Category Archives: News

24 Feb 2016, THE HINDU, Visakhapatnam, India

Mentor and advisor to SMB Connect S. Shyam Sekar on Wednesday underlined the importance of branding and marketing as the key driver for the success of startups and SMEs.

At an interactive session conducted by the Andhra Chambers of Commerce and Industry Federation (ACCIF), he said there was no age limit to launch a startup and three-fourth of GDP was driven by SMEs.

Digital marketing

Citing how WhatsApp, Facebook and LinkedIn had become billion dollar ventures in a short time, he said the ventures needed to be different with innovative ideas. He said one could step up to next level by making use of digital marketing by adopting low-cost business-to-business and business-to-customer strategies.

Mr. Sekar gave some branding tips and said besides traditional mode publicity through advertisements and bill board one should understand that the digital route was extremely effective. The prerequisite for this, he stated, were having one’s own website for absolutely effective hygiene factor by spending few thousand bucks. One should have mail ID and business ID, focus on customers needed for messaging, picking up strength from tom-tom, positioning as top leader through blogs, newsletters, quora and social media.

‘Be visible’

Asking the entrepreneurs to be visible, he said their actions should speak louder than words. He said they should gain expertise in smart marketing by studying the requirements and psyche of the customers.

He said slicing and dicing were important as part of digital marketing initiatives.

Referring to engagement with customers, he said feedback factor and tracking down both inbound and outbound factors through search engine optimisation (SEM) and search engine market (SEM) were very important. He also explained about the role of holding web conferences. APCCIF vice-president G. Sambasiva Rao said business networking was important for the success of SMEs to make an impact in a highly competitive environment.

Pydah Group of Educational Institutions chairman Pydah Krishna Prasad said Visakhapatnam was on the verge of emerging as a global city throwing up several opportunities for small and medium entrepreneurs.

APCCIF vice-president M. Sudhir said startups by young entrepreneurs have a bright future with the Centre instructing banks to adopt a liberal approach to support new units even if they failed in their first attempt.

Hindu press release page link: Click here

Mr. Shyam can be contacted at shyam@startupxperts.com.

Feb 2015

Startup Xperts was requested to coordinate, anchor, specific events in South India. Shyam Sekar S, Founder and Chief Mentor at Startup Xperts Business Consulting Pvt. Ltd. has been acting as a mentor and advisor for Delhi based SMB Connect initiative from Redefine Marcom. Shyam quoted, “This is their third edition of Start Manage Expand series and they had planned to conduct events in about 30 cities; in line with that Startup Xperts were part of their South India events/conferences. I had an opportunity to identify, shortlist numerous speakers across many cities including Bangalore, Cochin, Coimbatore, Madurai, Chennai, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam in that order. We did try out panel sessions in addition to speaker sessions, in a few cities and that was received well by the entrepreneurs”.

For the Bangalore, Madurai, and Chennai events, Shyam delivered sessions on ‘Branding and Marketing for Startups – Why and how?”. Besides, he had invited speakers and expert advisors from various cities to participate in all these above 7 cities. Most of these conferences were held at Taj hotel premises across locations and had packed crowd, as this conference provided a platform for connecting peer companies, expert advisors, mentors, industry associations, and an opportunity to network. Participants shared hearty appreciation on the session and are looking forward to more such sessions in future.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

19 Feb 2016: SMB Connect with its mission to cover 30 cities held their conference at Taj Vivanta, Bangalore, on 19-Feb. This provides a platform to connect small business owners, mentors, experts, all in one place. Like earlier events, Shyam Sekar, Founder and Chief mentor at Startup Xperts was requested to act as a moderator for a panel discussion. Shyam, moderated the event, and had panelists including Narayan, CEO Wandertrails, a travel startup; Lakshman, CEO Margosa Health, a silicon valley entrepreneur; and Mithun, VP iD Fresh.
Shyam shared, “I wanted to give the crowd some insights on marketing, especially digital marketing, since this is something the small business owners, startups, cannot afford to miss or ignore. The questions that usually comes from the crowd were shared with the panelists, and each of them approached from various perspectives and shared their valuable experiences with audience.” The panel discussion was lively and had a lot of insights for the entrepreneurs, which can be leveraged in their businesses.

28 Jan 2016

Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust, BYST – CII, organized South Chapter meeting on 28-Jan 2016 at the CII, Guindy office. This is a meeting of Chennai mentors with entrepreneurs also present for the meeting

BYST had requested Shyam Sekar S, Founder and Chief Mentor of Startup Xperts Business Consulting Pvt. Ltd. to present a session on the trending topic ‘Startup India – Standup India’. Shyam addressed the event and provided interesting inputs and insights about the Startup India Standup India program.

Shyam elaborated, “there is a greater need in India, to create many million jobs and that means so many entrepreneurs need to be created in order to achieve this bigger objective. Startup does not mean that it is just about information technology”.

Shyam highlighted the Central Government’s Startup India Standup India initiative of what types of companies may be covered under this Startup India initiative. Further he said, “The Government is considering various aspects including self certification for the startup companies for labour/environmental (green) laws; separate funding mechanism for student entrepreneurs, relaxed norms for Govt. tenders, tax exemption for about 3 years for startups with innovation/technology value add, financial incentives, and also plan for startup fests to connect Indian startups to facilitate international tie-ups, etc.”

The session was well received and appreciated by both the South Chapter mentor network and also the entrepreneurs.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

14 Jan 2016: Electronics for You (EFY) group organized their first major event at Bangalore, ‘India Electronics Week’ the expo cum conference. The event was held in Bangalore from 11-Jan to 13-Jan. Shyam Sekar S, Founder, Chief mentor of Startup Xperts was invited to deliver a key note address on their opening session ‘Get Funded’. This session was attended by many entrepreneurs and also investors. The speech was well received both by (aspiring) entrepreneurs, and also the investor community as a whole. Shyam said, “this probably is one of the biggest electronics event here, and interestingly had IOT (Internet of things) theme on day-2. With so many thousands of visitors coming in every day at the BIEC venue for this event, this provides a bigger platform for companies to launch products and also for entrepreneurs to get the relevant exposure too.”