A reader asked me for a list of incubators in India. Other than CIIE and previously mentioned iAccelerator this is what I had with me. the morpheus Clearstone Venture Partners Aavishkaar Seedfund HeadStart Ventures The Startup Centre National Design Business Incubator (NDBI) Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), by IIT Bombay Technology Business Incubator (TBI), by National Institute of Technology, Calicut Amity Innovation Incubator (AII), by Amity University SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre, by IIT Kanpur Periyar Technology Business Incubator Technology Business Incubator, by BITS, Pilani Nirma Labs, seems offline This is only a subset. These institutions will help you get more information on incubators and the investment trends in India: Indian STEPs and Business Incubators’ Association (ISBA) National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED), by S.P.Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) Indian Angel Network The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE)
I believe that incubators are necessary for an active entrepreneurship ecosystem, and India sure needs more of them. So I am more than glad to write here about iAccelerator – an incubator of internet and mobile startups in India, backed by IIM-A. iAccelerator is an incubator of internet & mobile startups in India. [Continue]
Though we see users yearning for better products every other day, being only better is not enough for a product to be popular. Being better brings in change, and usually the resistance to the change beats down the enthusiasm for betterment. Then there is also the first-mover advantage, by virtue of which your competitors, though not as good as you, get a bigger market share and user community that is already active and familiar with the product. [Continue]
Sramana Mitra, as part of her series of entrepreneurship in India, asks if entrepreneurship should be taught to students. I firmly believe that school is the right place to inject the entrepreneurship bug. However, I believe it does not fit in the current marks-oriented curriculum in Indian schools. [Continue]
Sramana Mitra has a good discussion going on about what is lacking in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. Contribute to the discussion, we need more such pieces to bring about a change. Here are my thoughts. [Continue]
Software sees a very high frequency of newer versions everyday, more so in the open source world. I have heard claims that this is just a way of the software developers/owners to continuously engage the user. However, reading faster horses (a must-read piece by JP) made me think that this is just the after-effect of engaging the user. [Continue]
The cost of being Microsoft perhaps leads us to another reason why we should not work at a big company. I recently read Tom Peters’ The Circle of Innovation, and I am indebted to Manoj for lending it to me. The book introduces radical concepts; rather, re-introduces them, since we already know most of them and have experienced it many other phases of our life. [Continue]
Kevin Kelly has a brilliant piece about how, in the times of easy duplication and reproduction, can we perform better than free. He comes up with eight generatives better than free that provide value because they cannot be copied, which can very well be the founding aspects of many well-to-do businesses today. Maintaining the generatives will sustain the value, I think it provides a lot of insight into how ideas can succeed. [Continue]
Bernard Lunn has a detailed article on the state of innovation in India. He notices that there has been progress in a lot of areas like reliable low cost telecommunications, but the killer app is still missing. There are many Indian entrepreneurs, but not many of them are in India. [Continue]
As a software developer who has worked in India, worked in the US and has returned back to India, I have had some unique experiences with the term outsourcing. Unfortunately most of them have led me to a stage where I have started disliking that term, not because of the term itself, but because of the way the software industry uses it. It implies opportunistic behavior, short term vision and disregard for merit. [Continue]