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Contributed on May 7, 2020

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3rd Digital Innovators Meet: Planning Business In The Aftermath of COVID19-Induced Lockdown

Blog: NASSCOM Official Blog

The 3rd Digital Innovators Meet was held on May 3rd, 2020 by CoE Gandhinagar with 28 startups participating. With India in the midst of an extended lockdown, it is a challenging time for startups and SMEs to keep cash flow going. Seasoned entrepreneurs Raghu Ravinutala of Yellow Messenger and Subbu Vishwanathan of DISPRZ led this session along with Amit Saluja, Senior Director and Center Head, CoE Gandhinagar.

Here are the Key Takeaways

• Start lean, having small but strong team of co-founders is important. A team which can complete full business circle, starting from getting customer, building product and generating revenues. With strong small team, business can grow fast without too much of managerial interventions, as higher number of leaders would lead to more managerial interventions sacrificing actual business growth. Each startup should work hard to stay cash positive from year one.
• Identify push and pull customers and focus more on pull customers. Pull customers are those which work closely with startup, ready to test their initial products and provide constructive inputs. Push customers are those which are difficult to satisfy, who always find some issues with product.
• Work on the strategy to sell first, and build later. This will get some valuable feedback earlier and also creates strong commitment of product delivery.
• Build strong culture, where employees are extended family. Employees play very important role in success of any organization. If taken care well they will always stay with you
• There are three important factors related to any business crisis, they are 1. Cash 2. Customers 3. Employees.
  Cash – Companies should prepare financial strategy to conserve the cash, even companies with higher cash reserves should work on saving fund. Start-ups should have tight financial planning which will allow them to be afloat for next 9 months atleast. Considering zero revenues coming in from market. It was suggested to cut on variable expenses, which can be easily done but requires minute planning. Government will play very crucial role in coming days. Financial support should be considered from SIDBI, NABARD, state government, and center government.Technologies/industry backed by IoT are in high demand as it reduces human intervention
  Customers – Startups should go back to customers and understand their needs. Try to solve their present problem, even if it doesn’t pay you right now. This is the good time to form lasting partnerships. If you could help your customer in the time of need, they will be with you for long time. Companies should see if some credit extension can be provided to customers. Startups should consider going for virtualization. If possible it should also look into diversification.
  Employees – Startups should talk with employees upfront with reference to the financial crisis faced by the organization. Employees will definitely understand the situation and will be helpful in stricter financial decision.
• For better business valuation at the time of seeking external investment, startup should initiate valuation discussion with multiple investors. They should leverage the demand equation with investor, this is the best and practical approach.
• To inculcate industry training in present time and months to come, startups should use IoT and AR technology in such a way that it will reduce physical touch of the product.
• It’s very difficult to predict market situation for next 2 years, every prediction will go wrong. It’s better to plan for very short and keep changing plans accordingly new situation.
• This is the good time for product innovation and new product research. Plans made earlier and were put on back burner due to non-availability of time can be executed now.

For more details about the Digital Innovators Meet, write to t-yagndeep@mail.nasscom.in or visit http://gujarat.coe-iot.com/

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