Megabucks : Day 2 in a Nutshell
First of all,the title of the post should have been "Megabucks:Day 2(+2) in a Nutshell" ,since two days have passed by since the event is over 
and damn,I have still not updated my blog.Jokes apart, let me try to recollect the event happenings on the second day in Megabucks.
Morning-Afternoon innings:
a.
The day started with case study competition and believe me it was very boring and I thought that the teams were very bad.Some of the teams did not even know to frame proper gramatical sentences
, which made me think about our educational system for a while 
b.
The highlight of the day was a talk/discussion on "Woman Entrepreneurship", which was spearheaded by Ms. Vineeta Singh,Co-founder of Tenaday.Yes,you guessed it right,she is the one who is behind "The Deutsche Bank controversy"(she is the one who rejected one crore offer from Deutsche Bank to be an Entrepreneur) and she seemed a true Entrepreneneur.Myself and Ashwin managed to interview her and it was our first podcast(which would be uploaded very soon).We also gave her few tips on Blogging and she was quite impressed with us.Who knows,she may consult us for "Blog Marketing"
Seen below in the photo are Vineeta,Ashwin and Myself(from L-R).I am looking very serious in the photograph
Afternoon-evening innings:
a.
There was a surprise in the package and we met our old friend(from the unconference circuit) Aditya Mishra,Director of Corporate Innovation,TCS.We three gave a talk on Unconferences,Blogging and opportunities in the mobile space(this is Aditya's domain of interest).The response from the IITK guys was not good and many of them were not interested in the talk.I just tried to collect feedback from few of them-Some felt talk was irrelevant,some felt talk was too techie and some felt the talk was very boring
Finally,I communicated the law of two feet(which is used in Unconferences) which says "If you are not feeling comfortable,use your two feet to go to a more comfortable place".
Even though,our message to take unconferences to premier institutions like IIT failed or was not taken in a proper sense,still we managed to have a smile on our faces.Seen below in the photo are Ashwin ,Myself(in center) and Aditya
b.
After the sad ending to our talk,we thought of networking with few people.Again a surprise-We met guys from Jobs4Freshers who were interviewed for startups.in . It was the time for them to pay us back and hence,we picked up a free T Shirt from them
and also,we had good conversation on the Web 2.0 market along with enhancements which can be made to startups.in
Seen below are the guys from Jobs4Freshers along with myself and Ashwin
c.
Finally,it was time to take dinner which as usual,very excellent .Just managed to borrow "Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki" from Rajiv,CEO of Jobs4Freshers and read one chapter in the night
Bye-Bye Kanpur:
Left Kanpur at around 11:00 AM on the next day(8th April,2007) and carried some good(and bad experiences) from IITK.
Moral of the story:
I have not studied from IIT and after this visit,I learnt one thing:"Every person studying in IIT is not a genius/highly intelligent,may be he/she has a slight edge over normal guys like us".Would end my article with this learning.
Photo Courtesy:
You can find photos of the entire trip here
This is what Ashwin has to say about the event on 07/04/2007
and damn,I have still not updated my blog.Jokes apart, let me try to recollect the event happenings on the second day in Megabucks.Morning-Afternoon innings:
a.
The day started with case study competition and believe me it was very boring and I thought that the teams were very bad.Some of the teams did not even know to frame proper gramatical sentences
, which made me think about our educational system for a while b.
The highlight of the day was a talk/discussion on "Woman Entrepreneurship", which was spearheaded by Ms. Vineeta Singh,Co-founder of Tenaday.Yes,you guessed it right,she is the one who is behind "The Deutsche Bank controversy"(she is the one who rejected one crore offer from Deutsche Bank to be an Entrepreneur) and she seemed a true Entrepreneneur.Myself and Ashwin managed to interview her and it was our first podcast(which would be uploaded very soon).We also gave her few tips on Blogging and she was quite impressed with us.Who knows,she may consult us for "Blog Marketing"
Seen below in the photo are Vineeta,Ashwin and Myself(from L-R).I am looking very serious in the photograph 
Afternoon-evening innings:
a.
There was a surprise in the package and we met our old friend(from the unconference circuit) Aditya Mishra,Director of Corporate Innovation,TCS.We three gave a talk on Unconferences,Blogging and opportunities in the mobile space(this is Aditya's domain of interest).The response from the IITK guys was not good and many of them were not interested in the talk.I just tried to collect feedback from few of them-Some felt talk was irrelevant,some felt talk was too techie and some felt the talk was very boring
Finally,I communicated the law of two feet(which is used in Unconferences) which says "If you are not feeling comfortable,use your two feet to go to a more comfortable place".Even though,our message to take unconferences to premier institutions like IIT failed or was not taken in a proper sense,still we managed to have a smile on our faces.Seen below in the photo are Ashwin ,Myself(in center) and Aditya
b.
After the sad ending to our talk,we thought of networking with few people.Again a surprise-We met guys from Jobs4Freshers who were interviewed for startups.in . It was the time for them to pay us back and hence,we picked up a free T Shirt from them
and also,we had good conversation on the Web 2.0 market along with enhancements which can be made to startups.inSeen below are the guys from Jobs4Freshers along with myself and Ashwin
c.
Finally,it was time to take dinner which as usual,very excellent .Just managed to borrow "Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki" from Rajiv,CEO of Jobs4Freshers and read one chapter in the night
Bye-Bye Kanpur:
Left Kanpur at around 11:00 AM on the next day(8th April,2007) and carried some good(and bad experiences) from IITK.
Moral of the story:
I have not studied from IIT and after this visit,I learnt one thing:"Every person studying in IIT is not a genius/highly intelligent,may be he/she has a slight edge over normal guys like us".Would end my article with this learning.
Photo Courtesy:
You can find photos of the entire trip here
This is what Ashwin has to say about the event on 07/04/2007
Labels: Entrepreneurship, Megabucks, Startups.in, Venture Capital
posted by Himanshu Sheth @ 4/10/2007 11:30:00 PM
20 Comments
20 Comments:
Ah! finally you've an update. :)
BTW, rather than repeating myself here I'd point to http://thecruisemaniac.com/blog/2007/04/11/megabucks-rest-of-the-event/#comment-1551
BTW..Himanshu, please let me know about the details I requested in the mail.
I thought you were coming to me :p
Anyway, I'm glad that you had both kind of experiences. It is always important to have good and bad...otherwise, you'll not come to know...why good is good :)
Yes I know IIT'ans are too eccentric sometimes. But thats okay, that doesn't make them better anyway!
Eventhough most of them must not have liked the presentation, you can still expect soon to receive at least one appreciation mail soon, and there are reasons for that ;).
Its good that you managed to get your first podcast, will be waiting.
I am sure everyone in IITs can possibly be 10 point somethings...though well tried still! way to go...!
can't* I mean :D
Hey,
@Nag:I read your comment on Ashwin's blog and I agree that they are just teens and hence may not be so enthusiastic like us ;-)
@Mayank:I am sorry man,could not meet since was in lots of problems.I would definitely have a chat with you regarding Udantak.
-Himanshu
Hey PG,
Thanks for supporting my opinion ;-)
Nothing to take off from IITians but we just felt somewhat bad about the presentation.However this is just a part and parcel of life ;-)
Would definitely let you know once the podcast is ready ;-)
-Himanshu
Hey Upasna,
As told to PG,nothing to take away from IITians.In fact,I really loved the atmosphere in IIT and would have loved to study in one of the IIT's.....But reality is different ;-)
-Himanshu
Himanshu,
It is nice to read a candid review of things for once. All too often, reports in the media are about how things should have been, than what they were.
I'm sure that your feedback will make sure Megabucks will be kick-ass next time. In fact, perhaps folks in IIT are already carrying printouts of your post to their post-mortem sessions!
On a somewhat unrelated note, your "Law of Two Feet" strikes a chord. I'm from BITS Pilani, and here even our course lectures aren't compulsory. I suppose we take this law for granted much as we take our feet!
This comment has been removed by the author.
As a BITS Pilani student I might not be the right person to comment, but I feel IITs are hyped beyond reality.
On a different note, things at BITS Pilani are much better. There's a buzz about starting up. The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (http://efactor.blogspot.com) is acting as a catalyst.
Probably its the same small group group of students who come with ideas, but ideas do keep flying. Check yofa.in for starters
Hey! this is ekalavya...am actually featured in one of the pics there.
We run jobs4freshers.com, but apart from that more importantly watblog.com which is where we review the latest in the web2.0 space in india.
i agree....the crowd at iit-k was definitely disappointing....couldn't find a single dynamic web 2.0 techie whom we could hire! ha ha....i guess the smart ones were busy abusing the 2mbps internet connection there! but seriously was kind of let down by the whole iit thing....had a similar experience when i'd given a talk in iit-b on the web2.0 scene.
while himanshu was busy trying to get return tickets to delhi...we chaps managed to attend a music event at night...which was pretty cool!
well,i certainly agree that iitians
are still lagging behind a few of those folks out there in busying themselves up with stuff like entrepreneurship.i hope ppl wud not be narrow-minded enuf to call ppl who dont have similar interests (like entrepreneurship )
as worthless.u need to broaden ur outlook,its hard to lead a successful startup otherwise.
Great article! Thanks.
Nice Blog!
Thanks for interesting article.
Thank You! Very interesting article. Do you can write anything else about it?
Very interesting site. Blog is very good. I am happy that I think the same!
Excellent website. Good work. Very useful. I will bookmark!
@eklavya: We dont abuse a 2mbps net connection. We abuse a 67mbps connection, abusing which is so much more fun.
As a student here, I agree that the level of professionalism here is not as good as it I expected it to be. Megabucks being a relatively new entrant to the packed festival calendar ( 6 fests,4 hall events, 2 intra iitk events) that the ppl here have, sees even lower levels of professionalism. But the ppl here are the smartest I have seen and not just in the PCM sense. I feel that I have grown a notch or two merely sitting with these guys. And things are improving and I am sure the next Megabucks wud be better.
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