India’s hottest startups?
By Jaspreet Singh

Some people may find it annoying, but I think I must write about this. Almost a month back, I received an Email from NEN for participating in the hottest startup contest. I looked at the website and was impressed by the participation. What was annoying was the classification of a “startup”. I could see companies founded in 2003 with 70+ employees nominated by NEN with expert rating 8+.

On the weekend, I was planning to fill the form sent by NEN and suddenly I see an email from an unknown “startup” which read as follows:

“
 I, on behalf of my company, request you to find few minutes out of your busy schedule and vote us for Tata NEN Hottest Startups 2008 contest. Your vote matters!

The TATA NEN Startups Awards are the first ever people’s choice Awards to recognize the highest-potential startups in India: young companies with great potential to grow; with the ability to change their industries; companies that will create jobs and drive economic growth.

You can vote a***.com online at http://www.hotteststartups.inviewandvote.do?method=fetch&businessFn=viewandvote&startupId=2**

…. More SPAM <snip>

CEO and Chairman …
XYZ
“

And I swear to God, I hate spam email. Especially from a CEO, and especially on a Sunday morning …

In my opinion, this raises some questions -

- What distinguishes a “startup” from a “businesses”? Can a new Kirana shop call itself a startup?
- Is “People’s Choice” genuinely a good thing or just means of involving people and promoting spam?
- Shouldn’t mentorship be an important part and motivation factor for such competitions?
- Is cash rewards a good thing to offer? I can see Eureka has it, but I also feel that it again leads the Business Plan makers to project arbitrary stuff on paper?
- Shouldn’t entrepreneurs be judged by entrepreneurs and not “respected jury” from some college or MNC?

Techgoss note:  Tatas have teamed up with NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network) and have started an online contest where people are invited to 'vote' for the Hottest Indian startups.  Depending on the number of votes, a short list of 30 startups will be selected which will be pruned down to '5 winners'.  Anyone who makes it to the top 5 gets business training and mentoring from IIM-A and CIIE. And one such winner will get admission to Microsoft's StartUp Accelerator Program. Last, but perhaps the most important, is a chance to pitch to Venture Capitalists.

Will such a pioneering voting system work in India? Only time will tell.  In the absence of very rigid security checks, any online competition is open to rigging in the first few stages.