Microsoft's $100K India Startup Challenge Grant

At this week's One Million by One Million roundtable, we announced our collaboration with Microsoft around a $100,000 grant that they are offering to four Indian entrepreneurs as follows: A $40,000 grant each to two entrepreneurs, one in Mobility and one in Cloud Computing; and a $10,000 grant to two entrepreneurs, as well one in each of those two categories.

At today's session, first up, Ramkumar RS from Chennai, India, presented Mango DVM, an innovative solution to turn vendors of illegal, grey market music to legal distributors using a combination of mobile apps and media server innovation. Ramkumar has made certain pricing model and delivery model assumptions that are but to be validated. We brainstormed about the risks of those assumptions. Nevertheless, only the market can tell to what extent those assumptions will hold true.

Next Jigar Doshi, as well from Chennai, India, pitched 3gSimplified, as a matter of fact, a comparative shopping solution for mobile plans, which are to all appearances quite complex in the Indian market. As for business model, Jigar wants to sell services like refilling cards.

Then Balaganesh S., from Chennai, India, as so then, discussed Report Bee, a data visualization solution for schools around report cards and student performance. Report Bee has two paying clients, and we discussed segmentation issues around where to focus for the early market penetration strategy. Anyway you look at it, affluent schools that can afford to buy innovation, and as well parents who have access to computers would be the best early adopters.

Last up, Rahul Mishra from Bangalore, India, pitched Promedik, a "decision support system" for physicians. I wasn't convinced about the assumptions of the business - there are too many gaps and flawed assumptions around the source and the cost of the data upon which the product is built. I advised Rahul to study Epocrates as a model. I believe, trying to offer a reference manual may be better than trying to offer a decision support system, which is a much more complex value proposition that requires expert systems to implement.

The recording of today's roundtable here

You can as well listen to the recording of today's roundtable here and select the business you like best through a poll on the 1M/1M Facebook page. Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here.

Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Research.