Upcoming Events (Till July 2013):
Pune 3rd Edition
April 5th - April, 7th, 2013
Chennai 8th Edition
April 19th - April 21st, 2013
Trivandrum 1st Edition
May 3rd - May 5th, 2013
Bangalore 3rd Edition
May 24th - May 26th, 2013
Pune 4th Edition
June 14th - June 16th, 2013
Honestly, this has been a long time coming, but we needed some sure shot data before we made the call. With In50hrs Bangalore underway and having to announce the next set of dates for the events, we thought it was time we made the announcement.
The Story of Delhi:
We love the city of Delhi. Just being in the city brings back feelings and emotions like any other, but its also been a tough city to grow an ecosystem. Personally, we’ve done several efforts in the past to grow a community there - via OCC etc, but the understanding has been very clear - if people from elsewhere can grow a community, Silicon valley would have remote branches by now. Communities can only be grown locally. All other factors are a matter of support and strengthening. We havent been able to find that anchor. I believe events like Startup Weekend, PeerHack and Product Nation will be the one to build that community. Which also means Delhi has options and we are leaving it to good hands.
We did two editions in Delhi, and the logistical cost of bringing team, materials, and getting the word out (for an event where the principal objective is not to make money) didnt make sense - not with the fact that there is a lack of a community, and Delhi is overly business sided that makes technical hackathons and prototyping events quite a challenge. We were constantly getting requests from a lot of folks asking, if they come and pitch on Friday, if we’ll have the prototype ready by Sunday - that’s delhi for you. Quick, and to the Point - on the Business front.
We run these efforts on shoestring budgets. And The Startup Centre is a Startup of Startups - we arent venture funded, or backed by a large corporate. Its a small group of individuals wanting to make a difference and hopefully build a viable business model around it - by virtue of making entrepreneurs succeed extremely well. Somewhere there was a disconnect.
Hello Trivandrum
Make no doubts about it though, we are expanding. There are two more cities coming up, but we wanted to see and strengthen where we are far more effective. We have been taking a call, and even asking people from our community where they are based out of and would like an event like In50hrs.
Kerala has been on our minds for a while now, and it was just a matter of picking between Cochin and Trivandrum. (Cochin is still in the race though).
So we want to do one edition of In50hrs in Trivandrum. We are not sure if that IS the place in Kerala or If Cochin is the place, but the participation we see should help make that decision.
As a Startup, it all fundamentally comes down to one rule: Try a lot, keep what works, cut off what isnt working. So we are trying a lot. And hopefully will continue doing more of what and where its working.
In the meantime, We look forward to saying Hello to Trivandrum.
Trivandrum 1st Edition
May 3rd - May 5th, 2013
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We are hosting In50hrs in Bangalore - for the second time - at the same ThoughtWorks Office. The ambience and the hospitality of that bunch is hard to bunch.
So in the same serene environment as last time, we are back and this time, this is the line up of Mentors who will spend two days at the event - working with the teams and prepping them up and the Jurors who will give feedbacks on Demo Evening on Sunday.
Mentors:
1. Deepak Shenoy (Entrepreneur, Financial Whiz)
2. Hitesh Gupta (UI / UX)
3. Pratyush Prasanna (Technologist - Founder of a Health Startup)
4. Arvind Devaraj (Android Expert)
5. Atif Haider (Technologist, LaunchYard)
6. Surendran Mahendran (Co-Founder, MarkupWand, YCombinator Startup)
7. Joylita Saldanha (Product Guru)
Jury:
1. Prateek Dayal of SupportBee
2. Shivkumar of Exotel
3. Rutvik Doshi of Inventus Capital
4. Rahul Chowdri of Helion Ventures
5. Nagarjun Kandukuru, Thoughtworks
… Along with the Team of In50hrs - Vijay Anand and Shayon Mukherjee of The Startup Centre
We will be adding a few more in the next few days. But if you are looking for a start for your venture, this seems to be an apt way to go for the launch of that Idea.
We get this question a lot. What happens to the teams and Prototypes after In50hrs. Thought we’d answer:
There are three key things to achieve in event like In50hrs:
1. Form the Pitch and prove the capability to attract a team
2. Test Drive the team
3. Build a prototype that encapsulates the essence of the idea and allows you to validate it with people without necessarily having to be there in person.
The next step after In50hrs would be to take the time to build that prototype into a product - and that is a longer process. You have to get the userflows right, setup the landing page, the login screens etc etc, and flesh out the MVP that one will pay for, and sign up a paying customer.
The Startup Centre has a programme named The Resident Programme which works closely with teams to do this - including taking them to customers to market validate it. (http://www.thestartupcentre.com/…)
There are a few things you should do, no matter what, just right after In50hrs:
1. Setup your landing page
2. Give it a name and get the url
3. Host the Prototype online under a subdomain (http://prototype.xyz.com)
4. Make a video of that one key feature of the product - as built in In50hrs, and
use that to get signups for your beta.
5. Apply for the TSC Resident Programme - or start working on building the Product.
In50hrs is now a growing baby, a really really fast growing baby. We have been around for close to 2 years now, and close to 14 events down across four different cities - and we are making plans to expand.
Before that however, we wanted to do a few tweaks.
We started In50hrs with a rather straightforward agenda - bring people together and let them prototype. Over time, we thought it made life simpler by segregating ideasmiths, developers and the designers and incentivizing folks seperately. While that has been interesting, we are evolving In50hrs in a slightly different tangent.
While the 500+ ideas we’ve heard are all interesting and the 180 Prototypes that have come out are meritorius, the 25 startups is the number we are trying to improve. When we looked at all that we can do, one thing came out to us - to dig up more solid problems to solve. At The Startup Centre, we have been noticing the same thing, that startups that solve a real problem swing by most of the issues that most entrepreneurs crib about - with a solid problem and a persuasive plan/prototype/product to solve it, it looked like most of the battle is won.
In50hrs Bangalore will be the last of its old edition. Starting from the Pune Edition, In50hrs will be about solving some real world problems. Towards that end, we are collating the meanest, and the tougest problems from entrepreneurs all cross to bring them to you - this will be across healthcare, education, retail, enterprise et all (17 sectors identified so far) and even some nifty prizes behind some of the promising Ideas/Prototypes to solve them.
You are still welcome to bring your own problems - that you see, and the idea, pitch, form teams and prototype. In50hrs as a platform just will offering a bit more than what it has so far.
We are excited about the journey ahead. Hope you are too.