Excerpts from TiE – ISB Connect Keynote

From: The Hindu BusinessLine

Start-ups told to be different to be in the business
If you want to stand out in business, you need to be different. Like a purple cow. “You don’t feel like stopping for a normal-looking cow. But a purple cow can hold your attention,” Santanu Paul, Chief Executive Officer of human resources development firm TalentSprint, says.

Drawing the analogy from the famed book Purple Cow written by Seth Godin, he said one needs to work constantly to look different the number of purple cows grows.

Addressing start-up community and students of Indian School of Business (ISB) here on Friday at the TiE-ISB Connect, he said: “If your product is not remarkable, it is not a purple cow. You need to pick a segmented market. Smaller the segment better for working on a focused approach. This is very crucial at the early stages of marketing.”

The three-day event drew growth stage start-ups seeing investments, investors and mentors.

Ravi Yadavalli of Spotways and who co-founded Google Maps India said that start-ups need to find more colours if they spot some purple cows around.

Aditya Tulsian, Head (Strategy and Corporate Development, India) of Intuit points out that start-ups need to identify the early adopters and influencers. “Those who can spread the word would help. You need to do research, identify such people and experiment to get to them. Go uncomfortably narrow to sell the idea,” he says.

Suresh Reddy, Chief Executive Officer of Lycos (formerly Ybrant Digital), related his journey from a small idea to a big digital marketing firm. “You need to have a good marketing team with guys who can sell better than you do,” he said.