Proto.in Grows Up

Startup Showcase to Become Annual Affair, May Partner With TiE

Vijay Anand, Proto.in’s chief organizer, is already populating his to-do list in preparation for the next edition of the unique startup showcase event scheduled for December in Bangalore. “We’re pulling the January 2009 edition to December. So this year we will actually do three editions,” he says. Next year, therefore, will have only one edition, instead of the usual bi-annual format, and it will be held in Mumbai. The significantly higher scale and scope of the event at the recently concluded New Delhi edition (July 18-19) is a big reason for shifting to a once-a-year format.

The New Delhi edition, held at the Indian Institute of Technology, saw over 400 people attend, among them representatives from about 30 venture capital firms. “Three weeks before the event we had only 150 registrations and based on that we targeted that 200 people would turn up. But in the last three weeks registrations just shot up. And this time we had more startups and entrepreneurs registering than usual. In the past students have been a big contingent,” he says. This is a good sign because Proto.in will now be able to tighten its content much more around entrepreneurship and differentiate its value-proposition from other loosely formatted unconferencing events such as BarCamps. That does not mean BarCamps have no role to play. In fact, as platforms such as Proto.in and Headstart take on the role of playing intermediaries between startups and customers or investors, BarCamps can go back to being simple and fun networking gigs for entrepreneurs.

Proto.in July 2008 was also the event’s first foray outside Chennai, its city of birth. The intent was to take the platform national. There were companies from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, of course, but also a reasonably large contingent from the National Capital Region (NCR). Break-out numbers by region were not available.

Going national has helped in another constructive manner — both the organizers and venture capitalists who were at the event said that the quality of startups this time was much better. The 16 showcase finalists were chosen out of 90 applications. That is actually less than the number of applicants in the previous edition — 120. “While there were more applicants last time, when we put them through our selection filters, the reduction in numbers was drastic. This time we got less of business plans and more of actual companies,” says Anand. Of course, even some of these ‘actual companies’ are still quite raw — read Clearstone’s Rahul Khanna’s take on startups showcased at the event.

As the event gets bigger, the filters or parameters for selecting startups will need to become more stringent. Some of this was put into execution at the New Delhi edition. While the organizers did follow the usual selection-by-jury format — much of the jury is drawn from Proto.in’s steering committee — they also decided to get the applicants introduced to similar companies and potential customers in their space who vetted the commercial viability of their services and products.

At the Bangalore edition next, the organizers hope to be able to showcase 20 startups, against 16 this time and 14 in the previous edition. Incidentally, there is a possibility that the Bangalore edition will be clubbed with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Bangalore chapter’s ‘Entrepreneurship Summit’ but nothing has been firmed up yet. It does seem a bit incongruous to see Proto.in, which is built on the open source collaborate and share philosophy, align with TiE, which is essentially a closed-user network. At the same time, given that both work towards the same objective — fostering entrepreneurship — working together may not be such as bad thing after all.

It has not all been great going — out of the 86 startups showcased at Proto.in since inception, Anand says, four have shut shop. Also, while getting startups funded is not Proto’s main agenda, money ultimately is what gets things going. About 10 per cent of the startups who apply to Proto.in, do so in the hope of raising venture funding. That’s not really happening at acceptable levels yet, but as Proto.in grows up and matures, and it is doing so fast, the rest should follow.