Held at IIT Delhi recently, the fourth edition of Proto.in-an event that showcases and connects promising start-ups with investors/venture capitalists-kept alive the spirit of informal interaction and networking, through a series of events.
There is a Chinese proverb that goes: "To open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art." These words are particularly true when applied to the life cycle of a start-up, for which the challenges to stay afloat and consolidate, are many. Proto.in addressed many such issues that start-ups face during their
journey-from conception and incorporation, to raising funds and becoming an independent business entity. The event threw up five interesting insights.

1. Aim to woo customers and NOT investors!
The ‘Customer is God' as he or she is the one who pays for a firm's offerings and even acts as a marketing messenger/evangelist in disguise!
Most talks at Proto.in focused on the importance of wooing customers with quality products/services. "To succeed, one needs to build products that customers want and will pay for" was the underlying message.
"Building a product for investors is a lame approach. Instead, building a product, getting a lot of people to use it and then looking for investors, leads to better business results," suggested Sameer Guglani, founder, Morpheus Venture Partners. He added, "Getting 10 users for your product should be your first concern."

2. Build a strong product that speaks for itself
Huge marketing budgets may prove an overkill for a start-up. Experts suggest that it is wiser to invest in building a great/innovative product and then thinking of ad spend. The rationale-a good product is invincible! Mahesh Murthy, founder and CEO, Pinstorm, drove the point home, saying, "If you have a product that is not insanely great ...don't bother to sell it or spend advertising revenues on it. Most of the companies with great products start with zero advertising." A start-up thus needs to first build a brilliant product, and then be constantly on the move to convert people into early adopters and early adopters into evangelists.

3. Position your product as an ‘ace'
Once you know you have a great product in hand, it becomes crucial to launch and position it correctly. Sometimes, start-ups use low pricing as a tool to attract customers but Murthy cautioned that such a strategy at times makes the customer feel as if the product is inferior. He added that pricing has nothing to do with the cost incurred in building the product, and went on to suggest that price should be determined by the value that the product is rendering to the customer and not on the basis of cost to the company. If the product is good, then the customer doesn't mind paying a higher price, he affirmed. He added that a higher price tag also can serve as an interesting brand positioning tool, provided the product is an excellent one!

4. Think out of the box
Murugvel Janakiraman, founder, Bharat Matrimony, stressed the importance of studying societal transitions and coming up with innovative business models, the way Bharat Matrimony has done. In a country where marriages are sacred and full of traditions, Janakiraman had the foresight to visualise that things were moving from the traditional to the digital world, and thus he built a service based on this transitional trend and monetised it effectively. Murthy spoke on how there is absolutely no point in following trends, and that only trend-setters survive. He even went to the point of calling market studies, which predict market trends, ‘crap', as they can only tell you about a trend, but never on how to create a new one. The take away here was simple-be a trend-setter!

5. Get the right people on board
It is important for a start-up to choose the core team carefully. In the formative years, each wrong decision can have serious repercussions. Affirming this was Bhavin Turakhia, founder, Derecti.com, who described business as a game that needs two prime concerns - getting the right players, and getting the right team to think and work effectively-in a way that is better than the competition.
Turakhia extended the analogy to say that to win the game, each player should know the game well, and should watch the scorecard intently (the score card here referred to the financial situation, competition, etc). Apart from team members, even the decision regarding which VC (venture capitalist) to bring on board is also an area that needs a lot of contemplation and analysis. Invariably, when an agreement is signed between a CEO and a VC, a lot of rights go to a VC and if the alliance starts falling apart, the CEO has no one to blame but himself for tying the knot with the wrong person. Yes, the decision is as crucial as getting into a matrimonial alliance, felt Sanjay Anandaram, MD, JumpStart. Investors bring in capital that fuels ideas. But not all investors can be right for your team and the idea that you are working on. Thus, it is important to ascertain if the CEO and the VC share the right vibes. Once the duo feel they gel well, they may go ahead and sign the term sheet. But the initial analysis is the key to any successful alliance, Anandaram emphasised.