Startups INDIA kick started their flagship event, Start-Up Connect 1.0 at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, New Delhi on 24th of October 2015. The day was loaded with everything related to startups from the guidance on how to start and build your own startup, to planning the business idea and its fundraising. The event housed a set of eminent and successful entrepreneurs.

“Its never about the next big idea, its always about the next big implementation and this is the reason we organised Startup Connect 1.0 to connect with all the like minded people,” says Saurabh Kothari, Founder of Startups INDIA community.

The day commenced with one of the most distinguished entrepreneur as well as a speaker Sameer Grover – CEO, Crown It. He talked about topics: from realizing the ultimate dream of being an entrepreneur to taking the venture to a multi-million estimate. The main focus of his speech was laid onto having a “rock star team” with people supporting the common goal, with complimentary skills. Unlike other entrepreneurs, Mr. Grover emphasised on figuring out the leader among the group saying that “democracy is overrated”. He followed the famous  ‘ant theory’ with the analogy that “failure is inevitable and the next step is to get up and run again”. Finally, he shared his simple theory that “always go back to your basics and do what you love. People may take away your idea, but they can never take your soul” and “you have to work hard to make it a success”.

The event was then extended into the session in ‘Cyber Legal Ecosystem’ conducted by Cyber Law expert Sai Sushanth. He enlightened the audience about the various kinds of cyber crimes they are exposed to while using the internet as well as the software; giving away the suggestions to protect oneself from such thefts by creating various layers of protection through IP.

The baton of the event was then passed onto another set of influential orators: Sahil Jain, co-founder Dineout and Vikram Upadhyaya, GHV Accelerator.

Where Sahil Jain took up the talk with a proper entrepreneurial approach, Vikram Upadhyaya mixed it well with an investor’s viewpoint. Mr. Jain’s stressed  on starting a venture that looked onto the kind of problem it was solving. He also shared a complimentary opinion that there can also be “creation of a new market, out of an existing one”, by sighting his very own life example of Dineout.

Later, Mr. Upadhyaya shared how “entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster” and helped specify the points that the investors dig up for. He concluded his speech by advising on to “not to try to raise too much money on the early stage” to the young entrepreneurs.

The day concluded with a final fundraising process for start-ups elucidating the audience on the various ways to raise the funds and the numerous processes involved in doing the same. Saurabh Kochhar, CEO- Foodpanda India and Sandro Stephen, Indian Angel Network concluded the session with a final fundraising session where they discussed with audience all the problems and solutions which startups face at the time of fundraising.

After the speaker sessions, the audience got a chance to interact with these CEOs and investors individually and discuss their queries.