TiE Women - A Bootcamp for Women Entrepreneurs

“TIE WOMEN” is an initiative by “TIE GLOBAL”

As part of the e-conference held on 29^th August 2020, we got an opportunity to hear such eminent people as part of the e-session where we got to know about the “TIE WOMEN PROGRAM” to uplift and mentor the women entrepreneurs around the world.

 

Speakers’ Profile:

1.   Mr. Rajan Anandan

President, TiE Delhi – NCR & MD, Surge & Sequoia Capital India

 

2.   Ms. Geetika Dayal

Executive Director of TiE Delhi NCR

 

3.   Dr. Shikha Sharma

Founder & Managing Director, Dr. Shikha’s NutriHealth;

Chair, TiE Delhi NCR Women Entrepreneurs Special Interest Group

 

4.    Ms. Hemalatha Annamalai

Chair, TiE Women;

President, TiE Coimbatore;

Founder Ampere Vehicles

5.   Mr. Nitin Agarwal

Director at TiE Delhi NCR

 

 

Speaker: Ms. Hemalata Annamalai

The session started with an introduction by the host Ms. Hemalatha Annamalai who introduced us with the TIE Delhi Program to bring in alignment the women who are performing in their respective fields. She said that the “TIE WOMEN” Program focuses basically on the “Women Entrepreneurs”.

It has 61 Chapters globally, till date, out of which around 24 chapters are participating in 2020 Chapter Pitch Competitions.

TIE Women official website -

Source :  http://women.tie.org/

It has received more than 2500+ applications from around the world till now. 200 Bankers are supporting the program and its purpose and there would be 3 Runner Ups from each chapter.

She says that there is 50 % women population around the world. Her recent Research says that Ghana in West Africa has a population of around 30 Million and it has the largest number of women entrepreneurs. So, when Ghana can have, why not India for that matter?

So, she thanked all the sponsors but made it a point to give a special thanks to one of the sponsors in particular, thorough the “empower” program.

Indian Clearing Corporation Limited (“ICCL”) a wholly owned subsidiary of BSE Ltd. (Bombay Stock Exchange) has joined in as the Industry Sponsor for the 2020 Edition of the program. It is running in its fifth edition.

They have provided their support for the next 4 years.

Due to the COVID scenario, all the TiE programs are happening online. TiE Women is an opportunity for TiE Global aiming at equality for women for the growth of an individual, growth of the community, society, nation and the world in totality.

 

Speaker: Dr. Shikha Sharma

Ms. Geetika Dayal, welcomed the speakers and the audience on behalf of TiE  - Delhi NCR. She expressed her delight that a large number of women entrepreneurs have registered today and a few of them would also be exhibiting the same day.

She welcomed Dr. Shikha who took forward the session with a warm welcome and she said it’s very heartening to see that women are going out and applying and participating.

She shared her journey with the audience that when she had started her career, she was just following her dream. She started as a Medical Doctor. She was working at that time in a Government Hospital in Delhi and she saw a large number of deaths and she did not like it. So, she went for Preventive Healthcare. She started with her dream and the voice inside was so strong. There was a drive to do something.

She gave a message to the audience that

“Valuations and Company Revenues will change

But don’t let that inner voice die.”

 

Many people will let you down and they would say that what you are doing is just a passing hobby but TiE believes in you. They will support you and challenge you to become limitless.

So, her first and foremost advice to the audience was to join TiE as an Entrepreneur. Eventually, by Osmosis you will learn and the network will help you.

TiE is rapidly evolving with time and provides a world class platform to the Entrepreneurs.

Dr. Sharma said,

                                                           “No idea is bad”

When we are not selected, it comes to our mind that may be we are not good at it. But the thing is that our idea needs to be aligned to the market and we need to have patience.

She said that it’s not a race, it’s a Marathon where you have to box yourself. You don’t have to question yourself but you have to question the product / service you have come out with. You need to stick to the core what you believe in.

 

She gave her own reference that for the first time, when she was working in the Preventive Healthcare field, her product was a “Terrible Failure”. But gradually when she changed its packaging, it turned out to be a “Huge Success”. The soul of idea remained the same.

The only person we have to change is our self. She said the more you are rejected, the more you are questioned. Then, we get the True Assets. We will thus create the Revenue Assets. The Deepest Asset is the talent and understanding of our self.

 

 

Dr. Shikha further said that TiE is an ecosystem of hungry and foolish people who have come together to form a network to help each other grow. It’s a wonderfully packaged program. The COVID has provided an online platform for everybody to save time and energy and connect with each other. She realises the fact that it’s hard for women to travel. 

Dr. Sharma ended her session and thanked Mr. Nitin Agarwal and his team at TiE Delhi NCR, for putting it all together and making this session possible and expressed her happiness to be a part of such a wonderful session.

 

Ms. Geetika Dayal thanked Dr. Shikha Sharma for her support in the initiative. 

 

Speaker: Mr. Rajan Anandan

Ms. Geetika Dayal welcomed Mr. Rajan Anandan who thanked her for the warm welcome and having greeted his audience, he thanked and expressed that he was totally inspired by Dr. Sharma and wanted to hear her more. Dr. Anand said that it was really exciting to see that "TiE Women" held this session which focused on Women Entrepreneurship.

He talked about the several “Special Interest Groups” at TiE: Social Impact, Food and Food Services, Sports and Fitness, Healthcare, Retail, Internet and Telecom, Education and Training SIG, Cleantech and SmartCities, SIGWE (Special Interest Group for Women Entrepreneurs), TYE  (TiE Young entrepreneurs) 

Source :  https://delhi.tie.org/special-interest-groups/

 

Dr. Rajan highlighted several important points:

He said that during the COVID, there has been a full possibility and right circumstances for being an entrepreneur as the country had 3 million cases and was shut down.

Earlier in the years 1887 and 2008 also there was a slowdown. In every economic slowdown, “there is an opportunity in adversity”.

What are the important reasons?

1.   Less noise – you can put your head down.

2.  It is easier to hire talent. There is entire virtual team. Nobody has ever met with another person.  Appearance don’t matter, work matters.

3.  He referred to his own company that they have never been so busier as they were during this COVID   time. Initially things were slow. In June they started off and in August things really picked up for them.

     The Investors and Venture Capitalists are back in business. They have moved 5 years ahead      in these 5 months.

    So, for all those reasons, it’s great time to be an Entrepreneur.

 

He said that they have maximum women present in the session who are Founders of their companies. Also, there are a lot of women as part of the TiE Delhi team.

The speaker shared his own experience that he came from a family of women entrepreneurs. His Parents were Entrepreneurs. His mother being an Entrepreneur focused more on basics and was much disciplined in her business. His mother made real business and he was a witness of her struggle. When Dr. Ranjan took up being a Venture Capitalist as his business, his mother told him that she wished that during her struggle time, he would have been present to make her work easier.

Before coming to the session, he discussed about it with his wife who was an Economist and an Entrepreneur. 

Having discussed with her, he said that it is very difficult for women entrepreneurs, taking his wife’s example, he said that she manages and takes care of home and work, parents and company as well.

So, it’s a tough journey for a women entrepreneur. 

It is very important to build a team. That is the hardest thing. If you find real talent, then would be able to do good business. You don’t have to let it go.

You need to try and find 2-3 mentors who correctly guide you. As market changes, your “Top 3” people would change the company. So, you should have some people around you who care about what you are doing. You need to try and build a level of trust for Business related things.

So, Dr. Anand said that for this there are subject matter experts at TiE to help you. He said that Ms. Radhika from the Team of TiE is an excellent mentor. She has been an amazon expert. She knows how to sort out things to sell on amazon. Ms. Radhika Binani, Chief Product Officer, Policybazaar in comes with over 15 years of rich experience in financial services.

 

Dr. Anand concluded his session and laid focus on the part that we need to build a peer group. You must have 4-5 people as your close contacts who are at the same level as you are, who do similar kind of work as you do, to whom you can ask questions if you get stuck somewhere in your business like how to approach the supplier, etc.

So, he further said that Ms. Geetika at TiE has a team of missionaries, who set goals and missions and provide mentorship in the right manner to the entrepreneurs.

 

Mr. Nitin Agarwal thanked Mr. Ranjan and gave a special thanks to Dr. Ankita for being the jury member also.