TechSparks, a Celebration of Entrepreneurial Perseverance and Its Untiring Journey
Unlike the monsoon that fails and then picks up, TechSparks has steadily grown from its nascent attempt at reviving the technology startups in the product space. Like cat’s nine lives, product tech companies grow though various stages of evolution unlike a butterfly. Nothing suggests that a product startup is made up for success. What TechSparks does is to enable that success. A study in 2010 showed that one-third of the product technology startups have either folded or have become service companies. It’s a rough path to develop a prototype, achieve user adoption, realize revenues, and scale. Those who are ready for this exciting, but rewarding, journey with a heart of punch and iron stay through. Others fall by the wayside.
The first TechSparks event was a one-day affair at Bangalore. It was in 2010. Five startups were chosen among the 15 pitches made. The excitement was electric and soon the demand for such events soared. In the ecosystem, a few organizations support products because the journey of a product startup is not a bed of roses. You wake up to challenges on a daily basis. Unless the products appeal to the customer, it’s not going to work. A do or die situation after days, months, and in some cases years of toil. Who would want so much time of toil get spoiled? We don’t want to let that happen. We try to show them the path to success by giving them exposure to similar kind of people who have been there, done that, who are eager to support you through investments, and who are the same boat as you are.
Our small endeavour got a fillip in the second year in 2011. We travelled to five cities—Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, along with Bangalore—to take this message forward. While we were slightly hesitant at the start, we were confident. But on seeing the overwhelming support at each city, we could sense the ground level activity. There are product entrepreneurs who are willing to take the rough weather path to success. They are not the ones daunted by challenges. They are eager to make it work. And TechSparks just fulfilled their desire to connect to the fellow travellers on the journey. And more than that, we brought in investors, corporate organizations, and supporters who want to join these uncompromising travellers on their endeavour. And all we got was fulfilling. And our faith in the products just got proved. We brought out the first Tech30 Report. We identified 30 startups that we thought were promising. At the end of the year, 14 of them were funded; one got acquired, and another went on to acquire an European company. Such an amount of success proves that product tech is on a blaze in India and we early spotted them.
After travelling to five cities—Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad—the Grand Finale is back in Bangalore on September 8, 2012. The five city tour was a great journey. If you were following our reports, you would have sensed that. And that gets bigger and better at Bangalore. We want you to be there to celebrate a perseverance journey and applaud the efforts of those soaring eagles who have defied conventions, who have chosen to tread a path of challenges, and who are eager to sense success.
If you are a tech entrepreneur, investor, corporate executive, CXO, someone lurking in the ecosystem eager to understand it, someone wanting to get to understand what is happening in product tech, from media curious to know who these product companies are, or a student betting on a career in products or product startups, just sure be present with us on September 8, 2012 at MLR Convention Centre, Whitefield.
Register here. See you soon!
