Lean Start-up Machine Gurgaon Workshop: My friend told me about it. He registered for it in 3000 rupees but I registered late so had to pay 5500. We reached the venue on time. It was Friday. The complete building was vacant. There was no sign of any human population anywhere. There were no doors to enter. Somehow we found out a back door, which turned out to be the main entrance. The fifth floor office or the top floor was pipe-lined over it. The LSM guys might have got the complete floor at a very cheap price. If we don't see the pipe-line above, to avoid horror of the hanging corpse, the floor was very pretty. May be the pipe-lining was to create the ambiance of construction building. The floor had a reception, 2 egg shaped swing chairs, nice soft sofa, telephone booth like cabin with bean bag in it, many rooms, cafeteria and someone had decorated his tables so well with pictures and transformer toys that it added to the beauty of the floor.
There were around 35 people for the workshop. I and my friend was one of the most introvert among them. Other than me, all were good speakers. Some were lawyers, some were in sales, some were in marketing, some were freshers, some this some that and we were techies. They introduced themselves well and provided a nice pitch of their idea. We voted on ideas and top ideas were selected. The first evening went pretty smooth.
Next morning started with a breakfast of mendu vada. They were so hard to chew that you can kill someone by throwing it on him. Then we formed teams. I and my friend separated. I was in a group of 5. I dropped my idea and joined into someone else's idea. After that we had to bear, I mean hear, lectures so-called guidance from entrepreneurs and lean start-up practitioners. Then there was out of the building session. We were made to go out and talk to people. We were trying to contact people on phone to schedule meetings because it did not made any sense in our case as our was B2B idea. We went out to a restaurant, had ice tea and garlic bread. When waiter came to us with a tablet for feedback, it stuck to us to use the restaurant as our customer in B2B idea, though the franchise restaurant manager had no power to decide, we took our chance. Manager came and we had a half an hour talk with video on a mobile. Then we continued the same in a bar and came back. But idea was invalidated in this case of restaurant, but was a nice experience. Then few more lectures, then dinner and back home.
The third day after breakfast, we had to go out of the building. One of our team mate was sick. So we decided instead of wasting time in going out, let's only 2 of us go out and other 2 stay and make presentation. 2 of us went to saloons and spas this time. You might be wondering why we choose restaurant and spas; it's because on weekend nothing else is open and owners of these places are there in the shops as well. The guy with me was a sales guy. Right from the childhood his parents knew he was a sales guy, so they named him Mani. We went to around 15 saloons and spas, got pictures with 2 of them and the guy Mani even convinced them to buy the product when it's in market. He was so good in convincing people. We were back and presentation was ready. The idea owner and Mani decided to speak. Mani was a good speaker but he had stage fright. But he did well. Still we lost. A simple idea won. Somebody had rightly said, simplicity has lot of power.
SIMPLICITY ME ADBHUD SHAKTI HAI
While going everybody met everybody taking phone number making contacts. Yes that was the things people actually came for, for contacts of start-up enthusiasts. The judges gave suggestions to each of the idea owners. At the end the volunteers asked a lawyer about feedback and the lawyer so happily amused him with an answer, everyone had kept in mind. The lawyer said.
The people we met were good and ambitious, but the place we met is pathetic. No one helped in searching the venue. Building looked haunted. Lift were not working. Some registered at 1000 some at 5000. Volunteers themselves were not on time. They did not knew what to do. Breakfast was horrible. Speakers were late. We did not get time to meet them. There were too much disturbance. Not much learning.
And he went on and on for more than 2 minutes till the volunteers and others who were hearing died of laughter.
Now comes what I learnt from the workshop.
The only thing I learnt from the workshop is that starting up a business is not so difficult how much I thought it was, if the silly ideas of the speakers could work, it isn't so difficult.
No comments:
Post a Comment