TiE Chennai’s Mentoring Program for Young Entrepreneurs -“TiE MENTORS”

Chennai, October 12, 2010: TiE Chennai today formally launched TiE MENTOR – a mentorship program that is focused on guiding and fostering entrepreneurial spirit among young and next generation entrepreneurs. The program is structured based on recommendations from a comprehensive research conducted amongst various stakeholders in the city. A unique facet of the

program is its one-to-one mentoring approach - which pairs an experienced and successful entrepreneur with a new one - combined with a global platform which makes available the experience of a galaxy of successful entrepreneurs from the global TiE community to the Mentee entrepreneur.

Commenting on the program, R Ramaraj, President, TiE Chennai said, “Mentoring has been an integral part of our ancient educational system. However, the concept of mentoring and offering guidance to build confident and successful entrepreneurs has been tried out systematically only in the past few decades. Today Mentoring is viewed as the most powerful support for

entrepreneurs who dream to create the enterprise of tomorrow. This is one of the strong pillars of TiE. The program is quite structured with focused workshops for mentors and mentees. We have currently about 27 TiE Chennai members as Mentors and Mentees. We expect this to grow further in this year as we increase our emphasis and focus on this important aspect of nurturing entrepreneurship.”

According to Chandu Nair, a Charter Member and Leader of the TiE Mentor programme, “The initial response has been highly encouraging with SmartlearnWebTV and Schoolmate emerging as two success stories through the program. As the economy picks

up further and opportunities abound, we expect this program to benefit more young entrepreneurs.” Under the program, the Mentees get periodic (typically once a month) face to face interactions of about two hours with the paired mentor to discuss various aspects of the business and how to grow it. Apart from this, mentees also have the option to contact the mentors on an ad-hoc basis to bounce off specific concerns or issues.

The Mentor, on the other hand, helps the Mentee by providing access to his network and contacts, besides offering guidance. TiE’s Global/ Remote Mentoring platform also provides opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to access, regardless of their location, a global pool of experts and successful businessmen from within the TiE fraternity.

About TiE Chennai: TiE Chennai is the Chennai chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global not-for-profit organization that helps budding entrepreneurs by way of advice, guidance and assistance from successful and experienced entrepreneurs and

professionals. It currently has over 350 members, including 90 charter members. Founded in Silicon Valley in 1992 by successful entrepreneurs and professionals with roots in the Indus region, today, TiE has 55 Chapters in 13 countries, spread across 5 continents. The TiE ecosystem comprises 11,000 members and 2,500 charter members, who are the top entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers and management professionals in their chosen field. For more information on TiE Chennai, visit: chennai.tie.org

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Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of HireMantra & ADPS Consulting and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com

New Product Success - One Question That can Make or Break your Venture

As an Alumni, last week, while I was trying to assist young MBA students at one of the top business schools of India with their post MBA life & entrepreneurship related questions, one of the students asked me a very simple sounding yet a very difficult question to answer.

The question was, what is the most important question that an entrepreneur must ask to ensure new product success in the market. Even after thinking for a while when I could not come up with a convincing answer, I promised the young lady that I would jog my memory, go through my numerous product launch failures and a few successes & get back with an answer.

The answer was a deeper understanding of a common fact that every one of us know, yet, very few of us appreciate as the starting principle behind any new product success.

The trick is not even the question that I am sure everyone thinks they know the answer for, the real question is "Where did the answer come from?"

The question is an oft repeated line in entrepreneurial circle -- Which problem does your product solve & what value a target customer willing to pay for solution of that problem.

Doesn't every entrepreneur seem to know the answer to this question-- why would anyone start an enterprise otherwise -- yet 90% of the ventures fail miserably.

What makes the difference between 90% that failed and 10% that succeeded?

My answer to that young student?

The difference is in the source of that answer.

To me, a go-no-go decision of a product venture lies in a simple question, does your product solve a real problem & can you provide a solution at a price that is more economical than the competition.

Now the million dollar question is - Who did you ask that question in the first place?

Go and ask real prospects, at least 4-5 of them, if the proposed product solves their real problem(s) and if they are willing to pay a price that sounds interesting. An affirmative answer is the first and only recipe of new product success.

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Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of ADPS Consulting and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com