At NCW's Shakti, ideas make the journey to real businesses

YourStory in partnership with National Commission for Women (NCW) on Tuesday organized Shakti, an event to celebrate the achievements of women. The panel discussion with Jai Vardhan of YourStory and a group of eminent panelists dealt with the most pertinent question: How to turn an idea into a real business?

In this era of information, we are bombarding with ideas. We come up with ideas every day, but often not sure about it. Dealing with the very first question of the moderator – ‘when to decide to go ahead with the idea’ – Meenakshi Gupta, Co-founder of Goonj, quips, “The idea that doesn’t let you sleep.”

Sonali Tripathi, of Embryoo, said that the top priority for anyone should be to solve the problem. She added that if one feels his/her idea is going to solve a problem, she/he should go ahead with it.

In some cases, it’s not the idea but the real problem many get confronted with, when they decide to startup to address that particular issue.

“Many people in India build weekend homes and hotels in offbeat locations thinking they’d spend at least two months in these homes. However, things usually don’t turn out that way. These houses and hotels lie in the hands of caretakers and are kind of mismanaged. The idea was to take over these resorts and manage them. Bedrock ventures decided to invest in the idea and brought in a professional CEO to kick off operations and I was on the board” said Aditi Balbir, Co-founder of V Resorts.

Aditi got very involved with the project and joined it full-time soon. She put in some of her own money as well and became the co-founder in mid-2012. And this is how she built a startup.

From building a startup to raising funding, the challenges with startups are like incessant loop, which is on the trot. Picking the thread from here, the moderator posed the question to panelists about funding on ideation level.

Sonali said,

I don’t advice to look out for funding at ideation level. However, entrepreneurs can engage themselves with investors to understand the funding process as the latter have to rest the ultimate faith in the company.

The panelists also dealt with questions on human resource, which is another major area in any organisation.

“Building a team is a tough job. It’s a sheer hard work,” said Sheela Lunkad, Director of Chestnut Heights Resorts.

“We have brought equitable level of livelihood across the class of people. And that’s the biggest achievement for us. There are no employees, but we have built a family in our organisation. We have put a lot of effort in building such environment” says Sheela.