Hi!
The 13th Startup Saturday Kolkata is up on 12th of June, i.e. this weekend!
The journey of Startup Saturdays in Kolkata has seen 12 of them since March last year, with ups and downs, highs and lows.
Thanks to all of you for the support you have provided to each other and to the platform.
From today, we are turning this Mailing List into a weekly one, where we will regularly update you about what has been happening and what is in store for the upcoming Startup Saturdays in Kolkata.
Is the newsletter always going to be so long?Back to top
"I get too many emails! And the least amount of time to s Is the newsletter always going to be so long?"
For those of you who have this concern, please relax! This is the first one in the series & hence is slightly long. So, unless we send you a slightly detailed agenda, our newsletters will not be this lengthy.
So, do go through all the points in this newsletter, since these are for you!
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Where is Startup Saturday Kolkata headed?Back to top
Startup Saturdays in Kolkata have seen a very enthusiastic group of attendees in the past 12 ones that have occured. In the 12 Startup Saturdays that have happened in the past, we have had more than 200 unique attendees, including most of you, who are receiving this email.
What we see is a huge potential in the Kolkatan entrepreneurial & startup community to interact, learn & take back a lot from each other & we are proud that with some focussed and concentrated efforts towards this & the continuous support of the volunteers & Globsyn Business School, we are seeing Startup Saturday as being such a platform!
For more details on the structure of Startup Saturdays and your role in it, please check our chapter page @ http://startupsaturday.headstart.in/chapter/Kolkata/
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What's happening in June?Back to top
June will see Mr. Arijit Bhattacharya of Virtual Infocom, share with us his experience of Bootstrapping an IT business.
Arijit defines "Bootstrapping" as the act of starting a business with little or no external funding.
In today's business world, bootstrapping has come to mean helping oneself without seeking outside help. It means using your own resources to finance, promote, and develop your business.
Arijit will offer at least seven solid reasons why Bootstrapping will consistently deliver better results than getting a VC.
With Arijit we will together introspect into whether we really need a VC to scale up & what the real concept of VC for tech businesses is.
Arijit will follow this up with a small case study of his self-bootstrapped organisation Virtual Infocom!
 It will be followed by a Business Showcase from RanceLab, a business that provides solutions to the Retail industry with their product FusionRetail and has been in business for almost 10 years now!
FusionRetail is an easy-to-use application for retailing businesses to track sales, inventory and customer information.
Their director, Mr. Nilesh Shah will present a Business Showcase focussed on their product.
So, mark your calendars to be there @ Globsyn Business School on 12th of June 3:30 PM. We want to start on time & can do that with your support. So, my earnest request to you to be there on time!
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What's this Open House business?Back to top
Open Houses! As the name suggests we are looking at Open Houses as a democratic platform for the entrepreneurial community to discuss, what they want to!
There is a uservoice forum for people to democratically select a topic for SS Kolkata Open Houses. A common discussion on this forum will keep running throughout and a topic that is chosen for a certain month, would be marked as already done, one week in advance!
For June, since we do not have enough action on the forum, you can choose to either create action or select a topic on the spot!
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And what about Lightning Pitches?Back to top
Lightning Pitches are 5-minute pitches to quickly present to the audience, and take back some feedback while you interact with people in the networking session.
Every Startup Saturday Kolkata will have a number of Lightning Pitches, where you can feel free to come up and speak. The following qualify for a Lightning Pitch:
- An untapped pain point/business opportunity
- A seed-stage product startup pitching their product idea
- Startup Idea looking for co-founders/partners to compliment it
Lightning Pitches are selected by nomination.
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What's in store for upcoming Startup Saturdays?Back to top
We have confirmed speakers for July & August, with their information already up on the event pages, and the registrations open!
In July, we have Mrs. Shannon Jhunjhunwala delivering a Knowhow Session about the IT Law & Sumit Datta from forums.com presenting a Reality Check.
In August, we have the pathshala.in couple, Bappaditya & Debarati taking up the Reality Check & Mr. Abhishek Rungta delivering a Knowhow session.
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Mr. Abhishek Rungta confirmed as a Knowhow Session speaker for August 2010!Back to top
For August, we just confirmed Mr. Rungta to deliver a Knowhow Session on 'Bootstrapping a Service Business & scaling it up'. We will soon update the August page with the relevant information!
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ContextMine confirmed for a Reality Check in September 2010!Back to top
Mr. Nitesh Ambuj from ContextMine, has confirmed to take up the Reality Test in September. We will keep you updated when we open up registrations for September!
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Thanks & Best Regards,
Mitesh B Ashar
Co-founder, HeadStart Network Foundation |
