This mentor talks about failure, pivot, growth, expansion and working with investors who have your best interests in mind

In this edition of Leaders Talk series of “Venture Upbeat”, after discussing with leaders from different industries in previous weeks I had a conversation with the man who breathes strategy, startups and new businesses day in and day out.

Warm welcome to Mr. Dattatri Salagame who is Vice President and Head of Strategy, New Businesses and M&A for Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions India Pvt. Ltd.

Working with VC’s, startups and being at the focal point of strategy how do you see the startup eco system shaping up in India?

Startups in India are not designed for scale. There is a strong need of partners. There is a need for deep tech companies which can create sustainable value proposition.

We have DNA program (Bosch Accelerator Program) where we enable them with mentoring and technology and not just speak about money.

Do you think choice of investors for startups seeking funding is important, especially considering investor can bring in their own perspectives

Yes, choice of investors is important. Startups need operational freedom, as well as meaningful strategic interventions.

Seeing the larger vision is necessary not just short term economics and you need to convince your investors to see this as well.

Also read: [Discussion] Would you take US$250K in smart funding vs US$5M in dumb funding?

What is your advice on going global for startups and diversification of portfolio?

Timing is of utmost importance. Just because you are well-funded you should not go global. Be successful in your geographical region first and you might find an inherent need, such as why you would want to go global. For instance: if you have exhausted your current market or valid reasons for rapid growth.

The timing of scaling up based on your business needs to be checked. You cannot scale up when your business is not stable, for instance.

How differently do you think internal startups (intrapreneurship) and external startups are run, and what are the common mistakes you see them making? What is your advice to them?

You cannot model an internal startup on an external startup. We should differentiate the way we run them. Bring in the spirit of external startup, not just copy-paste it.

External startups are driven by Founders who would work with passion. This spirit should be brought into the internal startup culture

Tha Major mistakes startups make is they are being too highly engineering-focussed and postponing the market exploration part, which is very important.

Recognising why their hypothesis has failed is very critical for a startup, which many miss to do.

What are the things you need to take care to ensure your investors are happy?

When there is an obvious market for a topic, investors will question only the execution part.

Take the example of Practo or Redbus — in both these cases the market need is well established.

Also read: Why companies should believe in intrapreneurship

But in cases where you are looking at creating a need and its disruption that might happen, you cannot tell your investor you will generate revenues next year.

For startups, having clarity of what they are trying to achieve is more important than revenues.

Classic example in Indian context is electric vehicle Reva which was finally acquired by Mahindra. But it had to sustain over a considerable long period when electric vehicles were not popular yet.

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Pavan works for Bosch Startup which is an intrapreneural venture of Bosch Global.

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