CHENNAI: An entrepreneur needs to be a good story teller. Sharing his business and start-up insight, Rajesh Srinivas, Vice President of Yes Bank said this to students at ‘Pragyan’, the Youth Business Seminar conducted by NIT Trichy, in the city on Saturday.
One needs to tell a good story, spinning the idea smartly if he wanted his/her startup to appeal to a bank, he said.
“As a banker I can tell you, that’s the only way you can convince us,” he said revealing tips to gain funding, at the forum.
Pitching an idea well, he said is the most important first step for a founder explaining that it communicated the core values of the company.
As a banker, he drew from his experience in explaining various parameters that went behind getting a “yes” from an investor.
“We don’t fund innovations, we fund a tangible idea,” he said. “The start-up needs to have a gestation period, a solid team, some structure and above all, it needs to have scalability. Innovation alone isn’t enough,” he said to the young audience.
Citing an example to elucidate his statement, he recalled a young businessman who designed a robot that saved children who accidentally fell into bore wells. He explained that despite Tamilnadu having most instances of borewell deaths, the idea wouldn’t work. “It is a classic example of innovation. But one with no commercially viability,”
He also added that several startups that are desperate for an investor, don’t know the government schemes available for them.
“The government offers a credit guarantee scheme for SMEs (Small and Micro Enterprises) upto ` 1 crore. This is ideally for start-ups,” he added.