Silicon Valley Is Transforming To Green Valley
Rob Chandra
Partner,
Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners
Entrepreneurship is no longer just about companies based in Silicon Valley. Indeed, some very interesting companies are now in emerging markets. We were the first top tier U.S. fund to set up offices in India. We remain very active investors in companies catering to the unique needs of middle class Indians. One example is that India remains acutely short of power. So, our company Orient Green Power Limited has now become India’s largest independent producer of clean energy.
Finally, several large sectors of the U.S. economy are about to be re-regulated: health care and financial services. We expect the new regulations in both sectors will create opportunities for new entreprenurial companies.
New areas of opportunity for innovation
We continue to see several interesting areas for innovation that, in fact, require Silicon Valley’s unique talent for solving big and tough problems. As one example, we have been looking for an entreprneurial team to help solve the problem of distributed energy storage. When a windmill or solar firm produces energy, how do you store it locally at low cost? There are many other such problems for entrepreneurs to solve. We hope to find and back such entrepreneurs.
Advice to entrepreneurs
First, your company must solve an important problem. There are lots of things that companies do which remind me more of muscle builders and not painkillers. People won’t always go to the gym to build muscles, but they will turn their house upside down looking for an aspirin when they have a headache. So, the more your product is like an aspirin, the more likely it will succeed. Second, the entrepreneurial process takes time. When my portfolio company IPC went public during 2008, we had been involved with them for 8 years. Good wine takes time to age. So, be prepared emotionally and financially to invest the time and effort over time to build success. Third and final advice is that there is an element of luck in all successful ventures. If you do happen to get lucky, don’t let it go to your head.
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Reader's comments(1)
1:
Sir, I have completed my B.E in computer science few days ago and have a very great idea of a business and I'm very optimistic in terms of the success of that business very rapidly.
But the problem is the capital required for that and I want a VC to fund this project and in this regard, i have some questions following below:
1. How can i trust a VC that after seeing my business plan, he won't invest in that project on his own and reject my proposal because for him, I have nothing but a great idea and great enthusiam to be successful in that.
2. I have seen many articles saying about the contents of the good business plan but no one has the detailed description of the contents of the business plan. So, how can I get the detailed list of the contents of a business plan.
3. How to find which VC would be my true business partner and on which parameters I should choose them. Can you provide me some references of VCs interested in investing initially 1-2 crore in a business in IT field.
4. Since I am not from a business family and havn't done MBA, Would it be better to enter in business field right now or to first do MBA and then get some experience in any company and then start my own company. I don't want to wait for 5-6 years because I have threat in my mind that if someone would start that kind of business before me, then I will loose the competitive edge i would get otherwise.
But the problem is the capital required for that and I want a VC to fund this project and in this regard, i have some questions following below:
1. How can i trust a VC that after seeing my business plan, he won't invest in that project on his own and reject my proposal because for him, I have nothing but a great idea and great enthusiam to be successful in that.
2. I have seen many articles saying about the contents of the good business plan but no one has the detailed description of the contents of the business plan. So, how can I get the detailed list of the contents of a business plan.
3. How to find which VC would be my true business partner and on which parameters I should choose them. Can you provide me some references of VCs interested in investing initially 1-2 crore in a business in IT field.
4. Since I am not from a business family and havn't done MBA, Would it be better to enter in business field right now or to first do MBA and then get some experience in any company and then start my own company. I don't want to wait for 5-6 years because I have threat in my mind that if someone would start that kind of business before me, then I will loose the competitive edge i would get otherwise.
Posted by:Sameer Goel - 04 Jun, 2009
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