IT start-ups need to focus more on marketing

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 18 January 2008, 01:40 IST
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Bangalore: Marketing of solution or product developed is the foremost challenge faced by start up IT companies than technological expertise or raising fund for different projects, reported Business Standard (BS). "I think before going in for venture funding, it is extremely important for companies in the start-up phase to understand whether the market they are targetting is ready to adopt the products they are planning to launch. They should also know the global implications of their products, and this is only possible when they explore a collaborative business relationship with others with deep technical skills," said Kallol Borah, MD, Aumega Networks. According to a recent report published by Venture Intelligence, a Chennai based provider of information and networking services to the private equity and VC ecosystem in India, VC investment including seed, early stage and growth capital accounted for $560 million across 100 deals in 2007, where it was only $500 million in 2006, an increase of over 10 percent. Many of the global venture firms have established their offices in India in the recent past, since they want to stay close to the market and their portfolio companies. However these VC firms are quite cautious in making the right move, as most of them prefer investing in technology companies than other firms. "Most people go more by hype than the reality in the market place. They need to understand that the technology or solutions they are talking about today may be sounding relevant in the context of India or any other emerging countries, but the demand for it might have reached the saturation point in advanced countries," said Srini Vudayagiri, MD, Lightspeeds Ventures. He said this is the reason why many global venture capital firms preferred to share their experience with their portfolio companies by suggesting to them "when to go for a course correction." Even though there had been a lot of hype about India as a market for IT products, Indian firms' still donot want to take the risk by buying their technology products from Indian start-ups.

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