Today’s roundtable has the usual share of people looking for funding with businesses – rather concepts – that are not fundable at this point.
Collectiv.ly
First up, Satish Viswanatham, from San Francisco, California, pitched Collectiv.ly, a B-to-C social sharing concept that takes the short comings of Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Reddit, etc., and tries to plug them. The problem is, building these kinds of businesses require a lot of runway, and the company doesn’t have it. Such concepts require deep pocket investors, and to get to deep pocket investors, they require traction. A classic chicken and egg!
REAN
Then, Ameya Nisal from Pune, India, pitched REAN, a real-time retail analytics concept that is seeing $3 million in funding out of the gate with nothing to show for it. Even the concepts are not fleshed out. Retail analytics is an intensely crowded marketplace, with various big data vendors going after it with a vengeance. How does REAN position itself? How does it differentiate?
Neither of these businesses is fundable, and each needs a comprehensive strategic rethinking. Chasing investors at this point is a complete wastage of time.
Nupinch
Next, Vivek Jhorar from New Delhi, India, pitched Nupinch, a visual merchandising oriented product shopping engine focused on apparel for the Indian market. The concept reminds me of TheFind.com, and is a perfectly viable business opportunity. It is also fundable. Ironically, Vivek plans to bootstrap for another 4-6 months (at least) before seeking financing. We discussed the immediate action items for his business.
You can listen to the recording of today’s roundtable here.
As always, I would very much like to hear about your business, so let me invite you to come and pitch at one of our free 1M/1M public roundtables. We will be holding future roundtables at 8 a.m. PDT on:
Thursday, April 11, 169th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
Thursday, April 18, 170th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
Thursday, April 25, 171st 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
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Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, a virtual incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. Sramana has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.