We’ve been having a great time hosting the RevUp Startup Series and after successful events at Pune and Chennai, this month we took RevUp to Delhi. With the the market starting to tighten its ropes, and the startup ecosystem entering a state of flux, we decided to focus on understanding how to startup and scale during trying times.
Supporting us in this series, sharing their insightful journeys and failproof lessons were some serial entrepreneurs, seasoned investors and business leaders.
RevUp Delhi was hosted on the 17th of March 2017 at iKeva, Gurgaon and an exciting community of 75 entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts from Delhi joined us at the event.
The speakers for RevUp Delhi were:
- Siddharth Dhamija, Chief Growth Officer, Razorpay
- Gaurav Agarwal, Founder & CTO, 1mg
- Rajesh Sawhney, Founder at GSF Accelerator & Cofounder at Inner chef
Session 1 – ‘How to Grow Your Business Sustainably?’ by Siddharth Dhamija
Siddharth Dhamija, Chief Growth Officer at Razorpay explaining the best practices to ensure business sustainability
A seasoned business leader, Siddharth spoke about the building blocks required for growing sustainable startups. He spoke about 3 fundamental aspects – the customer, the market and the organization that needs to
be deftly managed in order to improve business longevity. Having a strong background in sales, Siddharth also shared his perspective on running a lean sales organisation and nailing product distribution in order to scale a startup in today’s competitive market.
Session 2 – ‘How to Start and Scale up While Staying Lean?’ by Gaurav Agarwal
Gaurav Agarwal, Founder & CTO at 1mg speaking about tapping effective marketing techniques along with a sound product focus to ensure business longevity.
Gaurav spoke about one the most crucial aspects to achieving sustainability – staying lean. He spoke about the importance of ensuring a product market fit and building a product vision, no matter how hard the problem is. Some of the other tips to staying lean included finding zero cost marketing channels and
continually measuring and tracking business efforts. The key takeaway from the session was to stay focussed and plan for the long term, in order to ensure that the startup survives the marathon and not just the sprint.
Session 3 – ‘How to Raise Money in the Current Environment?’ by Rajesh Sawhney
Rajesh Sawhney, Founder at GSF Accelerator & Co-founder at Inner chef sharing his insights on winning investors and funds.
An angel investor in over 50 startups in India, Rajesh spoke about 7 effective tips that entrepreneurs can use when lookingto raise their first round of funding. The 7 tips are as follows:
- Raise a round as if it is your last one
- Find an anchor for your round
- Raise as much as you can
- Select your investors wisely
- Widen your net
- Communicate meaningfully and periodically
- Spend wisely – never run out of money
The most important lesson that entrepreneurs learned from this session was “to raise a round as if it were the last one”. this then gives startups the discipline to stay focussed and reduce extravagant spending.
What the attendees had to say…
The attendees for the event were a mix of entrepreneurs who are looking to startup to early stage startups to startups who were ready to hit the growth phase. Here are a few things the attendees had to say about RevUp Delhi:
“The event was good and informative, with a good selection of speakers. The whole event was well arranged with each presentation being sharp, crisp and to the point, while providing good insights.It was a good place to connect and interact with startups of all stages”
Mohit Miglani, CEO, TripOffBeat
“Growing a startup is a not an easy task and the speakers at the event, Gaurav and Siddharth with their experiences successfully scaling startups shared some very useful tips and insights that many startups can use”
Suraj, Senior Product Manager, TravelTriangle
The speaker sessions were followed by a casual networking session where the attendees got the opportunity to personally interact with the speakers of the event as well as network within the community.
Are you an entrepreneur or someone who is interested in starting up? Find out more about the RevUp startup series by dropping us an email at events@razorpay.com.
