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Clarity

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi

Hyderabad

26+ years of work experience in Defense, Manufacturing, IT, KPMG, education, hospitality, sports and a few Start ups. Have been mentoring start ups since 2007. Into my fourth startup now. I am also mentoring 10 start ups including one in Uganda. I love cycling and am planning a 500km ride next month.

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Strategy bootstrapping Project Management Business Strategy Social Entrepreneurship Pitching Ideas Business Process Improvement Information Security Management Start-up Operations

Call me to talk about

Marketing & Sales

I will be able to help you with generating new leads through affiliate channels and complimentary service providers. I can help you identify target markets and new revenue streams

Productivity

I can help you streamline your processes using tools like Theory of Constraints and improve your productivity and throughput

Bootstrapping

I have helped many startups to cut down the initial costs and go to market with MVP. Using some innovative and out of the box thinking I help people discover these cost effective solutions.

Ideation & Value Proposition

I can help you to clarify the idea and the market opportunity and define the mission and vision of the startup with clear customer value proposition.

Business Strategy

I can help you define your business strategy and define measurable objectives using balanced score card and other such tools. I can help you develop your business plan using Business model canvas

Answers 23
Reviews 0

Answers

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

How should I go about choosing a targeted niche market?

First develop a Value Proposition Canvas. Identify at least 25 pains and 25 gains associated with the customers. Here is the catch. Different sub segments of your target customers would have different pains and gains. Using these pain-gain sets, you can identify promising and niche sub-segments and develop a completely customized solution for them.
Ex: 1)People who wish to have golden crown fitted on tooth
2)Accounting services for People who are into e-Commerce services

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Niche Marketing

Marketing Strategy

Business planning

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

How can entrepreneurs overcome loneliness and self doubt?

Great...if you are feeling lonely and self doubt, you have already hit the bottom..there is only one way to go now. up and above. This is where you need to start tweaking your business and revenue models. May be the customers are telling you things you are not listening. Take a deep breath and start doing small things. Conserve cash and don't do large campaigns. Test the changed model in captive small customer groups till it works. God willing and you properly listening to your market, things will happen soon. The best people to keep you company are your customers, when feeling lonely.

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Entrepreneurship

Self-esteem

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

What are the best ways to generate traffic or ways to reach to the customers you are looking for as a startup?

I hope you have heard about www.meetup.com This site has completely segmented the market across the world. Go find your target market and start promoting in that meetup group. Most of these groups actually meet frequently. Best way to connect and network

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Marketing Strategy

Online Marketing

Early-stage Startups

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

How much equity should I give an engineer who I'm asking to join my company as a co-founder? (He'll be receiving a salary, too, and I'm self-funding)

Go ahead and check out Slicing Pie method. It can solve your problem www,slicingpie.com

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Compensation

Early-stage Startups

Tech Startups

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

I'm having problems with ideation for a startup, I'm a web developer, what needs of yours aren't being met? Or how can I find a big problem to solve?

I am happy that you have not started off developing something without really talking to your customers. Technology by itself does not mean much. First you need to decide the domain. Do you want to solve the problems of old people, patients, school kids, moms, unemployed youth, unemployed seniors, grocery store owners, car owners, car mechanics ...figure that out. This usually should come from one of your hobbies, some thing you do regularly or an area of your passion. It could be water cycling, for all I care.
Now look at the way people are doing stuff or trying to get some things done in the chosen area. The problem happens only when someone wants to do something. Either he is not able to or it is very difficult,or it can be improved.
It becomes a big problem based on the seriousness of the tasks to be done and the number of people who are trying to do this task. Everyone in the world seem to be trying to form groups and stay connected with them easily, for free. That is why Whatsapp is a great success.

Hope this clarifies. Nothing comes out of technology in isolation. First connect with a selected group of people and see what they are struggling with. Then see if you can provide a solution , using technology.

All the very best.

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Early-stage Startups

Lean startup

Concept Ideation

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

I have completed a 1 year business plan for my startup. Should I do a 2-3 year plan as well?

Just build the site and generate traction first. You need only 90 day plan. Validate the business model. Then build the app. This will take a few months. Now write the business plan and you would have developed enough confidence in the business model and the numbers can be corroborated.
When you do, write the plan for 3 years as that will help you clarify your expansion strategies and plans.

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Business plan

Early-stage Startups

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

I am qualified as a Chartered Accountant, but not passionate about the practice and a career for life in this field. How can I find my passion?

CA is a qualification and a skill, not a passion. What you need is a field where you can apply your skills and qualifications. If teaching is your passion, you can train aspiring CAs. If you want to work for a non profit, volunteer for them or join them full time. You can specialize in non-profit accounting. If media is your passion, you can be a reporter or a market analyst. The only way to discover your passion is by trying it out. Best way is to volunteer for various types of work and hopefully something will click.

You can do an exercise of writing down what you want to do in life. Do not restrict yourself to accounts and CA. Once you write down that list some thing will click. Let this list be more than 50. 100 is really good. It will hit you very hard and you know you must do it.

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Start-ups

Career Counseling

Career Development

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

What is the best pricing (business model) to apply to a marketplace?

I have been working on a wedding planners market place. It has been fun trying out various combinations. Have a combination of free + paid on both sides

User side:

1. Basic service - make it free to drive the user base. A market place is attractive only when you have large user base

2. Value added services - Have a menu and charge accordingly.

3. Combo offers - always link the offers to the number of transactions with an expiry date. This will help you drive volumes

Supplier side:

1. Base service - No charge to supplier

2. Value added services - charge single digit , may be 2% or 3% per transactions

3. Combo offers - charge up to 7% or 8%

Most importantly, start having elements which will reduce bounce rate, if it is web based offering.
It would be better if you clearly define the service and the target market so that the various value streams can be mapped and the overall offerings can be worked out.
Hope this helps.
Best regards
Sridhar

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Marketplaces

Online Marketplace

Business Modeling

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

Broad niche or Targeted niche which way to go?

There are two ways of broadening your offering; increase products to same customers or increase the customers for the same product. It could be a combination as well.

Think from a marketing and customer communication perspective. It will always make sense to stay focused on a few services/ products first to a few selected target segments. This will help you to build traction and revenue in the short term. Then keep adding new products and new market segments.

Please remember that you need to set up a supply chain as well to ensure product delivery in new markets. Over a period of time have the plan to cover all the products and all the customers.

Now you will have the opportunity to run data analytics and understand the buying behavior. This will further help you grow.

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Online Marketplace

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

What legal precautions can I take to make sure nobody steals my startup idea?

Don't bother to hide your ideas. Ideas themselves are useless unless executed appropriately with strong business model. And people wont steal your idea unless they are sure that there is enough market traction. If your idea is really that great, you are sure to attract enough competition sooner or later. If your idea is built on thin ice which can be easily copied, then there is no point wasting your time. You can use that as a base and build entry barriers around that which will make you a strong player.

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Early-stage Startups

Legal Advice

Flt.Lt. Sridhar Chakravarthi answered

I don't know how to code, but I have some ideas for a new product. How can i proceed?

I wont advise to learn coding, as it is not your passion and thus is a waste of time. Two ways are left.
1. Engage a company who will code it for you. The challenge is to freeze the scope which is difficult. The best way is to engage developers from them and then give them work. Either way you need to have money to pay them. Have a contract in place which will protect your IP. When you pay them to work for you, all the code and IP will belong to you.

2. Find a company who is willing to be a technology partner and who will develop the product while you market it. Difficult but doable.

3. Get a co-founder who can code.

All the best.
Flt.Lt. Sridhar

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Software Development

New Business Development

MVP

Reviews

Member since September 2015