About the Speaker:
Mahesh is the Founder and CEO of Pinstorm. Mahesh has 24 years of marketing and communications experience of which over 14 years are in online marketing. After dropping out of college, Mahesh sold vacuum cleaners from door to door, worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV - for whom he wrote and directed a spot voted Asia's best commercial of the decade. He then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners as Creative Director, General Manager and Partner where he helped launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the Earth's Biggest Bookstore campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle subsequently acquired by Intel. Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. Some of his investees include Geodesic, Compassbox acquired by Careerlauncher, Cypherix, Indiaproperties, EBS and Webdunia. Mahesh penned a reasonably infamous column in Business Today and Businessworld, and played the Donald Trump-equivalent role in Business Baazigar, a game show similar to The Apprentice, involving entrepreneurs and business plans. While running search marketing campaigns for his favourite charity in 2003, Mahesh believed there was a need for a pay-for-performance online marketing company - and set up Pinstorm in Bombay. With over 120 people across 7 offices in India, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Europe and the US, Pinstorm is today among the worlds leading digital marketing firms. Mahesh has a passion for early-stage investing and teamed up with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob in 2006 to set up Seedfund, today a leading early-stage venture capital fund in India. Seedfund already has 10 investments, including Carwale.com, Printo, RedBus.in, AFAQs.com and Vaatsalya.
Description of the Talk:
“An entrepreneur is a person who realizes at a very early age that he or she is different. I don’t have to be like anyone else. Entrepreneurship is about living your DNA. I’m as different from you as my fingerprint is from yours.” He said while emphasizing on the uniqueness of each of those in the lecture hall, which was filled to capacity by then.
Through examples, he then proved that the location of a start-up doenst really matter anymore. He claimed that a world class company can be built in Pilani itself, the crowd broke into a huge round of applause to convey their agreement.
He then pointed out that world leading companies such as Google, Ferrari, YouTube and EBay never advertise. “The trick is to get your customer so thrilled, that he/she cannot stop talking about your service or product.”
While encouraging students to start-up early he said,” You don’t need to learn what it is like to be an employee to know what it is like to be an employer.”
He then downplayed the role of Venture Capital funding by pointing out that most of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs never received any such funds. The ultimate source of funds is the revenue developed from the customers, develop a good enough revenue model and your job is half done.
He concluded by stating that an entrepreneur leads a lonely life. It is emotionally very tough to be an entrepreneur because you might have to oppose your parents, your friends and almost everyone you know. He advised the students to have friends who share the same dream so they can get through the whole experience together. "A shared illusion"
Hello friends and young generation of our India,
Please think of the answers of following questions.
1. When a person who is of a sick nature and low morality, bad beheaviour, can you call such person a gentleman?
2. Can you decide the intrinsic values of a person by his clothes or his luxuries or by his show off, or language?
3. Can you get all the past information of any man from him / her by asking and do you believe that every man has not made any mistake in his career?
4. Will you go by words if such person claims to be so, even if written on an stamp paper?
5. If you decide that the above can have " No" as an answer, then verification is necessary which is of Character and beheaviour.
I would like to tell you my experience that Mahesh Murthy is not a right person for your concepts and venture capital.
VCs are those who fund the ideas of others and share the profits. But I am victim of this person who has used my website ideas and has started the venture with 4 other persons called paula mariwala etc. etc.
The fact is he has also stolen another concept of mine and sold the concept to third company named geodesic to earn money and fame.
The fact is he has not paid a single rupee to me towards my IPR rights.
The fact is a notice to the same has been served to them but they have failed to reply to the notice.
The fact is there is a court case is going on against he plus his four other persons for voilation of IPR rights and he has deliberately prohibited me from inspecting the revenue records of the said businessess.
That last but not least, he has tried to run over me his own skoda car in front of his office, denied by this entry and tried to deter me under cyber law.
If you are fresh and have only rosy picture of your life, it is time to be beware and alert and dont go behind these types of carrots showing personalities.
Regards,
Seema Pagey
ABCCC
Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:06:00 PM