, general consultation, emergency access and continued guidance on chronic diseases. A way for Doctors to monetize free advice on follow-ups and chronic diseases. And bring in additional revenue from app-based consultation services for Hospitals. Their current focus area is to create awareness about their app between patients and Doctors and increase customer growth for their App.
Additionally I met Rahul who is currently working as a Freelancer, meeting people to gain more knowledge and insight into the Startup ecosystem.
I also met Alan who recently joined FullTank as a business analyst, being a civil engineer by education, is exploring the Startup space and likes the new learning experience that he is getting each day working on the job for a Startup which itself prepares you with a different mindset which you would not get in a traditional job . With the short interaction I had with him, he asked many questions on my idea and provided a positive feedback.
Finally I met Harsha, who takes care of the Business Development at Hasura, which is a Platform to build & deploy app backends. Fast. Now I am not explaining about their startup here as after interacting with him, I got all excited about their idea and what they are doing and would like to share in a dedicated blog sometime soon.
Finally
After having a great conversation and a lovely evening meeting the founder, there was only one though in my mind, when is the the next meetup and how soon I can start full time on my idea to call myself a founder.
