madhouse musings!

It’s that time of the month again, time to beckon upon another entrepreneur! Here’s a bonus, this time we have two entrepreneurs, who are a couple in real life too! So let’s gather around, learn, discuss, compare notes and get to know each other, this Second Saturday of November! Your participation is important and it matters, so here’s personally inviting you.

This month we have:

Vinay & Shalini Mehta, Founder of Pole Vault Technologies. Here is more about the company and the founders:

When: 14, Nov 2009 (Saturday); 3pm – 6pm

Where: RSVP me for details

Contact: Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkaraDOTeduDOTin

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Format

* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs

* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner

* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem

* Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event

* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Please confirm your participation by replying to this mail. If you want to bring a guest or a fellow entrepreneur along, do let us know in reply to this mail.

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes on best practices of building businesses!

See you on Saturday!

This month we have:

Vishal Chalana, Winshuttle (www.winshuttle.com), a leading provider of data entry and data download tools for SAP, Winshuttle is Headquartered in the US with its R&D outfit in Chandigarh, India.

When: 10, Oct 2009 (Saturday); 3pm – 6pm

Contact: Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkaraDOTeduDOTin

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Format

* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs

* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner

* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem

* Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event

* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Please confirm your participation by replying to this mail. If you want to bring a guest or a fellow entrepreneur along, do let us know in reply to this mail.

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes on best practices of building businesses!

See you on Saturday!

It’s that time of the month again, time to beckon upon another entrepreneur, gather around, learn, discuss, compare notes and get to know each other! Your participation is important and it matters, so here’s personally inviting you.

This month we have:

Pulkit Jain, Founder & Director, Lakshya Institute (www.lakshyainstitute.com), a Patialia based start-up a with founding team of 4 young IIT grads who are on the path of realizing their dream – that of revolutionizing the way learning is perceived and teaching is delivered. Lakshya Institute was the winner of the Tata NEN hottest startups 2008.

When: 12, Sept 2009 (Saturday); 3pm – 6pm

Where: Get in touch with Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkaraDOTeduDOTin to know the details

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Format

* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs

* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner

* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem

* Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event

* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Please confirm your participation by replying to this mail. If you want to bring a guest or a fellow entrepreneur along, do let us know in reply to this mail.

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes on best practices of building businesses!

A little over a year ago, when Sameer & I quit our jobs (again!) & set out on our journey called Morpheus Venture Partners, I could hear whispers in the sidelines…. Some shouted out loud on our face (I love the sorts who are upfront!) Many of them supported us of this decision and thought early stage eco-system in India badly needed something like this.  A few thought we were fraud & just trying to take advantage of innocent entrepreneurs; some thought that there was not much value in what we were doing, a lot of them thought entrepreneurs need money not advice… and so on…

I’ve always done what i have strongly believed in & so was the case with MVP. Not that we had the entire thing  planned out in our heads. We started with a loose model; something that could be of value to start-up entrepreneurs, we were open to learning, tweaking as we learned and executed. But our focus was and will continue to be to give the best and excel in what we do!

And now, one year later, we’ve just announced 10 start-ups as part of our Third Batch and expanded our team. Read Release Here What does it mean to me, as a Partner and one of the founding members of MVP? A whole freakin’ lot!

Indus is a super cool dude, who has entrepreneurship in his blood. The match in attitude, wave length between the team is superb! [Picture this - Indus lives in Bangalore, travels in the local bus, walks some distances to get to a meeting and yet he has all the energy to deliver!]

Thanks to Ankit of Instablogs via whom met Indus & engaged him as a pro-bono Subject Matter Expert for MVP companies. At MVP we had no plans or thoughts of expanding the team in any which way, partly because we ourselves operate like a frugal start-up & partly also because we were unsure about the role of a new team member. But, the guy he is Indus – we just could not, not have him on board! Superb human being, great attitude, exceptional humility! With him on board MVP has grown stronger by bounds and leaps! Indus, Thank you!

We were 10 companies strong till June 2009 and the learning with them was immense. Each one of them – Ankit, Nandini, Sumit, Lalit, Sahil, Siva, Rajnish, Varun, Namit, Himanshu, Rakesh, Waqar, Riz, Jay, Sarab, Vaneet & Ishu – are rockstars in their own right. Thinking big, executing fast, fearing not to fail, fighting and fighting through! Thanks guys for giving me an opportunity to associate with you. (okay this does not mean you’ll not see anymore of me!)

Collage Courtesy: S P Hari

The Current Batch now has 10 companies and I personally believe each one of the founders is exceptional. They have a passion, they’ve dared to dream, they are focused.

Adscoot’s Suyash, stands for hours in the major junctions at mumbai to learn traffic patterns and measure footfalls!

EasySquareFeet’s Ashu & Snehesh are the most positive people i’ve seen! I can see their smiles through the phone when i talk to them (serious!)

Viv & Hari of InterviewStreet are two rockstar techies who are consciously & fast learning other skills to take their product to market. They have the passion & drive to make things work!

Shashank & Abhinav started on Naabo right out of college – the freshness in approach & the passion they bring with them is infectious.

Arjun of Picsean is an engineer, but his passion towards photography is amazing! He’s a good friend & i’ve seen his focus and smart work in his past ventures. His attitude to learn is commendable!

Robin of ReachTax is a star CA, but i love his humility and the motivational skill he has to make his entire team perform month after month!

Pankaj & Gaurav quit their fancy paying jobs to work on Retail Vector. Focus, quick work and frugality of life is what they are committed towards as they scale this venture!

The first thing that stood out when i met Abheek first was such an young guy and such maturity & humility. (Often age and humility dont go too well). This guy was 7 years old when he started putting Lego pieces into perfect ensemble & several years later, he’s using them at RobotsAlive!

I loved their designs and the quality of tees – Rahul & Mohit of Scopial have their focus completely on “Quality” “Design” “Niche”! They sell tees one could die for! Check a sample out here

I read about these guys in a print article & the next time we were in Mumbai, we met Jayesh & Karthik of VeriCAR. Two guys crazily passionate about automobiles & trying to solve a problem i was once a victim of! I love their attitude and their approach to things. They love getting down to basics and doing things themselves.

I am already having a lot of fun interacting with the current batch and looking forward to more fun, chaos, fights, fails, wins & whole lot of late nights!

Now, with all this happening – a whole lot of learning, association with the best of the lot, new challenges, lots of sense of humor & innovation. I don’t really have the time to think if MVP is a success or failure. But what i do know and will continue to focus on is “work harder”, “create more value”, “excel and achieve mastery”. And for evaluations of where we stand – let that be for the skeptics to comment on, while i play on….  & spread the madness!

Xtremestartups team is excited to invite you to another edition of Startup Evening in Chandigarh on 11th July, 2009

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes of best practices of building businesses!

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Date / Time
11 July, 2009 (Saturday)
15:00 – 18:00 hrs

Speakers Start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level.   * S P  Rangi, Founder, Clarity Medicals
* To be confirmed  

To get an invite Contact Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkara.edu.in

Format * Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs
* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner. * Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem. * Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event.
* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Nominations:

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com OR shahnaz.jerathATchitkara.edu.in

See you on Saturday!

After the success of its first Startup event in Bangalore, Xtreme Startups team is excited to invite you to the 2nd edition of Startup Morning on 27th June, 2009 at IIMB Campus. The videos of the previous edition can be viewed at Part I, Part II.

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship. The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held at Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here & here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by NSRCEL – IIMB, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Date & Time
27 June, 2009 (Saturday)
10:00 am – 01:00 pm

Speakers
Three start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level. This edition’s speakers are:

1.  Jaya Jha, Founder, Pothi.com
Jaya Jha along with Abhaya Agarwal started Pothi.com, a print-on-demand publishing solution for India for self-publishers catering to companies, individuals, NGOs, etc.

2. Sitashwa Srivastava, Co-Founder, Creadivity.
Creadivity is an online marketplace for advertising & marketing solutions in India. They have been part of the TIE-EAP program and were nominated for TATA-NEN’s hottest startup awards.

3. To be confirmed

Audience: Start-up founders / entrepreneurs

Format

• Event will be attended by 30-40 start-up founders / entrepreneurs
• The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
• The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
• Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
• There is no fee for attending the event
• Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?

• Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
• Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
• Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
• Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Invite Only: It’s an invite only event. In case you would like to attend write to indus AT morpheusventure DOT com OR info AT startupnews DOT in, with your full name and a brief introduction of your startup / venture.

Speaker Nomination: In case you would like to nominate yourself or another startup as a speaker for the forthcoming events, do drop us a mail. We are also open to your ideas and suggestions.

See you on Saturday!

Xtreme Startups – a Non-Profit initiative to support / promote entrepreneurship is back again in Chandigarh with this months edition of Startup Evening.

Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) & Startupnews.in

This month Xtreme Startups will be on: June 20, 2009 Saturday

Between: 15:00 – 18:00hrs

Audience: Startup founders and select students

Discussion topic: Crossing the Chasm – how to scale the business once you have a few paid customers and initial traction. Everything from expanding the team, building products to raising funds and the challenges post that.

“Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.

If you want to bring XtremeStartups to your city / campus, do get in touch with us!

Format

• Event will be attended by 20-25 founders of start-ups from Chandigarh-tricity area and around 20-30 students
• The event brings together Startup Founders from the region to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
• The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
• Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
• There is no fee for attending the event

What will you gain from the event?

• Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
• Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
• Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
• Opportunity to build a strong startup community in the Chandigarh Tri-City region

Want to be a part of this event?

Send a mail to nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom with a brief introduction about you and your venture.

Feel free to invite / bring along other entrepreneurs / startup founders you know.  Spread the word!

“Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. In all events we were more than houseful on the capacity, participation was intense and interesting discussions took place. Read coverage here.

Recently, these events are organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. Xtreme Startups is a Non-Profit initiative to support /promote entrepreneurship. This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by NSRCEL – IIMB, Chitkara University , Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in.

The first Xtreme Startup event was organized in Chandigarh a couple of weeks back, details

Date: 24 May, 2009 (Sunday)

Time: 10:00 am – 01:00 pm

Speakers: Three start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level.

Phanindra Sama, Founder & CEO www.redbus.in

Phanindra is the co-founder and CEO of redBus, India’s largest bus tickets aggregator in just over 2 years of operations! He has a honors from BITS Pilani, and worked with Texas Instruments before he co-founded redBus. redBus was born out of a personal need and a market failure. Today redBus’s distribution spans across 75000+ outlets in the country! More…

Prateek & Nithya Dayal, Founders www.muziboo.com

Nithya and Prateek Dayal, a husband and wife duo run Muziboo. Prateek, a B.Tech graduate from IIT Guwahati takes care of technology and Nithya, the community. Both the founders believe in bootstrapping and harnessing the online medium to grow an internet business. Muziboo’s success lies in its emphasis on building a “community” for musicians & music lovers, as against being another file sharing platform. Professional & non-professional musicians ranging from free lancers & audio-engineers to enthusiastic hobbyists use the muziboo platform extensively! Prateek blogs at www.prateekdayal.net/blog and Nithya at www.nithyadayal.com/blog.

Himanshu Khurana, Co-founder & CMO www.lifemojo.com

Himanshu Khurana graduated from NSIT Delhi and worked at Trilogy for 3 years. He later went on to experience the startup world at ngpay(JiGrahak). After 2 years, he founded iStrait with two of his friends, Namit Nangia and Varun Gupta.  LifeMojo provides easy access to preventive health care experts and necessary tracking tools. It also has a platform that helps preventive  health care providers to run and scale-up their existing operations. Launched in November of 2009, they are adding users at a fast pace. Himanshu blogs at hkhurana.wordpress.com. Lifemojo is a MVP portfolio

Audience: Start-up founders / entrepreneurs

Format

• Event will be attended by 30-40 start-up founders / entrepreneurs
• The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
• The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
• Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
• There is no fee for attending the event
• Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?

• Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
• Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
• Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
• Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Invite Only: It’s an invite only event. In case would like to attend write to indus AT morpheusventure DOT com OR info AT startupnews DOT in, with your full name and a brief introduction of your startup / venture.

See you on Sunday!

Announcing the first Startup Morning event in Chandigarh. The event is being organized by Xtreme Startups – a Non-Profit initiative to support / promote entrepreneurship. Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University , Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Event Details:

“Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. In all events we were more than houseful on the capacity, participation was intense and interesting discussions took place. Read coverage here.

Xtreme Startups team is excited to announce the first “Startup Morning” in Chandigarh Tri-City:

What will you gain from the event?

• Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
• Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
• Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
• Opportunity to build a strong startup community in the Chandigarh Tri-City region

See you on Sunday! (for invites write to sameer AT morpheusventure DOT com)

CHANDIGARH

Chitkara University, one of the most popular educational institutes in the Punjab/ Chandigarh region, are initiating the First Open Cofee Club in Chandigarh.

The inauguration and and first OCC Chandigarh meetup is backed by Chitkara E-Cell (Entrepreneurial Development Cell).

Details below:

Date:       17 April, 2009

Time:      3pm to 5pm

Venue: Chitkara Corp Office, Plot No-11-12, Dainak Bhaskar Building, Sector-25D, Chandigarh

Sameer and I have been invited to interact with the OCC Chandigarh members.

If you are around, come by. Lets meetup and share our experiences as startup entrepreneurs!