157th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Winners Of The Second New Year Challenge 2013 Final
By Guest Post at January 19, 2013 | 8:49 am | Print
157th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Winners Of The Second New Year Challenge 2013 Final
The second final of the 1M/1M New Year Challenge 2013 was held today during our 157th roundtable. The contest was judged by two successful 1M/1M premium members. Each has been in the program for two years and has traveled the zero to $1M journey and beyond, successfully.
Vikrant Mathur, CEO of ifood.tv, runs a profitable multi-channel video network focused on learning how to cook. Revenues come from advertising, and are currently at the $3 million annual range. In 2013, Vikrant is exploring additional revenue models to monetize his highly active base of millions of eager cooks!
Michaeline Daboul, CEO of MMIS, runs a healthcare IT solution focused on compliance and caters to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. MMS has a $5 million backlog, long terms contracts, and is currently catering to clients that include the biggest names in the segment.
Now, let’s look at the presenters.
First up, Purushartha Saini from Mumbai, India, pitched SITSecure, an IT Security Audit concept. The company has a handful of large customers in India, so obviously, there is something differentiated in their offering. The presentation was unable to extract the differentiation, though. So, we assessed that 1M/1M can help SITSecure position itself for success, especially because there IS customer traction.
Then, Vipin Agarwal from Gurgaon, India, pitched enMarkit Technologies, a nifty social media peer-to-peer transaction platform that interfaces will all sorts of social media profiles. It could enable activities like p2p homestays a la AirBnB, or freelance services a la Elance. It’s a promising idea, but of course, much of the detailed strategy is yet to be thrashed out.
MergersIndia.com
Next, Haresh Shah from Pune, India, pitched MergersIndia.com, a service for companies engaged in M&A transactions. The service comprises of legal documentation, research, etc., in terms of online functionality, but mostly monetized via online consulting services. The company is already at $600k in revenue. It’s compelling, validated, and unique. The challenge now is in scaling.
Then, Shai Spetgang from Israel, pitched RidesApp, a ride-sharing application with a special focus on business networking while car-pooling. The category is hot and active. Shai seems to be a good entrepreneur. We like the concept. The main business model is taking a percentage of fuel costs, which are getting shared, thereby resulting in savings for any one individual. Shai has some good insights into go-to-market that are worth testing out.
Ants to GiAnts
Syed Habeeb from Bangalore, India, pitched Ants to GiAnts, a mentoring program for teens delivered via schools. They are already working with forty schools in some capacity, and thus, have a ready pool of school administrators to validate the offering with.
Next, Vrushali Humnabadkar from Pune, India, pitched Penworks, a technical documentation service. The market is extremely crowded, but certain obvious marketing channels exist, like Elance, oDesk, etc.
Then, Ryan Integlia from New Jersey pitched wishwas, an effort to provide underprivileged and often abused women with employment, independence, and an escape route from conditions that breed despair. From what I gathered, they want to provide training to turn groups of 50 women per community into seamstresses. They then want to connect them with other women who may want to get custom clothing designed and tailored by these women.
Mexico es Lindo
Last up, Carla Galvez from Kirkland, Washington, pitched Mexico es Lindo, an online real estate site for Mexico. The market is quite crowded, and Carla needs to put in substantial effort into positioning to justify why her concept warrants a go at this stage of the game.
The winners today were: SITSecure, Purushartha Saini; enMarkit, Vipin Agarwal; MergersIndia.com, Haresh Shah; RidesApp, Shai Spetgang; Ants to GiAnts
Syed Habeeb; and Penworks, Vrushali Humnabadkar.
You can listen to the recording of today’s roundtable here.
By
Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, a virtual incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. Sramana has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
