TiE Mumbai Engages with Startups to Thrive through the Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted livelihoods and businesses around the world. In a bid to survive the unprecedented challenge, TiE Mumbai has adopted a range of entrepreneurship support, through webinars, mentoring sessions, workshops and online events to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.

Harish Mehta in Conversation with Sharad Sanghi and Ashank Desai

“Tie Mumbai has organized several webinars in the past few months and has partnered with several eminent ecosystem enablers, including accelerators, incubators, lawyers, VCs and corporates to bring maximum value to Startups and entrepreneurs,” said Atul Nishar, President, TiE Mumbai.

Naveen Raju, Executive Director, TiE Mumbai

“Apart from these webinars, TiE Mumbai hosts one on one mentoring sessions for businesses to restructure their models, finances and fund-raising cycles on a weekly basis. In continuation, we also organize, tech and product validation sessions for Startups making their tech stacks and business pivots for the current time. We encourage and welcome more Startups and Founders to seek the help and support from TiE Mumbai,” said Naveen Raju, Executive Director, TiE Mumbai.

Some of the webinars organized in the past month by TiE Mumbai were -

Pathway to Profitable Sales Mastery - Author and world class trainer, Dr. Arunaagiri Mudaaliar educated the participants on Fundamentals of Selling, Myths & Truths about Selling, Selling VS Master Selling, Negotiation Skills, Context Creation, Common Mistakes done by Sales Professionals, Fastest and easiest ways to double sales, Sales Performance Tracker and Customer Experience Evaluation.

How Flexible Talent can help Start-Ups grow in the times of COVID-19 and Beyond - It is a tough time for start-ups with having to deal with demand reducing, cash-flows tightening, and a transition to working from home. There may be a requirement for talent, but of course hiring at this time is a cost. This session outlined the best ways to tackle this and make the best of the situation. Using the flexible talent ecosystem to hire expert, part-time or project-based talent that will be high-quality, affordable and agile, it touched upon alternate talent models that can work and accompanying pricing structures 

Get your Startup Ready for Funding & Raising Capital - In the Post-COVID Economy, Startups will face new challenges with regards to Fundraising, Operations, Partnerships, etc. This session discussed ways of getting the startups ready to face the new challenges by helping them become Fundable and getting them ready for Raising Capital. Mentoring for start-ups was done in the following 4 areas: Fundraising Post COVID, Revenue & Income Optimization; Partnerships & Alliances, Investment & Financing, Operations & People issues and Cash Flow & Financial Management.

Masterclass on eCommerce - This masterclass discussed the Current eCommerce scenario in India, How to identify what you'd like to sell, Ideal team in an eCommerce company and their major roles, How to market the business with a zero budget, which online marketplace can one sell on and pricing structure of each of them, how to run a successful drop-shipping eCommerce business and how to upload products on online marketplaces.

AR Is the New Video- Why start-up's need to adopt AR as their Marketing Hack - This was an interesting session on learning how AR is being used in Businesses and understand the metrics behind AR.

Insights into scaling up Tech Businesses - Sharad Sanghi in conversation with Harish Mehta - This discussion was around impact of the current situation on Technology and Software Startup. it also gave insights into Indian SaaS industry, how to scale business operations quickly, how to attract good tech talent, future of AI and Big Data and tips on good tech products.

Building a Tech Product Company and Tips on Successful Exit Strategy - Ashank Desai in conversation with Harish Mehta - This was an interesting story session where Ashank Desai, Founder & Promoter- Mastek introspected on the early ideas and origins of Majesco Insurance Tech, early product development challenges, life of developing a Product Tech company in India (especially managing this out of Mumbai),  and eventually setting it up for a wonderful sale/exit.

About TiE Mumbai

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals with roots in the Indus region. Since 1992. TiE has been supporting entrepreneurs by offering education, mentorship, networking and funding opportunities. The mission of TiE is to foster entrepreneurship globally through the 5 pillars of TiE: mentoring, networking and education, funding and incubation. Dedicated to the virtuous cycle of wealth creation and giving back to the community. TiE’s focus area is to generate enable the next generation of entrepreneurs. There are currently 11,000 members, including over 2,500 charter members in 60 chapters across 17 countries. TiE’s mission is to foster entrepreneurship globally through mentoring, networking, and education. Dedicated to the virtuous cycle of wealth creation and giving back to the community, TiE’s focus is on generating and nurturing our next generation of entrepreneurs.