We are just hours away from Microsoft Canaan TechSparks 2010: G/Score is first used in India

View from the Sidelines by Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy

The hour is ticking by and we are just there. As August 13 arrives, we are excited that at the end of the day, the top 5 emerging startups will be identified and made known to the world. We have carefully made sure that the process of choosing is as objective as possible. First, we put a jury that is the best of brains in their chosen fields. And to be broad based, the jury members are from outside domains, providing a third eye perspective. Read the story on introducing the jury here.To establish objectivity in the process, we have for the first time ever in India introduced the Guidewire Group's G/rating. So here we provide an account of what a G/Score is. The following is from Guidewire's website:

Developed by Chris Shipley and the Guidewire Group analyst team, the G/Score is a standardized, scalable methodology for the incisive analysis and transparent assessment of startups’ commercial viability, execution, team, and business model.

Investors, technology providers, economic development agencies, and other members of the global entrepreneurial ecosystem spend countless hours repetitively collecting information about startups to inform, benchmark, or report on their investment decisions. But those efforts are fragmented and have been hampered by the lack of a widely accepted, normalized methodology.

G/Score leverages the expertise of Guidewire Group’s analyst team, which has assessed 20,000 startups over 20 years, to address this need for a more accurate, credible way of evaluating the promise and viability of early-stage technology companies. Key aspects of the company are scored across seven categories:

• Business Viability is scored on three of these categories: overall concept, market size and opportunity, and competitive market risk.
• Execution on Business and Product evaluates the successful progress of the business and its products against key milestones.
• Team assesses the appropriate skills, mentor-ability, and completeness of founders and key management and functional team.
• Business model evaluates pricing and channel strategy and its relevance to the given customer or market conditions.
• Funding indicates the level of outside capital raised by the company.

The G/Score is just one part the methodology. The jury will scan the 18 pitches that are going to be made from the technology entrepreneurs from the selected startups. This pitch, along with the G/Score, will be used to decide on the top 5 product tech companies.

Shereen Bhan, executive editor, CNBC-TV18 and the celebrated host of Young Turks, the longest on-air entrepreneurial TV show, will then announce the top 5 emerging eagles in a grand finale.

We have carefully chosen the panel for discussing Product Technology: Investment, Opportunity, and Challenges. The panel is to provide a 360-degree view from all possible angles on what the product tech scenario is like today in India.

But we all start this with a feast to the stomach before a feast to your cerebral sense. Once you settle down after a sumptuous lunch, be prepared to fasten your seat belt for exciting action.

You can network with the attendees who are from different domains just after the grand finale over high tea. Would you want to miss this opportunity? Just be there with us on August 13, Friday not to miss all the action at Royal Orchid, Bangalore.

And the final announcement: The event will start at 11-30 am instead of noon and from 1 pm instead of 2 pm, just to add more hours into the show. Make it there!