Earlier today, I gave a talk on entrepreneurship at Conquest 2009 at BITS Pilani.
The title of the talk was “What Can Entrepreneurs Learn From Activists?” and here are three lessons I focused on –
1. How to engage people who aren’t going to spend much, or anything at all, at little or no cost?
2. How to build a vibrant community around a social object that is bigger than the brand, campaign or organization?
3. How to tap into the partner and volunteer ecosystem beyond the organization?
I also talked about what ails tech entrepreneurship in India and highlighted some open opportunities in the Indian internet space.
Here is the slide deck from the talk –
Other speakers at the event included Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group; Mahesh Murthy, Founder, Pinstorm; Raj Gollamudi, Co-founder, Blue Stream Ventures; Prajakt Raut, Founder, Orange Cross; Naren Dubey, Chief Operating Officer, Scan Café; Shashikant Khandelwal, Founding Member, TheFind Inc; Rahul Chandra, Co-founder, Helion Venture Partners; Mukul Singhal, Associate, Canaan Ventures; and Gayatri Rath, Vice President, Corporate Communications GE.
