1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Financing

Raising money to build a startup is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think. We have developed the following courses catering to entrepreneurs in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey.

364th Roundtable Recording on August 24, 2017: With Greg Besner, CultureIQ

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

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Roundtable Recap: August 24 – How A Serial Entrepreneur cum Angel Investor Thinks About Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Greg Besner, Founder and CEO at CultureIQ. Greg is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor. We discussed both his journey as an entrepreneur, lessons thereof, as well as his methodology and philosophy of angel investing.

WT InfoTech
As for the pitches, up first, Tarun Sainani from Lancaster, UK, pitched WT InfoTech. Tarun has a mobile app that has been live on Android and iOS for five years. While the app has a good number of downloads, it needs to monetize a lot better. We discussed the strategy.
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355th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures

Daniel Gulati, Principal and Head of Seed Investment Practice at Comcast Ventures, discusses e-commerce startup trends and what can and cannot be venture financed at this stage, and why.

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363rd Roundtable Recording On August 10, 2017: With Swati Chaturvedi, Propel(x)

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Roundtable Recap: August 10 – What Angels Are Looking For At Propel(x)

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Swati Chaturvedi, Co-founder and CEO at Propel(x), an online platform where entrepreneurs are connected to angels. Swati and I discussed some of the key trends of the seed financing eco-system as viewed from Propel(x).

One of my observations is that we’re in 2017. Lots of stuff has already been built. Nowadays, there aren’t so many wide, open opportunities out there. But there are many, many niche opportunities. Some of these businesses need to be built with very small amounts of capital – $1-2 Million, and sold for $10-15M. I asked Swati if there is appetite in the Propel(x) community for this type of investment? And what about a notch smaller? Invest $250k-$500k and sell for $5-$10M?

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287th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Ashmeet Sidana, Engineering Capital

Ashmeet Sidana, Founder of Engineering Capital, a seed-stage venture fund focusing on infrastructure technology, had a lot of insights to offer, and delivered one particular piece of wisdom that is close to my heart. He says, funding is like candy. Don’t eat too much candy. Whole wheat bread and proteins are customers and revenues. That’s what you should focus on. Brilliant analogy, don’t you think?

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241st 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad

Ann Winblad, Co-founder of Hummer Winblad, is one of the most successful women VCs in our industry, and as I mentioned in my introduction, I have never heard her whining about bias against women. One of the most encouraging things she discussed today is how her firm is sourcing interesting ventures from all over the world, not just Silicon Valley. Mulesoft, one of their hot portfolio companies, had its CEO based in Malta, originally!

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316th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Bryce Roberts, OATV, Indie.vc

Bryce Roberts, Managing Director, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), and Founder, Indie.vc, discusses the issues with the venture capital financing model, and explored alternatives.

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Seed Investors Have Become Risk Averse And Rightfully So!

What Terms Should Entrepreneurs Use for Seed Financing?

The Seed Capital Gap in India

316th Roundtable Recording On August 4, 2016: With Bryce Roberts, OATV and Indie.vc

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

Roundtable Recap: August 4 – Alternatives to Traditional Venture Capital with Bryce Roberts, Indie VC

During this week’s roundtable, our guest was Bryce Roberts, Managing Director, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), and Founder, Indie.vc. We discussed the issues with the venture capital financing model, and explored alternatives.

ADDVentures
First up pitching, Alina Shcherbinina from St. Petersburg, Russia, shared ADDventures, an adventure travel planning service. I gave her extensive feedback on the product direction and business model based on my own travel planning experiences.

Vdrink App
Then Sanket Jain from San Francisco pitched Vdrink App, an app for organizing impromptu happy hours for groups of people focused on Indian cities. The concept needs validation.
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310th Roundtable Recording On June 23, 2016: With T.M. Ravi, The Hive

In case you missed it, you can listen to this roundtable here:

Roundtable Recap: June 23 – The 3-month Acceleration Model for Startups is Bogus

During this week’s roundtable, our guest was T.M. Ravi, Managing Director and Co-founder, The Hive, a venture studio. The discussion touched upon a couple of key issues: the prevalent incubator/accelerator model of 3-month classes, we agreed, is bogus; and the Future of Work: Utopia or Dystopia?

CloudKnots
As for the pitches, first up, Prajit Arakkal from Dubai pitched CloudKnots, which is a concept arbitrage on Task Rabbit and UpWork. I shared my skepticism of why a new platform is necessary. How would it compete with the incumbents?
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