More on 4Consult
(C0ntinued from 4Consult….)
So basically I run this 1 year old startup advisory initiative called 4Consult (4c) that advises 1 early stage startup, at a time, for 3 months; and keeps 5% ownership in that startup (without investing any money in it). So 4c is clearly not a fund, nor is it looking to be one just yet.
As we journey towards establishing the first 3 years(2 more years now) of 4c, 5%will increase upto 12% per new startup, from there on.
4c admits such startups when they are a mere prototype and just 2 people strong. Over the last 1 year we have added 5 startups to our portfolio already:
(Each name below is linked to their respective websites).
- Todoed — The most novel todo listing concept ever. Solid team, alpha version ready and in the hands of more than 1000 thousand users. It may have 100 million dollar plus value potential in the next 3–5 years.
Team: https://angel.co/todoed
2. My Idealist — A network of the new breed of future creators — geeks, hustlers, designers and early adopters. Nearly ready for MVP launch. This can change the world like very few have in the past. Billion dollar value potential. Almost every aspiring entrepreneur in the world will one day be on this platform.
Team: https://angel.co/myidealist
3. Preseed Prints — Ecommerce of motivational merchandise. 50 items sold per month as an average of the last 4 months. Nothing extraordinary. Just really cool sale worthy merchandise and a really good team.
Team: https://angel.co/preseed-prints
4. Qupid — Chat app for lovers only. 1000 downloads so far. Lovers in India are lacking a product in this new category of ‘privacy for lovers’.
Team: Indicated on the website.
So as of now, effectively 4c has 5% in 5 very early stage startups mentioned above. When they came/occurred to me they were no where closed to where they are now. They had no shape and form even 1 year ago. Now they do.
13/06/2015: We are working on creating the slide decks of each of these startups and will have them ready in 3 weeks from now. However, 4c is not about slide decks. It starts with startups much before that stage. I have made these connections with the teams of the above mentioned startups on more soulful grounds than mere presentations or spreadsheets. With some of them the depth of my bond covers the idea, it’s business aspects, leadership and goes all the way into art, science, world, metaphysics and spirituality.
I need Rs. 1 Crore (in unsecured debt and/or equity) to sustain and run this business of 4c further by strengthening its team, coworking space/cafe, solid IT infrastructre and to make deals paper tight now, between 4c and the above startups. Btw, there are more startups that have written to us than the ones mentioned above. Once we have the money, we can add some of those also into our portfolio almost immediately, for they are good too.
If you could help me, I will be pleased to share absolutely whatever equity you may seek from 4c as your share in it.. Equity in this future is all I have got to reciprocate to you. Consider this a long term investment please.
I also promise to add atleast 1 startup every 3 months, to this portfolio, as an average of 3 years, continuing forever. Atleast one of these startups will turn out to be a multi billion dollar company, while majority of them from our portfolio will have that potential.
Secondary aspects of 4c:
1. 4c will also have a software development and marketing vertical. It will generate fee based revenue from its clients at this vertical. (Expect this vertical to be the best turn key mobile software design, development and marketing vendor in India in 5 years). This vertical’s prime motive will be to service/strengthen 4c’s own portfolio companies when those companies become sizeable.
2. 4c will also have a startup coworking space and entrepreneur food&drinks cafe in Delhi. Expect monthly rental, food&beverage and events ticketing income from it with effect from 2016. However, the main reason for this is to have a space with inspiring and progressive culture under one common roof while creating cash flows through it. This culture will in turn further benefit our startups. Above all, this is the space I and my startups will call their office. This is where I want to work from every day.
I have built the necessary connections/team/mentors to now set up 4c as a noticeable startup company. All I need is the startup capital of Rs. 1 crore in 2 equal parts through this year.
Give me a chance, soonest, with half of that amount first. I won’t disappoint. I am itching to start 4c. (Btw,I raised around 2/3 of that much money after dropping out of college at 22 years of age. I failed after efforts of 3 years to deliver fully as committed to the investor. All cash was gone by 2011. Now I am 30 and looking to raise my second investment ever. This time I have the experience and people that I didn’t have back then. This time, I won’t fail to deliver the extraordinaire I have been preparing myself to deliver).
Till I live, I would have created 4c into an inspiring and a valuable platform for the Indian entrepreneurs of the future.
3 years from today will bring to you the results that could put 4c at an extraordinary place to transition into a stable tech incubator/fund with batch system of 10 startups per batch. A lot like YC.
4c will also be my stepping ground to building this(tentative concept for now) startup fund called TSF in 3 years. I am married to the concept of 4c forever. I will not fade away before I have this tech incubator and this fund. For 4c and TSF together will provide the muscle needed for the works I want to do for the rest of my life i.e co build startups
Allow me to add more context below to establish a better understanding of 4Consult for you. Excuse me if I sound repetitive there. In further edits, I will make this post more concise.
Here are the two entities I represent as of today:
Preseed is to lay the foundation of what will be sent to 4Consult for further growth.
This is how these 2 entities are related.
Preseed is about ideas, stories, philosophy, online hustle, no office and inspiration; stuff most Indian investors may not be interested in. When the result of the actions upon these ideas, stories and inspiration takes its first real form that can be demoed to such investors and customers; the startup is incubated at 4Consult for a 5% share in that startup.
About Preseed:
Here is little notional update on Preseed so far in my words. So, let’s let Preseed run in the nomadic boundless ‘hippie, no excel sheet, no slide deck, no running after investors, no giving unnecessary presentations to update people’ spirit. Let Preseed speak to partners and other vested interests only through substantial results weighed only in millions of clear dollars and millons of users of our products. Not too much I am asking for, considering the cost / investment of cash required to run this business is almost Rs. 0. One day this business will be not only known for the startups it will create and send to 4Consult for growth, but also for it’s own business model innovation replacing salaries with inspiration. Consider it a laboratory of sorts started merely to run experiments I believe in regardless of their business values and numbers.
Note: I will not do experiments where I don’t clearly see real business value for stake holders, till we have billions in our bank account. So stay assured everything we are touching upon here will have real business value.
Also be assured that there will be all kinds of experiments and all kinds of innovation for we have reduced the cost of experimentation. The cost of experimentation is directly proportional to possibilities of innovation. Hence, expect more innovation at Preseed.
About 4Consult, also called 4C:
While Preseed is a hippie styled innovations from home/dormitories kind of a company; with appetite for only it’s own groundbreaking, sometimes long gestation works in web tech to start with, 4Consult will be slightly more corporate consulting styled in it’s manners, with a team of experienced A level talent, eyeing regular short term financial growth through servicing clients and eyeing long term financial growth through big potential startup deals for the future.
I am starting 4Consult to have access to more intellectual capital of advisors and an A level workforce of about 10 through this year. Experienced and skilled expensive people. It is a further manifestation of the vision of my first company in 2009 called FloEco. FloEco failed. 4C won’t. This time I have the experience and the people which I didn’t when I was 23 in 2009. Now I am 29+ years old.
The 3 year goal of 4Consult is to start it’s early stage startup fund called TSF. The first 2 years of 4C will help build an extraordinary business strength through skills and connections around TSF for it’s portfolio companies in the very near future.
Please skim through the website of 4Consult to have a bird’s eye view.
Startup Leadership Mentoring (SLM):
We are not going to be about number projections. We are going to be about empowering entrepreneurs that have an incredible ‘idea’, prototype, a great team and an iron will to execute. We never ask for projections from our startups. This is going to be about very early stage startups and we will make it be this. This will set us apart from a lot of other accelerators.
Thus its important to understand, SLM is going to be about intuition, about gut, about finding early stage startups that have not reached the market yet, without going through unnecessary number crunching and slide decks. We will take a leap of knowledge and faith with the cofounders of our current and future portfolio companies. We expect to have atleast 1 unicorn from among our portfolio startups in 3 years.
Our team and extended network has fair knowledge about what is going on in the web, and that makes our team identify novelty really well.
Current Focus:
We are looking at building 4Consult primarily into a tech and design support company for our 5 portfolio startups to handle manage and grow/bake it well. If you go through the website and dig into 4Consult, you will understand the vision of what we have moving forward. SLM is our core currently, but in the future moving on, we will have our Accelerator program (SAP) which you should dig through too.
As a by-product of being this kind of an early stage statup incubator/accelerator, the other 2 things can happen:
1. A great consulting company for other potentially great startups.
2. An accelerator ( Managed from the Silicon Valley and a property in Dehradun, which we have already identified)
Valuation of 4Consult:
We actually don’t know. We want you to tell us.
We value our business 4Consult notionally at Rs. 5 crores. Reason being, everything here is truly unique and rapidly progressing. Most importantly, for 4Consult to have 10% stocks in early stage extraordinary startups, it doesn’t need to invest money in them, unlike other accelerators/incubators.
For 4 Consult portfolio startups as indicated above, that are almost ready to come out into the market well -
Todoed has become a stable product with an extraordinary team.
MyIdeaList is a disruptive product, which is on its way to being massively valuable. This team of young hackers is the most high spirited team in our portfolio according to my perception.
Preseed Prints is a simpler business to do. It is going to be a sales heavy business and we are creating that order in it.
Pepperstar is a catering business currently with unique concepts, moving rapidly towards redefining food, for what its meant to be, via packaged food.
Qupid — Its getting some media coverage all over! Example Inc42 & Techinasia.
+
Extremely valuable deals baking with the land bank we represent on behalf of our client at 4Consult Special Projects.
In addition to the above, we have recently launched Special Projects. Because our team is made up of people generally passionate about value and wealth creation, we often come across brilliant opportunities in mere conversations at first, and then it takes further shape, because mindfully connect the dots to create progressive new age businesses which may or may not necessarily be tech at core.
Our first project is optimising land for our client, who owns a land bank of over 500 Bighas in and around Uttarakhand, and has appointed us to facilitate the best use of his resources in terms of unique conceptualising and solid economic returns.
