Indian Startup Ecosystem and Mobile Monday
[Guest Post by Lalit Bhise, CEO/Founder of Mobisy. Lalit shares his views/experience with MoMo Bangalore and how it has added to the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem.]
I have been participating in Mobile Monday Bangalore for an year and half now. What started as a few geeks in a cafeteria event is currently a huge community commanding respect from everyone. Today, speakers from Admob, Nokia, Google, Quallcomm vie to be part of of the community !
But that’s not what I call success, there are plenty of such “eco-systems” currently mushrooming in India all targeting the same user base, what I like the most about Momo Bangalore is that it has still managed to retain it’s original form as a “By Entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs” organization.
Lot of the credit for that goes to the co-founders and organizers Rajan and Rajiv. They have remained the very friendly and easily approachable face of Momo Bangalore throughout all it’s transitions. With Keshav and Raja joining the organizing team, the spirit has strengthened further.
For a while, let me just talk about ourselves. We at Mobisy started as just another start-up with an idea around a year back(we still are..).
Getting any attention or help in any other “eco-system” was proving a tough task. Momo bangalore acted like a true “Mentor” to us. Right from finding information regarding standard start-up processes to getting a demo arranged, networking with VCs, Partners, Customers…
We were offered help at every single step. All that with a smile and no cost ! How many organizations can claim to provide such a level of altruistic service to budding/unproven start-ups in India?
In my personal opinion, we need many such organizations to spur on real innovations, otherwise we stand at a risk of getting the whole eco-system hijacked by few guys/organizations with loads of money and prejudiced ideas about innovation.
May the ‘Momo Bangalore’ spirit live on.
What do you think?
FYI, this month’s MoMo Bangalore is scheduled for March 24th, and Ashwin, CEO/Founder of MapUnity will drive the discussion on social technology and mobile apps (details)
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
True indeed! The good news is that groups like MoMo, BarCamp, Proto, Headstart and many others are rapidly growing. We need 100s of such grass-root efforts involving all stakeholers across the country if a real entrepreneurial ecosystem is to develop. More power to them all!
[...] Bhise of Mobisy talks about Mobile Monday on Plugg.in. There is one happening in Bangalore on 24th March. I am planning [...]
Apt post. Among all the organizations (proto, TiE etc), only MoMo has stayed focus and not gone into too many things.
Other events, instead of focusing on startups are ACTUALLY focusing on VCs and Media attention.
MoMo, thanks to the cool organizers is an awesome no-nonsense event with focused crowd.
Great work guys!
Amit
I do agree with Amit on this front – most of the other events have sort of become a for-profit, while MoMo tends to be the pure non-profitable org.
Most importantly, Rajiv and Rajan deserve the credit for creating a no-nonsense community.
Good work guys.
I appreciate the great contributions of MoMo in spurring innovation and Entrepreneurship. SInce this post is about ecosytem, I am glad to mention about our activities in supporting Technology Startups.
Our Technology Business Incubator provides concept to commercialization support including seed fund to Technology startups.
Please visit http://www.vittbi.com for more information and details.
I would like to reach out to potential startups needing support through this MoMo network.
It will be great if you forward me a list of prospective startups / individuals with their mail ids
A quick analysis revealed that a startup ( a 4 member team) can save around Rs. 10 – 15 Lakhs in the first year if they commence their activities in an incubator ( like VITTBI) instead of being at Chennai / Bangalore
Please let me know if your need further inputs