At our latest eChai Dinner Social hosted by Shalin Parikh and Leena Parikh from Entigrity at their farmhouse, we gathered a select group of startup founders and operators for an evening of candid conversations and community spirit.

ft.

Shalin Parikh

&

Leena Parikh

(Entigrity)

Syed Nadeem Jafri

(Hearty Mart)

Manasvi Thapar

(Candour Legal)

Rishit Shah

(Kinetiq)

Vishakha Shah

(Venus Logistics)

Kumar Manish

(Communicate Karo)

Nikita Lalwani

(Croooze App)

Kush Prajapati

(Redicine)

Prafull Billore

(MBA Chaiwala)

Harsha Bhurani

(Hummingbird Consulting)

Aalap Sanghvi

(Immersfy)
Priyanka Sharma (Republic)
Shreya Billore (Askus way)

Jatin Chaudhary

(eChai Ventures)

From the earlier eChai SaaS Social with founder friends from the city at MagentaInsights HQ.

Small Group. Candid Conversations. Startup Folks.

Great to catch up with many new founder friends from Ahmedabad.

Vikas Mundhra & Vikalp Somani (MagentaInsights)

Yash Shah (Clientjoy)

VIKASH RAJPUROHIT & Keshav Dhamecha (VastraApp)

Pankaj Bhimani (58Miles)

Kush Prajapati (Redicine)

Pratik Patel (Flo Mobility)

Himani Kankaria (Missive Digital)

Bhavik Makwana (ZenDevX)

Anuj Dalal (Zestard)

Mitesh Shethwala (Currently)

Harsha Bhurani (Hummingbird Consulting)

Jay Patel (Momentum Ventures)

Koumal Kalantry (Ankk Cares)

Swayam Raval (Admyre Club)

Nishi Jain (Vibes Good)

Niren Panchal (Brittman & Workex)

Foram Popat (HROne)

List of participants at https://echai.ventures/events/echai-saas-social-in-ahmedabad-feb-07-2024

Notes from Startup Exits and M&A Forum

It’s important for both the companies - the company being acquired and the acquirer - to evaluate not just products, services and financials but also whether there is culture fit between the leadership and the team at large.

⁠Due Diligence can bring to light compliance issues as well some times and it is ok. As long as it does not show gross negligence or mis-representation in data, Due Diligence typically goes through.

Diligence at the time of acquisition and diligence at the time of fund-raising are quite different. At the time of acquisition, it is much more focused on team, technology, GTM channels and financials while diligence at the time of fund raising is mostly legal and financial with some attention to other aspects.

It’s difficult for startups to plan for an exit. The plan should be created to become valuable for customers - everything else typically follows.

Things to keep in mind during fundraising for early stage founders.

There are no permanent ‘No’s. When an investor passed on your deal, ask for permission to keep them updated every quarter and then enrol them into a list to which you send out a quarterly update across your product, team and growth. You never know when interest in your startup might peak.

Fundraising is a full-time activity for 1 founder. Pitch to as many people as you can. Pitch, Ask for feedback, improve, repeat.

At early stages, valuation is more of an art than a science. Ultimately, when you are at the negotiating table - everything falls back to how desperate you are to raise and how convinced they are to invest in you.

eChai with Founders from the community who have made it to Shark Tank India.

Ft.

Ananya Maloo

, Co-Founder, Nuutjob

Shani Pandya

, Co-Founder, Imagine Powertree

Payal Pathak

&

Soham Payal Pathak

, Co-Founders, The Simply Salad

Jignesh Vasavada

, Co-Founder, Temple.ngo

Jainam Mehta

, Co-Founder, UrbanNaps

I had moderated this meetup.

 

eChai Socials are delightful and fun conversations with founders. 

Lot of learning and fun exchanges.

Today 

Amit Panchal

(Allevents) hosted the founders lunch to welcome Bhopal-based Nemesh Singh (Appointy) who was visiting the city.

Appointy is one of the leading online scheduling software companies in the world, with over 200,000 customers globally.

We were joined by

Shalin Parikh

(Entigrity) ,

Rishit Shah

(Kinetiq),

Pankaj Bhimani

(58miles),

Bhavesh Patel

(Brands.live),

Ruchit Patel

(Allevents),

Kush Prajapati

(Redicine) and Dhruv Patel (SalesHandy). 

We had hosted the first eChai in Bhopal at Appointy Office in 2014. 

eChai Startup social celebrating the vibrancy of entrepreneurship and Co rising together with cool much of folks & founders with a picturesque backdrop. 

1st eChai social of #HappyNewYear2024 🥳

Thanks Shalin Parikh and Leena Parikh of Entigrity for being an amazing host. 

The eChai Startup Demo Days are held on last Saturdays of the month across cities in India. 

Last week, I got an opportunity to Co-host eChai Demo Day with Viraj Rajani of Digipple.

Heatmaphero and SarvDhan shared their story and the problem they are trying to fix followed by insightful questions from the audience.

Later, we discussed fundamentals of starting a company from team building to finding co-founders and from fund raising to identifying the ideal clients.

Another interesting thing I witnessed was that a lot of students from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology and L.D. College of Engineering had also joined in. These folks were early in their education journey and were present to explore the startup ecosystem.

Thank you eChai Ventures for the opportunity and IIMA Ventures for the venue.

If you are interested in joining interesting meet ups in your city, consider following eChai Ventures and Jatin Chaudhary. 

They are free and a great use of your time.

There can’t be anything better than  interacting with 150+ young aspiring New India on entrepreneurship & gaining excellence on eve of 75th Republic Day at St Xavier’s college in #Ahmedabdad! 

Nadeem Jafri of @Heartymart, @jatin10 of @eChaiVentures and yours truly shared learnings & unlearnings of life.  

Three things we emphasised on 
- create opportunities for yourself, don’t wait for opportunities
-  be a OG in your chosen field. 
-  read, read and read. Be a Voice. 

#RepublicDay2024