Microsoft Ventures: Enabling Entrepreneurs Ideate, Build & Grow their Startups Date:   Friday , November 28, 2014 Microsoft Ventures is a strategic partner for promising startups around the world focused on business growth & development, industrial strength technology and beautiful usable products. Entrepreneurship is an increasingly global phenomenon. The recent explosion of startups is fueled by a low barrier to entry, lower costs to take an idea from concept to action, readily accessible online/mobile marketplaces, and plummeting hosting costs. If we go by numbers, we see approximately 65000 startups that come up in the U.S., 6500 in China and India witnesses around 1000-1500 startups coming up every year. There is a substantial increase in numbers year-on-year, specifically with the product startups and it\'s an exciting time for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Having said that, entrepreneurs at any maturity level still need a lot of assistance, and there are more resources than ever available to help them. Microsoft Ventures, a global initiative, helps spawn ecosystems and generations of new businesses globally. We created the BizSpark program about 6 years ago to help provide startups with software to help more than 50,000 companies build their business. Our value proposition is simple: Microsoft is here to help startups create successful businesses. Revenue Not a Prerequisite, Idea Must be Viable Microsoft Ventures looks for innovative seed-stage startups focused on next-generation solutions in the broad categories of enterprise software, security, big data systems and services, artificial intelligence, natural user interface, advertising, gaming, smart cloud services and other SaaS offerings. These could be in the context of established industry verticals and could exist online, on mobile or offline. We want startups with both inspirational vision and demonstration of ability to execute. We are specifically looking at startups based in India and aim at broadening our scope and tap markets in and around India (across the region). Our Indian ecosystem faces some unique challenges and we look forward to investing in startups that would solve local problems prevalent in the Indian ecosystem. Moreover, startups should have a minimum viable product, with demonstrable customer traction (revenue is not a prerequisite). We\'d also like to see a compelling plan that describes the problem being solved, market potential, competitive landscape, and the unique market advantages. We expect startup founders to be dedicated full-time. Facilitating Faster Maturation of the Startup Ecosystem Microsoft Ventures Think Next initiative is aimed at creating a forum for the thought leaders in the ecosystem to come together and compare notes. It will help deliberate and spur the growth of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem by providing deeper insights to developing trends and delineate perhaps the next steps on facilitating faster maturation of the startup ecosystem. According to the recently released report by iSPRIT in association with Microsoft Ventures, Discovery is the number one challenge facing Indian technology product startups. Most Indian startups don\'t show up on the radar of the big U.S. acquirers, both for business development and eventual M&A. It also states that India has seen 159 M&A deals in the timeframe 2010-present, at an overall value of $1.78 billion. This means that the average deal size is $11 million, ~10x lower than that of the Silicon Valley. Another limitation that has surfaced in the report is the absence of Entrepreneur readiness. Indian entrepreneurs traditionally are techies and don\'t spend time building a clear differentiation story or preparing themselves for organizational and financial diligence. Thus, companies and entrepreneurs need to focus on building a globally differentiated proposition and ensure global accounting & governance standards are met to ignite M&A deal flow. Our Approach At Microsoft Ventures, we take a holistic approach to work with entrepreneurs at every stage of maturity across the startup ecosystem. Our initiative is broad-based, and includes a community evangelism program, accelerators, and seed fund that works with startups worldwide. Through Microsoft\'s community evangelism efforts, we help budding entrepreneurs explore how to turn a great idea into a business, and give them access to the right portfolio of Microsoft tools and technology to succeed. BizSpark is an international network of entrepreneurial startups and partners. MS provides three years of free software, support, and visibility for startups. We provide the resources, tools and expertise enabling entrepreneurs to ideate, build, and grow their startups. Once an entrepreneur is ready to commit full-time efforts to an idea, they can apply to a Microsoft Accelerator program, which provides promising startups with an immersive 3-6 month program to launch their company. Accelerators get access to business mentors, technical and design experts, development tools, office space and key resources to help entrepreneurs grow quickly from idea to early business success (revenues/funding). We are closely working with other entities with their accelerator programs to help startups. Microsoft Ventures also offers a seed fund with an accelerator program. The Ventures team is comprised of people who have been entrepreneurs in the past, and this team is backed by the experience, expertise, and resources of Microsoft. It enrolls startups on an ongoing basis, investing in and working with a small number at any given time. We provide them with access to key customers, workspace, and subject matter experts on design, technology, business and domain knowledge. Advice for the Startups I have had the fortune of building a couple of startups in the US. And then became an active Mentor and investor in several startups in India. I am very happy to see a tremendous evolution of the startup ecosystem in the last few years. At the same time, I have found the execution capabilities of entrepreneurs get blunted by setbacks from building in India and the lack of confidence that the entrepreneurs bring to the startup. It is important that entrepreneurs realize this early on and address this quickly. I have found that entrepreneurs that develop a sharp focus and clarity of thinking tend to move faster and get their execution mojo back. Every entrepreneurial journey has its ups and downs. In fact, a startup packs all the emotions, conflicts and a spiritual quest, all in a short timeframe! Our ancestors recommended yoga, pranayama, meditation and pursuit of a spiritual path to sail through life with happiness and fulfillment. I would advise entrepreneurs to adopt these age-old techniques to achieve success in their startups as well.