Fireside Chat: 'You can do it too' with Naren Gupta, NexusVP and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal
I want to start up, but is it too early? Am I too young or too naïve to be an entrepreneur? All of my friends will be taking up jobs and starting their careers, will I be taking too big a risk if I start up right now? I think I should wait a little bit, gain some experience, I will start up after 6-7 years of experience! Will people even take me seriously?
If you have asked these questions to yourself at any point of time, be assured you are not the only one in this dilemma. The wave of entrepreneurship in India has not left students untouched at all. Students are zealous to start up, budding and booming with some of the greatest ideas but a cloud of uncertainties hover over them too.
Two IIT Delhi Alumnus, Dr. Naren Gupta, Co-founder & MD, NexusVP and Rohit Bansal, Co-founder and COO, Snapdeal.com are coming back to their Alma Mater to share their entrepreneurial journeys and lessons learned along the way. Both Naren and Rohit are successful names in India’s startup ecosystem today. They have started up and supported people starting up early in their lives and they believe that ‘You can do it too’! YourStory in partnership with NexusVP and Entrepreneurship Development Cell, IIT Delhi, brings to you Naren and Rohit in a fireside chat with Shradha Sharma, Founder, YourStory, on Tuesday, September 24th from 5-7 pm at V LT 1 , IIT Delhi Campus.
Naren co-founded Integrated Systems Inc (ISI), a leading embedded software company, where he served as the President/CEO for fifteen years. He took ISI public and subsequently merged it with Wind River Systems. Dr Gupta continued to serve on the board of Wind River till its recent acquisition by Intel. Currently, he serves on the boards of Red Hat and Tibco. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
He has over 20 years of early and early-growth stage investment experience in US and India. Several of his earlier investments have had successful public exits, including Digital Link (IPO), E-Tek Dynamics (IPO), RightNow (IPO), Numerical Technologies (IPO, acquired by Synopsis) and Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai).
Talking about funding ventures started by students Naren shares, “I funded a company called ITFinity Solutions around 2000. The founders, Hemant Sharma and Krishna Jha had just graduated from IITB and started a company focused on Wireless Internet. These were early days of wireless data and the company struggled for a couple of years. It then hit a sweet spot in the market and received a Nokia Best Product award. The founders sold the company in 2006 to OnMobile. Darwin said, ‘It’s not the strongest who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change’. The start-up world is very Darwinian. You need to introduce products rapidly, read market feedback and iterate. We have several start-ups that are doings well. Housing.co is an example.”Rohit along with high school buddy Kunal Bahl, founded Snapdeal.com as a local merchants marketplace in February 2010. The company evolved to become a full-fledged marketplace in late 2011 and is currently the largest online marketplace in India. Rohit did not plan to be an entrepreneur at an early stage but he feels it was one of the best decisions he took.
“I used to think that I’ll work for a few years, get an MBA, work for a few more years, get a lot of experience and then start a company. What kind of company, I didn’t know, but I did know that it won’t be right out of college. Quite the opposite happened in reality, and it was probably one of the best decisions to start soon after college. It is not always about the best idea – you will run into the best ideas eventually if you refuse to give up. It is taking the plunge and starting up that matters the most,” says Rohit.
Today Sanpdeal.com has over 20 million+ members, 10000+ sellers and over a million unique products across 500+ categories from thousands of brands and retailers, delivering to 4000+ cities and towns in India. The company has grown at the rate of 400% y-o-y for the last two years and is expected to cross Rs. 2000 crores in revenues this year. Snapdeal.com is run by a young, innovative and dynamic team of 1000+ people with the average age being 26 years. Snapdeal's investors include eBay Inc, among other leading global private equity funds.
Rohit is a fitness enthusiast, an avid runner and an active angel investor. He has invested in companies like Ola cabs, Housing.co.in and Zumbl amongst others.
If you are a budding entrepreneur, pondering over what’s the right time to start or just want to know what has worked for Naren and Rohit and what has not, register now to attend ‘You can do it too’!
There are limited seats on first come first serve basis, so grab it now!
Date: 24th September, 2013
Time: 5.00-7.00 pm
Venue: V LT 1 , IIT Delhi Campus
Program
5.00 – 5.30 pm Registration & Networking
5.30 – 6.15 pm Discussion about their entrepreneurial journey & advice on starting-up with Dr Naren Gupta, Co-founder & MD, Nexus Venture Partners and Rohit Bansal, Co-founder & COO, Snapdeal.
Moderator – Shradha Sharma, Founder & CEO, YourStory
6.15– 6.45 pm Q & A
6.45 - 7.15 pm Networking & Coffee
For any queries or more information, please write to us at [email protected]