Well done TIECON Chennai it was crisp and clean. The speakers were fantastic and the way the networking sessions co-ordinated was awesome.

It was a great opportunity for Team MNBI to attend the event and we had witnessed some great speakers in action. The session that especially caught our attention was “Entrepreneurship – A Marathon or Sprint” the panelists were Alpesh Patel -Co founder TIE UK, Murugavel Janakiraman of Bharat Matrimony, Anil Nair MD and CEO of Law and Kenneth and Ajay Bagga Head, Wealth Management of Deutsche Bank. The healthy discussion heated up amongst the panelists as some favoured the “Sprint” while others favoured the “Marathon”. Alpesh Patel concluded the exciting discussion with the statement that journey of Entrepreneurship is a “Marathon” with many milestones in between and the journey between each milestone a “Sprint”. So in a sense everybody was right!

Other sessions included One day Cricketer Robin Singh and India’s No 1 female sailor Rohini Rau. And another stand-out was a Wings of Angels panel discussion which included principals from TVS Capital Funds, 500 Startups, GSF Accelerator and Superangels, Blume Ventures; and representatives of Indian Angel Network and Chennai Angels.

Before lunch the famous Subroto Bagchi co-founder of MindTree Inc interviewing the venerated yogi and mystic Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.  A session that put the audience at ease with his presence and some of his valuable insights including “It is better to be in a confused state of mind rather than reach a foolish conclusion”

Later Sadhgurru narrated the fable of the crow and rabbit.:

A crow was sitting on a branch of a tree one day, doing nothing all day. 

A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long”?  The crow answered: “Sure, why not.” So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested.  All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the  the rabbit and ate it whole.

Morale of the tale: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up!

Beyond the day at TiECON,  we were able to meet some prominent personalities in person including Murugavel Janakiraman of Bharatmatrimony  whom we visited at his office. The office set up on the Coromondel Coast on the Bay of Bengal provides an inspiring great view and it has to be said that his highly motivated team ooze with confidence and energy.

Back at home base, MNBI is feeling pumped and would like to share this energy with those at the next Startup Coffee to be held at 4 pm on Saturday 15th of December at Cherries & Berries in Vazhuthacaud in Trivandrum.

It would be great to have you guys there, to attend the event register here

Christmas is around the corner and Santa would be getting ready to distribute the presents but folks get ready for a bigger one from Team MNBI in January 2013!

Stay tuned for more details….

This time it is at Cherries & Berries. The team at C&B wholeheartedly extended their support to join this wonderful cause of promoting entrepreneurship and making Startup Coffee synonymous with C&B.

As the slogan goes “Coffee N More”, come share your ideas, exchange valuable thoughts and meet some cool guys. To attend the event register here

Venue – Cherries & Berries / Date – 24th November, 2012 / Time – 4pm -5pm

The event kick started with Alexie MD of Innovation
Experience sharing his experience on how he faced failure and enjoyed the fruits of success later on with his second venture.

His words of wisdom as he put in simple terms;

• Team – Have the right composition.
• Take it easy and move on.

Our first Start-Up Coffee event – convened at the Café Coffee Day, Kowdiar, took place on Saturday 27^thof October. The event started at 4.00 as planned and was attended by around 30 entrepreneurs from different walks of life.

The session unfolded with a MNBI team member enlightened the audience with his past experience with a gaming venture in the USA in the late ‘90s. Soon entrepreneurs were presenting their Next Big Idea to the group. Each speaker then had the opportunity to debate their idea with the group. It was really appreciable that the Government had come up with the 30 day to Freedom campaign, we had some interesting ideas from students entrepreneurs as well.

“A couple of hours very well spent” was the resounding consensus of the crowd and appreciation that we plan to hold these events twice a month.

Ideas were definitely raining!

Startup Coffee second edition happens on Saturday 10th November, 2012 at Cafe Coffee Day, Kowdiar. Register here

MNBI provides access to the finest start-up experts from the Indian sub-continent, SE Asia, Australia, USA and Europe.

The fledgling incubation industry here in India seems to have set a limit in investments to be between US$ 10,000 and US $ 15,000. Our experience working with over 80 start-ups shows this just does not stack up. Unless you are extremely fortunate, proof of concept and arriving at what we term your Minimum Viable Product just cannot be secured for that, however careful you are and wise with your boot strapping. At MNBI we want every business to succeed and if we agree to incubate your idea, we will ensure that you have sufficient funds to give you the greatest likelihood of attaining your objectives.

Our approach is to limit investments only to those businesses where we understand the market very well and able to add value by taking a very active role. We believe we are good at building great web and mobile businesses and what this means is – we will be investing only on those 2 type of businesses. However we don’t mind deviating a bit from the rules if you can convince us that you have a business idea which is a real winner.

Apart from seed investment, we also offer you office space, telephone, fax and internet services. So you are getting an opportunity to work in a business environment alongside other start-up entrepreneurs and bear in mind – Most of those successful companies out there have grown from incubators to strong places in their fields.

Team MNBI helps you formulate a positioning strategy by understanding the market place in terms of customer segmentation, competitor information, pricing and value proposition.

The unique positioning of your product can be the difference between a mediocre or a successful product. One solution doesn’t fit all startups. Depending on your product idea, your strategic vision and the problem that your product aims to solve, the right targets are identified.

Most startups come across 3 main options

1. Positioning your product against your competitors, “Our prices are half of that you may find else where for similar products”
2. Emphasizing a distinctive unique benefit “the only book keeping system that instantly calculates your taxes”
3. Affiliating your product with something the customer knows and values “the same archiving system used by NASA”

A great startup should have attractive messages to suite their product. A positioning statement depends on your customers, benefits, methodology adopted and it’s USP (Unique Selling proposition). Though there are advocates saying USP is passé, it’s what makes your product tick in the marketplace.

You will use your positioning strategy to design all your marketing communications, and integrate it with every aspect of your marketing program. Any and everything you will do as part of your marketing program, from web site design to product packaging and advertising, should aim mainly at convincing customers of the points contained in your positioning statement.

So, put the statement where you can always see it, and always get back to it whenever you are marketing the specific product for which it was crafted.Your positioning statement reflects what you need to communicate about a specific product, and to whom, so you will always hit the right button, communicating the right message to the right customer at the right time.

Your Customer must also get the message you are conveying, the way you meant it to be.

We’ve seen great business ideas failing to make it big simply because of a flawed strategy. All members of the MNBI program go through a very stringent grooming exercise to position their product for the right set of customers and ensuring their product solves the problems of the market place in the most efficient way possible.

What you get as an entrepreneur wanting to take your idea to the market is a fool proof methodology giving you a higher chance of success. Solutions range from strategic planning, process improvement to organizational change. MNBI identifies your strategic goals and aligns solutions that are in tune with them. Being involved with your startup in every sense, MNBI makes sure no stone is left unturned. The initiatives include conducting feasibility studies, viability checks, business case preparation, risk assessment and mitigation etc.

The team at MNBI with management consulting experience utilizes various business analysis techniques to arrive at business change policies that can make a difference to your startup idea!

MNBI has access to high quality legal services through our association with attorneys around the globe. Engaging lawyers and securing the best arrangement is also not without its challenges and MNBI is there to save you both time and money.

Some of the services that may be required are:

• Document drafting by lawyers

• Legal research

• IP legal work, substantive or administrative

• Confidentiality and Non-Compete agreements

• Capitalizations

• Joint Ventures and Strategic alliances

Companies wishing to secure venture capital, will need to demonstrate that the value proposition is real, and that they can hit measurable benchmarks towards generating positive cash flow. If the candidate is more advanced, the product well defined and already cash flow positive with healthy revenue growth, then larger sums can be secured.

This all comes at a price so be prepared to cede a significant amount of control as well as share of the business.