The next edition is scheduled for Nov 19th and here are a few details.

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Date: November 19th, 2011.

Venue: MES Auditorium, 131. Mayur colony, Near HDFC Bank, Pune , India

Agenda/Speakers will be announced shortly.

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Join our Facebook group for details.

Agenda

“most awesome start-up event in India #UnPluGGd : http://bit.ly/aqC0eC [@vpsingh]

@pluggdin Congrats for hosting the wonderful event and Twitter updates to inspire all (also to be) #entrepreneurs [@Pulkit_Lakshya]“

Feedback has started pouring in and overall, I am satisfied with how UnPluGGd went.

We could have easily done a ‘showcase top 15 hot/warm/lukewarm startups in India’, but decided to do something different. We decided to bring a content focused event with no element of hype [for instance, no non vegetarian food in the lunch ]

We had a limit of 200 people (internally, we kept the numbers to 170) and we were pleasantly surprised to see the turnout, 220. Few guys came in as early as 8:30 AM, few flew from Pune, Delhi for the event.

Considering that this was our first event and the format was completely new, I am humbled by the interest shown from the entrepreneurial community.

I’d like to thank several people who made UnPluggd’s first edition possible.

First of all, a few ‘well known’ names in VC/Angel space, who said

“You need to hype up to get sponsors/audience. You need to show ‘new new things’, otherwise people will not come. An event where bunch of entrepreneurs sharing their journey is bound to fail”.

Well, you guys just challenged me to ensure that we prove you wrong!

And we did!

And now, my sincere vote of thanks to all those who made UnPluGGd possible.

Sponsors

Thanks to Dell India, Honeywell for supporting us. Both of these companies were quick in trusting us. They did not ask too many questions (sponsor’s fav questions are ‘who are the other sponsors’ ) and showed the true spirit of supporting the ecosystem.

Enablers

I’d like to thank NovoJuris, Neev Technologies, MetaYage and NetBramha (design partner) for supporting us. You guys should give their service a spin.

Also, Picsquare/InfiBeam team sponsored the tees and they do deserve a special thanks!

The Team

We were a lean team and a whole lot of friends supported us during the event. My vote of thanks (in no particular order)

• Sanjay Anandaram
  When I was deciding on UnPluGGd’s event content/format, Sanjay happens to be the first person with whom I shared the idea. Over the course of last few months, he supported me in deciding on companies/speakers.
• Pratyush Prasanna
  PP is part of the PI team, and helped in anchoring. I had a severe sore throat [if you have been reading my tweets] and PP took good care of anchoring.
• Kunalkant Sen
  He efficiently managed the entire registration process, along with Shawnik [of SIBM].
• Kanupriya
  She is part of PI team, and took care of tweeting. Infact, she was pretty much on her toes to ensure that great content is shared on twitter.
• Satpal Paramar
  Satpal volunteered for the event and managed a whole lot of operational aspects.
• Mahendra Baid
  Mahendra made some great connections/introductions that helped us a lot.
• Bloggers/Partners
  Arun (of Trak.in), Venturewoods, Ticketing partner(Ayojak) & several other organizations for helping us reach out to their audience.
• Amarinder Singh
  Last, but not the least – Amarinder is the partner for the event and he took care of whole lot of stuff – he pretty much did a lot of Project Management and ensured that we are on track.This is not the complete list – there are a whole lot of people who helped us during the course of the event; so thanks to them as well.

Speakers

Last 1.5 months, I have interviewed close to 30 entrepreneurs and closed on the final 12. We had several factors in mind while selecting the speakers.

No BS. Ready to Share. Ready to talk about failure. Willing to spend effort in preparing for the event. No media-trained fellas.

All the speakers had great insights to share and I hope the audience had their doze of inspiration.

The Audience

When you have a focused event, only focused audience will turn up.

And that happened with UnPluGGd too. All in all, 90% of the audience were entrepreneurs [no social media heroes] and I’d like to thank the audience for their participation.

This was our first step towards building something really useful, something tangible for the ecosystem. We plan to conduct UnPluGGd more frequently [with different themes, but all focused on startups], so do join our Google group for updates on UnPluGGd.

Areas of Improvement

We do know that there were certain areas where we could have done a lot better – for instance, moderation, time management – so be assured that we take care of these aspects from the next edition onwards.

On an interesting note, PluGGd.in witnessed a major traffic on the UnPluGGd day and our hosting partner, E2E Networks ensured that we stay live!

• Selected Companies (who have built businesses) will present their side of the story, which will mostly revolve around strategy as well as personal side (including a few rejections they went through).
• Each presentation will be followed by QnA from the audience as well as UnPluggd team.
• There will be parallel sessions (in the second half of the day) that will cover actionable topics like ‘How do I crack International Sales?’ etc.

UnPluggd is not a startup showcase event where we are bringing in a few hot products and showcase them to you.

What triggered us to start this event is the real picture of the ecosystem

• Serious entrepreneurs have stopped attending startup events in India. Like it or not, serious guys who care about their business are happily building their business.
  Infact, lately there is a strong negative correlation I have seen between success and garnering hype @startup events.

  Those (majority) who have built business have never attended any of the startup events – infact, they were not even showcased at any of the events. Not that I am undermining the importance of such events (we need 100s of them), but the reality is that serious folks needs a platform and that’s the gap we are filling.

• Focus on Business – Over the last three years, I have seen great products not going anywhere. Some of the companies who became the next hype, are now figuring out the survival route.
  Ofcourse, that’s how startups evolve, but if you do not focus on business (rather, dhandha),  your kickass product will not go anywhere. And that’s easier said than done. It’s time we bring in these dhandha companies and have them share their experience/insights.

The core philosophy behind the event has been that while there are a lot of product showcase events in India, lets get the guys who are building technology business from India.
Note the word – ‘are building’.

There are folks who have built great product business in India – Tally/iFlex etc; the founders are now too media-savvy (I’d call them ‘celebrity entrepreneurs’) and have learned the art of gyaan. We aren’t inviting them (as speakers, though they are free to attend).

Instead the guys who are coming over to share their experience are the ones who are in the trenches – and have built a small business.

To over simplify things, think of the event as TED for startups – ofcourse, without E & D and in a completely different format.

UnPluggd Event Details

• Date: March 6th, 2010
• Venue: Honeywell Office, Outer Ring Road, Bangalore
• Total # of Seats – We have limited seats available for the event. So, decide fast and act faster.
• Ticket Price – Rs. 450/ if you book it before Valentine’s Day [500/ after the V-day]
• How to Book? You can book the tickets online [visit our ticketing partner site and you have multiple payment options]
• Contact Details: Got Questions, Want to sponsor? You can contact Ashish (98452 06443, ashish@pluggd.in).

[Reproduced from UnPluggd Blog]