Proto..Few afterthoughts and the power of Ecosystem
Here is the list of companies that presented @ the july edition of proto:
Soliton, Lifeblob, Crederity, PicPorta, Muziboo, ApnaBill, Lootstreet, Storrz, Lords Of Odds, Eko, gCoSign, The Hiring Tool, Tiriyo, Lipikaar, Blink, Ferox Foods.
What’s common across most of these startups?
80% know how to make money, i.e. are servicing other players in industry (i.e. product/service model) or have clients using their products (though it was surprising to note that there weren’t any mobile startups this time).
While I was in the know of most of these startups (except Ferox and Blink), I must say that proto team has done an amazing job of following:
- Showcasing the deserving startups : Unlike the last edition (yes, I have quite candid about this and Vijay too knows about it), all of the startups showcased this time had great stuff to show.
- The Ecosystem - I spoke to whole lot of people post-event and everybody had positive things to talk about Proto (and am not talking just about twitteristanis, but VCs/other entrepreneurs as well – essentially they were impressed with the energetic show!)
- Most importantly, upping the bar – I have said this again and again, but we need to bring deserving companies to the stage. Many of the companies that showcased this time are building products which is solving the real ecosystem (=industry + consumers/customers) pain (like eko, gcosign, crederity etc).
The Unified Web
I wasn’t present at proto and pluGGd.in was probably one of the few blogs that live-blogged the event (i guess some issues with wifi @ the event prevented others from doing so)- I call it the power of eco-system and unified web!
I wasn’t even planning to live-blog the event, but twitter feeds suddenly started talking about proto – I guess everybody (now isn’t that good ecosystem?) wanted to share their opinion/thoughts on the startups that were presenting – special thanks to swaroop, ankitajmani and Kunal for their tweets! So even though Video broadcast was shutdown (due to bandwidth issue), the event was still being live-broadcasted (thru’ twitter).
Unified web?
Second life coming?
Proto tried this the last time (3rd edition), but I guess it didn’t work out – i.e. second life section. Next time, I believe we can make it work. Why? Because atleast 7 startup guys (outside India) pinged me during the event – and I felt a strong need for networking – right there, at that moment!
What’s your feedback to proto team?
Ashish,
Very much agree about the quality. Worked quite hard to get that bit in, and will be focusing on that much more in the days to come. Also came up with some pretty interesting ways to validate them – which ensures that we are showcasing companies that have products that sell.
Good show overall
Hi Ashish,
Proto4 definitely has set a new standard.
Not just ApnaBill.com – but all the other startups that showcased had amazingly nice products – and some had this interesting capability of being mashed up as well (for example PicPorta and LifeBlob).
Talk of out-of-the-box startups and Ferox Foods was surely one of them!
Kudos for the Proto4 team and thanks for covering the event.
Wishing great luck to all of the startups!
–
Mayank
CoFounder – ApnaBill.com