Vaishali Das – Dutch Uncles

Good Money Habits To Start Off With

Vaishali Das — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 03:35:07 +0000

Millennials who have their entire life in front of them, usually have the zeal of being independent, setting on their own financial choices, and so forth. In the fervour, many young investors miss out on managing bad choices. In the present economic situation, inflation erodes the value of your money over a stretch of time if it is not invested wisely. Having said that, it is usually a dilemma for investors to choose the right financial window and get started with their money making process. This is where we need to acquaint ourselves with wise money management and investment practices that will help an individual to set a firm foundation for a smooth financial future.

In the recent episode of MentorED – a LIVE Workshop Series by Dutch Uncles, the esteemed speaker, Ms. Shweta Jain enlightened the audience who joined LIVE from across four platforms – LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook – about the good money habits to start our investment journey with and shared some money management strategies as well. Ms. Shweta Jain, Author and Founder of Investography Pvt. Ltd. is a Certified Financial Planner who shares a passion for providing financial literacy to new and existing investors. With an experience of more than 16 years in the financial planning, research, and client services arena, Ms. Jain has conducted 1000+ workshops for more than 35,000 individuals and advisors for corporations like Google, HP, Accenture, JP Morgan, JC Penney, HPCL, etc.

In brief the session had the following takeaways:

Saving versus Investing – How inflation impacts portfolios
Insurance – How it is treated as a stepchild
Starting early versus starting late
How compounding works and why don’t we make money on our money

‘‘

Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving

- Warren Buffett

Good Money Habits

What do you answer when someone asks you about your well-being? We generally say we are fine or we are doing okay or not so good, if we have any problems, right? Similarly, being financially well is equally important and one should not hide or shy away from seeking help. The foundation for being financially well comes with habits. A habit is something that makes or breaks your future. So when it comes to financial matters everything boils down to what you want out of life and what are the milestones you want to achieve.

Elaborating the concept of having good financial habits, Ms. Jain further mentioned in the session about the meaning of being financially independent, how insurance can be a gateway to a safer life, clarity regarding the savings and investments and the basic good habits that one should follow. Talking about financial independence, Ms. Jain gave few examples about what financial freedom meant to different people. It was surprising to know that everybody might have invested in the same stock but what they want out of those investments is different. This is because when we assign meanings to all these investments, the time frame is clear and one can map out their journey correctly. Once you know what financial independence means to you, you will automatically come to know what to do with your money.

Coming to the topic of insurance, it is divided into three categories: Life insurance, Health insurance, and Critical insurance. Ms. Jain claimed that insurance is her top most priority as it protects not only the individual but also their loved ones. The risks here are totally different from the risks in equity. Life insurance gives you the promise of protecting your family when you are not around anymore. Basically, if you have a sum of money today, your life or your family’s future is protected. If you are hospitalised you get health insurance and if you are recovering from a life threatening illness, a critical illness policy will help you sail through that time.

Having said that, what exactly should be the good habits that an investor should follow? Well, for that Ms. Jain mapped out a basic flowchart explaining how evaluating your insurance cover, evaluating loans is important and should be done periodically. One needs to save for their goals first and postpone spending in order to gain wealth and allocate their assets according to their risk taking capacity. She said, “when you look at your investment, do you want to eat better or do you want to sleep better”, if you want to sleep better then you should invest in safer assets and if you want to eat well, you will have to beat inflation and go for growth assets like equity.

Audience Asks

From my understanding, there’s no right time to invest but can you list some reasons as to why one should start investing early and what all financial options will be beneficial for millennials like us?

Ms. Jain answered this question by giving a personal example of how she started spending more, unconsciously, while owning a credit card. Eventually swiping her credit card became a habit, in her words, “a habit that I want to break”. Ms. Jain explained that there is no right time to invest and it is intertwined with your goals and aspirations. Talking about the beneficial aspect of investment, she said, if you have long term, high aspirations, then you should invest in equity. It is based on choices, whether you want to play safe and invest your entire money at once, for a long term goal, or if you want to take that risk and keep investing in small amounts on a monthly basis to reach that goal. Ms. Jain advised not to fall into the trap of FDs, rather start investing in equity, and be consistent.

I wanted to know something about SIP, which is more profitable – short term or long term, because I have seen people withdraw their money when there is a downward trend in the market.

Ms. Jain chuckled while answering this question and talked about the basic human nature of following a herd. She said, “Although it seems much safer, don’t follow the herd and do what is right for you”. Ideally SIPs in the long term are much more profitable but it is something that should be towards a goal. So if you have a short-term goal, there is nothing stopping you from investing in SIP, for that duration of time. Ms. Jain gave an answer related to her life, about how she is doing SIPs for her son’s school fees, which is a short term goal and for the long term, she is saving for her retirement as well. So it does not have to be an either-or decision, rather it has to be both and has to be oriented towards your goals. Long term SIPs are more profitable but a short term SIP is more beneficial.

I guess, price rise of essential commodities is affecting all of us in the country. How can we make a smart investment considering the circumstances?

Price rise of commodities is what inflation is, infact, the reported inflation and the inflation that we see will be different. For example, healthcare and education inflation are all in double digits. So this means that our portfolios should be giving us double digit returns so that we live well, otherwise, we will be spending more and consuming less. And the only investment option for this is equity, whether it’s equity mutual fund, PMS, direct stocks or portfolios, this is the only asset class that will give you good returns in the long term. Investment in equity is like investment in business and not just “stock tickers”. Whether you are running your own business or are an employee, you can invest in the best businesses by investing in their stocks.

Give your money a chance to grow

Everything in financial planning or life is a trade off, so you need to figure out whether you want a vacation, which is a short term goal, or should you put that money aside for your retirement, which is a long term goal. More often we are focused on how much our equity portfolio has given us rather than how much we have spent on our portfolios. So make sure that you are allocating your assets correctly according to your requirements and do not push your equity to over-perform because with higher returns usually comes the need of taking higher risks. Investment is the journey that you need to learn on and nobody else can do it for you.

The post Good Money Habits To Start Off With appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Steps To Invest In Stock Market Wisely

Vaishali Das — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 08:44:01 +0000

Investment is an approach to save money while you are occupied with your life and have that money work for you so that you can completely reap the rewards of your labour in the future. With the decreasing value of money, if you think your cash will grow resting in a bank account only, then you are wrong. You have to make strategic and well planned investments in order to gain higher profits and for that, investment in the stock market may sound alluring. This process of investment might need a lot of patience and right knowledge, otherwise you might end up booking losses and will regret for life.

In the recent episode of MentorED – a LIVE Workshop Series by Dutch Uncles, the esteemed speaker, Mr. Kshitiz Mahajan enlightened the audience who joined LIVE from across four platforms – LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook – about the steps to invest in stock market wisely and the strategies best suited for investors. Mr. Kshitiz Mahajan is the Co-founder of Complete Circle Consultants Private Limited. With more than 20 years of experience in Banking, Mutual Fund Product and Distribution, Mr. Mahajan offers innovative wealth solutions and is a renowned face across the business mediscape in India.

In brief the session had the following takeaways:

The importance of diversification
Impact of Market Sentiment – how it affect highs and lows
Rewards and Risks: What strategy to follow?
Future looking themes to invest

‘‘

Market sentiments play and people generally get into the trap of fear and greed.

-Mr. Kshitiz Mahajan

Wise steps to invest in Stock Market

The stock market is the talk of the town, but is it so easy to make money? That is the question that many young minds are looking for answers to. How exactly should one go further in this investment cycle and start growing their money? Well, the steps are really easy and practical. To start with, if something is really good, one does not have to put all their eggs in one basket. The importance of diversification plays a prominent role in the money making process as there is no positive correlation between the assets. There are two levels of diversification, first is asset class diversification and second, when you are buying equity, buy 8-10 stocks or have 3-10 mutual funds in your portfolio. Approximately 4-5 % of your portfolio should be diversified into your asset classes and in this way you diversify your risks as well.

For further clarity on the process of shortlisting the right stocks, the mentor brought in the analogy of shopping. According to him, apart from diversification one has to have a sound knowledge regarding their shopping nature. Know whether you are an aggressive shopper or a calculative shopper. Just like Amazon or AJIO give huge discounts during the festive season, whenever market equity falls, it is a discount, but one has to be very careful regarding getting into any value or ‘sasta’ trap. Mr. Mahajan mentioned that “market sentiments play and people generally get into the trap of fear and greed”. We need to control these emotions and look for quality business instead.

For millennials and the GenZ, who are starting with their investment journey, it becomes very important to look for fundamental strategies more before diving into the technicality of the process. Like Mr. Mahajan said “easy money comes easily and it goes away easily”. In order to map the risks and rewards, one has to stick around with good businesses. One has to focus on the time that they are invested in and not on the rate of interest that you are getting.

India, holds a very promising future, it is getting benefited because of its global position, government orientation around growth, low interest rates, geographical and cultural diversification within the country. All the sectors will do well but specifically the healthcare and technology sector will do better. The pandemic has taken the world 10 years ahead and it is very much evident how technology can shape up and change very soon. So in the technology sector – AI, Blockchain, Machine learning looks positive and in the healthcare sector, all the 5 vertices – Pharmaceuticals, Insurance, Hospitals, Diagnostic, and supplements regarding healthcare, will play a major role and are future themes one should look at.

Audience Asks

I want to create a diverse portfolio. How do I invest in multiple sectors and how many sectors can simultaneously invest in? Any limit to it?

Pick out 3-4 good multi-cap funds like Kotak focus, SBI focus, DSP flexi cap, Tata large and mid caps and it will give you good exposure. If you have time and know how to read balance sheets then you can go ahead with buying good companies. Having said that, start with a mutual fund investment portfolio and they will give you good exposure across sectors and market caps.

As a beginner how do I narrow down the good companies as there are many publicly listed companies in the stock market?

Out of 6000 listed companies, the actual company to look at is not more than 500 and they are further drilled down to 160-170 companies which are actually good. So instead of looking into the individual companies one of the easiest ways is to look at good portfolios of mutual funds or multi-caps or large-caps funds and work on the various parameters. Start with Nifty 50 and narrow it down in terms of earning number, longevity of business and economic growth.

Sir, as a newbie investor can you guide me regarding the small-caps, mid-caps, and bluechip companies? And also investment in which will be more profitable for me?

Mr. Mahajan quoted, “The more the risk, the more the return”, there is a variation in the market where a bluechip company will give 13-14% of return, a mid-cap company will give 16-17% return and a small-cap company will give 18-20% return. The profit is little higher for the small-caps but the risk associated is highest as compared to mid-caps and lowest in large-caps. It depends on time and therefore the best way is to invest in a multi-cap fund where you will get all these three categories and your job will be done.

Sir, since 2 days, the market is volatile, is it good to invest in new stocks or should we hold our old stocks? What is your opinion, will the market get back on track or will the downtrend continue?

Mr. Mahajan chuckled saying “If you have a fight with your girlfriend for the last 2 days, are you going to change the girlfriend? Unless you guys are not getting along”. So if you have a good stock and even if it falls, it does not matter. But if you have a shady stock, then you have to look at it and “move on from this relationship with your girlfriend and change”. Stick to your core portfolio and if it is falling and you have some money “time to shop”.

Work Hard and Party Harder – Life Mantra

Look around yourself throughout the day, observe what all products you are using starting from your toothpaste to what brand of shoes you are going out with. Things that you use on a daily basis will give you a fair idea of the best companies and will make your investment process easier. One cannot expect quick results in the equity market, as advised by Mr. Mahajan “if you really want to make money out of equity market, focus on ‘T’ and not ‘R’. He continues, “it’s very easy to make money, focus on the time for which you are investing”. We can have a very bright future from the Indian equity market so keeping that in mind, start planning and managing your investments now.

Watch the entire episode on YouTube to start with your stock market investments.

The post Steps To Invest In Stock Market Wisely appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Goal Based Investing In The Journey Of Wealth Creation

Vaishali Das — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 13:06:45 +0000

If you desire a secured future, it is in your hands entirely how you set a financial goal in mind. But again, without clarity, you might end up with a complicated, risky and ill-planned strategy. Creating a successful ‘wealth creation’ journey and ruling out the unpredictability by having a goal-based investment plan, is the key to a successful wealth creation path.

In the recent episode of MentorED – a LIVE Workshop Series by Dutch Uncles – the esteemed speaker, Mr. Dilip Shenoy enlightened the audience – who joined LIVE across four platforms – LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – about the important steps of goal-based investing and ways to have a risk-free and safe wealth creation journey. Mr. Dilip Shenoy is the Founder of Moneytree Financial Services and has more than two decades of experience as a Financial Coach specialising in the wealth management and banking industry. With a vision of simplifying financial aspects of life, he extends support and guidance in the wealth management sector.

In brief, the session had the following takeaways:

Understand your financial self
The various cycles: age cycle, wealth, growth, recession, rate, economy and the cycle of credit
Risk mitigation
Projecting the road ahead

‘‘

Fulfill the nearer and easier goals first, it's easier to do that. But start early for the long term.

-Mr. Dilip Shenoy

Wealth Creation Journey: A Six Step Process

Everyone across age, borders, caste, creed, sex, likes to travel, meet new people, witness various cultures, experience food, weather, etc. When we travel we decide on a destination, then the mode of transportation as per our convenience and personal preferences. Similarly, an investment journey is like planning a vacation, one has to know all the parameters and evaluate different aspects before setting foot into this sector. It is very important to plan your investment in detail. Wealth creation journey or wealth management is a six step process, namely: (1) Knowing oneself, (2) Investing time before investing money, (3) Identifying goals, (4) Evaluating options, (5) Selecting a vehicle, and (6) Periodic Maintenance.

“You need to know yourself.” As the speaker mentioned, in wealth management parlance, there are usually three cycles, human life cycle, wealth cycle and the credit cycle. If human life cycle and wealth cycle are superimposed, then they are: early career or saving stage (between 25-30 years), wealth creation stage (30-40 years), wealth accumulation stage (40-60 years) and wealth distribution and succession planning stage (50-60 years).

The wealth cycle is typically dependent on wealth creation and savings. In order to understand your own self, it is important to prepare a risk profiling questionnaire, which will help you to evaluate your knowledge about the financial product and categorise yourself whether as a conservative, moderate or aggressive investor. Most importantly, distinguishing between your needs and wants will give you a profound understanding of yourself. Time is of paramount significance here as advised by Mr. Shenoy who asked to first invest your time before money. “Start with a budgeting exercise, whatever gets measured gets treasured, like a wise person had put it earlier.” Moreover, it is wise to always evaluate the alternatives as unlike the yesteryears when there used to be only limited options to choose from. But amidst all the information, making a smart and cautious decision is the key.

In the goal identification step, it gets very challenging to look beyond the long term horizon, so one should categorise it into short, medium and long term. After identifying these goals you need to calculate the approximate values that you will be needing. Mr. Shenoy advised, “Fulfill the nearer and easier goals first, it’s easier to do that. But start early for the long term.” In all these comes the power of compounding, the 8th wonder, which will eventually help an investor to fulfill their long term goals. With the new products in the market coming each day, it makes our tasks more challenging to find the right financial product. “First and foremost, whenever you decide to invest, be clear in your mind whether you are looking at a wealth preservation objective or a wealth creation objective. There is no other third objective in my opinion.”

As far as selecting the right vehicle is concerned, always look for your own comfort level. Get a right time frame for your investments so that you do not regret the lost opportunities. Be patient and stay focused on real returns and never ever get swayed away by the luring market values. Instead be patient, as the journey of wealth creation needs persistence and determination. Last but not the least, drawing the analogy of a road trip throughout, the mentor underlined the relevance of periodic checks. Similarly, your investments and your portfolio needs to have a periodic review. Get this review done by a financial coach, or an advisor to get a third party perspective. Monitor and rebalance your portfolio and avoid over-information.

‘‘

First and foremost, whenever you decide to invest, be clear in your mind whether you are looking at a wealth preservation objective or a wealth creation objective. There is no other third objective in my opinion.

-Mr. Dilip Shenoy

Audience Asks

There is always a dilemma regarding the duration of my investments. I want to have some clarity on this.

What is important here is to try to map your investment vehicle to the time horizon. For example, my son is in the 10th standard and he has a higher education corpus outflow which will be coming in another 2-3 years’ time, so this time frame is very small to put your money in equity. So this rules out the equity option and you would want to park it into a fixed deposit or a bond fund. But if your time horizon is on the higher side, then drawing a timeline becomes essential and these are the major outflows. There cannot be one template that fits all, depending upon factors like your balance sheet, lifestyle.

There is so much information on the internet regarding investments, wealth management, financial needs, etc. and it is usually very confusing. How do you suggest that one can refine this information and make the most out of it?

I would explain it with something like cricket, everybody understands and follows cricket. So at the start of Sachin’s career he had a coach, Mr. Achrekar, who could probably guide him. Similarly, when you start playing in the investment world, it is best to have somebody as an expert, could be from family, a chartered accountant, an advisor, or a mutual fund distributor. There are a lot of products but not necessarily all these products will suit you. So avoid the noise, avoid the information overload, get an expert in the initial 5-10 years, get into simpler products that you understand, and get into a vehicle that you know how to drive and know how to fix.

Get ready to walk the journey

As Mr. Dilip Shenoy opined, finance is something like an ocean, you really need to dive through to experience it. It does not have any tangibles. The investment planning or products do not have any features so only when you burn your hands or walk the journey is when you realise the product potential.

Watch the entire episode on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook to devise your goal based investment plan.

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How Pivoting Is Important For Startups In This VUCA World?

Vaishali Das — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 12:35:08 +0000

Having the right attitude in addition to an innovative mindset is a yardstick for any successful entrepreneur. In order to maintain the sustainability of a startup venture, it becomes important to streamline the direction in which it is functioning and whether the product or service is catering to the needs of the market. Likewise, pivoting or changing the direction of business sometimes emerges as a better choice in order to maintain the sustainability, thereby improving revenue and surviving in the market. But it is better said than done – how you pivot can make all the difference, especially in the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world.

In order to address the topic of pivoting and providing some surviving strategies, Dutch Uncles had an Innerview session with Mr. Krishnakumar Devnally. ‘Innerview – Only the Paranoid Survive’ a weekly live 45-minute motivational and inspirational talk show which features interviews of industry experts who bring forth informative and life experiences and techniques to help shape and gear you up, to succeed.

‘‘

If something is not measurable, one cannot manage that particular thing. When you have a benchmark set for yourself, a performance related target, and certain goals, then you go on the path of realising those particular goals and getting to the next level.

- Mr. Krishnakumar Devnally

Mr. Krishnakumar Devnally is a seasoned technology professional having thirty years of experience in the industry, seventeen years with leading telecom and IT Brands and the rest thirteen years as an entrepreneur. Considered as a bridge between startups and investors, he is a mentor, advisor and investor to several startups and also a consultant to MSMEs. Mr. Devnally has been mentoring early stage startups to build scalable and sustainable business models and helping them in fundraising. He is a member of an advisory board of investment bankers and investors helping them do the due diligence on their global target startups. Mr. Devnally’s mission is to create a global economy empowered by innovation and entrepreneurship thus empowering people and helping them realise their dreams.

In brief the session had the following takeaways:

Innovation is the foundation of entrepreneurship
Design thinking/lateral thinking
Team is above idea
How to build scalable and sustainable businesses
How to survive the VUCA world – Pandemic and Pivoting

Here are some excerpts from the interview

What should be startups’ perspective on time to time assessments?

Like the saying goes that if something is not measurable, one cannot manage that particular thing. When you have a benchmark set for yourself, a performance related target, and certain goals, then you go on the path of realising those particular goals and getting to the next level. So the most important part in this entire cycle becomes a timely periodical assessment of the situation.

Let me give an example of a Fintech startup led by a woman entrepreneur. They have a PVP policy which stands for whether to pursue versus pivot. The point of having this was to analyze their business model on a quarterly basis and examine if it is time to pivot or not. Many times the environment in which a business is running changes drastically, affecting the startup founders badly. It is very important for startup entrepreneurs to overcome these challenges and adversities and come out much stronger.

Therefore, timely assessment is very much important in order to do the necessary course correction as you go ahead. One should apply tactics, examining situations around you and then quickly adapting. One can also get advice from their mentors, advisors, and make the necessary moves in the direction that you become successful and you take your startup to the next level.

There is a difference between an obstacle and an impossibility. Towards that, when is the most appropriate time to Pivot?

Pivoting is not an independent activity, it includes assessment of your performance and revisiting your business model periodically. What you are doing by revising and assessing your business model is that you are revisiting the aspects like technology, marketing modules, vendors, team management, logistics and finance help that you are getting. In short, it will give you a heads up regarding your business status and you can improve accordingly.

Pivoting is like an experiment, whenever you change your business model, in a way, you are pivoting slowly. Pivoting is like a holistic thing, like a trial and error method that entrepreneurs use and change their status quo into something new based on what is happening around them.

Now when we talk about obstacles and adversities, healthtech, which indirectly benefited from the pandemic, is the most pivoted sector. Startups in the health tech sector have come up with innovations like disposable ventilators which nobody thought of before COVID.

Please suggest ways on how startups can be sustainable and scalable, thus thriving through any adversity?

Sustainability is the function of three elements:

Innovation

The first fundamental aspect is the innovation, trying to create some kind of unique deliverable and patent-able, which has IP (Intellectual Property) attached to it. Once you build that uniqueness into your business model, at least in technology, for next one year you have that first movers advantage. After this you have to rethink about new challenges that are faced by your customers and build products to address those particular challenges.

Increase Customer Base

The second aspect is the focus on increasing the customer base. The agility, the speed of operation matters when it comes to getting more and more market shares which is a sure shot formula to be a sustainable startup.

Solve a Long Term Critical Problem

The third and the most important aspect about being sustainable is whether you are trying to solve a long term critical problem faced by your customer. If you are talking about problems which are faced by, hypothetically, say 1000 people around so you can probably do the business with those 1000 people. But your product should be such that it should be addressing a common problem or a pain point that is faced by your customers.

Create Value

Ultimately the fourth important point is the value that you create by giving your unique product, capturing market share, and solving long term problems. That is what I think about sustainability, it is a step-by-step process and will only come once all these aspects are taken care of.

‘‘

Pivoting is like a holistic thing, like a trial and error method that entrepreneurs use and change their status quo into something new based on what is happening around them.

- Mr. Krishnakumar Devnally

Audience Asks

Before pivoting, there are a dedicated set of customers. Can you suggest some measures to retain those customers?

The idea of pivoting is not to completely change your focus from the particular set that you are trying to address. Wherever you are talking about doing business with a certain target market, you are assessing not only the problems but also the strengths of your internal team. So when it comes to matching your strengths with how you can address the problem, your normal customer base remains the same. While pivoting, you should ensure that you are trying to pivot in an area which is pertaining to your areas of strength as well as pertaining to probably the problems of the same customer that you are trying to address.

How to have investors’ confidence in your pivoting strategy since it has its own risk especially in this VUCA world?

Looking at it from a different perspective, when I look at investors, I look at the investor being a strategic partner rather than just putting his money into my startup. Whenever I approach any investor for my startup, I ensure that I am talking to a person who will not just bring in the money to the table but he will also bring in his expertise, his connections, and his wisdom along with the money. So if you ensure that your investor is a strategic investor, he will always help you pivot. So I think we should go to an investor, take his inputs and then pivot.

Yes, over a period of time you can probably acquire new territories, new customer base just to expand your business but I think pivoting doesn’t mean giving away your own customers. Moreover, the best way to retain customers is to have effective communication with them and maintain honesty in your deliverables.

Are you willing to take that risk?

As Mr. Devnally says, “Entrepreneurship is about two aspects, one is the urge of creating something new and the second is the willingness to take risks. Many times we engineers are good at creating something but where an engineer fails is taking that risk. So unless you are able to take risks, you don’t become an entrepreneur completely. That is why many of the people fail in spite of having great ideas.”

So take that risk, and be honest with your customers, your stakeholders and investors. Watch the full video to understand the correct way to pivot in this VUCA world.

The post How Pivoting Is Important For Startups In This VUCA World? appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

West Bengal’s GIS Mapping of 570 MSME clusters, What This Means?

Vaishali Das — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 03:35:12 +0000

West Bengal, India’s sixth largest state in terms of economic size, is emerging as a leading IT and electronics hub. Being the eastern hub of business and finance sector, the state primarily depends upon agriculture and medium-sized industry. Major industries are located in and around the state capital, Kolkata, mineral-rich areas and Haldia port region. The market of the state varies from tea, sugar, jute to chemicals and fertilizers, giving a wide scope of doing business in the sector.

West Bengal – Ease of Doing Business

There are around 10,000 factories registered in the state. The government has also opened a single window system, Silpa Sathi, to provide all facilitations and handholding support to the investors intending to start a business of operating a business in the state.

The West Bengal Government has brought various industry friendly policies to ensure ease of doing business in the state. Another such initiative is the Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping that has been recently announced by the state government.

What is the GIS Mapping Initiative?

As micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the key sectors of West Bengal’s economy, the state government initiated a GIS mapping of the existing 570 MSME cluster. Over the past 10 years, the MSME sector has evolved into a crucial contributor to the state’s economy. Earlier there were only 30 MSME clusters. With the constant support of government in the form of facility centers, creating storage facilities and providing necessary machinery and infrastructure the number of MSME cluster has gone up to 570.

The initiative is to assess the availability of infrastructure and skill workers in these industrial facilities and help improve ease of doing business in the state.

‘‘

With an aim of creating a GIS-enabled database of industrial areas within the state, the government is moving towards smart logistics planning.

Why West Bengal Government Started This Initiative?

The survey will benefit both the government and industry workers. With the help of the detailed data, which will be collected by the survey, the government will be able to identify the infrastructural gap in the existing clusters. A strategy to strengthen the services among these sectors will become easier for the government.

Along with this, the mapping will also provide the exact location of the existing clusters so that the state can have details of infrastructure, availability of land and skill of labourers working in these industrial areas. Results of this survey will also enable the government in their decision making on how and when to provide help to the clusters.

On the other hand, businessmen will have easy access to all the infrastructure and resources which will help them in setting up their businesses. This is another big opportunity for MSMEs to get government’s support for launching and scaling their business and also to get investment opportunities. For industry workers, it is an opportunity to get more valuable jobs.

What All Sectors Will It Cover?

The GIS mapping survey will majorly cover the MSMEs clusters. It will also include the handloom and khadi sectors. Other sectors that will come under this are furniture, incense sticks, jari clusters, etc. Artisans can easily go to these centers and use machineries installed by the state government.

Insights For Business Owners

With an aim of creating a GIS-enabled database of industrial areas within the state, the government is moving towards smart logistics planning. This kind of survey is beneficial for both the government and artisans.

Business owners can access the data from the official website and can plan their future venture smoothly. They can also get the details of the skilled workers and can have ready-made manpower. As it is a part of e-governance initiative, the state is aiming to give clearances to projects digitally. This will ease-up the long procedure of getting official documents for business setup.

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Does Bootstrapping Give You Greater Sense of Ownership

Vaishali Das — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 12:35:09 +0000

What is bootstrapping?

Building a company from scratch with personal savings, earnings from the first sales and mere luck, without any external help or funding is known as Bootstrapping. It literally means ‘to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps’. Self-financing a business by using only existing resources needs a lot of support and patience. The concept is purely based on the fact that one’s time and money will drive business expansion and thus it can be both satisfying and stressful at the same time.

Why can bootstrapping be a successful model?

Bootstrapping a nascent company can be a romanticised idea. It can also work if you are enthusiastic and able to put in the hustle. It might be fruitful for those who can pull this off. There are various reasons why Bootstrapping can be a successful business model:

Full Ownership:

Bootstrapping gives an entrepreneur 100% ownership of their business. It is one of the best funding options that doesn’t dilute the ownership. When a business is bootstrapped, the founders are given the sole ownership rights and thus have the benefit of gaining 100% profit.

Having Full Directional Control:

As soon as external funding is involved, it brings in responsibility to satisfy other people’s interest. This sometimes constrains the entrepreneur’s vision. In the bootstrapping model, there’s no third party involvement which gives the entrepreneurs complete control over the steering wheels to take the company in their desired direction. This control allows the entrepreneur to establish a strong foundation and have sustainable growth.

Sense of Accomplishment:

If you wish to keep your company as a part of your heirloom and make it more of a multigenerational business, then bootstrapping is the right option for your business. It will give you that satisfaction of creating and owning something valuable.

Limited Debts:

By bootstrapping, it can slowly bring in revenue and can establish a safety net that will fund future investments in the business. As they’re never reliant on outside funding, therefore there’s no pressure of paying off the debts or taking loans for that matter if things don’t work out as planned.

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Bootstrapping has a lot of benefits and is an excellent funding approach to keep ownership in-house and limit the external debts.

5 companies who have become successful by bootstrapping

Bootstrapping is a part of many successful businesses’ stories. Around 80% of the small businesses and startups are self-funded. Bootstrapped startups are an ultimate source of inspiration, some of them are:

Zerodha: India’s largest stockbroking app and one of the finest bootstrapped companies to join the unicorn club.
Zoho: The cloud business giant bootstrapped and managed to generate revenues worth $10 million by 2000.
Kaleyra: A cloud-based multi-channel communication platform helping enterprise operators, worldwide, to power their business communication. Having a client base including big names like Amazon, Ola, Flipkart, AirAsia, Zomato, it has crossed a revenue of Rs. 693.6 crore.
Wingify: A platform known to develop world’s best tools for website optimization. Having revenues in millions the startup bagged some blue chip clients namely Microsoft and Walt Disney and Co.
Grab-on: A trusted e-commerce platform offering coupons, gift cards, promo code and vouchers. The company proved its worth by gaining profits within 15 months of its inception.

How half of India’s software company is bootstrapped

Nearly half the software product companies in India today are bootstrapped. The reason behind this could be the mindset that bootstrapping allows founders to follow their vision. Staying away from equity funding is like staying away from debt and many startups are preferring this nowadays. It can be mentioned that bootstrapping is a necessity as well as personal choice for entrepreneurs.

Is it good or bad for company’s growth – Insights for startups

The bottom line is that every business is unique and follows a different path. Bootstrapping may work for one company but for another it might be impossible.

Looking into the startup ecosystem in today’s time, it can be said that bootstrapping still is an attractive option for startup entrepreneurs. It has a lot of benefits and is an excellent funding approach to keep ownership in-house and limit the external debts. But before taking a final call one should always weigh the pros and cons and do a thorough research on the market condition for their particular sector.

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All You Need To Know About Tech Supergirl Program

Vaishali Das — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 03:35:13 +0000

What is This Programme?

The largest Tech Design Conference, Tech Supergirl, is empowering, incubating and raising women in the technological space in India. It is a digital virtual assistant for startups and corporations. Along with technical skill building and startup incubation, the programme also serves as a corporate partner to provide assistance in sales, marketing and digital automation.

Being led by over 100 women-led startups, more than 60 women entrepreneurs as nominees, judged by 7 jury members and panellists, with 3 event partners and over 250 event attendees, the event was a major hit for aspiring women entrepreneurs, technology stakeholders and women in business.

Who Has Launched It?

Tech Supergirl Program, the first and largest tech incubation programme, is launched by Indian Women Institution League (IWIL) India in collaboration with SSC NASSCOM, National Skill Development Corporation and Shell E4.

IWIL is a non-profit organisation aiming to incubate and accelerate women entrepreneurs, and strengthen the women-led business ecosystem to create a future inclusive of socially and economically independent women.

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With a direct mission of supporting the government's vision of Atmairbhar Bharat, the programme aims to foster women entrepreneurship ecosystem in India.

Who Will It Benefit?

Tech Supergirl aims to impact 3 million women in the business field, technology and academia. With the Tech Supergirl Incubation Program, Tech Supergirl IWIL India is offering more than 25,000 women in the technology sector to develop technical skills and digital literacy for smooth business operations.

The platform will cater to the women entrepreneurs and MSMEs in the direction of networking, scaling and startup incubation. It will also assist corporates in their day-to-day synergies and operations.

Direct and Indirect Beneficiaries

With a direct mission of supporting the government’s vision of Atmairbhar Bharat, the programme aims to foster women entrepreneurship ecosystem in India. The programme is intending to impact more than 2.5 women by 2030. It will directly benefit the women in the technological space in India by supporting them to become more self-reliant and capable enough to secure their livelihood.

Talking about the indirect beneficiaries of this programme, it will be boosting India’s GDP by increasing woman’s participation in India’s economy from mere 18% to 50%. With women being more resilient and multi-tasking, Tech Supergirl aims to create 25,000 plus jobs in artificial intelligence, data analysis, LoT, Blockchain, Data science, augmentation, etc. in the tech sector in India.

Suggested Plan of Action

People interested in the Tech Supergirl Incubation Program should register on their official website and submit their entrepreneurial story. The stories will be evaluated and selected on the basis of financial growth, human capital, innovation, international orientation and corporate excellence.

The selected 30 women entrepreneurs will be featured in their portal. Further these 30 entrepreneurs will be provided with funding, networking opportunities and will also be able to access some international grants.

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Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme

Vaishali Das — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 10:35:09 +0000

Every dream, passion or an innovative idea to start a business initially needs a little support and faith. Incubation programmes are designed to support early stage startups and business ideas. It provides startups, which are in their nascent stage, with mentoring and management. Along with this, these programmes also provide entrepreneurs an access to market resources, giving them networking opportunities and work on their business skill training.

What is Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme?

Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore in collaboration with Buddha Fellowship Program (BFP) launched an incubation programme, Rural entrepreneurship Incubation Programme. The idea behind this incubation programme is to enhance the entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem of rural India.

The programme aims to engage, enrich and foster young emerging entrepreneurial minds to help in the upliftment of rural India and real time gaps in supply chain management of corporates using an enterprise approach. This will help create a sustainable livelihood and will also create self-employment opportunities.

Who Does It Benefit?

The programme is for young graduates from leading universities who have a passion to work for the country’s upliftment. It is also for those who are wishing to work in the development sector, even if they’re from corporate backgrounds, or early stage entrepreneurs, all are welcome for this programme. The programme will be focusing on three sectors

Rural Livelihoods (Farm, non-farm, off-farm)
Health and Nutrition
Education

With the mission to back entrepreneurs to build ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, the programme will benefit the rural and home-grown entrepreneurs. It will transform the development sector by providing knowledge and awareness on scaling, branding, marketing and will support rural professionals to pursue their aspirations to become development entrepreneurs.

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The programme aims to engage, enrich and foster young emerging entrepreneurial minds to help in the upliftment of rural India.

Programme Highlights

Some of the major highlights of the Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme are:

It will be having top-notch mentors from industry, government, academics and development sector to extend help to the young talents.
It will provide a wide rich ecosystem and networks of NSRCEL and BFP for strategic business technology based partnerships with leading universities like IITs and IIMs. Even the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Rapid Rural Community Response to COVID-19 (RCRC), Tribal Co-operative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED), and Principal Scientific Advisory will also be a part of the extended help.
It will also provide an opportunity to pitch for incubation. This includes 1 month of rural immersion followed by a 9-month incubation period, handholding support aided by quarterly entrepreneurship clinics and one-on-one mentoring.
It will also help in funding and 6 months post incubation support.

What Does it Aim to Achieve?

It aims to back rural entrepreneurs who aspire to build a successful business and in turn build a futuristic India which is inclusive for its less privileged and marginalised communities. The programme also wants to strengthen the business model. The outcomes of this programme will be:

Learning marketing for B2B, B2C, sourcing, grading and packaging
Stabilised and sustainable business with strong team and financial systems.
It will teach entrepreneurs how to pitch to investors and work with the government to avail subsidy.
It will also work on networking and communication skills.

Suggested Plan of Action For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Startups or entrepreneurs who have a registered enterprise should apply for the programme. This is the best opportunity for those entrepreneurs working in solving the rural problems like agriculture, nutrition, livelihood enhancement, healthcare, education, etc. and who are operational for a minimum of 1 year. Entrepreneurs who have a clear understanding of micro and macro level business should submit their forms.

Applicants with a viable solution to the current problems and potential social or financial impact on rural communities will be shortlisted for the incubation programme.

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BlackBuck, Connecting Businesses with Truck Owners and Freight

Vaishali Das — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 10:30:03 +0000

Who is BlackBuck?

BlackBuck is India’s largest trucking platform. Founded in 2015, it aims to organise and simplify the trucking industry for both, shipper and trucker. The platform has been a pioneer in bringing the offline operations of trucking online.

The platform also aims to reshape the infrastructure around trucking to facilitate insurance, payments and financial services. With just one click, truckers can book a load and move at capacity. Along with this, shippers can book a truck of their choice, of any size, at the right time and at a right price.

By keeping the application minimal for the not so literate people, the app operates through Google maps. The drivers and truckers can accept work and navigate in a seamless manner. For the clients, they can install the similar app to make their respective bookings and BlackBuck matches the demand with available trucks and drivers in the area. Just like Uber, BlackBuck connects shippers with trucks.

Inefficiency Problems in India’s Truck System

India’s Trucking Industry is the most marginalised, unorganised and inefficient sector and is critical for the country’s economy. This problem is dragging India’s economy down as this contributes around 14.4% to India’s GDP. This sector is also the highest employment generator as 85% of the transportation community is constituted by small operators.

Being a major choke-point in the supply chain, the trucking industry functions on uncoordinated set-pieces causing all the inefficiencies and disparity in their operation. The reason behind this are:

Highway and Roads conditions that can hardly be termed comfortable for driving. This causes delays and is also responsible for breakdowns of trucks and heavy loaded vehicles.
The poor vehicle maintenance is another reason for the inefficiency in the trucking industry. In order to transport maximum freight with minimum costs, truck owners neglect the efficiency of their vehicles which in return cause miserable conditions.
There’s no standardisation of remuneration as different transport companies’ offer diversified paychecks.
Sometimes there’s problems with authority at several checkpoints. Drivers mostly being not very literate end up in a situation where they’re caught up in state laws and have to face delays.

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BlackBuck matches the demand with available trucks and drivers in the area, just like Uber, it connects shippers with trucks.

BlackBucks Customer Base

The platform has more than four lakh partner trucks, operating pan India in 500 districts and 400 industrial hubs. Around 70% of BlackBuck’s 10,000 clients are corporation based and the rest are small and medium sized enterprises. The client base also includes big companies like Reliance, Coca-Cola, Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever, TaTa, Vedanta, L&T and Jindal.

BlackBuck: Digitizing freight and logistics across India

Amidst the pandemic to kick start the movement of goods across the country and reviving the supply chain in pandemic, BlackBuck started with the Move India Initiative. This provides a digital logistics platform connecting businesses and shippers with truck owners for intercity logistics.

With 700,000 truckers and 1.2 million trucks connected with its platform in India, BlackBuck is the first logistics firm to turn a unicorn this year. In the pandemic when the government pushed digital adoption the platform too moved from replying upon call centers for bookings to an app-based system.

By providing FASTag offering, 35% of India’s trucking toll happens via BlackBuck. This is the proof that India’s logistics industry and supply chain is shifting from paper to digital. The startup is one of the handful of start-ups that is digitizing freight and logistics across India. It is bringing a transformation to the Indian trucking ecosystem by providing unique solutions for the truckers and also by streamlining the trucking sector.

Insights For Startups Under This Sector

BlackBuck aims at providing a smooth channel for truck owners and builds an ecosystem around trucking. By offering services like credit cards which can be used for tire repair, toll payments, fuel and insurance by truck owners and drivers, it eases up the hectic lifestyle in this sector. The startup is also aiming to partner with commercial banks and NBFCs to venture out of the vehicle financing segment.

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EdTech Apps for Kids, A Glance into the $9.5 Billion Market

Vaishali Das — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 03:35:12 +0000

EdTech Market

The study by venture capital firm Blinc Invest shows that the early childhood care and education sector is booming slowly. It has shown a CAGR of 17% over the last 10 years. With the increase in the usage of gadgets and electronics in our day-to-day lives, the teaching-learning process has taken a modern route.

The Indian education system was estimated at $91.7 billion in 2018. According to KPMG and Google reports, the Indian EdTech market will touch $1.96 billion by 2021. As the K-12 segment continues to grow with innovative start-ups, new companies are emerging in the early learning and childhood education sector as well.

List of EdTech Apps for Kids and What are they Providing?

The EdTech start-ups are covering a wide range of academic as well as social and emotional learning for kids. As childhood, between the ages of 5 and 12, is an active phase of the growth cycle among the kids. The start-ups therefore focus on the overall development and focus on the playful learning model.

DragonBox:

A math learning platform for kids between age 4 to 9 and above. With a gamified learning approach, the app ensures that the kids are engaged throughout their learning process. The app offers different games explaining other topics and making it easier for kids to learn the numbers and linear equations.

Emotix:

Founded by IIT post-graduates, the app created an artificial intelligence-based companion robot- Miko. This robot is capable of educating, entertaining, and engaging children in a playful learning environment. The speciality of this app is that using this robotic technology, it imparts knowledge based on curriculum and talks about interesting facts about the world.

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Along with academic knowledge, social and emotional knowledge is also important for kids.

Byju’s:

EdTech Unicorn Byju’s recently launched its Disney-Byju’s Early Learn App for children of 6-8 years of age. The app has animated videos, games, stories, and interactive quizzes which makes the learning process interesting. The app also offers personalised feedback for parents to keep a track of their kid’s growth.

ABCMouse:

The app provides a step-by-step learning process for kids between 2-8 years. The app offers 10,000 activities, more than 850 lessons from maths, science, reading and art. This process engages the kids and keeps them motivated in their learning journey.

Prodigy:

A math learning platform using fantasy-based tools, giving a game-like feel while doing maths. The app provides free as well as paid subscriptions for kids from first to eighth grade. The app tests the kids’ knowledge based on which it works on their grey areas.

Stop, Breathe & Think:

Along with academic knowledge, social and emotional knowledge is also important for kids. This app uses the tool of social-emotional learning and helps kids in regulating and managing their emotions. The app offers kids between 5-10 years of age with breathing and meditation exercises. It also provides them with emoticons to express their feelings and then work on them accordingly. This app is very much recommended for kids with ADHD, as it tends to help kids in maintaining their focus.

Stones2Milestones:

The app offers services to help learners of 3-9 years of age to cultivate reading habits. The platform works towards equipping kids with the English language and cultivating learning habits.

Khan Academy Kids:

The platform provides worksheets, planners, schedules, and resources for kids between age 2 to 7. The platform can be accessed in 10 different languages and help kids in the distant learning process.

DuoLingo Kids:

The app built for language learning procedure among kids above 6 years of age. This app allows the kid with games which enhances their basic vocabulary and helps them in sentence formation.

PBS Kids Game:

A popular educational brand offering gamified learning for kids aged between 2 to 8. The interactive games provided by the app allow the kids to play alongside their favourite characters and learn the basics of maths, science and creativity along with the process.

Learning For Start-ups in This Market

There is a huge market opportunity for learning start-ups focusing especially on languages, coding, and math skills. EdTech start-ups have received $80 million in funding so far that makes them the market king with $9.5 billion. The process of studying smart and not in the conventional way has taken a toll on the GenZ and therefore parents are inclined towards these kinds of apps more for their kids’ overall development.

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