Today’s roundtable comprised entirely of Indian entrepreneurs.
Avaz
First, Ajit Narayanan from Chennai, India, pitched Avaz, an iPad app for autistic children. Ajit is a 1M/1M premium member, and has been working with us on his strategy to not only increase the revenues from his products in the special needs education category, but also to broaden his product line. In particular, Ajit has developed a language learning technology called Free Speech,[/i] which he is working on developing the product roadmap for. Today’s session was a continuation of this discussion.
I am reasonably convinced that Ajit has a high potential language learning and communication apps business that can become a several hundred million dollar company.
Aaum
Next, Rajesh Kumar, also from Chennai, India, pitched Aaum, an analytics and modeling services company that caters to numerous verticals and has built a $200,000 a year business already. We discussed how to take the company to the next stage, the opportunity to build a product roadmap that is more focused, can scale faster, and can potentially become a fundable business.
Xelpro Software
Then, Sunil Semwal from Hyderabad, India, pitched Xelpro Software, a company that he wants to build into a risk management solutions business. Currently, the business plan is a bit all over the place, and Sunil needs to tighten the strategy significantly to identify a market entry point. Overall, risk management solutions for the financial services industry is a reasonable opportunity to explore. Sunil needs to zero in on a specific product and/or service for a specific segment to get into the market with.
FixNix InfoSec Solutions
Another from Chennai, India, Shanmugarel Sankaran pitched FixNix InfoSec Solutions, an IT security compliance and monitoring solution focused on small-medium companies that are certified under schemes such as ISO. Shan believes that there are 20,000 such companies, and he expects to be able to charge $2000 per company, making it a $40 million opportunity. The concept is only partially validated at the moment.
KeyMails
Last up, an entrepreneur working with ProductNation in Bangalore, India, Pankaj Kulkarni pitched KeyMails, an Outlook plug-in to prioritize email boxes that receive large volumes of email. The product is currently being tested by a set of beta testers, and Pankaj needs to build a go-to-market strategy for it. We discussed pricing today, and my reaction to his pricing model proposition of $3/month subscription fee was lukewarm. If this is a downloadable plug-in, the most natural pricing model would be a straight purchase, not a subscription. At any rate, email prioritization software is an established category, and Pankaj needs to do a comprehensive competitive analysis on the eco-system.
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, May 16, 174th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
Thursday, May 23, 175th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
Thursday, May 30, 176th 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.