We started with a Data Replication and Disaster Recovery product for Asia Pacific SME market. Had a good start, built a solid team … and then got beaten down by Angels/VCs & some market “veterans”. Thanks to a lot of guys (specially some on venturewoods) who advised, We decided to go ahead and pooled in $85K of “friends and family” money.
So like to share some thoughts, a news and need some advise.
thoughts,
My last post did help me know a lot of things about VC/Angels. We also did some introspection of our work and how we can present it.
But still, It makes me think — Is market for seed/angel investment in India mature enough for startups or its just me who got beaten down ?
We met all kinds of VCs – some showed interest and helped, some showed no interest but still helped and some cowards who fixed meetings and never came for them 🙂
News,
Someone in (i think) Virtualization conference 2007 asked amazon ppl about rumors of completion from google on S3 and EC2.
That guy answered saying, “we would love someone spend their millions educate ppl about benefits of virtualization. We don’t mind sharing the market”.
Something similar happened to us, while we were sure of market in aisa pacific . News of Reliance and Bharti opening Disaster Recovery data centers in Indian backed our strategy. We got some inbounds and gained some traction.
Now we just released product final beta on July 4th, and some good names signed in as beta customers.
I would love to demo the product over a webcast or send across an evaluation copy. Please let me know, if anyone is interested.
More about product: http://www.slideshare.net/jaspreetis/druvaa-product-overview-and-advantage
Need advice,
1. We “can” sustain couple of more months and start supporting and selling. Is it still worth trying for angel money ?
2. Any good ideas on how to conduct online product demos . I am using gotomeeting right now coupled with skypecasts.
3. Any idea on how to build product documentation and knowledge-base.
cheers,
J
- India’s Hottest Startups - September 7, 2008
- The case of SonimTech – And lessons we can learn - August 23, 2008
- The Druvaa Story – III - July 14, 2008
Good to know things are working in your favor. Based on my experience I will say it is always worth to keep looking to raise capital if you will need it in couple of months. I know it is not easy especially if you are first time entrepreneur and trying to do something different from India. Our experience with VC’s/angels is no different then yours; not many VCs/Angels are ready to back first time entrepreneur and especially if you are trying to do something different from main stream like IT services, travel portal etc.
But there are who would, you need to keep looking and try finding people from the same industry since they are the one who understand things easily. In our case after trying different options we have been able to raise the funding from a strategic investor. We explained the plan and he never asked us how will you get traction (standard question with almost everyone else) he quickly understood the value proposition and had no doubts that this thing is bound to happen. He did a quick reference check and in less than 6 weeks time we have signed term sheet and are expecting to close final agreements in 7-10 days time.
Hi Jaspreet,
Use this website http://www.vator.tv. You can make a video pitch.
Regards
Abubucker
As you are posting here for advice try at many other places,keep telling your story as many people with all means ,i m sure u will come across great person who will help you exactly what you want.
Best of luck…!
Manish
Jaspreet,
I have no idea what you guys do – will get down to it one of these days. But, I love your attitude! Keep going and I am sure that something good will come out of it. If you ask truly successful folks, they will always say that persistence is the under rated character trait that led to their success. All the best!
James Khan
Jaspreet, at a base level, you might want to try just a video demo — its non-interactive, but is simple and fit for mass use.