The pandemic had revolutionized the dynamics of the world of entrepreneurship and startups around the globe. Despite the threats posed by the pandemic to the scope of innovation, certain strategies adopted by the industries and the governments helped in revamping new business creation.
Some of the strategies that are pivotal for augmenting the development of start-ups is mentoring, funding and market access. Mentoring by established entrepreneurs is critical for startups as they are offered practical solutions to their business issues, which can help them to scale faster and also pivot at an early stage if required. Angel and seed funding is crucial for any start-up.
Mr. Suresh Raju, Co-Chair, TiE Global Summit 2022 & President, TIE Hyderabad Chapter, explains the catalytic factors that accelerated entrepreneurial activity post-COVID.
Industries like R&D, Healthcare, Pharma, EdTech and Automation have proved to be the sunshine areas for startups during the How can players in this segment continue to grow in the post-COVID world?
Post-Covid, government policies to boost economic activity, investments and profits have enabled many industries, including the sunrise industries, to grow and build scale. Aadhaar and IndiaStack have become ubiquitous, which have opened many opportunities.
For example, a digital health ID, which is enabling a unified interface to be interoperable across health service providers, is enabling innovation to continue in healthcare. Opportunities for start-ups to offer differentiated solutions using AI/ML and Deep Tech, across sub-verticals such as telemedicine, e- pharmacies, diagnostics, digital transformation, mental health monitoring, fitness and wellness, and more. With rapid development in artificial intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality, Immersive Technologies, and robotics technology, automation is at a tipping point.
Macro environment has changed in 2022, with high inflation and tightening of purses. Entrepreneurs need to focus on differentiation and execute a growth plan in which they have 12-18 months of cash leeway in the business. The pendulum has swung a bit towards survival from hyper growth. But the investor appetite for good startups is high, and plenty of dry powder for investments. Join us at TiE Global Summit and hear from experts on their outlook and recommendations.
2. Role of TiE in bridging the opportunity gap for entrepreneurs and startups in the last 2 years
TiE is a non-profit organization with focus on fostering entrepreneurship. TiE is playing a very vital role in helping the entrepreneur’s and start-ups to establish their business and help them to scale and grow. Over the last two years, TiE has contributed to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a number of ways such as:
a. Contributing to the formulation of national and state policies in support of the startups:
Over the past decades, there has been impactful collaboration between TiE chapters and various state and central governments in devising startup policies, economic growth, and initiatives to boost the entrepreneurial ecosystem. A whitepaper to the Indian government that laid down comprehensive policies beneficial for both entrepreneurs and the government was submitted by TiE Global to the Prime Minister. This was subsequently adopted and launched in the Startup India International Summit on 16 January 2021 with the TiE team present.
b. Women in entrepreneurship: Multiple chapters are implementing impactful initiatives to foster the growth of women entrepreneurship in their
c. A crucible of innovation, Reimagining industries: Through the expertise and experience of charter members, TiE chapters continue to influence and drive a plethora of industries such as manufacturing and deep tech among
d. The networking catalyst: TiE provides ample opportunities for networking through its global presence, benefitting entrepreneurs with easy access to VCs, subject matter experts and other Every Chapter conducts an Annual TiECon (TiE Conference) apart from an annual global event, The TiE Global Summit. 1000s of startups and entrepreneurs attend these events across chapters.
e. Nurturing and Mentorship: One the most important pillars of TiE is Mentoring and nurturing the start-ups to help them establish and scale. Bearing witness to the loss of customers the start-ups faced due to the lockdown, the mentors of Nurture Program consistently provided guidance on reimagining the business model, ways to scale the business and collaboration strategies, and helping businesses survive the pandemic. TiE Nurture is a successful program started by TiE Pune in 2012.
f. Sowing seeds of entrepreneurship in academia: With a motive to pave the way for entrepreneurial dreams of graduate students, TiE chapters have partnered with multiple private and government universities to host programmes and support e-cells to motivate the brightest minds of the region. TiE University and TiE Young Entrepreneurs are very successful programs across chapters and has created a number of entrepreneurs some of whom are now running very successful enterprises
g. Backbone of investments for emerging startups : Many chapters have established their own Angel Funding Groups through which they support the ideas of entrepreneurs by investing in TiE through its Investor connect programs help start-up connect with investors and some of them have been able to raise funds through angels and venture capitalists. TiE India Angels set up by the Indian Chapters of TiE receives investments from all 24 Indian chapters and supports emerging startups.
h. Peer to Peer Networking Over the last four years, TiE Hyderabad has been consistently providing networking opportunities to its charter members through cohorts. Held once a month, the cohort servers as a platform for charter members to connect with each other and share their business experiences, thoughts and ideas in a structured format. Through this, charter members have found solutions to their business problems, widened their network, and witnessed personal growth from the peer-to-peer interactions.
3. Role of TiE Global Summit and TiE Hyderabad Chapter in implementing impactful initiatives to foster the growth of entrepreneurship in the state
TiE Hyderabad is now hosting in person TiE Global Summit 2022 in December (12th to 14th) and is expected to be attended by 2500+ delegates. TGS 2022 has a lot to offer to create a meaningful impact to foster the growth of entrepreneurship namely
1.Networking:
- 500+ Charter Members (successful entrepreneurs) will be attending the event giving the start-ups to connect with the stalwarts and learn from their experiences and expand their network to help them scale and grow.
- More than 20 Unicorn founders will be sharing their journey to success and will send quality time with the start-ups
- More than 100 plus Industry experts will be speaking on various topics relevant to the current ecosystem and the future in technology, sustainability and what newer opportunities are awaiting for the entrepreneurs and start-ups
2.Nurture Pavilion: TGS 2022 will provide an opportunity for one on one mentoring to the start- ups with Charter Members and the Ability to spend 1-on-1 time with mentors.
3.Master classes: TGS 2022 is offering Master classes to the delegates in many relevant topics associated with Entrepreneurship such as validating of the business Idea, Business Plan, How to scale your business, design thinking, digital marketing and so on. The Master Classes will be conducted by the CEO’s and CXO’s of very established companies thus providing practical insights on how to conduct business and helping the start-ups in their growth
4. TiE Women Conclave: Exclusive conclave for Women Entrepreneurs where 39 teams from 39 Chapters will be presenting their pitch to the investors and also competing for an equity free prize money of up to USD 100,000/-
5. TiE University Pitchfest: With the objective of fostering entrepreneurship in the students, TiE has tied up with various colleges and universities and 30+ teams from various universities across the country and globe will pitch their idea and business plan to august jury comprising of investors and accomplished entrepreneurs. Some of the past teams have now become successful
6. Peer to Peer Networking: Charter Members and Entrepreneurs get to meet with their peers from across various cities thus expanding their network and help in their business and
7. Investor Connect: TGS provides opportunities for the Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers and other ecosystem players to network with various start-ups from different sectors and vice a versa for mutual
8. TGS 100: A new initiative to select the 100 top start-ups across domains, cities and countries and giving an opportunity to pitch their product/ service before the investors thereby help them being recognised globally.
4. Tie Global Summit’s initiative to recognize 100 national and international high-growth startups and providing them with a platform to develop.
TGS100 is one of the most exciting and out-of-the-box initiatives started by TiE Global Summit. This is the platform for start-ups to showcase their innovations and get recognized as the Top 100 Emerging Innovators across the world to be published at TiE Global Summit.
This is a great platform for businesses / start-ups
- Building solutions/products with high employment generation or wealth creators
- Providing innovative solutions to solve real-world problems & challenges
- Demonstrating measurable social impact
- Ideas that are scalable, sustainable, and responsible
Through this platform the start-ups will get recognized as Emerging Top 100 Innovators and their companies will get published in a publication which will be circulated worldwide to angel investors, VCs and Entrepreneurs. It will provide them a networking opportunity at the TiE Global Summit and help interact with who’s who of the Entrepreneurial ecosystem and expand their network. They will get an opportunity to showcase their business on a global canvas and increase potential customer base or revenues. Through this platform they will be able to put themselves in front of investors and industry leaders.
5. Why was Hyderabad chosen as the next big host for TiE Global Summit after the preceding edition closed successfully in Dubai?
TiE Hyderabad is a very vibrant chapter with 160+ Charter Members and over 300 Associate Members. TiE Hyderabad has been executing various programs to foster entrepreneurship and pioneered some very impactful programs such as Open-Mic, TiE Grad, TiE Young Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurial Development programs, TiE Women, TiE Cohorts and many more. TiE Hyderabad’s flagship events were the TGS 2020 and TiE Sustainability Summit 2021, which were conducted virtually during the pandemic and attended by 30,000 plus delegates. Their success put Hyderabad Chapter on the global map of TiE.
TiE Global Summit is a once in 10 years event for Hyderabad, and we are very excited to host this event. Our desire to showcase Hyderabad as the emerging city for the start-ups with favourable policies by the government of Telangana, and the management team of TiE Hyderabad working tirelessly over the last 3 years has enabled us to bring TiE Global Summit to Hyderabad in 2022.
A physical event with 2,500+ participants from across the world, with 500+ of our Charter Members, traveling to Hyderabad is a testament to the commitment of TiE Ecosystem to give back and create value.
6. The optimistic window: new opportunities brought by COVID and how can startups leverage them?
Crisis present new opportunities for businesses to improve performance if they are able to take advantage of strategic opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many industries and it has also triggered new innovations.
In the post-Covid times, global companies became more comfortable with both work from home and work from anywhere. New opportunities opened up with the emergence of distributed delivery models. For example, opportunities mushroomed in areas such as online retail, digital payments, education, collaboration tools, automation, agri-food technologies, online food retail, fintech, broader digitization wave and many more.
Start-ups can capitalise on the accelerated digital transformation with acceleration of digital start-ups, mostly in artificial intelligence, robotics, digital credit/payments, cash flow-based lending and other areas where digital offerings are dominant. In addition, a wave of government policies aimed at lifting economic growth post Covid, such as performance-linked incentive (PLI) schemes, have presented many opportunities in manufacturing from speciality chemicals, defence equipment, technology products to mobile phone. Startups can leverage the robust funding environment and support from business-friendly ecosystems to pursue these opportunities.
100+ Speakers consisting of Unicorn Founders, Industry experts, Corporate Honchos, Angel Investors, Venture Investors and Policy makers will be at TiE Global Summit. This is an opportunity for startups to leverage this ecosystem.
