Start-up – Dutch Uncles

What Should a Start-up Pitch Deck Include?

Anju Nambiar — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 05:35:08 +0000

A start-up pitch deck should be neither overly complicated nor too laid back. Creating a winning pitch deck is an art that you need to master with careful planning and execution.

What is a start-up pitch deck?

A start-up pitch deck is a document, specifically a collection of slides that explains concisely about the company overview, its vision and mission, team, problem statement, the solution you are offering to address the problem statement, market opportunity for your offerings, a bird’s eye view of what your product/service will look like, your target customers, sales, and marketing strategies. In simple words, a potential investor should get a snapshot of your business by viewing your pitch.

How is it the first step in your fundraising journey?

Every start-up that wants to raise capital needs to first work on creating an impactful pitch deck. Your deck is your start-up’s ‘why’ for acquiring funding. The more impressive your ‘why’ is, the better your chances are at raising investments. Although making a pin-point precise pitch deck is an art, it’s also the toughest to crack for early-stage start-ups. It’s also the first step to master before approaching the right investors.

Do’s and Don’ts for an Investor Pitch Deck

Most investors provide one opportunity for start-ups to present their pitches. Depending on the investors, your pitch must be sharpened to show precisely what they are looking for in an investee. Here are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind while making an investor pitch deck

Dos:

Highlight important slides

Investors are mostly interested in key slides like your financials, problem statement and team. Highlight these slides and keep them at the focus of your pitch deck.

Present your traction achieved

Investors are interested to see everything you’ve already achieved before raising funds. Present the progress you’ve made so far in your pitch deck, add your milestones and add growth numbers clearly for them to see.

Your pitch deck must tell a story

Your pitch deck must be created in a way that it tells a compelling story about your business. It shouldn’t just be a dump of facts and figures but a narrative of how your start-up adds value to the industry.

Don’ts

Mix your metrics

Investors want to see clear and concise numbers and metrics. They don’t want a confusing concoction of data. So don’t mix metrics into a single slide or a poor depiction because it may lower your credibility in the eyes of the investor. Segregate them according to revenue received, sales, traffic, ARR (annual recurring revenue) and so on.

Drag your pitch

Keep it short and precise. Show only the data which is most important for investors. Don’t include too many redundant slides and don’t add long text or too much creative copy.

Use too many Jargons or Acronyms

It may confuse the investor and not give much room to consider your pitch seriously. They usually don’t have much time to allocate for each pitch so use your time and their attention judiciously.

How to create an irresistible and compelling pitch deck

The key to creating an irresistible and compelling pitch deck is to restrict it to four important points:

The problem your start-up is solving
What exactly your product/service is
The market opportunity
Your business model

Why structuring your pitch is important

Structuring your pitch is important because it will capture the investor’s attention. A poorly structured or cluttered pitch can instantly put off an investor. With structuring, you keep all the key points of your start-up on the table so that investors are crystal clear on what’s in it for all the stakeholders.

What to cover and what to ignore

Here are some essential points to include and others to omit from your pitch deck

What to cover

Your company’s value proposition
Business roadmap

Marketing and Sales strategy

Competitor landscape

What to ignore

Excessive text and descriptions
Fund allocation

Estimations and guesswork

Forecasting and predictions not backed by credible statistics or data

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Depending on the investors, your pitch deck must be sharpened to show precisely what they are looking for in an investee.

What’s in it for me?

Before becoming a unicorn, your start-up has the single biggest milestone to cross, securing seed funding. Getting the first few rounds of funding are the most difficult part of raising investment for start-ups. Because this is when you need to prove that your company has the spark to grab investor interest. A pitch deck or deck slide is thus very important for early-stage start-ups.

A lot of start-up founders who have never made a pitch deck before may not know where to start. But it always pays to be simple and straightforward if you don’t have experience creating a pitch deck. Restrict it to a maximum of 10-11 slides. List out the features or characteristics of your product/service and don’t forget to include your go-to market strategy. Also, the pitch is only one half of the interaction. Investors usually have a lot of questions they need answers for before they are ready to invest in a start-up. Prepare for potential questions beforehand. With ample preparation and research on past successful start-up pitches, you will be ready to win over the toughest investor.

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What are the Important Elements of the Startup Ecosystem?

DU Desk — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 09:35:04 +0000

The word ‘startup’ is scarcely used without the word ‘ecosystem’ and there is a reason behind this closely-knit relationship. Startups need an ecosystem to breathe and thrive. Successful startup ecosystems need to have a strong vision and mission to take the company forward. Startups thrive in an environment where they get support from their community. A strong community is what forms a startup ecosystem.

It’s a combination of several internal and external factors that helps create a vibrant startup ecosystem. They are useful not only because they help a startup grow but also because they form hubs of innovation that create opportunities not just for the founders of the startup but also for others benefiting from the product or service.

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It is said that if a country’s startup ecosystem is growing, many talented people would choose to invest in their country rather than look out for better opportunities”.

Impact of Startup Ecosystem on Country’s Economy

Startup ecosystems can also have a long-standing impact on the country’s economy. One of them is obviously job creation. There is no doubt that startups thriving in a successful ecosystem accelerate job creation. This in turn helps contain brain drain.

It is said that if a country’s startup ecosystem is growing, many talented people would choose to invest in their country rather than look out for better opportunities. It can also help retain a highly-skilled workforce within a country.

And lastly, all these factors help improve the economy of the country and do a great service towards the image-building of a particular country. This can also help attract a lot of foreign investment in the long haul.

It would be interesting to understand certain elements that help build this startup ecosystem:

Core Elements of Startup Ecosystem

Entrepreneurs

As the name suggests, there cannot be an entrepreneurial ecosystem without a visionary entrepreneur at the centre of it. Therefore, it is considered as one of the key elements in the understanding of the nuances that build the entire ecosystem. Entrepreneurs not only pump up the ecosystem with their immense contribution to their community but also are people concerned with the growth and prosperity of themselves as well their country. And more the competition, more is their hunger to get to the top.

They inspire others to grow the ecosystem and themselves support those who have already embarked upon their entrepreneurial journeys. An entrepreneur is at the core of it all for the kind of employment opportunities he/she provides, the kind of growth that he/she envisions and the kind of difference he/she aims to make in the lives of their customers.

Mentor

This is one of the most important elements of a startup ecosystem and probably even the most under-rated one. The importance of good mentorship has time and again been acknowledged by some of the most famous entrepreneurs globally. When one is starting out, a helping hand from experienced mentors can make a world of a difference. They help create a realistic outlook towards a tedious startup journey and help new entrepreneurs in shaping up their vision and mission.

Experienced individuals can share important life-changing lessons that also help accelerate the journey of a startup. There is nothing more valuable than an exchange of ideas for young entrepreneurs. This will also lead to fewer mistakes and more nuanced decision making. Mentors are an important element that helps turn an entrepreneurial community into an ecosystem.

Talent

What is a startup without its pool of talent? And talent is something which is not only limited to entrepreneurs running the company and core team involved in the foundation process but also the people who take care of other important things for the company. There is a variety of talent and experience required to run a company. Those people form an important part of the ecosystem. This includes talent on the sales, marketing, design and human resources side. People skilled in industries like these can be a great asset to an organisation, especially when a startup is looking to hire employees that will help it grow and thrive in a competitive ecosystem.

If used well, talent can be one of the most important elements of building a startup ecosystem because at the end of the day, companies are run by people and they make all the difference in how it’s going to perform in the years to come. There’s no doubt in the fact that employees are indispensable for an organisation and more so for startups.

There is a thin line of separation between them being an asset and a liability. Nothing better than having the brightest minds in town working towards a common goal. The key challenge is to find people who can make a difference to your company. It is important for human resources to look out for people who are willing to learn, have an inquisitive nature and are zealous towards working to further a successful startup ecosystem.

Education

If one thinks at a fundamental level, then education and talent are inter-connected. Talent pool and skillset is mostly crafted at educational institutes. Although, that’s gradually changing with the advent of digital in every aspect of life, including education. But traditionally, there were a couple of educational institutes that recruiters would swear by while looking to hire new talent.

More often than not talent is sought at a local level using these learning centres. These institutions can have latest technological advancements and can help prepare the talent for the real startup life. Many institutions have entrepreneurship cells and incubation centres that help hone the skills of students wanting to work for a startup in future. This can be instrumental in enhancing the entire ecosystem as students, if honed well, can prove an asset to a startup.

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A positive culture leads to happier employees which in turn results in more productivity and more profits.

Incubators

As mentioned above, incubators and accelerators have a special place reserved in the startup ecosystem especially because they help one start young. It is an important tool that works because it’s a combination of talent, education, entrepreneurship, networking and mentorship. A business incubator or an accelerator effectively brings all these factors together and may be extremely beneficial to run a startup.
Incubators help in providing a centralised program to draw in more talent. It is a great way to concentrate talent under one roof and helps provide the requisite education and mentorship to wannabe-entrepreneurs. It catches them young and it is a great way to help entrepreneurs accelerate growth into the market while making sure they avoid making silly mistakes early into their careers.

Networking events

Networking is considered to be one of the most popular ways to build a startup ecosystem. No wonder there are so many networking events all-round the year focussing on building a stronger ecosystem. It helps in sharing of new ideas which in turn helps make that ecosystem stronger. It helps in getting in touch with like-minded individuals and forming ideas more readily.

Earlier physical locations were an impediment as many people were restricted by location. But COVID-19 has changed the way people look at networking events. Virtual meets, conferences and e-meets are slowly replacing physical events. But their purpose remains the same. It helps provide a common ground for entrepreneurs to meet and greet and take the entire ecosystem forward.

Funding

This is one of the most essential requirements for a startup to sustain itself and many early-stage startups can’t do without it. Local funding is an important component of a thriving startup ecosystem. However, entrepreneurs can also self-fund their businesses. Be it in any way, funding is the fuel that runs a successful startup ecosystem and it is essential that an entrepreneur figures out his/her funding and financing options well before taking the plunge.

Resources and access

Why do some startups succeed and some don’t despite having most elements in place? Many startups lack the knowledge and resources needed to find success. Strong ecosystems are known to allow entrepreneurs to quickly find these knowledge and resources that improve their chances of success by a lot. These resources may include a website, for example, which acts as an online resource where people can go to find a listing of events or what coworking spaces, accelerators and incubators are available in that particular region. This can be a more localised and well-targeted resource to help grow the ecosystem. Young entrepreneurs need to know where that exists and what resources are available to them.

An ecosystem can get much stronger if there’s a listing of the Venture Capitalists and angel investor funds in an area or a directory of local startups for reference. Something like this can quickly help entrepreneurs to find that missing piece of the puzzle. Startup ecosystems can be a great means to “engineer serendipity” between all the other elements. This can help in creating opportunities where intersections between people, ideas, and resources can take place. This can take years to develop but entrepreneurs and other members of the ecosystem can work towards it. Meanwhile, in the short term, there can be a lot of ways one can build resources and access for other entrepreneurs to thrive. For example increasing the number of pitch competitions, conferences, startup meets, online events, etc are some of the places to begin.

Culture

One of the most famous words to be associated with startups is culture. Many people believe that culture is one of the most important things that makes an ecosystem come alive and that is why culture is one of the most important words associated with startups. But what is a startup culture and why is it important? One can define startup culture as the energy of the community working towards turning a startup into a success. And that culture is not built overnight. It takes years to figure it out and a lot of hits and misses to finally understand what a startup stands for.

There’s a culture behind everything that goes behind the scenes in a startup. It is basically the energy and the attitude behind entrepreneurship and it can make or break the deal. Some of the most successful startups in the world credit their success to its culture. It is not only a matter of pride for the proprietor of the company but also its employees. A positive culture leads to happier employees which in turn results in more productivity and more profits. Culture is the bit that is often ignored while one talks about some of the key elements of a startup ecosystem but it is in fact of the most essential ones.

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What Are the Employee Benefits in Private and Public Organisations?

Roopali Kotwal — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 03:30:27 +0000

Benefits in any form will delight and make an individual to definitely lookout for what’s there for him/her before taking up an offer or buying any product/service in the market. When we talk about employee benefits, it is certainly more than the salary which one would get upon joining a particular organisation. And, why they should not be there as you are going to spend more time and energy at the workplace than at home.

The standard work day has a minimum work requirement of 9 hours in any private or a public/government sector that shall include the rest time while at work. At times, the work goes beyond 9 hours as deliverables at work demand more time and attention. So, it’s kind of fair to expect and know what perquisites (perks) or benefits one would get post taking up a role in an organised sector where employment terms are fixed for the skilled labour. The job is regular with fixed working hours with the employer being a government organisation, a start-up or an established multinational company (MNC)/private organisation.

What are Employee Benefits?

Anything above and beyond the monthly take home salary or wages, that an employee gets from an organisation shall be classified as ‘Benefits.’ In other words, any indirect and non-cash compensation paid to employees is ‘Employee Benefits.’

Why are Benefits offered?

Recruitment is a time consuming process. After all, you have scanned uncountable Resumes to fill a particular role or a critical position. The process isn’t complete without having the employee on-board. At times, the employees may leave the organisation during the probation period which varies from 15 days to 3 months or at times after years switch across companies due to better job offers and better security outside the organisation. Of course, the probation period is for both the employee and the employer to see the fitment of the employee in the culture code, organisation’s set up and check the initial behaviour and adherence to protocols and the initial performance pace. But, it is critical for an organisation to ensure that they don’t lose their new employee to competition due to inadequate employee benefits for the full time employment. So, ensuring a proper strategy for employee benefits becomes crucial.

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It is critical for an organisation to ensure that they don't lose their new employee to competition due to inadequate employee benefits for the full time employment. So, ensuring a proper strategy for employee benefits becomes crucial.

Employee Benefits: Types

There are several types of benefits which an employee could get but broadly they can be categorised as:

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)

Usually, trending in start-ups in India and across the world as a part of compensation, ESOP is a way to reduce attrition and offer a stake to the employees in the organisation. All big MNCs such as Accenture and Genpact and even the start-ups have the ESOPs. However, at a selected category of employees based on their ability and impact on the organisation. They usually get ESOPs at a reduced value than the market share price. In start-ups, ESOPs are offered to attract the best talent without having to pay huge salaries. Thus, making the employees and the executive a shareholder in the company by subscribing to the shares at a future date and at a predetermined price.

Health Insurance

Medical costs for any treatments can be huge so a company usually ties-up with the vendor to provide it as a benefit to the employees. A minimum premium amount in the salary of an employee is added. And in case of any emergency the hospitalisation expenses as listed in the paperwork are covered by the organisation.

Accidental Death Coverage/Life and Disability Insurance

Companies as a benefit provide life insurance, disability insurance (disability while performing the duties) and an accidental death allowance as financial compensation to the dependant/beneficiary. In the case, of a married employee, the dependant or beneficiary is the spouse and if unmarried, they are dependant parents.

Concessional family coverage

Some companies also provide an option to add the parents as dependant even if the employee is married by paying a minimum premium amount.

Employee Benefits in Public Sector

Child Care Leave

It is generally granted to women employees for a maximum period of two years during the entire service. The age of the child has to be less 18 years to avail the benefit.

Housing facility

The government sector or public sector still provides the housing facilities on application and approval basis to the education institute staff, government officers and gazetted officers.

Work Travel and Stay

Business trips are usually covered by the private organisation as the employee travel requirement is for work. So, the accommodation and stay arrangement is usually taken care of by the companies.

Maternity Leave Policy

26 weeks of Maternity leave for women employees to take care of the new-born is a law and a benefit to female staff.

Paternity Leave policy

15 days of paternity leave upon the birth of the child can be availed by the male employees.

Gratuity

Provided in case, an employee completes the service period of 5 years in an organisation.

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Because of the changing trends in lifestyle, millennials (Generation Y) is very focused on healthy lifestyle but long working hours may be straining. Hence, a lot of start-ups provide the basic gym equipment and facility to its employees.

Employee Benefits in Private Established Organisation and Start-ups

Apart from Maternity, Paternity leaves, Gratuity and Work travel and Stay Facilities, an employee working in a private organisation gets the following benefits:

Accommodation Stay

7-15 days’ stay at company guest house or company accommodation for out-stationed employees.

Relocation Allowance

Intercity/Interstate movement for the Job offered. New employees get the benefit of relocation allowance where the charges for broken packages during relocation is covered.

Work from Home

This benefit is one of the important factors for an employee to stick with the company as it gives the flexibility to balance work-life. It is more of a necessary factor for any to join an organisation.

Joining Bonus/Statutory Bonus

Joining and Statutory Bonus ensure the shortlisted candidates take up the offer and stick with the company for long.

Employee Discount Program

Corporate employees get exclusive discounts for products or services or Food and Beverage items at some selected place as a part of the program. Some companies also provide meal coupons to employees that also helps them to save some tax.

Crèche Facility

Crèche facilities are a great relief for a working parent and having the kid in the close vicinity to check upon in between if required gives a mental freedom to work efficiently at the workplace.

In addition to the above, you shall notice the below listed benefits are more prominent in start-ups:

Gym at Workplace

Because of the changing trends in lifestyle, millennials (Generation Y) is very focused on healthy lifestyle but long working hours may be straining. Hence, a lot of start-ups provide the basic gym equipment and facility in addition to the other standard services in any private organisation.

Flexible working hours and Sleeping Room

Working in start-ups definitely gives flexible working hours. However, the work sometimes demands long hours so to ensure employees get proper rest, a sleeping room or bunker is set up for employees to take rest and rejuvenate.

Corporate Wellness

Apart from the insurance policies, an organisation big or small/start-up plan for a healthy environment for their employees. Thus, dedicated wellness programs are conducted from time to time to avail the benefits along with Health Care facilities, emergency medical room with a doctor’s visit and periodical physical and eye check-up facilities are available through different camps programs.

Notice-Period Buy-out

Private companies including start-ups provide this benefit to buy out the notice period in case he/she is required to join the new organisation asap. Hence, the compensation to the previous employer to break the contract is taken care of by the new organisation.

Should high performers get more Benefits?

To be fair, one would want to get compensated well for something which they are really expert at. After all, they have showcased their higher skill set in the previous job and performance reviews that reflect in the incremental process from time to time. You would want to pay better for better work to keep the motivation high. You would not want to lose a potential employee or an existing employee who really adds value to the organisation. So, you take care of such cases with a differentiating factor for what they have achieved, will possibly achieve and in turn benefit the organisation with higher productivity.

Conclusion

Any one joining a start-up would expect these above stated facilities now as they are simply the necessities. An employee may want to stay in the job for long term when these basic necessities are taken well care of by the companies.

As a business owner or an entrepreneur, you don’t want to fall behind in attracting the right talent and retaining your existing workforce so why not take the opportunity especially in corona times to ensure the best of the benefits to the employees to keep them involved, motivated and of course to make their work experience from home as productive as possible. Providing offerings or continuing the offerings like the allowances for the internet, furniture, and even power backup inverters is a big relief and great benefit for the employees across the private sector and the start-ups.

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What Is the Brutal Truth About Venture Capitalists?

Anju Nambiar — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 05:35:05 +0000

Before pitching your start-up idea to a Venture Capitalist (VC), it’s important to understand how they function. We can even let you in on a few brutal truths about VCs that you should know about..

Unicorns don’t impress a VC

Even with the Unicorn explosion currently ensuing, venture capitalists are not too ecstatic when a start-up turns into a unicorn. Mainly because they are more interested in companies that can ‘endure’. According to VCs, a start-up may turn into a billion-dollar company but that does not imply that the endurance level of the company is high.

A VC always checks the competition for a potential investee

Whenever a start-up approaches, VCs will first see if it belongs to a less-crowded segment. If the company has too many competitors, it is seen as a challenge and a VC is less keen on investing in such start-ups.

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For most traditional VCs in India, profitability takes centrestage and is the deciding factor in most, if not all their investments.

Start-ups with unique offerings are preferred

A VC prefers companies with unique offerings in their products/services. If the company is differentiated with one-of-a-kind products/services, it will be prioritised.

VCs are also on the lookout for positive outcomes for the user of a product/service. Start-ups that offer value or solve a problem for the target user can find favour with VCs.

VC strategy is independent of their portfolio

Irrespective of what kind of portfolio a VC has to show, their strategy is most probably determined by other internal factors like the experience of the sponsors, management teams and directors. In reality, you can’t conclude about their investing strategy just by looking at their portfolio.

Profitability takes centre stage

For most traditional VCs in India, profitability takes centre stage and is the deciding factor in most, if not all their investments. Modern investors are now beginning to look beyond profitability to see what the start-up has to offer. But most of the traditional VCs in India still view potential investees from the profit/loss scenario.

Start-up founders’ time is not valued

Most VCs do not value the time of a start-up founder seeking investment. Since there is still no efficient process among VCs to ensure that start-ups seeking investments receive quick response, they are generally made to wait.

Proposal rejections take time

The next brutal truth about a VC is that they reject a lot of investment proposals, but even these rejections take time. Having to wait around for an investment rejection is very frustrating, but it’s the brutal truth.

Oftentimes investment terms are not fair

In the event of an investment, generally the terms laid down by a VC are not very fair to the start-up founder. A lot of investees are taken by surprise by the terms, especially after the exclusivity signing and during the negotiation of definitive documents. Investment terms are not always transparent and upfront.

Seed Funding is not preferred

VCs do not usually like to invest in the seed stage. This is because the company is still in the ideation stage and investing in such a start-up is like taking a wild chance. There is nothing to show that it’s a wise move. Getting seed funding from a VC is hardest because it is viewed as very high risk. In the event that a VC invests in the seed stage, they see themselves as partners and not as investors in the start-up.

What’s in it for me?

VCs have become very brutal in this year alone. For instance, Tiger Global is aggressively writing checks. While this is definitely good news, this kind of aggression may hinder other investors. When aggressive VCs like Tiger Global invest in your start-up, the investment level is often very high and cannot be matched by other VCs. In the event of an exit by Tiger Global, other VCs may not be ready to back you, leaving you stranded. This is one scenario that you need to be careful about in the current VC funding frenzy.

But the fact of the matter is that more technology start-ups will become unicorns. NASSCOM and TiE are also taking on the aggression towards the Indian start-up ecosystem’s growth. The brutal truth now is that this is the right time for start-ups to get investments. It’s brutal, but it’s good and true. By 2025, India will have 100 unicorns and your start-up better make a place on that list.

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How Easy Is It to Start a Business in the USA?

Anju Nambiar — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 02:35:06 +0000

There are a total of 190 economies in the world. The World Bank releases annual ratings for these world economies each year about the ease of doing business within the country. The Ease of Doing Business index measures a country’s environment in the context of running business operations successfully. If an economy is ranked between 1-20, it’s considered as highly ranked and the Ease with which start-up owners can open their business in these economies is very high.

Is it easy to start a business in the USA?

To answer the question whether it is easy to start a business in the USA, the answer is yes! It is very easy to start just like most other countries. You can register your company as one of different types of corporations in the US. You can also deem yourself as the CEO and create a high quality branding exercise for your start-up. You can also easily setup an amazing web presence including website, app, a couple hundred social profiles and high-definition graphics. You could also easily spend a lot of money on web hosting and domain.

The naked truth is that setting up a business in the US is easy if you have capital. Next comes the tricky part – finding paying customers. As with any country, finding paying customers is the hardest part of setting up a business in the US. Running the business in a way that attracts paying customers is all up to you. Doing the sales, marketing, and ensuring the success of your business depends on you. No amount of capital can do it for you.

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The World Bank has ranked US at number 6 on its ‘Doing Business’ ranking scale which is a really high rating.

Ease of Doing Business in the US

The World Bank has ranked the USA at number 6 on its ‘Doing Business’ ranking scale which is a really high rating. It has also been awarded a ‘Doing Business’ score of 86.0 which means that for businesses within the country, the regulations are very friendly and simple.

The ‘starting a business’ ranking for the US is 55, as assigned by the World Bank. The ‘dealing with customer permits’ rank is 24. The ‘getting electricity’ rank is 64 which is very poor. The hardest thing for a business to do in the US is to get electricity. The ‘registering property’ rank is 39. The ‘getting credit’ rank for the US is 4 which is an amazing number.

If you have minority investors, the ease with which you can protect them is ranked at 36. As a new business in the US, paying taxes is ranked at 25 which is also fairly easy. Trading of goods and services across borders in the US is ranked at 39. When it comes to enforcing business contracts, US is ranked is 17 which is a pretty good number. When it comes to resolving insolvency for businesses that are unable to pay their bills, the US is ranked at 2 which is excellent and the highest rank for the country.

What’s in it for me?

Getting the paperwork done for your start-up is easy in the USA. If you are delegating this task to paid firms, then your task is even more simplified. Setting up a small business takes an average of just about 4 days. There is a lot of support for small businesses within the country.

The US is a region classified in the ‘OECD high income’ category and the GDP is $20.5 Trillion. It contributes to a quarter of the global economic activity. However, there is great discrepancy in laws from one state to another which can make things complicated for any business. It may also lead to compliance troubles. On the other hand, the legal system for businesses is fair, transparent, and stable.

Entrepreneurship forms the backbone of the US economy. There is a lot of support for small businesses within the country. Business owners are free to decide the nature and workings of their company. The Investment policy in the country is open and doesn’t discriminate against foreigners. As a start-up owner, you can access start-up resource ecosystems, and you can even avail soft-landing programs.

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What Are my Tax Duties as a Non-Resident LLC Owner?

Anju Nambiar — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 06:35:04 +0000

If you are a foreign owner of an LLC in India and you are residing out of India, your business is mostly delegated to a business manager.

In India, an LLC is also known as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). Opening an LLP in India is very attractive for a foreign investor, especially an NRI.

An LLP company in India must be registered for Income Tax, although there is a distinction between the company and its owner. The LLP owes 30% income tax to the government. There are also additional surcharges and alternate taxes to be paid. The company is also required to go through certain audits.

Corporate Tax (CIT) is a tax to be paid to the Government by companies, be it domestic or foreign. Irrespective of the nature of the business, if income is being generated within India, Corporate Tax must be paid. It doesn’t matter if the company is registered, controlled, or managed outside India.

The key point to note here is that the corporate tax is applicable only for the income accrued within India.

As an LLC owner, if you are not residing in your home country, there are two scenarios to consider. If the LLC is in the US, you have to pay US taxes. So, the key issue here is double taxation.

In the case of an LLC present in the US but the owners are NRIs, the income is taxed in India, but the company is treated as a foreign company. If the company has setup base within India, then you are eligible to avail certain deductions. But US taxes still apply.

The bottom line is that every LLP or LLC operating within the country has to file income tax returns every year. Active partners of the LLP or LLC must sign for IT returns.

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The bottom line is that every LLP or LLC operating within the country has to file income tax returns every year.

GST and the Non-Resident Taxable Person

Under the GST Act, an LLP incorporated in a foreign country with turnover exceeding 20-40 lakhs in a financial year must be registered for GST.

A ‘non-resident taxable person’ is defined under GST as someone who exchanges goods and services within a place in India, where GST is applicable even though his business is not established in India and he doesn’t reside within the country. Every non resident taxable person must apply for GST registration.

Such a person occasionally does transactions within India but doesn’t have a base setup here. He must be compliant with GST.

If you are such a start-up owner, you must delegate a person within India who will represent your company for GST compliance.

During registration, you will need to furnish appropriate documents about the business including physical presence of the business, identity proof documents, and bank account proofs. The person representing you within the country must possess authorisation documents.

You also have to make a deposit for GST and must keep checking the validity period of your GST registration. There are a lot of guidelines to be followed and your registration must be completed.

The non-resident taxable person comes under Section 24 of the GST law. He/She must make an advanced deposit of the GST tax amounting to the equivalent of the estimated tax liability for the registration duration.

The agent representing your LLC within India must furnish their own PAN number to pay the advance tax for your LLC.

What’s in it for me?

As we are well aware, Indian businessmen evade tax within India by living outside India. The gulf countries are especially popular destinations to do this. Gulf countries like the UAE have no tax laws.

An interesting development which recently occurred is ‘liable to tax’ which just came with the recent union budget and the finance bill. Liable to tax is a term within the Indian tax laws. With the recent finance bill, Nirmala Seetharaman redefined the meaning of the term. As per the redefinition, if an NRI owns a company in India from the UAE, whatever he is earning is taxable in India. India has an agreement with the UAE regarding double tax avoidance. With the redefinition of this term, NRIs living in the UAE will no longer be able to avoid taxation on their earnings back in India.

If you are a foreign owner of an LLC, your tax duties are mainly GST registration, compliance, and Corporate Taxes. Ensure that you complete your tax duties and that you stay within the purview of ‘liable to tax’ to enjoy smooth business operations within India.

The post What Are my Tax Duties as a Non-Resident LLC Owner? appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Your Start-up is a Part of Your Life, Not Your Entire Life

Joseph Varughese — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 03:30:04 +0000

If you have ever had several stressful weeks in a row, you are probably familiar with the symptoms of burnout like; energy exhaustion; negative feelings or cynicism related to one’s job; or reduced professional efficacy.

For founders, the topic of work-life balance can be elusive – the line between work and life is very thin. With the weight of a company’s responsibilities on your shoulders, it’s hard for founders to maintain a typical work life balance. They work late nights, answer calls, send emails, finalize pitch deck etc. throughout the weekend without taking a break and end up exhausted and tired.

We have heard of different types of entrepreneurship like; Innovators, Imitators,. Researchers, Buyers, Hustlers, etc. People who work hard and put in constant effort are known as hustler entrepreneurs. They often start small and work toward growing it to a bigger business with their hard work rather than capital. Their aspirations to succeed are what motivates them, and they are willing to do whatever efforts it takes to achieve their goals. They do not give up easily and are willing to take up challenges to get what they want to achieve in their life.

Hustling is important – maybe the most important thing for startups – but we are still human. It’s critical to have a structure in place that allows you to get the work done that is necessary for the success of your business. But I also think people need to be a little more flexible and kind to themselves. At the end of it we all work to live, we don’t live to work.

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Hustling is important - maybe the most important thing for startups - but we are still human.

Prevent Burnout by Trusting your Team

It is not that the 24/7 hustlers of the world are anything bad, but it’s unrealistic – not to mention unhealthy – to expect everyone to hustle 24/7. Honestly, if you find yourself working too much, it means you don’t have trust in your colleagues and team and, hence you might not be delegating enough. You might be over-stretching yourself by not allowing others to do the job they are mandated to do.

There is a tendency on the part of some founders to do everything themselves without delegating the responsibilities to the team and this is one thing that leads to burnout. It adds to the perils of work life imbalance and the consequent stress on founders. This is an unhealthy trend or attribute and if not tacked it will do more bad to you than good.

The excessive “hustle” startup culture, which is something like working all hours, is dangerous and damaging to people’s health, people’s expectations of themselves and others, and to life and culture as a whole. We have heard of people who have burnt out and walked away from the companies they’ve started and spent so many unsociable hours working to build. It doesn’t have to be that way to be successful.

Are you getting addicted to your startup?

When you’re a founder, your company is part of your identity – but you have to take care of yourself, your well-being, your body and mind. There are jobs, there are careers, and there are passions. When you take the massive risk required to start your own business, it probably falls in the third category, passion. It’s something you’re deeply passionate about and identified with. Your work is almost like your identity. It’s something you couldn’t imagine stop doing.

When your business is your passion, you might not even realise how hard you are working. It’s nice when your work doesn’t feel like work, but it also means you have to be extra mindful of your energy levels and take care of yourself. You get addicted to it may not be an overstatement.

As a founder, it’s your job to increase efficiency of working. Your team needs trust, space, and resources to deliver – and they need to be supported enough to take time to breathe and focus on other things in their lives that matter. This culture comes from the top, the founders and evolves to be part of company culture.

What the founders follow in their startup is what will become the foundation of the company culture and the culture emerging out of unhealthy work life balance will be detrimental to the sustenance and growth of the company.

What is work-life balance for an entrepreneur?

What a work-life balance means to an entrepreneur and what it means to another individual, can be vastly different. A structured time schedule, coffee machine chit-chat, scheduled holidays, efficiency based on corporate performance measures and universally accepted professional codes which helps employees maintain a balance, essentially fly out the window.

When you have a startup to run or are a small business owner, you have no choice but to forget the 9 am-5 pm work environment and embrace a 24×7 work week. Responding to client calls and emails, through the day and night, last-minute projects, demanding roadmaps, pitch deck final touches, conference calls, and meetings are your new normal. Vacations and holidays are a daydream; tight deadlines are your new weekend agenda, and your social life seems to revolve around your colleagues and clients.

When that’s the case, it’s difficult to figure out the work-life balance that works for you. Because your work is your life, and your life is your work. If you were ever asked to stop, it would be like telling a runner not to run or a singer to stop singing. It would tear out a part of you, and you wouldn’t be the same person comfortable with the situation.

You have to be realistic about your schedule, calendar and commitments. I truly believe most jobs can be completed in the allotted time if you’re focused and dedicated. Some startup founders say they work nonstop, and maybe they’re in the office for the majority of the day—but they’ll break for an hour in the middle of the day to play games or take coffee breaks. They aren’t working the entire time they’re in the office. So instead of trying to show up an impressive number of work hours, make the hours you do work matter. This is good.

How to win the Marathon of Business?

Founding a company is a marathon, not a sprint. We have seen entrepreneurs who go hard for six months and can’t keep it up. They go through sleepless nights. And then when the company needs them the most, they’re tired and useless. Their mental energy is completely exhausted. They are burnout!

That’s why I prefer to think about founding a company like a marathon. You could sprint the first 25 kilometers—but there’s still 25 more kilometers to go. Your time will be terrible. You’re better off keeping a moderate, sustainable pace.

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Work-life balance is not about getting something over on someone—it’s about making sure your mental state is good to go every day so you can steer the ship forward to reach the desired shore

It’s the same in business. You can up the pace occasionally when it’s necessary, but you don’t need to slog sacrificing your sleep.

Science teaches us, with less sleep, you get diminishing returns. Studies say anything less than five hours of sleep puts you at 60% capacity. I believe you can’t run a successful business at 60%. You need to be at 100% capacity because that’s what your clients demand, your team demands, and your family demands.

If you pace yourself, you’ll discover just how much more productive you can be.
Of course, there will always be more work to do. You could be selling more, could be marketing more, and could be writing more code. Absolutely. But at a certain point, you need to hang your hat and let go of what is unimportant. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself insane. Work-life balance is not about getting something over on someone—it’s about making sure your mental state is good to go every day so you can steer the ship forward to reach the desired shore.

It is also the leading cause for burnout, loss of motivation, loss of enthusiasm, and then the pessimism and negativity slowly sets in. Taking your work home can make one feel edgy all the time. These adverse factors slowly start to take hold of mental, physical, and emotional health and work efficiency which will not help you succeed in your dream venture.

Tips on How to Keep the Balance in Work-life and avoid Burnout

This is not an exhaustive list of do’s and don’t for founders to follow in order to maintain work-life balance by remaining healthy and balanced. However, this is a list of tips that can open up the mind of founders toward exploring ways to reach their goals without burning out. Here are some.

Don’t take on more than you can do or chew, even when you feel you may be the only one who can accomplish the task. Keep a good network of friends, colleagues, professionals, and freelancers to whom you can seek help or outsource. There is always an alternative that you can tap on.
Learn to say no. This is something difficult to practise but a must in business and profession to avoid burnout. Say no to your client, investor, colleague or family when you do not want to undertake a task or meet a schedule or go for a party. Prioritize what you want to do.
Time management skills are a blessing, if you have it in you. If not, see which time management tools work best for you and implement them in your workday.
Get a mentor who has done all of this before. Seek his/her advice before embarking on difficult tasks. Make things easier for yourself, so that you aren’t spending that extra time ruminating over it at home.
Make sure to have an exercise schedule, early in the morning or late in the day, short breaks between sessions for a breath of fresh air and to stretch your legs.
Make play a part of the work. Ask yourself what you can do to bring in the fun element into the workspace — music, movie nights, team bonding, light humour, all of this helps disperse the tension at the workspace not only for your but for your team too.
When you are taking a weekend off or a break, tell your colleagues or employees clearly that you will not be checking messages or emails during that period and stick to it.
Keep a dedicated device for work, a phone and/or laptop for work calls, notifications, emails, and messages. Sometimes work communication can get so overwhelming that it can become hard to differentiate between friends and family, clients and other peers. Be honest with your family or partner if you are having trouble with balance, ask them to point out to you any areas where you are allowing work to loom over personal life and relationships.

The work-life balance, as an entrepreneur is a tricky battle, but like any other, it is nurtured with practice, fostering skills, and dedication to the highest good of yourself and the business.

A work-life balance is a necessary part of any healthy work dynamic, a personal life constantly invaded by work can cause sleepless nights, irritable mornings, anxiety, low moods, and general listlessness. Entrepreneurs understand that they cannot follow elaborate health schemes and protocols. What they can do is include small check-ins on how they are feeling and how they can keep track of their mental, physical and emotional health.

If you don’t balance your act but work as if your start-up is your entire life, you may end up living a worrisome and frustrate life without achieving what you aimed for. This becomes a major reason of burnout. Failure is not the end of your life, if you are healthy enough mentally and physically you can try again. Many successful startup founders went through a series of failures before striking gold. Hustling is good but only as much as it is practised judiciously and carefully.

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Why Is Silicon Valley A Start-up Heaven?

Aakash Sharma — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 04:35:04 +0000

Located in the Southern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, USA, Silicon Valley is a global centre of high technology and innovation. As per the Brookings Institution, the San Jose metropolitan zone, the lifeline of Silicon Valley, ranks third in terms of GDP per capita globally (after Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway).

The term “silicon” actually refers to many innovators and manufacturers in the California region who specialised in silicon-based MOS (metal-oxide-silicon) transistors and integrated circuit chips initially. Today, the area is home to many large technology companies globally, including 30 Fortune 1000 companies headquartered there and thousands of start-ups.

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Silicon Valley has the necessary infrastructure, capacity resources and a growing market for manufacturers, making it an ideal place for start-ups in a technology-driven world.

Silicon Valley – A Global Centre for Start-up Entrepreneurship and Financing

Silicon Valley accounts for one-third of total US venture capital, making it a central hub for innovation and start-up ecosystems. Historically, Silicon Valley has developed a vast majority of silicon-based integrated circuits, microprocessors, and microcomputers, among other things. In 2013, the industry employed about a quarter-million of the United States’ IT workforce.

The term Silicon Valley is often used as a synonym for the American high-tech economy. The name is synonymous with research and high-tech work. In this way, similar sites, research parks and technology centres worldwide with a similar structure have also been modelled after this peculiar region. Most notably, the Indian city of Bengaluru is called the ‘Silicon Valley of India‘.

Silicon Valley is a haven to some of the world’s biggest companies, including the following:

Google
Apple, Inc.
Hewlett-Packard
Facebook, Inc.
Netflix
Adobe Systems
eBay
Cisco Systems

Why is Silicon Valley Suitable for Start-ups?

Silicon Valley has the necessary infrastructure, capacity resources and a growing market for manufacturers, making it an ideal place for start-ups in a technology-driven world. In the region’s hi-tech environment, start-ups can easily host local systems because they have all the necessary connections. They can easily find skilled workers to form an effective and highly empowered team, as there is no dearth of software developers, programmers and operators in Silicon Valley.

More so, Silicon Valley is known for its tenants and products as it has become an ideal market for goods tech-transactions in the world. The passion for innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurial adventure run throughout the everyday life of the world’s tech capital.

Top 5 Silicon Valley Startups in 2021

Given the region’s success boom, at least one Silicon Valley start-up joins the significant leagues every year. In 2020 and early 2021, many start-ups are en route to this oath, some of which are listed below.

Nuvia, Inc.

Nuvia, Inc. is a silicon design company dedicated to developing robust, low-energy consuming computer processors. It is located in Santa Clara and was founded by a former Apple designer. Its recent $ 1.4 billion acquisition by Qualcomm bears testimony to the success of Silicon Valley merchants.

Netdata

Located in Redwood, Netdata provides an open-source tool that tracks the performance metrics required for systems, applications, and other digital infrastructure components. It helps monitor disk activity, CPU usage, website usage and bandwidth usage and visualises it in a graph to run the diagnosis.

Wing

Located in Palo Alto, Wing is a delivery service platform. With operations in Australia, Finland and the United States, its application provides delivery services for essential goods like medicine, groceries and food.

Productiv

Productiv is also based in Palo Alto and provides insights into daily business and application analytics. It assists IT managers to reduce costs and increase business efficiency.

Step

This start-up focuses on teenagers as its target maker and allows them to use mobile banking services. It enables them to send and accept money directly from their Step card, accessible track services and expenses management.

The above mentioned are some of the deductions why Silicon Valley has a booming start-up business sector. It is safe to say that the spirit of innovation and collaboration keeps growing in Silicon Valley to meet the needs of entrepreneurs with high-tech solutions quickly.

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Uniphore’s Growth: Raised a total of $220.9M in Funding Over 7 Rounds

Anju Nambiar — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 12:35:04 +0000

Uniphore Software Systems is a start-up that provides cloud-based enterprise software (SaaS) backed by Conversational AI. Uniphore’s Indian founders Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev established the company presence both in Chennai, India as well as Palo Alto, California. They essentially brought about automation for video and voice-based customer service organisations.

In its latest Series D Funding, Uniphore managed to raise $140 M backed both by new and existing investors including Sorenson Capital Partners, Serena Capital, Sanabil Investment, Cisco Investments, March Capital Partners, National Grid Partners, Chiratae Ventures, Iron Pillar Fund, and Sistema Capital. This funding round has raised the total net worth of the firm to $210 M. Over the course of 4 years, Uniphore has undergone 7 funding rounds.

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A start-up, now a unicorn, Uniphore is seeing no end to its growth. The owners already have made grand plans about the course of its growth and progress in the coming future.

Growth of the company

A start-up, now a unicorn, Uniphore is seeing no end to its growth. The owners already have made grand plans about the course of its growth and progress in the coming future. Uniphore is all set to increase its focus on its video-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. The other focus will be to enhance its product portfolio in key areas like trust, security, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Uniphore’s growth trajectory

Uniphore’s growth has been steadily occurring with one acquisition after the other. It recently acquired AI-backed technology analysis, and emotion recognition Spanish firm ‘Emotion Research Lab’. Also, a part of their acquisition is video AI and RPA technology. Within the span of a year, Uniphore not only signed contracts with bigwigs (Tech Mahindra, NTT Data, Sitel, Firstsource, and WNS Global Services) but also recruited over 100 employees across the world. The fiscal year ending March 2021 saw a tripling of sales.

The biggest growth spurt came for Uniphore during the global shift to remote work last year. With an unprecedented demand for Video and Voice calling apps, Uniphore used the opportunity to transform their product in a way that customer service organisations could improve their conversations by detecting user intent and emotion.

Uniphore’s ambitious agenda

Uniphore has expressed confidence that it will make $100 M in contracted Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in the fiscal year of 2022. That’s not all, they are also keen on taking the company public through a direct listing or a special purpose acquisition company, soon.

Uniphore’s ambitious hiring plans

Uniphore is looking to go on a recruitment spree and has already affirmed that it is moving forward with plans to onboard 300 more people by 2022. The company wants to expand its market leadership and has already listed a number of job openings. The current open positions listed include requirement for a ‘Revenue Intelligence Analyst’, ‘Principal Talent Advisor’, ‘Implementation Partner Alliances’, ‘Senior Speech Scientist’, and Senior Executive for Internal Marketing Communications’.

What’s in it for me?

Start-ups can consider the Conversational AI Market as an ideal basecamp since this space is growing at an accelerated pace. The demand is not only high, but a number of Indian start-ups have successfully scaled up in this sector in a short span of time.

The Indian government was also on the lookout for Conversational AI providers and ‘Senseforth’, a Bengaluru-based start-up was recently chosen for a governmental Voice Assistant project.

What start-ups can learn from Uniphore’s growth is to swoop in on the right opportunity in Conversational AI. The right opportunity is here and now since remote conversations over voice and video calls are still going strong and have taken centre stage across all sectors. There is ample opportunity for receiving investments, and the huge market demand will only propel you forward.

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If you are an Education, Coaching and Training Start-up this is How you Can Enter New Markets?

Roopali Kotwal — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 02:35:04 +0000

New Market: Learning Forms and Offerings

What does education, coaching and training have in common? Learning requirement which means your audience is anyone starting from a kinder-garden kid to high school or a working professional which means a vast audience. So gathering an audience may not be an issue but as an entrepreneur, you must decide on your offerings before you enter the new market.

Decide if you shall be focusing on coaching a particular subject, offering a career counselling platform, personality development courses, personal grooming sessions, entrance, academics, foreign language lessons, or any specific niche.

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Technology based education, coaching and training models have transformed the learning platform.

New Market: Entry

As an entrepreneur, when you think of entering a new market you would always strive for growth. You intend to grow and expand your business. However, there are a couple of things which should be taken care of before taking the plunge to ensure you dive deep as intended to enter the new market:

Choose a market – Find out the new market volume in terms of your target audience, look out for any possible initial barriers to ensure there is no hindrance for your business development. For instance, any language barriers, infrastructure and logistics issues and legal compliances

Market Survey/Research – Survey to know the preference, why and what the audience wants to learn in the new market. Understand their problems and analyse if you will be able to meet their demand and provide solutions through your project. Also, observe learning trends and identify the needs of the market in detail and survey for best locations to expand your business

Evaluate your competition – Type of services you will be providing and what your competitor is offering and evaluate the gap if any. Analyse how can you simplify or provide solutions to your target audience

Decide on the mode of learning whether it would be offline or online. Though the demand in corona times grew and the focus also shifted to online/e-learning. However, in case you wish to have a physical centre for the future, decide on the best locations as per the target audience in the new market. Also, freeze on the business model. For instance, making a subscription-based business model for an online study centre

Brand Awareness and Recall – With a very focused approach, use enough channels and use them extensively to raise brand awareness and brand recall. For instance, use of influencers through social media or local partnerships, public relations or any local ambassadors and seek feedbacks

Figure out the capital requirement as in how much money will be required to start an Ed-tech and see the return on investment after deciding on the learning mode and model of the business

What’s in it for me?

Technology-based education, coaching and training models have transformed the learning platform. The traditional model has changed to e-learning and especially during corona times, it turned out to be the biggest saviour. It has defined the path of the education system in India and worldwide. According to HolonIQ, the global Ed-tech market is growing at 16.3 per cent and will grow 2.5 times from 2019 to 2025, reaching a total of $404 billion in global expenditure.

Mobile learning, Video-Based Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Learning Analytics, Personalized Learning and Micro-Learning Platforms and adoption of virtual training are among the key trends in 2021 in the education sector.

As entrepreneurs, you must pay close attention to the new development and trends to enter the new market. A start-up’s focus on Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in training sections can actually pay off very well. No doubt that with online education mode as a preferred mode, the start-ups like Unacademy, BYJU’s, etc. are already doing well.

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