BizVidya - Empowering Entrepreneurs in India

Recently, I have been involved with a new initiative - BizVidya - Empowering Entrepreneurs in India.

The latest post is on Ideas Worth Spreading from TEDxGurgaon:

After TEDIndia (held in November 2009 in Mysore), TED enthusiasts are showing up in various parts of India – a partial list is here: TEDxAhmedabad, TEDxBaroda, TEDxBengaluru, TEDxChennai, TEDxKonkan, TEDxMumbai, TEDxPilani, TEDxPune, TEDxShekhavati.

This list, at best, is a good start because the awareness about TED is still “poor”, to put it mildly. Many people who registered for TEDxGurgaon (held on Saturday, 27 February 2010 at Epicentre, Gurgaon), did not turn up (without communicating about their absence) and some attendees did not know about TED.

So, the task is cut out for us! Let us do our “two bits” in helping spread TED, a non-profit organization “devoted to giving millions of knowledge-seekers around the globe direct access to the world’s greatest thinkers and teachers”.

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The Power of Ideas

Some bloggers (including yours truly) from Delhi have been invited for the coverage of the 2nd phase of “The Power of Ideas’ programme from The Economic Times.

This programme is an initiative to encourage anyone and everyone with an idea, to realize his or her entrepreneurial dream.

In the successful FIRST phase, an overwhelming 11, 000+ entries were received. Now, in phase 2, The Elevator Pitch, each short-listed candidate gets to pitch his idea directly to potential investors over the phone.

To prepare the candidates for this phase, a Mentoring Session has been scheduled where the participants are invited to meet experts and entrepreneurs.

The details for the event are as below:

* Date & time : April 21, 2009 4:30 PM onwards
* Venue : Kamani Auditorium No.1, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi 110001

The "So, What?" technique of Pitching

The famous Lawyer joke goes like this:

Question: How can you tell if a lawyer is lying?
Answer: His lips are moving.

In his book "The Art of The Start", Guy Kawasaki does a spoof on this one for entrepreneurs:

Question: How can you tell if an entrepreneur is pitching?
Answer: His lips are moving.

Guy shares a story about Bill Joos, who, during his career at IBM, was trained to imagine there was a little man sitting on his shoulder during presentations. Everytime Bill said something, the little man would whisper, "So What?" to him.

Guy suggests that every entrepreneur should carry this little man and listen to him. He further recommends : After you answer the question, follow with the two most powerful words in a pitch "For Instance..." and then discuss a real-world use or scenario of a feature of your product or service.

Now, if you say, "So What?" then Guy's answer is "The significance of what you are saying is not always self-evident, let alone shocking and awe-inspiring".

So What?

So, keep revising you pitch till you develop a pitch that is shocking or awe-inspiring!