This Yomillio Adda was held at the Instaoffice premises in the Yourstory Building. The topic of the Adda was about “Improving Effectiveness and Utilization of Funds.”
Yomillio Adda 3.0 – Improving Effectiveness & Utilization of Funds
Speaker 1: Ravindra Kumar Bhatnagar, Analytical Investments
Speaker 2: Vivek Srinivasan, Startup Mentor, Speaker & Writer
The first speaker was Ravindra Kumar Bhatnagar, who founded Analytical Investments to provide financial advice, support and solutions for SMEs and professionals. Below are some of the highlights from his talk:
When to Start Raising Funds?
Ravindra, who has over two decades of experience in this field, started his talk by telling the startups founders and entrepreneurs present to start borrowing money when you don’t need it.
“Why? Because bankers love you that time. They will give you the best deal at that point of time. Your body language, your communication, entirely is going to communicate to the banker that you don’t need money. Because you actually don’t need money, right? So you’ll talk like a King.”
When to Ask a Bank For a Loan?
“When is it that you should ask for loan from a bank? When you don’t need it. If you don’t need loan today, please ensure tomorrow morning you go to your bank and ask them for a facility.” – Ravindra Bhatnagar, Analytical Investments
When to Change Your Bank?
When you pick up size, you’re on a turnover of Rs.5 crore, 10 crore, please remember to change your bank. Your bank is not like your wife. Please keep changing it as often as you can.
How to Use IP as an Asset For Raising Funds
You can book intellectual property expense in a particular account, and that account is accounted as your IP. There is a provision available in the balance sheet. Your CA will be able to help you with that.
The second speaker was Vivek Srinivasan, Startup Mentor, Speaker and Writer. Vivek has cofounded Prudence Advisors and Startups Club with Salma Moosa. See the highlights from his talk below.
How to Find the Right Angel Investor
If you’re going to an angel, profile them. Understand who they are. Go on to LinkedIn, talk to people they have invested on. Get some background. Because what you’re giving away is equity. And believe me, that bank rate of equity is far more expensive than bank rate of interest.
“Equity is by far the most expensive thing you can give away.” – Vivek Srinivasan, Startup Mentor
How Venture Capitalists Fund Startups
The only emotion of an investor that you can use is greed. “Oh, this guy is going places. I want to be on that same boat with him.” So you want superstars. You want to be associated with superstars. Nobody knows which company is going to succeed or fail. Believe me. Even the best investors don’t know what’s going to succeed or fail. They are just looking at the confidence of the person on the other side of the table…and they are investing on the basis of that.”
How to Approach VC Funds
When you are approaching an investor, you have to be incredibly confident about what you do. And that confidence comes from clarity. So you have to be incredibly clear about what you do…Confidence is a direct result of having clarity.
When to Diversify
Don’t begin to diversify even before you begin to know what it is that you’re doing. Diversify at a point where you have mastered what you went after first.
