Today’s 175th roundtable concluded with a wonderful comment from Dwight Harrison: “When running a business it is good to spend time with people who have converted dreams into cash.” I love the way the idea of turning dreams into cash summarizes entrepreneurship, and it perfectly summarizes our philosophy. So, I chose to start the recap with Dwight’s quote today!
Now let’s take a look at what kinds of ‘dreams to cash’ opportunities our entrepreneurs pitched today…
f1circle
First, Santosh Shukla from Hyderabad, India, pitched f1circle
, which aims to be three things: an enterprise social network a la Yammer, Chatter, Jive; a marketplace a la eBay for professionals; and a classified portal a la Craigslist, also for professionals. My first and most urgent advice to Santosh is to stake a claim in the ground and decide which one is the real opportunity that he wants to go after.
As usual, Santosh jumped to what he wants in terms of financing. It is amusing how entrepreneurs don’t do their homework, and expect investors to fund them, while they burn hard earned money figuring out what they ought to be doing!
Smart Sample
Then, Ravikant Verma from Mumbai, India, pitched Smart Sample
, a service for CPG companies like Hindustan Lever to distribute samples to consumers through their current (and growing) network of 100,000 people. The company already has clients and is generating revenues, offering clear value.
VideoFlute
Next, Dwight Harrison from London, England, pitched VideoFlute
, a video production service for real estate agents catering to the luxury real estate market in London. The positioning is crisp, clear, and since the market is heavily dominated my foreign buyers from the Arab countries, India, China, etc., the value proposition is also quite compelling.
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 30, Rackspace Cloud-1M/1M Startup Challenge Finals,
Register Here
.
Thursday, June 6, 177th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here
.
Thursday, June 13, 178th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here
.
Thursday, June 20, 179th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here
.
Thursday, June 27, 180th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here
.
If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to join the 1M/1M premium program. If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program and the
FAQs
. If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs.
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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.