 Hi, everyone. I hope I'm clearly audible and visible to all of you. You all can quickly do a mic check and video check. And we are live now. Actually, yes. So yes, hi, everyone. Hello, beautiful people. I hope everyone is doing good. Everyone is doing well. Would like to welcome all of you to the day one of Misfits Mega Pitch event. We have successfully covered 12 regions and have got our top 30 startups in the 2021 cohort. Welcome, all of you. We started, you know, we started the Misfits cohort with the aim to find the most impactful changemakers across South Asia. And it's an initiative by Vruksh Ecosystem Foundation and we thank Manimpact to be the global co-host. Will grow to be the knowledge partner for this event and the event was powered by E-cell, Ion, Trichy, Crowdera and Impact Pod. As I said, Misfits is an initiative by Vruksh Ecosystem Foundation. So talking about Vruksh, basically Vruksh is an innovation think tank building a cohesive innovation, incubation, mentoring, maker and entrepreneurship ecosystem. And, you know, we work with startups, we help them scale up and we always believe that it's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen. And that's why we aim to build this ecosystem for entrepreneurs for startups. And that is why we started this particular cohort, the Misfits community and the pitch events. Going forward, talking more about Misfits particularly as you know, you all are already aware that Misfits is a virtual pitch event happening across various reasons of Southeast Asian countries. And we are doing this to create a common platform to create a common ecosystem to provide a common stage to all the social impact changemakers. And we always say that it's not just another pitch event. We are ensuring that, you know, a proper community should be there, which is, you know, even after the event gets over, the proper community engagement should be there. These are the focus regions like these regions we have covered the 12 regions, the pitch events that we covered in these 12 regions. These are the global partners and we had some regional partners as well. In total, we were supported by 80 plus partnerships. I would like to, you know, show a token of thanks to all of them. Then yes, so this is all about Misfits and Ruksh. Moving ahead with our today's workshop on how to master your startup pitch. I would request my colleague, Apoorva to come and take over from here. Apoorva, over to you. Hello, everyone. I hope Ismail has joined. Yes, yes. Yeah, I have joined, but there is some Wi-Fi glitch at my place. I just joined my phone and I'm trying to log in from my laptop. You make a couple of minutes. Sure, sure. Okay. Apoorva, let's wait for a few minutes. Meanwhile, you know, the startups, all the participants, I would request all of you to please, you know, be interactive, ask questions. First, like when Ismail would be taking your session, please drop your questions in the chat section. If you want to speak up, if you want to share your insights, raise your hands, we'll unmute you. Please, like try to, you know, be interactive today. And after this particular workshop, we have this final discussion on, let me check the topic as well. State of Social Entrepreneurship and Jatin Chaudhary, Bhanu and Anand would be joining us. So please stay tuned. And then, you know, you all are already aware that from day two, that is 20th November, we'll be starting the pitch events. Yeah. So, and just waiting for Ismail. Mr. Ismail, are you there? Yes, yes, I am. We just had the power back. So it's raining out of nowhere actually today. Just because I don't know some issue. So other participants are joining us and I would again, Aditi has joined. Hi, Aditi. Hi Anupam. Hi. So we have started. I have just covered the introduction part for Misfits and Groups ecosystem. And now we are heading towards this workshop on how to master your startup pitch. Yes. So this time it will strictly be three minutes, you know, three minutes to pitch. And I know you all have a lot of questions in your mind. What should we cover or what should we leave behind in these three minutes? So, smile is there. Have you also sent me the link via email? I'm not sure. Shall I send again? Because I have it on WhatsApp. I'll have to connect with my WhatsApp web then. Yeah, I got it. Anyways. Recording in progress. Yeah, sorry. Yes. It's from my laptop. Okay, great. Apurva, please go ahead. Hello everyone. I'm a good work. From the team rich. Now let us move ahead to the open pitch workshop on how to master your startup pitch. And I would like to invite Mr. Ismail Agbani. He'll facilitate this workshop. Mr. Ismail Agbani is currently associated with Symbiosis Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation or Technology Business Incubator supported by Department of Science and Technology Government of India. As head incubation and linkages. He's also mentor of change for Utter Innovation Mission Government of India and Design Innovation Center under Niti Ayog at Gujarat Technical University. Welcome on the behalf of the Misfits of welcome to all the participating startups. Let us try to keep the station a little interactive by writing down all your doubts and comments in the chat section over to you sir. Thank you so much, Apurva and Anupam, which is not here but I've known him for quite a while and you guys have been doing some amazing work for past few years that I've been connected to. There's always, I'm always happy to be on this platform of Roksha Misfits and whatever good work you guys are doing. So, and again congratulations by the way for taking it to a very yet another level. I wanted to put that diagram for some reason my laptop is not allowing me. Without a green screen does not put that diagram so I'm sorry I won't do that. And welcome to all those participating. I congratulate you all. I congratulate everybody for making it to a level where not coming out of so many regional events and competing with so many ideas and then finally reaching this level. And today's topic is a bit challenging for me also as challenging for me as it's going to be for you. Because usually when we talk about pages 10 to 15 minutes and then for a 15-minute space talk, I talk for one hour. How do you get a 15-minute page right? So now today I have to talk about how do you get a 3-minute page. So essentially I should not be talking for more than 10 minutes. Because if I'm talking for more than 10 minutes then that's the challenge for me. And that's one of the reasons I've actually declined one of the 10 minutes offers as well. Because 10 minutes they say you have to speak in 18 minutes as I can't do that sorry. But I'm going to try and keep it very brief and short. But of course we will go through this. So I have certain slides though I'm going to show you more slides. So what I decided today is not to have a different approach. Normally what I do is when I do a presentation which is for a standard 10-15 minutes page. I have standard page template as well that I've created. And then I go to every slide. What is the slide we should be having? And then we discuss every slide by slide. So I have as many slides as I want in the page. So 10 to 12 slides. Today rather than giving a standard template of the page. What I decided is I put up my own different kind of presentation. Where I'm going to take you through what should be the three-net page. And then it's up to you. I believe it up to you to decide the number of slides that you want. Because it's already a challenge. And we're going to look at it from a very different lens of rather than page 8. In fact I used to call this session as a not so subtle art of page 8. And today it's actually going to be not so subtle art. Because I put a post on Instagram as well that what is that one word that you would replace the word pitching. But if I had to ask you. So if we can just see the chat box how many of you are active. If you have to define pitching instead of start up pitching one word. What would that work? Can anybody answer that in the chat box? So you can unmute also. Pitching is selling. Okay. Interesting. What else? Simran got it at so bad one point. Right. So pitching today we are going to talk about it to me. So it is all about storytelling. Right. How do you how do you tell stories and how do you actually convey because they say that facts tell stories sell. Right. And when you're pitching you in a way marketing also about your product and there's a book called by this marketing group called. The book title that all marketers are said storytellers. Right. So we're going to look at pitching from that perspective but still I'm going to present certain slides. These slides are not supposed to be that order. And you know, one more point I know when I was just trying to log into laptop. I think I was saying that you know, he'll treat to ask questions. That's what I want. And also feel free to share your insights because you guys must have a lot of events you might also had a lot of experience from the investors. Or the panelists. Right. If you have a certain point that has worked for you and you feel you want to share, feel free to share. So this is a platform where it's not only that I'm going to speak and you're going to learn from each other. And whatever I'm going to be speaking today, though the words are mine, the slides are mine. But over the past seven, eight years I have been in the jury panel as a jury member as a judge for more than 15 events across the country, even internationally. This past two years, thanks to the online world. Right. So through those events at fashion, fashion level evaluating so many startup teachers along with. And when you're sitting in the startup speech event, you have a panel of four or five, some times at IIT, Mumbai. There was a panel of 10 jury members. Some of them are investors, some of them are senior entrepreneurs and people who are better in the domain. And when I go, there's a jury. My focus is less on evaluating the startups, more on what kind of questions these people ask. Right. And what kind of a counter question they're asking. What points they are digging in. What is that they are expecting. And then at the end when we're deciding the winners and all, you know, after the event, we have discussion among all the jury panel. So then again, there's a feedback, people casually share what are the points, what are the points in the speech in general that frustrates them as investors. What are the things that they like. So these are the insights that I have picked up over the past few years with all more than the events that I have been. And those are the insights that I'm going to try to share today with you in my own words. So, and again, I've seen that a lot of times, there is a contradiction between the insights or the requirements of the investor. In one of the big events, you know, there's investors, I want to see the finance light first. There's another investor who says, I don't care about the finance. If I like the idea, if you can justify the cause, finance can be taken care of. So there are contradictory, you know, thoughts contradict the school of thoughts also on a lot of slides. So go with what you can justify. So if I might end up sharing something, okay, this is good, but probably this does not work with my idea. That's fine. The reason I'm telling this is because I gave a similar talk last year at the IT Bombay, it's a social starter competition. They had a similar talk for the finalist and then I shared a couple of points and somebody called me myself. You know, I tried to put this in my slide. You mentioned this point, but it's spoiling the flow of my entire slideshow. I said, don't put that. What I'm saying is that it's not a gospel or it's not something from coming from the Ramayana or Gita or Bible, right? It's not a religious doctrine that you have to follow, you know, word by word. These are just the guidelines. Feel free to tailor them, customize them based on what suits your start-up idea, what suits your personality. So with that, let me go back to sharing my presentation quickly. And we quickly went through the slide first. And then of course we'll have some questions and answers. I hope that's visible. Yes. Yes. So I wanted to look at the cover of my slide. Also, of course, there was something written below that I just really wanted to share with you. Of course, I don't know. But the reason I wanted to focus on the cover as well, because, you know, we'll talk about that. So what is just a quick recap because some of you might be in the ecosystem. Some of you might have made a lot of speeches during the presentation. Or some of you probably it's the first time, first, even if you're participating and you are virtually want to come to this level. So please take to me is your first prototype, right? So normally people take the presentation as a presentation. It's not a presentation. It's the first prototype of your startup. Right. And if you're an early state PC startup, the tech is literally your startup. You're nothing to show if you don't have a hardware prototype as of now. If you're not developed the website, if you're not created the app right now. And so what's the tangible? That's the only thing tangible about your startup as of now. The reason I put this in the beginning of my talk is to just highlight the important amount of time, amount of thought process, amount of discussions, amount of deliberation, amount of effort that should go in creating the pitch deck, right? Because right now you don't have a product. So if you had a product, the amount of effort and time you would have spent in that product, that is the amount of efforts. It's not that 50% of that is what I expect that you invest in creating a pitch deck, right? And I say creating a pitch deck, right? From deciding what point goes into the pitch deck, how the slides do, what's the color combination, what's the background, what is the theme I use. Unfortunately, I've seen, again, so many slides I've taken, at least 30%, right? If not more, at least 30% of the pitchers that come, the very first two slides, the way they look, I'm cut off. As a Julie member after two slides, I'm like, I'm done. I'm not interested. Let them go for the next schedule. I'm back to my WhatsApp game. That's going to happen with you as well. Because especially in the online world, when you're going to present, there are people like me who are going to go to reality. Their WhatsApp, see my WhatsApp is not consistent. WhatsApp is going to bring in the emails that are going to come. They have much more important things to attend to than just sitting over here and evaluating it. And the moment your slide looks dull, all white background, only black text, there's no images, the font sizes, all conventional fonts, and there's no consistency. You'll see the consistency in my slides as well. That's for a reason, by the way. But that's very important. So you just make it out that they, you know, in an hour or so, they are just put together something like you're doing a college assignment. Or you will do for, you know, for some presidency in the college. It doesn't work here. So make sure that you put in that effort. Put in every minor details of the patient. The second important aspect here is, you know, the bottom of the three, I call like, I like this term three months, eight years. Since I heard it for the first time in the movie, what was the movie, The Slumdog Millionaire, right? And then I went out and found out and watched those movies as well. So, so basically these are three pillars of a strong pitch or three levels of pitch I would say, right? But at the basic level is understanding. So what are the three goals of a pitch? The first goal of a pitch when you make a pitch to Mr or to a jury panel is to help them understand, right? To help them understand where you come from, to help them understand the problem you're solving, to help them understand the solution, to help them understand your business model, right? That is the first basic purpose of a pitch. And most of the presentations that happen, they cover this, right? There have been five to ten percent pictures that I heard, they failed even to do this. But almost 80, 90% of the entrepreneurs when they come and present, they've managed to do this first level very well. But that's not enough. Problem is just making the jury matter or making the investor understand your idea, your problem is not enough. This is next level and that's clear. You have to make them to care about your model process, right? The jury panel investor face to face, no, needs to be made to care about the problem you're solving, need to be care about the people you are trying to help, care about the solution they're talking about. Because if they don't care, trust me, after a while they'll use contact. Because I'm nobody when I say I've attended more than 50 presentations, an average investor attends more than 50 pictures in a year. So to them, when you want to present, there's a high chance that that investor, that jury member has attended and listened to a similar idea being faced somewhere in the past. It might be a little bit here and there different or at least the same problem being solved in some other way. So 70-80% of the time the problem that you're solving, somebody has pitched it at that very jury member experience in that panel as well. So understanding is not enough to keep them interested in listening to a patient. You have to make them care and very, very few, very few start with actually that. Early 40-50% of people are able to use their pitch as a medium to make me, as a jury member, care in the program. And so what? You want to solve a problem for dogs so what? I don't have a bet. Why do you care? How do I care? And a third, and that's the ultimate goal, is that you want that person to take an action. Now the action could be different. And the action, if it's an investor pitch, the action could be, you know, you want them to consider investing. Of course, you don't expect them that they would stand up and write a check to you on the spot. The action could be at least that investor has to give you his visiting card and say, hey, send me a pitch deck and let's see, I'll pass it on to my team and we'll do some due diligence and let's see what happens. Right. Action could be, say, okay, I don't invest it, but I have a friend who probably works in a similar domain. I can connect to YouTube and probably he might be interested. He has my card, just give me a call or an email and I'll connect with him. And there's a lot of other actions as we'll be talking towards the end of the slide that I'm going to talk about. But ultimately that is the end. Or action could be simply, if you are presenting an event like this, for example, action could be simply you want that jury member to give you full marks. Right. I'm giving the marks, if you don't know, not 90, I want to do this guy, not 9, but 10 or 10. That's the action you want me to take. And only 10, 15% pitches succeed to read that level. And those are the pitches that end up in the competition. As simple as that. And I'll tell you one more thing. A lot of times it so happens that the winning team is actually not the best amongst all those who presented. A lot of times they write teams that are better. They had a better problem, they were solving, they had a better product. They had a better business model. Yet they did not win. Because somewhere in this ladder from understand to K2 action, right? They understand, help us understand the problem solution very well. Amazing problem. A lot of future potential. And to the audience, why did this team not win? Right. And if you have to ask me as jury member, I would say they failed to make me care. And they failed to make me take that action. That was their responsibility. It's not my responsibility to give them full marks. It's not my responsibility to come and say, hey, I'm going to help you. Is there responsibility in the piece to make me want to help them? Right. So with that, let's move on to the, you know, what should you do in the now three minutes? It was a 10 minutes. Of course, I would have talked about the slide, but then I removed some of the slides because you just have three minutes to present. What should you have three minutes as a pitch and your presentation? So I'm going to talking about from both the contents of the deck, what slides, what do you put on the slides? And also how do you present? Right. And some part we're going to talk in parallel. And then towards that I'm going to cover some presentation tips as well based on my experience, what to do, what not. First and most important is the cover. So you have a cover slide and then you talk about the why, right? We'll talk about why is the PPCF or PPCS problem pain and for the cost. And then the promised land, you show them the promised land where you want to take the world to the birbal is your solution. That's my term. And then you talk about the proof of the pudding is all about your traction and whatever, whatever. No, you can do it business model. Then the people that's the team and the last action that you want. Very important. Again, one of the almost 20% of the times I get turned off right in the cover slide. Right. We say that we should not just somebody back. But people do just like it. The first slide that you put because when you come and say hi, hello, good afternoon, good morning. That's why it's all right. When you're saying that there's a slide that's presented or on the screen and that's your cover slide. That cover slide should have your company name. Right. Logo. If you don't have to create one doesn't take a lot. There was some temporary logo. Maybe you can change it later. But there's so many online website. You just go to Google say free logo creator website. You find hundreds of websites that help you do that. But the logo, the company name, a tagline. Right. And some images suitable relevant images to your business. I have seen people come up with a cover slide that are so boring. I'm like, if you don't have that creativity, if you don't have that enthusiasm to put some effort in the first letter to present me. How do I trust you as an entrepreneur that you have the same enthusiasm in building the product. Right. If you if you're coming for competition, if you're coming for investor pitch and you don't care about the presentation. How do I invest in your business? And how do I trust that tomorrow when you go to market this product, you put a first to market this to customer. So that cover slide is very, very important because that's the slide they're going to look for us. And that's the slide when you come and start talking about how I love introducing yourself and all those things. Now this cover slide is also when you come over here. So that's how again, as I said, these are the guidelines. And this is what I have kind of, if I have seen various types of pictures with people coming and introducing and starting in different ways. This is my personal opinion of what I like and sometimes some of it is based on what I understood from the payload. When you come over there, cover slide, what should not be the cover slide. Do not put that, let's say a company is Ekatra for example. So Ekatra learning solution, whatever it is. Please take presentation for Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Administration for your own startups. of sales do not do that. It's not your college presentation where you put a title of the project and say a presentation of the project to this final guide, I don't know. Just the company name, logo or tagline, some images, that's it. You don't have to go at a second. I'm going to write the name of the event where you're pitching and all this and don't do that. Second, do not start. So as I say, I'm going to cover both. Okay, so somebody's anonymous. So, you know, what I see is when you go put over there, we're going to talk about how do you present as belong sites. A lot of times it's okay, good morning fellow jury members, fine. Today we are here to present our startup for this presentation. I mean, I know what time I know that you have a presentation. I've seen that, right? Do not start with that. It's a huge term. And especially when it's a three-minute speech, every second counts. Every five seconds you can say, think of every line that you know, that the people already know, they don't want to be told, why do you want to say that? Right? So I would say, okay, good afternoon everyone. We are Team Brooks and we are starting directly. At the most inclusive group of everyone, I'm Ismail Akbani. I'm from Team Brooks and we are, as simple as that. Maybe put your name if you want. That's good, good manners. So include your name, that's it. Or if you want to do more specific, again, multiple examples, I'm Ismail Akbani. We are Team Brooks and along with my colleagues over here, I'm representing Team Brooks. Rather than saying I'm presenting this page, say I'm representing Team Brooks and we are for my colleagues. That's part number one. Second thing that I've seen a lot of time is that, you know, when there are three founders, four founders, multiple founders, right? I don't know, somehow, so in a three-minute speech, we have five people speaking, about one person, he just comes in, says, okay, one or two sides, okay, now Anupam will say, and now, you know, Aravi will say, now it looks like a circus going on. Yes, again, it's not a college project. Yes, in a college project, when you're presenting, when I sit in the college project as a faculty, I want all the students to present the project because I have to give them marks individually. And I have to verify that everybody knows every aspect of the project. As a startup team, right? Well, everybody's expected to know everything, but then I don't expect everybody to be expert in every part. You might have a finance guy, you might have a technology guy who does not understand the business model, very detailed, fine enough. So in a three-minute speech, I would recommend that, for me, again, it could be different, but my personal preference would be one person pitching in. And then, yes, everybody has put the main pitch into the question and answer sessions. It's not too dimming. And second is the person pitching should be the one who's very good at presentation. Sometimes we take it, okay, no, this guy's a CEO, so the CEO has to present always. And I don't believe in that. I'm like, okay, if you are, as long as the person is a part of the co-founding thing, not that you bring somebody from outside, hire someone to come and present talks in front of you, or an intern or an employee, the person has to actually have the stake in the company, has to be one of the co-founders, even if he's not a CEO, but he is somebody who can present better, like him. That's perfectly fine. And then the CEO can jump in when they ask the question because initial stages, you are all more or less, the titles are there, but then you want to project us that we are all on the same platform, even though they want somebody's a CEO, somebody's a CTO, but we don't have that traditional bureaucratic hierarchy system. So keep that in mind. Now, what's that one liner that I want to talk about? So when that cover start has been put over there, like you say, come over there and say, we are so-and-so, and then we are, and then you picture one liner, 10 to 15 seconds, that's it. But that 10 to 15 seconds, that has to keep me interested for the next three minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever the duration of the presentation is. It has to be clear, it has to showcase some kind of passion and again, that's to be somebody's interest. So how do you do that? How many of you want to, now, this is easy. Anybody can comment that, okay, 15 seconds please. I want to break it down and I want to do some tech and place, actually. How many of you want me to share that? Or I can skip this slide in the chat box, let me see. You have like more than 50 people over here on the Zoom. So how many, how many want me to share exactly how you could do this? Nobody? Because nobody is playing, that means nobody is listening and if nobody is listening, then I can just go over talking, but I will be able to store it all around. Okay, Rohit, you want to say. So unless I see four-five sponsors, then what I'll do, I'll skip it and I'll, I'll then, I don't know, the coordinators and the organizers, this phone does not count. So here's, here's how you do it. Okay. So here's how to do it. There are certain views, right? And these are some of the things again, I don't claim that I have copyright or I have thought of it, I will read somewhere or I've seen people do it that way, right? And now they're just seeing the pattern happening around it, so we can normally do it. So that's my understanding. And as I don't know, I said, well, these are the ways I've seen it, based on my experience and some, some probably I would have heard you and there's read something. So one is, you know, the one way is to talk about, okay, we are, we are the first, whatever you are, right? And that doesn't, that doesn't is about, because see, whatever problem you're going to solve, there are some solutions already out there in the market, right? But then the very notion that you are coming to the market, right, your startup, it is implied that you are going to solve some of the issues that are there with the current solutions in the market, right? So those problems you want to solve. So for example, you could come and say that, no, be, I'll say just hypothetical, what do you say? Cigarette brand, okay? Again, not promoting it, but we are team of Bruce cigarettes, right? The first cigarette in the world, that doesn't give you cancer, okay? So I'm the first, and that doesn't give you cancer, the problem with the other resistance out there. Couldn't be anything. We are the first engineering college, right, that provides 100% placement guarantee, right? Or with 100% placement guarantee, that doesn't charge you any fees, right? We are the first social media platform that doesn't sell your data to any third party company, right? That doesn't go, if you know, I don't know, search engine, right? We are the first search engine that doesn't save your data and sell your business, right? So that doesn't give out part of that's the challenge, that's the pain point with the current solution. The first one line, now see how it keeps me engaged, right? Okay, I'm not revealing anything, how I do it, but just because we are the first this, so that could be one way. Or the other way could be, you know, we are the fastest or easiest or the funniest or the cheapest or some other addictive way to your solution, right? So we have the fastest way to learn Java or Python, right? We are the funniest way to learn program. So we are team code ahead, for example, we have the funniest way to teach kids how to program. Now I'm interested, okay, how do you make it funny, right? We are the cheapest, it could be cheapest, right? We are the cheapest way to get your MBA degree in USF, right? We are team XYZ foreign consultants, and we are the cheapest way to get an MBA degree in the USF. Now I'm intrigued, right? So that's the 15 second pitch I was talking about, and that is speaking just after the introduction, so Cams, so and so, I'm Anupam, I'm here to represent this team and Anna and we are so and so, that one line, 15 seconds, right? And you had to work on this. It's not the first version that comes to mind, discuss with your team work, come up with multiple versions of it, right? Have four, five such versions, and then discuss with your friends, family, and switch it to them and say, which one do you like more? And then come up with a finalized one, right? Or it could be, you know, you use the analogies as well, to know the example. For example, it's Uber for something. So I was in Delhi in 2018, a lot, and some visit over there and then I met one of the very earliest startup founder, I don't know where they are now, but somehow through some connection, they say, you are in Delhi, so I want to talk to you and I want to submit that they want my startup idea. We met at a CCT and we were talking, and he explained to came to me, and he explained to me his idea for like 10, 15 minutes, 15 minutes just to tell me what he's going to do, you know, and for the first five, seven minutes, I had no clue what he was talking about. But in the next five minutes, probably I got an idea, okay, let me see what he's got. And then I said, you know, you spent 15 minutes of my time, not that my time is so valuable, but still, you could have done this in 30 seconds. And he was shocked, he said, how could I have done this? You could have just told me that we are Uber for pathology lab tests. Because the basic concept was that, you know, you'll have an app, you want to do some blood tests, you want to do some urine tests, or some kind of basic pathology tests, you go to the app and we will have those pathology lab technicians with the portable kit, moving around the city, just like your Uber caps. And you will, once you click open the app, on the map, you will see how many technicians are in your vicinity, which is which is the process, which one is the process technician, right? And it will also tell you who's a male technician or the female, so if you prefer only a female technician, you could choose that. And then once you click, the closest technician will come to your mind, that, that lab technician will come to your home, take the last sample or whatever it is, take it back to the lab, if that could be done there, in the portable kit, he will do it there and then there and give you the results, or take the sample to the lab and you get the result, you know, the report via email or something, simple. Now, if we had started some with something, one line sentence and we are Uber first, so and so something like that. And in the first 30 seconds, I would have got much better idea than the first five minutes of what he spoke. Next could be again, these are two things actually I did for this presentation, because we are all about social problems, social impact, so we make something easier, right, whatever context. So we make, you know, for example, we make learning English easier for slum kits, that could be our language, right, or we solve the problem of open defecation in rural areas or in slums, whatever it is. So that's the person, then happens comes the next slide. Now, again, I would title them separately, you know, differently, I don't know, I'm not calling it the problem slide, the solution slide, the completion slide, and I guess the three minutes, neither should you. You don't actually need that this is a problem slide, this is a solution slide. As long as you're talking about what you're speaking, convey that's the problem, I don't think why do we need that topic. So the second slide, again, you move on, and it's all about, as I started, it's all about storytelling. So you're starting a story in the beginning, and you're going through that story, once you say we are so and so, and then you bring in the problem. The problem could be now here, you could start the story, you know, I was traveling here and I saw this, or I read in a newspaper article and I understood, or somebody told me this, or I was in the USA and whatever it is, or you could just start with the problem, and how many of us know that this is a problem, or to just a simple statement that we all know that that drinking water is a problem, but drinking water is a good thing. And then while you're talking, the slide should have some relevant information to highlight that. So who are the people you're talking about? The drinking water for what people? Are you talking about urban city area or who are you talking about? Education, so what kind of education are you talking about? Who are the people, what's the context of the problem? Then, you know, and also part of the problem a little bit. So rather than saying, you know, fetching drinking water is a problem for so many rural ladies, I would say, we all know drinking water is a problem, imagine the lady has to wake up in the morning, walk 10 kilometers, she doesn't have a proper footwear as well, and sometimes she's having a baby that's six months old, she's carrying a baby in one hand, and a water container in the other hand, and she has to go there, stand in the sun heat of May, right, 48 degree temperature for two hours just to get one content of the water and walk back two kilometers again, and by the time she comes back, the baby was in the heat for two hours, right, versus the getting drinking water is a big problem for these. So what I just did, I did more detail, and I'm not lying over here, I'm not exaggerating, these are the facts, but these are the facts that actually pump up the problem, right, that make me more interested, that make me care more about the problem, right, and another thing is, since we're talking about social problems, a lot of problems that you would be addressing, like illiteracy, education, water, health, sanitation, most of the problems that you could be talking about, we all know that, right, so don't dwell too much on explaining the problem, we know that, just you know, I've seen people coming up, you know, India has the highest little lowest literacy rate, and they'll come up with the statistics, US has this literacy, and everyone here has this literacy, and we have this, I mean, do we know this, come to your part of the solution, but the problem is something that's not very common, that we expect that not many people understand about, then maybe we'll do a little bit about that, right, then also talk about the pain, right, this is a problem, okay, but we are talking about the problem side, but what's the pain, as I mentioned, you know, that lady has to stand in the sun here, and then what happens, probably she has, she gets some other issues because of that, I know she gets back pain, and she develops muscular and disorders, and the child develops certain diseases, right, what are the emotional pains aside with that, so then again, not all of this will be relevant to all the problems, but some of the problems might have an emotional aspect, the child is unable to learn English, right, he feels frustrated, he feels inferior, he does not have enough confidence when he moves ahead, what are the alternatives in the market out there, and what are the issues with those alternatives, so this could come, this part of the story should come over here, and this could be on one slide, this could be on two slides, but not in the form of this is a problem or this is a pain, just put some images, if you're talking about water problem, right, I was in a previous presentation, I went back in 2016-17, somebody came and present, and that was a period, March, I guess, March-April 2017, I don't know exactly, but Chennai was going through very severe water issues, and there were videos on the news, you know, website, YouTube, where people actually in two to three kilometers long, accused of just for one five liter can of drinking water, and that entire presentation, they talked about solving the water problem, there was not a single mention of Chennai, and then I said, you could have started just with that one 30 second video clip from YouTube that shows it, and you could have changed the way we feel, 30 seconds you could have made us clear, 10 minutes, I did not feel any care about that sort of problem, right, so look, pick up into the news, what's in the news recently about that problem, put some news clips, right, maybe if you had some movie clip that talk about the problem, put that or some screenshots that you could mention, some statistics, again numbers in the board and all, some graphs if you can put it out there, right, and then what's the cost, so I care, I don't care about, you know, probably a lot of issues out there, I don't care, let's say I want the garbage, so many tons of plastic is wasted every day, and dumped into the dumpyards every day, I'm fine, I'm like fine, I don't have a dumpyard in front of my house, they don't buy plastic in front of my society, so I don't care, right, but that's where you talk about what is at what cost, if you are ignoring to solve this problem, right, and this is the most important slide back to me, so far, what cost, so I could just pass in, you know, and now we, you know, we could simply sit around here, you know, choose to ignore about this problem, but about the cost you would be paying in terms of our health, in terms of financial cost, in terms of our future generation, it would be the, what is the cost that the target group is paying right now, if you're talking about certain disease or that water problem, what's the cost that mother is paying, she's paying with her life, sometimes she's paying with her health, she's paying the cost with the health of her child, right, what is the kind, because at us, we, USA, it's not USA, right, paid by the target group, although the cost paid by us, even if that segment is facing the problem, but how are we also paying for that, even if a worker in some company is working and he's, you know, working on some component that are, let's say, having harmful gases, it's his problem, he is getting sick, but what is the cost that I am paying, he's getting sick, right, how is it affecting me, how is it affecting the society, how is it affecting the nation, that is where I would care, and this is one aspect that I've seen most of the startups feel to address, they assume that if I highlight that there's a pain, people would care, we are selfish breed, let's be very clear on that, right, so ultimately at the end of the day, even the investor of the duty, but everybody's like, okay, why do I care, because there are thousands of core problems out there in the world, I cannot possibly go and care for each of the problems, if I start doing that, then who would care for me, right, so you have to make sure that out of those five thousands of problems, the problem that you are solving is a problem that I feel a concern for, right, so you could put some statistics, some news clips, some images, right, and then comes your, you will be like, okay, no, there are, there is a, for example, very good example, you know, education is an issue in rural areas, they don't get quality education, right, and then you pump up the puppy and what happens when these people are illiterate, they become, you know, sometimes they resort to crimes and they do a lot of illegal activities and how does that affect us as well, the crime rate is going higher, so what you're doing is now you're talking about the problem of that education, pain points of the people, and then also how I am, if they are illiterate, how I am paying for that, because if they, you know, get into criminal activities, I am the one who's going to be at the receiving end of those criminal activities, right, and by then it comes and says, and there are so many people out there, because the moment you talk about the problem and solution, okay, but there are so many people, NGOs working out there, so many online websites helping them to learn this, and stuff like that, and then it comes, okay, there are people out there in the government, we're doing this, but what about those who do not have access to internet, right, and that is where we are, doing it through SMS based learning, right, so what you're doing is there's problem, we're from the pain, and we're acknowledging, so see the competition also coming in the story here, in the very first slide, one minute what I'm talking, one minute, one hour, or maybe see 80 seconds that I've talked on this slide, I'm talking about the problem, I'm pumping up the pain, I'm giving it a cause, making them care, at the same time, I'm then saying, okay, I'm acknowledging the competition, I'm not saying there's no competition, I'm acknowledging indirectly, there are so many people doing good work, and I'm actually appreciating their work as well, not criticizing, but then I'm picking up, okay, but they're doing this, there's so many, I'm like, there is, I don't know, what is that, but what about kids in the rural areas who do not have smartphones, who do not have access to internet, that's your butt, and that's where you're saying, okay, this is interesting, this is where now you are differentially moving away from that, that I'm talking about, this is the segment that we're talking about, that's where your story changes the gear, and then from that, so again, you don't have to have this slide, I just put it over there for you to understand it, that when you're talking about that, what's the group that you're talking about, how will you understand that, so if you can put one or two percent and it goes okay, I was, if you're talking about understanding English, that they don't understand English, for example, or the kids in the rural areas cannot speak English, so we're talking about doing something to help them learn English, that's our social cause, so that they learn English and they can complete in the global world, so now you can say 30 percent of the rural kids cannot speak English properly, right, or no, that's what we're going, right, but I would say that there are so many kids out there who cannot speak English, and then I was in this village, I was going through probably travelling or whatever it is, and there was this girl called Shanti and she was a Canadian girl, she was in fourth class in a primary school, and I was talking to her and I asked her, can you introduce, and she said she's studying English since past three years, so I just asked her to introduce herself, and that girl Shanti could not even speak two sentences about herself in English, what I'm doing is I'm showing my understanding of the target group, and I'm also personalizing it, putting it into a story, rather than saying 10,000 people cannot speak English, like it doesn't make that impact, but in that one example that a few person that makes so much more of a impact, right, and then if you see how I put why here in the bracket I put about the now part of it, that the now covers the opportunity and time, but as you're saying, why now, and that problem has been for ages, and why, and what would happen if we don't act on it immediately, what would happen if we don't put the, bring the startup into the market, and we don't start selling this product or service and solving this problem, social problem, and if we delay this by five years, I'm like okay, I have, you were a good thing, and I could help you, but right now there's some other startup I want to help, I would rather be my manager, I could really come back after two years I'll give you, right, so you want to address that question as we can know I am the one who needs the money right now, I am the one who needs the price right now, I am the one who needs the support, the maintenance, the recognition, the appreciation, the price right now, because this is the problem that needs to be solved right now, this is the problem that needs to be solved yesterday, right, that's, that's also the, I'm not again, whatever I'm pushing a lot of things over here, not everything would come in your place, right, sometimes you'll have to see what suits, what you can bring in, but I'm actually preserving the entire buffets up to you to pick and choose what you can eat, right, then you talk about the next, after that you move, after the first two years, the one that you're establishing is the problem, right, then you talk about a new global institution, the ideal green land, the promised land, how the world should be, right, and then just shift on, this is the problem, and then you suddenly shift, and you could do it whatever ways, I've given you two examples on skin over here, right, if this is how I would have done it, okay, this is not what this should have been, what if, right, so what is it, what if there was a way to, and then whatever the issue talk, why you to solve that issue, why providing something additional bonus, and without the limitation, right, so you have found out the problem of education of the case, then the illiteracy rate, and then you say, what if there was a way to teach this case, basics, or you know, educate these children's, right, why being in the comfort of their home, without needing internet connection, what you're doing, the part after while is what you're adding is something, some additional bonus, bonus, you know, additional feature that you are providing is that existing alternatives do not, and without is the part, is the problem that the existing alternatives have that you are getting away with, what if there was a way to enjoy smoking while also increasing, you know, maintaining your, helping with your blood pressure without getting cancer, right, and then all you could say, imagine a word, word, right, where you could drink as much of beer as you want, right, while still being sober, and without smelling the alcohol, for example, right, so, and then you say, then you bring to the solution, you come up with the problem, and then you say, well, this is what the ideal word would look, and then comes your will, this is exactly that ideal, that a statement, what is the way, this is the way, this is how we are going to do, that's what we are proposing here, right, so when you come up with the solution again, do not write solution on the slide, and just put the images, whatever you could have some short videos, three minutes, it does not allow a lot of time for a video, but screenshots, pictures, illustrations, whatever it is you could put over there, talk about the benefits of the product, not the features, another three letters, you know, I have a laptop, it's a 4G VRAM, two, these hard days, this skip, but nobody's interested, I have a laptop that can help you do this, this, this, we have a lot of product that can help the students learn anytime, just via SMS, you don't talk about the features that is going to work on 5G technology, it's going to work on 4G technology, if you have 10 buttons, right, I'm not sure, I would say, somebody asking about the notes, I would recommend that you make the notes and not share the slides, right, because just for that, because there's nothing much on the slides as well anyways, but I would want you actually to note all those things, right, but if yeah, maybe at some future time need be, I might end up sharing that as well, but anyways, coming to the benefits, so talk benefits, not features, right, and if you have physical product demos, you can show live, do that, and just talk about the ABCs how it works, when I say ABCs, that's very basic, don't get into it, because a three minute pitch is not your time to explain to the details, what's the processor at the back end of it, what's the technology, and what's the microchip you're going to use, and what's the programming language you're using, we are developing in Python or something, no, no, no, just the basic of how it works, so how it works is, you know, the student wants to study a chapter 2 of his class 6, so this is the code, he says standard 2, class 6, chapter 3, and send some message to us, and in the next five minutes, through SMS, he gets all the details of that, that's it, because the investors have, the jury has more questions, see, you have three minutes to pitch, you have seven minutes for Q&A, right, leave something for the Q&A as well, so basic discovery here, if they have more questions, they come back to us, okay, how does it exactly work, explain it in the Q&A, so that's about your solution, and at least target three to four benefits, map these benefits to the problems you're talking about, it should not happen that, you know, in the problem you said that people do not have internet connection, or solution map, our solution is cheap, our solution is fun, it makes a lot of noise, the student should dance, was that a problem that you're solving? No, right, so focus of the benefits should be at least out of three, four benefits, the first two benefits should focus on the problem that you mentioned before in the story, you know, at least I didn't come to that. So again, that's when you're talking about a model, it should be liquid brands, scaleable, solve something that's really painful, but not just a superficial problem, and also, you know, there's an example of two jobs, I would probably you see in the Q&A session if you can talk about that, but I'm skipping it, but you know, sometimes just don't, even if it's a prototype, even if you're making the demo of an app, make it a little bit different, something that people would want to look at, not just some crap over there. Then the next comes again, you know, next comes the proof, I'd say the proof of the pudding, I don't call it the traction slide, but I say the proof that you can do what you're claiming to do. So the proof could be, and it's very important because what you don't even go to jail without evidence, they have to put you in jail, they have to have enough solid incrementing evidence against you that you're committed to crime, otherwise, you know, they say innocent until proven guilty. So same is the case that now it could be traction if you're already into the market, so we have so many schools on board there, or we have so many softwares, we have so many partners, like it could be some case studies, it could be testimonials, testimonials from actual customers, testimonials from potential customers, I think, okay, we want this, or it could be if you have some renowned experts on board who are helping you out, who actually corroborated your stories, he's an expert in that domain, he says, yes, this is the requirement. So if you can quote him, he agrees with what you're doing, or some expert is on your advisor board, and again, not somebody like me, somebody renowned person from that domain, that person becomes your advisor, even if your product is still not on the market, it still adds a lot of value, if that person is becoming advisor, that means he believes in your vision, he believes in your capability, that's again a testimonial. Sometimes it could be customer feedback, sometimes it could be just signups. So if you just go around, and so, I was doing this course back in 2016, but so I was teaching this course on entrepreneurship and find that I give them activity that you had to run a business for two days and come up with something very basic, and I was in 13 minutes to come up with the idea, and next 13 minutes to come back and report to me who was doing what business, and then I'll pull it. So there were two teams, these were family students, computer science, and they ran out after 30 minutes with their ideas, and then out of like 10 teams, they came back, two teams decided to teach computer programming to the first year juniors, they have a subject on computer programming, they were not happy, they were like, you know, college make the time, we will pass, sometimes we miss the lecture, sometimes we don't get enough time to practice on the lab, so if you can learn more about it, really good. So both the teams had the same business plan, they will teach you computer programming, we have final year computer students, so we know programming a bit, and we will teach you in the canteen three days in this week, two hours every day, in the evening after college, and they had some normally 50-60 rupees, because it was a project for them. The only difference, one of the teams came back and said, we have signers, we went to the first year classes, all the classes, we asked the teachers to allow us in the class, we explained them our idea, and we asked them who wants to join, they did not take the money right then, nobody paid, just who's interested, and then came up with the name of some 40-42 students, and the other team came up with the name of 128 students, who are interested, right, and if I had to select, I allowed both of them either way, but if I had to select only one team to go into the same business, if I had no complete clause, right, it's easy guess who I would have allowed, so sometimes that also works. Then comes the most important, another important part is the business model, right, so we all know the business model canvas, this is just another modified version of it, not created by me, I found it somewhere on the web, and I kind of like it because when I do talk for ideas, it's all about social business, so I actually go and did this last year for them, so it's kind of the standard business model canvas with some modifications, you can see more or less as things are seen, only thing is in the value proposition, you're talking about the value proposition, but you're also talking about what's the social innovation aspect to it, right, so that instead of key partners, they're calling it key allies, because any social problem that you're solving, you will need to partner with NGOs, with the government department, with some academics, with some grand panchayas, so that becomes a very important part, and again, same way of course in the industry, there's one more column there that talks about community reinvestment, because if you're a social startup, you want to show that also, how are we going to reinvest some of the amount of money that we make, how are we going to reinvest back into the community, if you could add that, that also adds some value points, now you don't have to put it as it is, you don't necessarily have to have this template, this diagram on the screen, right, you could just have important features, okay, this is how we're going to generate the revenue, these are our major, these are our allies, and maybe all this though, and the other part we call already the innovation part you already explained, the customer part you already explained, right, channel, and all those things you already explained earlier, so some of the parts you guys keep also, the parts that have already been covered in the story, if you already talked about who we're going to partner with, if you already talked about the resources part in the earlier part, you can skip that and just put another slide over there and talk about only those points, right, and then comes the people that need part of it, so in the team again, put nice images of the team, right, and of course just write the name, if you have decisions decided, put those decisions, and if you have, so just a background, if you could write, you don't have to explain again, I've seen people come and talk a lot, I can't speak two minutes about each team members not required, just write two, three lines over there, people can read it, a lot of things, no, even in the problem solution part as well, when you put the news clipings, don't go and read and explain that, you know, chennai this happened, just put it, let people read, you keep talking about your story, let the PPT just do its work, be in the background, and then if you have won any awards or laureates, as a startup or as individuals, put that, if you have got any networks, you can put that, if you have got any advisors on board, you can put those their names, if they're already incubators on there, you can put the name of the incubator as well, just add some more credibility that okay, some incubator has actually been pushed in, right, and comes the last call to action, right, so then you wrap it up with a nice speaker, so this is where we are, and we all want you to be a part of our story, we all want you to be a part of our journey, I know since we are here, we are thankful to you for listening to us, and going forward, you know, if you're looking for fun, you mentioned about the fun, again, if you're talking about fun, there will be one more slide about us that are not included here, because for this competition, you're not going to see fun, I guess, but otherwise you would talk about what fun you're expecting, what's the valuation you're expecting, how the fun is going to be utilized, those slides will be there, and then if it could be fun, it could be mentoring, okay, we are, and whether we get the prize or not, we will be very happy if one of the two juniors, whoever feels that they connect with our domain, they relate to our product, and if you would like to come on board us, mentor us, right, or just help us, we would be happy, or no, or if you can connect help us get into a network, we are looking for some NGO into this domain, or we are looking for some contact in that platform chat, so if any of the jury members can help us with that, this is one thing that's very, very, very, very few startups are doing, right, now this may not help you gain brownie points, don't do this for the sake of marks, but you know, what happens a lot of times, irrespective of whether you win or not, whether they give you marks or not, but the people who are sitting in the judge panel, they come with some experience, they come with some network, they come with a lot of expertise, they come with a lot of background, and you never know how to find people, somebody might say, hey, you know what, I know an NGO, just after this call, give me a call, write to me, and I will connect. What's wrong? At the worst, what will happen? Nobody will, that's fine, but take this as an opportunity, that okay, now this life is when your pitch is already done, now you're taking that opportunity to gain respect, whether you win the prize or not, even if I don't get a prize, it's good to definitely get some contact from the jury members, right, so that is the last, that's how I prefer when people post, so I think that's about it, I wanted to cover some slides, tips on the presentation part as well, but what's the time, it's 4.03, we've got like five minutes more, so I think we have, yeah, so rather than going through the presentation part or now, I'd rather let it be for the audience Q&A in between this question and the answer that I thought was the one, so if anybody has got any questions, let me go through the chat box. Okay, so somebody is asking, can the first slide be interactive asking a question to the audience, now I know there's a lot of people talk about, even in public speaking, that start your speech with a question, start your pitch with a question, that's the grand part against that, but I have seen in the virtual world, it doesn't work, in the physical world sometimes it works because you ask people to tell, in the virtual world, what happens a lot of time, in fact, when you come and present, most of the jury members would even have the cameras off, and they're on mute, and they're listening to you, but they're doing something else, so what happens, you ask the question, and if you don't get enough response, you present, how many of you have seen somebody, how many of you feel like the world should be cancer free, and you're expert in that majority of them, they would say yes, and then you have the next segment planned accordingly, and if they don't respond, that entire thing goes for a toss, right, so in an online world, I do this in my physical lectures, but today I did not start on the question, because I used to do it in the early days in my online sessions, but I realized that people don't want to actually respond, so it's better to avoid that, that's my personal take on it. Then, okay, somebody's answered, Abhi's answered, okay, any other questions? No questions, no inputs or doubts? Hello, am I audible? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, thank you so much for really great insights, I just have one question that do we have any time limit to, you know, in seconds like to approach the problem statement and solution, like in 30 seconds you have to pitch your problem or 30 seconds for solution, something like that? You have three minutes overall, but then you have to decide, right, because three minutes you have to cover problem, you have to cover the market, you have to cover the opportunity, you have to cover the solution, you have to show the business model, right, you have to put in a bit about the traction part, so I know you have to be smart, but there's no timeline like that, as long as in some cases, no, the business model is so simple and probably a lot of other similar startups are doing that, so you don't have to spend a lot of time on business model, you could just say we are working like that, right, so in that 30 seconds of copy is done in five seconds, then you can use it at times from a level, so it's up to you and normally what I say in the prediction, try having two, three point people versus of your presentation, presenting with your friends and see, are they able to understand it? And then again, a lot of time, as I say, a lot of times, if there's something that's left out in the presentation and it's very important, the jury will come back to you in the Q&A session they last. Okay, thank you. Only thing is that do not cram a two-minute slide, whatever happens, you know, in three minutes if you have 15 slides, every 10 seconds, if you're moving the slide, it makes the head will be as a jury, I'm somebody who's sitting over here, and just trying to focus on one slide and suddenly the slide is gone, so that thing you have to just keep. I think just to build up on that, it is, when you have three minutes, it's very important that you keep the attention of the person alive. I think always keep, like as Ismail definitely shared, the slide should be an extension of what you're speaking, right? And the focus should be on you as the presenter, they should always back you up. Yeah, so just to add to this, in agreement with what I was saying, the slide should not be like a regular talk where there's some point, and then I'm referring to the slide, it should be as if you're seeing some online lecture video that the presenter is speaking, and then the background is talking about river, suddenly the river comes into it, right? But even if that river did not come, it would not know that the flow is going the same, it's not even turning. So that's how it should be that, you are here speaking a three-minute speech should be there, it should be a speech that could happen, in case let's say for some reason the sharing does not work, you cannot share the PPT, even then what you're going to speak should work, and that just keeps coming in between, and secondly, you need not know the coordination part is very important, just a couple of tips which are talking about, I've seen that as well, Abhijeet is presenting and every two minutes he has to ask Apurva, can we go on to the next? And I have seen something so well coordinated that Apurva knows that, okay Abhijeet has said this sentence, now I have to change it, he does not have to tell you, that coordination that shows that in such a perfect coordination team, the three teams should also do it, otherwise he says take that slide on the problem statement, or the presenter says go to the problem set, put it on any other slide, and then again that coordination amongst you is very important. And just one or two points that I wanted to add before we wind up, because it was very important for you know, that you know, when answering questions, because we have seven minutes for a question, right? And that's one thing I said, when a question is asked, a lot of time what happens is somebody who, the person who feels the obligation that I have to answer the question, right? Even if he does not know the question, answer properly, right? Or sometimes somebody in the team wants to show, one good thing, if you are confident that you know the answer very well, and you are the right person, go ahead and answer, right? Otherwise wait for two seconds or somebody else in the team to pick up, or the best ways that you decide amongst yourself, you know, that the question is asked to me and Abhijeet and I are presenting, and I am not sure whether I know better, I think probably Abhijeet might know better. So rather than answering it, right, I would just take it, okay, I know, I can't take this, but then Abhijeet, do you want to take this? And then Abhijeet would say, okay, I want to answer, and if Abhijeet now feels that he can answer it better than me, he would take it of an answer. Otherwise what happens? I will answer something, I will figure it out, then Abhijeet would realize in two minutes that he is going to destroy everything, and then in the end he will say, okay, but what is my, I want to say this, or is my, skip this part, so I have destroyed two meters, and now Abhijeet is declaring, so why not give him the opportunity to write in Abhijeet, okay? And that's for the entire team. So that's one thing I think you should have that coordination. Second is a lot of times I've seen, sometimes you don't understand the question properly, and still you don't start the answer. Questions don't listen, questions are something else, right? That tomorrow the competition will come, what will you do in the market, and they start with their own story. And then some other jury member has to intervene and say, no, what exactly he means was this, and then some other team member has to answer it. So make sure that you understood the question correctly. If you're not understood, there's nothing wrong in asking that person, can you please repress the question, so that I understand better and answer it correctly. And please do take care of those two things. Yeah, I've got done this so four or nine match, so almost on time. Thank you, it's fine, sir, and all the startups indeed are very insightful section. Now let us move to the panel discussion on state or social entrepreneurship. Welcome to all the esteemed panelists, and we all are glad to have you here. Yes, please go ahead. Now am I audible? Yes, it's your 40 for the interruption. Today in the panel, we have with us Mr. Jatin Chaudhary, Mr. Banu Prasad and Mr. Anand Karnan, introducing our first panelist, Mr. Jatin Chaudhary, founder at Ica Network, a global startup network that hosts startup lead-up with 20 plus global startup cities in 13 plus countries. He was recently awarded startup Ratha by the USC Gujarat University. Next we have Mr. Banu Prasad. He works on challenging problems in the public services space in India at Digital Impact Square, a TCS foundation initiative in the Tata Group. He also coaches early-stage social entrepreneurs towards sustainable and scalable impact. The third panelist is Mr. Anand Karnan, Director of Arts Digitech International Private Committed. He comes with 25 years of national and international experience in business development ranging from animation to engineering. He has created India's first process-driven innovations, Pakino. Over the years, he was probably all here. I would now like to invite Mr. Abhijeet, Executive Director at the Brooksheika System Foundation, to host this discussion on state of social entrepreneurship. Over to you, Abhijeet. Hey, hello everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for that kind introduction about all of us. I'm very happy to be part of this and excited to post all of you. Obviously, Jatin and I, we go long back and always a pleasure to chat with Jatin over this discussion and welcoming Banu and Anand to the Misfits trial this year. Jatin has been anyway a long-term associate in all of these. We have been doing startup ecosystem for many years and I think we'll expand that with Banu and Anand moving forward. So, very happy to host all of you this evening and so how's it going? What's been the year like for all of you? Maybe Jatin, you want to start? So, hopefully things are getting better. So, that is a good sign. So, the work was going on, but life was very boring. So, probably everybody would have that story that the positives side of the pandemic and the other things, but it was really boring for me. But now I'm really happy that things are moving and people are more excited about the potential opportunity. Absolutely. How about you, Manoh? Everyone, nice to see you all. Yeah, I think I would say this is an extreme opportunity for us to do multiple pivots. The way we ran our programs, the way our cohorts start-ups responded to these challenges, it's all been very heartening to see. This entire pandemic gave several opportunities for us to really rethink business model, sustainability, think our whole approach towards impact. So, that's how I would look at it. Thank you. Anand, how's been the year for you? The year has been really been working on too much of innovation like things, including my own journey which started off at the height of the pandemic when we launched our reverse acceleration platform. So, I mean, it's been totally challenges, after challenges, running our own startup and also working with the challenges for others. Absolutely. So, to kick-start, all of you have been working in this innovation space and working in the ecosystem for all of these years. What do you think has, like, how is the sector involved with the pandemic like last year was so much uncertainty with everyone this year again with the second wave. It's been crazy to look at how people responded, some like the education sector blew up like crazy and in the startup ecosystem space now we're seeing all of these massive IPOs going out there. So, with the early stage ecosystem, what's been your understanding on how has it evolved or course-corrected with the pandemic setting in? Okay, Jatim, go ahead. Anand, you go ahead. Okay. See, I mean, what difference I can say from pre-ponder pandemic to post-pandemic situation if we may call so that this is a post-pandemic scenario that we are in, especially when I've been dealing with corporates basically on the innovation sector. There has been a sea of change because the pandemic brought on one big lesson for the corporate sector was that the research and development team got scattered and their entire R&D went for a toss and a lot of things came to a grinding halt. So, that's where platforms or acceleration platforms like us started gaining the value of what we are trying to do. When we are talking about the pre-pandemic situation, nobody has even bothered to understand or listen to what we are trying to do, especially in our country. But abroad it's a completely different scenario there. They have been practicing it for the last 25, 30 years. They understand how the outside contribution to the world of research and development helps a lot. But here in this country, it is taken the pandemic to bring that down into their head and nail it down into their head saying that we really need to think outside of what your existing team is only capable of doing. I think the same thing even goes with a lot of our social enterprises which has experimented a lot of new things during the pandemic and brought in a lot of solutions to the society. Could be the oxygen cylinders, could be our neural systems, which they have developed small, small systems which can monitor the patients, could be the help and support which the startups are providing or social enterprises are providing for the population. So, I think there's been a lot of change in the thought processes of people and which is a good thing. And I really hope these thought processes continue to be the way it is even after the pandemic is over so that we really scale up on our innovation journey and we go forward with this. Thank you, Jatin and Bhanu. Bhanu, you want to go? Go ahead, Jatin. I can join in after that. So, the couple of aspects, one aspect is about our own work. So, when the pandemic happened and for the first three to six months, the idea is what do we do? What do we do? We will try to do a lot of other things. And then we figured out what is it that's something that we could do it and which could do it longer term, even if things get better. So, we started a lot of initiatives which are native online, not necessarily the conversion of offline into online, but digitally native initiatives. So, that was from our work. And now we've started doing a lot of hybrid ones because in person now has a greater advantage if you can do that because if this particular meeting would have been in person and the charm and the aura would have been completely different. But this also has a value because what it has enabled is it has enabled a lot of people to get access to resources which were not there for them. If somebody is in a tier two cities like the Rajkot or Vadodara for them, they can be part of this initiative. They can be part of a lot of other great initiatives. So, there is a small gap, I believe even though there are a lot of initiatives, people either don't have confidence or aptitude to be part of those things. So, something should happen. Either the people, the organizers get better at figuring out the way to communicate to them or the people get a little more confidence that these are the programs are for them and not just something where you just happen to discover them, happen to be part of it. So, that is work in progress around that aspect. Another thing what I realized is on the social space lies a lot more empathy among people because during the height of the pandemic, a lot of people struggle, even those who are supposed to be resourceful, they struggle to find resources. So, as a whole in the society, probably a little more empathetic towards as a whole and slightly more towards the people who are trying to solve problems of the society. So, probably the same set of social entrepreneurs who were not getting that right response in 2019, probably if they pitched the same idea to the same set of people, they might get a better response from the people. So, these are the interesting trends that I am being observing. I think both Anand and Jathina sort of covered the macro picture. I resonate fully with that. We had something similar experience in terms of how do we reorganize ourselves, how do we repurpose ourselves to be more useful to the community. A few insights from the micro picture from the social entrepreneur side. What I feel is that the health and the logistics and the related peripheral domains have got a fresh look in terms of how the stakeholders perceive solutions coming from these sectors. And for the startups have been challenged to think in terms of what does it mean to scale. We all know during the second wave that was probably the true test of any scalable solution across the country if you have to solve an oxygen problem. If you have to even do training for the people who could operate those oxygen cylinders, what kind of tragedies could happen, we have all seen those. So, these are the challenges that we really started seeing that opened up new opportunities for the startups to operate in. Second point is it created a good, I think, understanding, even for the bureaucracy, for the public sector to understand what is the role of startups can play in rapidly doing prototypes and trying to experiment with things. I think there is greater respect. The third aspect is if you look at a for a social enterprise that is in the early stage, say, for example, there in the first three months or six months of their early stage, they are just developing their idea. A significant challenge that was posed to them was how do you actually go on the field and do your immersion? How do you actually understand the ecosystem? How do you understand users? That phase which I feel is extremely important, I think that was severely hampered. But then it also gave rise to opportunities for innovation there, building networks that are virtual, building those relationships and trying to go and explore those ecosystems virtually. And I think there are also some aspects of social enterprises that have gained significant advantage. Telemedicine, healthcare remotely delivered, education delivered remotely, or educational outcomes being better measured. Not being just happy that more people are online now or people are delivering content on WhatsApp and mobile phones. But actually thinking what are they learning? What is the content? How is it coming from? How is it getting curated? How do I eventually merge this offline experience and online experiences? A lot of questions and soul searching happened, I think, for social enterprises. So these are, I feel, how the social enterprises sort of both face challenges at the same time also innovated during the pandemic. Definitely. I think those were great points and really synced with them also. And I think this has definitely opened up a new phase towards collaboration towards other sharing and towards community. The way that we've seen it, because I think definitely, Jatin, I'm really keen to have the next edition of Misfits offline and really see if we can get everyone together because that would be lovely, that Aura and all of us are together in that. It's very heartening. But at the same time, I think what has helped us to do is with minimal resources, we've been able to scale this entire impact to borders. We have people with the whole idea of Misfits itself came at the peak of the pandemic and we were able to scale it across South Asia and just really bring in people from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, Philippines, all of them and coming together and just interacting with the community. I think that's one power which if you even think of doing offline, it becomes like so many questions just come up. But I think now there's that, I think definitely that hybrid future will persist going forward and there's so much collaboration that can now engage. And I think even for a lot of people, it's been that they're open to not meeting face to face. There's always this thought process, unless you sit across the table, there's nothing progress, there's no progress that can happen. But I think that people have become accustomed to something like this and this value being transferred from one side to another like all of us here in different cities. Pretty much everyone on this call is right now in different cities. 17 people probably joining out of maybe 10, 15 cities. It's massive that that power has been re-envisioned for all of us and I think that's massive. Going forward, all of you have been doing some phenomenal work and we have all of these entrepreneurs with us who are doing some phenomenal work out there. We've seen especially in the social impact sector, like there's been challenges, there's been so much, so much that people have to go through. Even like obviously startups and entrepreneurs in general, what do you think could be done for this trend in this trying and empower these people more? I believe there are a lot of points that we could discuss and as we move forward, we'll get but one of the things I really realize is not judge them. So the talent happens sometimes in a social impact. So typically then we will associate those individuals with people who have massive impact in the society. Somebody's social impact venture might not have a massive impact but still it's a great initiative. So typically that's what I realize that a lot of people they start with and do good in the society but only they would want to help people who do good at massively scale. That is good but the people who are not at massive scale and they might not get to massive scale and if they are doing good, they should also be supported. So sometimes that particular piece, like that particular part gets missed out through a lot of other things. So like a small is beautiful and if somebody is able to solve problems for 10 people, 20 people, also if they are able to scale even better, but that is also fine and because the very fact that a lot of people would start up because they want to solve problems or they are passionate about solving for something. So sometimes those individuals or the founders then for this Mira job scale, a lot of them they might do certain things that are not really they wanted to do and the people who suppose like you promise them for support and don't end up supporting them. So anyway it becomes a roadblock for them. So that is something that what I realized that probably again I would always come down to empathizing with the people that small, awesome can we help them without judging them. If we can do that little more that would be better. Absolutely one of your thoughts. Yeah I have shared this on several four and this I would just repeat. I believe the social entrepreneurship ecosystem is like a conveyor belt. There are organizations that work on the extreme right doing the scale you know advanced level series, funding and so on venture capitalists and so on and on the extreme left are those who are evangelizing innovation, evangelizing social entrepreneurship and so on. We sort of consider ourselves to be on the left. You know we are very early stage, we are philanthropic organization, we are supporting startups at idea and concept stage and what is important to strengthen the ecosystem I think is for us to link those belts that to ensure that everybody from the evangelizing in schools and colleges, the utterly thinking labs of the world and ensuring the community innovation centers, the pre incubation centers, incubation centers, the accelerators all of these sort of are linked and we have a good understanding of how do we give visibility to a startup that comes up with an idea or a concept saying that I can map your next 36 months of journey right from ideation, eliminating the initial unknowns, doing your validation, immersion, understanding stakeholders, all the way to doing some minimum viable prototypes, all the way to getting your potential your first customer. I can give you that visibility because I have this kind of an ecosystem and I can establish these linkages. I think as an ecosystem player, it is our responsibility to form these connections and ensure that each of these elements in the conveyor belt are connected so that there is a very smooth handover takeover when a social enterprise comes to us at any one level, at any one part of it, we are able to provide the visibility both left of them and right and say that by the way, if you have questions about going back and understanding your user better, here is our partner, go back on the field and do your research on the ground. If you think you're ready, go here and here is our partner who can help you scale, give you funding and whatnot. So I think how do you strengthen the ecosystem? I feel these ecosystem enablers have to better understand each other and with a lot of trust and faith connect each of their offerings so that a social enterprise that comes in has long-term visibility and long-term visibility gives greater confidence to the enterprise, gives greater confidence to the founder and that encourages more people to come forward and take up social entrepreneurship as a way of life. Otherwise, we are going to have short-term views of three months, six months programs and then after that what? So that question actually makes, puts doubts in people's mind and then discourages people from social entrepreneurship. Absolutely. I think wonderfully, wonderfully, but definitely is so again, like with Misfits, I think we've been on the green street like the core idea has been actually bringing all of us together and it's taking us to this side of the ecosystem, enablers, innovators, so that they can truly leverage us in the best possible way. Like all of us are at high value and that's definitely how everyone on the on sprinter side can know who to approach and I think that collaboration aspect is definitely there. Any thoughts Anand from your side on this point? I think what Banu just mentioned makes a lot of value to that whole thing because end of the day, what are we going to give these startups, be it a social entrepreneurial startup or any other startup who is planning to be in the journey. Generally running and seminar or a webinar does not add any value to the startups and that is one thing that every incubator or accelerator has to understand that startup needs value. What are we going to give them? What is it you are going to feed him in his journey? Is it something relating to his product development? Are you helping him in his commercialization part? Are you helping him in his product design and the user experience aspect? So these are some of those critical inputs which helps any entrepreneur be it for a social cause or be it for a profitable cause. These inputs are needed for them to take their journey forward. I think that is what we should all be looking up at as enablers, as people who are nurturing various startups or providing inputs to various startups is how do we help them scale. Competition is healthy and it is required. But at the same time, we also need to ensure that we also help the co-businesses grow up. If they grow, we all grow together. It's as simple as that. And innovation or this journey is no more competition. It's all about collaboration. Three startups come together, develop a product, go to a fourth country, find out a market. You have a huge market that you're talking about. It's not only your country, but you're talking of countries that you can reach in. And that's something that we need to add value. Phenomenal insight. So everyone here, I would really encourage you to keep your questions also ready if you have something bubbling on your mind to ask our phenomenal panelists this evening. So on that part, one direct question is what value are you providing? How should this ecosystem that's listening to all of us here, how can they benefit from it? I can take a stab. So what we do at Digital Impact Square is we are first of all a philanthropic organization. We offer a pre-incubation, idea stage, concept stage support to those, I would say, young innovators and entrepreneurs, even before they even set up a company. If they have an idea or a concept, they have a problem that they're passionate about addressing. Or even they have a key interest to work in a particular challenge area, a domain called say agriculture and saving lives or something like that. They have a passion to work in that area. What we would do is we would find a challenge for them to work in, or they can come to us with a challenge statement and say, this is the challenge that we are looking to work on. Or there could be slightly more advanced where they have gone, they have further gone down the line and said, not only a challenge area, but we also have some elements of the solution that we have figured out. And here is our rough idea on what it is. So all of these stages are more than welcome, anybody who is pre-revenue to apply. And we would then take them through a period of about 12 to 18 months of journey without equity. In fact, we will also pay a small stipend, a seed investment for the company to start off their operations. The goal is here to get those startups at the very early stage where they have the highest risk of failure and then give them access to world-class infrastructure, ecosystems, any development sector anywhere in the country, whether it is public sector, private sector, any support that the team needs to go and do a pilot to understand the ecosystem. If I have to, for example, if it is infant mortality or maternal mortality, or if it is farmer suicides, any area of development sector that is of interest, education that is of interest to the founder, and we would like them to go and immerse themselves, understand what the problem is, we can provide them taxes. If it is business modeling, if it is understanding how value is being delivered, how to design experiences, how to work with people, what kind of service to design, how to conduct your primary and secondary research, all that process understanding is all imparted to them in the first three, four months, so that the teams go on the field to their own discovery and understand what problems can be solved. And one of the very unique programs in the country to do this for such a duration between 12 to 18 months and being done at that scale across the seven, at least seven different development sector themes. So this is something that we offer, but we are also very selective, as you can imagine. We get hundreds of applications each year, we select less than 10% of our applicants. It's also because we are a very high touch, we are very extremely engaged. So we are a very lean team, we are about seven or eight of us in the core team, and each one of the teams gets a dedicated mentor like myself, a coach like myself, and we hand hold each team throughout the 12 to 18 months journey. From our side normally, what kind of values that we would like to bring to this ecosystem is basically, one is providing a pre incubation session, which is very, very targeted at different areas to help the incubators to understand the kind of incubates that they want to bring into the system. That's one of those areas that we work on. The second area that we work on is basically in the area of user experience. That's our core expertise lies in that we provide critical inputs to startups and even for startups at scale on that particular area of user experience, which is where a lot of startups are failing in the market. So that is one of those areas that we work on. The third area that we work is commercialization or go to markets. So we are active in about 120 countries where we help startups to take their products into the market, either in the form of getting them corporates who are interested to take their product or investments which can come into that startup to scale their journey upwards. And the other area that we also are working very closely in Latin America and Australia is basically trying to see how we can bring in incubators and startups from that side of the world to partner and develop new products which can be used by both the markets. So these are some of those values that we are trying to bring in along with the innovation aspect that we are working on. Very interesting. Jatin. So we host engaging startup growth meetups in 25 cities in 15 countries. So both in-person and online, luckily we are starting our in-person meetups actually. So for tomorrow, we have in-person meetups happening in Bangalore, Gurugram, Ahmedabad, on Saturday, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad. If you happen to be in that city, of course with vaccinated folks, you can be part of that. So a lot of these meetups work as a lightweight knowledge sharing networking opportunities. So if you are new to the network or a community, this becomes a good starting point. And of course, once you go there, you build a relationship with certain set of people and they would go much deeper. So we work as a more of a horizontal play that in a lot of people from all kinds of backgrounds, they be part of a lot of things that we do. And in turn, they'll form a lot of their smaller set of networks than people who are really interested in, say, fintech or social impact. They'll try to build those relationships with the other people. One of the pandemic effects that happened and we started is we are starting a startup sports network. So one of the things I realized that we want to do a lot of things that people stay very, remain very happy. So what I realized that anyways, I was a big sports fan. So we are starting this startup sports network where we would engage people not just over the meetups, but through sports also. So wherever we have this chapter, we are setting up a sports once also. So they are very interesting and fun. And it also helps you build a relationship with other people that not necessarily you already knew. So it becomes interesting way. Interesting. I think you took that all work and no play very seriously. But yeah, I think that that's interesting. And thank you for all your insights. So folks on the call and others watching us live, this is how you get reach out to all of them. Just send them on LinkedIn or their websites and I'm sure of them are helpful will be helpful to you. And that brings me to the closure of the panel. We have bang on time actually. We have to close by 4.40 and it's exactly there. So Anupam over to you to take it forward. Anupam, you are on mute. Yes. Yeah. Hi, everyone. And thank you. Thank you to Jatin, Bhanu, Anand. Thank you for making time for this. So and thanks to all the participants for hearing and thanks to the people who are watching us live. So this is the like we are closing this day one here only and we'll be moving towards day two from 20th November where we'll be hearing more startups like the top 30 cohort pitching. On 20th November, we have agree and take base startups pitching their ideas then 20 followed by 23rd where healthcare and hardware startups would be pitching. Then we have on 25th, we have livelihood and environment based startups would be there to pitch their idea. So please stay tuned, watch us live participate in the zoom meetings as well. And yes, thanks a lot. So we can close it here, I guess. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Nice meeting. Thank you guys. Thank you. Good meeting you, Jatin and Bhanu. Thank you. Yeah. Bye. Abhijit, try to do in