On July 15 JWB along with Entrepreneur Café and Headstart conducted a workshop for Jaipur women aspiring to be successful entrepreneurs. The name of the event was ‘How To Get Funding For Your Startup – Event For Women Entrepreneurs‘, and the speaker was Mr. Paresh Gupta.

Below are the highlights of the event and excerpts from what the speaker suggested to the audience:

Before Starting a Business:

1. Check where the money is going to come from.
2. Look for returns.
3. Calculate a rough percentage of business and start working towards it.
4. One week before your 1^st money comes into account, register the company.

Business Idea & Competition: Most of the time, the business idea is not new. It’s just that the idea hasn’t been used in your area of operation. Take example of Ola and other cab services. Was the idea new? No. But the market (Indian customers) were new to it. So the one who taps (or steals) a successful idea first, becomes the hero.

If the competition is tough in your market, I suggest you go for oligopoly. Join hands with other companies or entrepreneurs in your market and grow together. Example: I & Entrepreneur Café! Divide the working areas for zero space for confusion and make it a great team work.

Networking: It is VERY important. For conducting today’s event, Entrepreneur Café could have invited any speaker based in Jaipur. Since they know me, they asked me!

Make contacts wherever you go – be it family, friends, their families, socialites, etc. Session like this one, with TIE, Headstart, etc will help you meet new people every month. Join them and keep a track of their upcoming events.

Make friends, rich friends to be precise. Sorry for sounding so arrogant. But this is the need of the hour for people who lack funds and are starting from a scratch.

Social Entrepreneurship: This is one of the best ways to contribute to society as well as earn good. The only business with zero tax to pay.

Look for a Smart Business Idea: Just provide a platform for interaction and let profit fall in your pockets. Examples: Airbnb, Flipkart, etc. Airbnb just created a website. Here, people who want to give their homes for vacations to travelers register. The travelers search for suitable home in some country and book it. What is Airbnb doing here – just taking the commission. They are investing no money into the business, except for marketing. Same goes with online retails like Flipkart, Myntra, Snapdeal, etc.

Putting Money into the Business: Don’t search for the investor in the first place. Fundraising isn’t difficult till the time you are ready to bear loss, expect no big profit in the 1^st year and carry a brief idea about the future returns. In this way, it is easy to convince an investor.

However, I will still suggest 3 prior ways to start a business. If you follow a hierarchy on how to invest in a business, you might be at ease:

1. Use all your resources. I would say, use them till they exhaust.
2. Ask family and close friends.
3. Bank loan, but only if you are sure of returns.

The event also allowed the audience to raise questions. Below are few that interested us:

Q 1 – ‘Why do you think institution investor is a better choice?’

Paresh Gupta – Because he is only concerned about the profit made, therefore only about his money. He won’t poke his nose in how you do the business and other stuff.

Q 2 – What do you suggest for those who have no idea about investors?

Paresh Gupta – Just see if your ideology matches with the investors. If yes, go ahead.

Q 3 – What are incubation centers?

Paresh Gupta – A business incubator is something that supports the startup companies by providing services such as management training, office space, etc. They can choose to support business at any stage of development, and not just startup companies.

BITS Pilani has business incubation center. What is best about them is that they can help you at a mere stake of 2% or so. Feel free to contact or visit them.

Want to know other basics of business? Learn from Mr. Paresh Gupta.

Photo courtesy: Shashank K Tyagi