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Where is the Indian Bill Gates?

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CIOL Bureau
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PUNE: Sanjay Anandram, founding partner of Jumpstart Venture Fund, has a basic piece of advice for wannabe Indian global IT product players — Hone up presentation skills!

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Anandram was part of the panel that grilled five innovative emerging IT companies in Pune, showcasing their technologies at the first leg of the `IT Innovation in India Awards 05' here, a Nasscom initiative.

Nasscom IT Innovation in India award, in its second year now has shortlisted 20 IT companies in the western region of which four were Pune-based.

After attending the five presentations that attempted to showcase their skills, Anandram gave them a simple formula: “Don't be shy. Keep it simple.”

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The most important feedback, according to Anandram, came from the US companies that say Indians are inhibited and shy. He told them to be clear and concise about their product line and proclaim loudly about why they need to be heard at all. ”Where is the Indian Bill Gates?” he asked.

The Nasscom initiative saw five Pune companies — SoftDel Systems, RapidEffect, MicroTechnologies, Jopasana Software & Systems and AccelTree Software talking about their products.

Earlier, Sharad Sharma, general manager, India, Symantec mentioned that product innovation does not happen in India because of the absence of a proper ecosystem that nurtures product companies on the lines of the success stories of the Indian IT services companies.

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Anandram gave entrepreneurs a five-point format to brush up their presentation skills. “ Who are you? The credibility of the team is the first thing that needs to be driven. The focus on the team seems to be missing here. Secondly, identify the problem and how are you solving it?” he asked.

Anandram advised the participants to also be clear about the competition. “ You need to know who else is out there and why are you better than them. Most importantly, companies need to talk about how they will knock the socks off competition. A clear understanding of strategy and landscape is important, he asserted. Lastly, companies also need to talk about how they would make the money. Making money is not a bad thing, he said.

He said while the ideas presented by the companies were exciting, they needed to be marketed in an effective manner to attract global attention.

Later talking to scribes on the sidelines of the event, he was optimistic of the great Indian story that would be around for another decade. “ We shall soon see the next wave of innovation based companies,” he said. According to him, the communications sector would see excitement from VC funding.

JumpStart has invested in around eight Indian companies between $ 0.5 million to $ 3 million. He cited regulatory issues as a major hurdle in the growth of the Indian VCs and said a few individuals investing did not speak for the growth of the industry.

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