सगुन, अंजन, छेपाक, डिल्ली, विनोद, कृष्ण (२)

सगुन, अंजन, छेपाक, डिल्ली, विनोद, कृष्ण

एउटा टेक स्टार्टअप ले राउंड २ मा जान का लागि राउंड १ मा २०-३० हजार डॉलर ले पनि पुग्ने बाटा हरु छन, ५० हजार देखि एक लाख डॉलर सम्म चाहिने बाटा पनि छन, मैले न्यु यर्क को नेपाली समुदाय का २-४ जना सँग विगत केही महिना गफ गर्दा एउटा टीम लाई दुई लाख डॉलर राउंड १ मा चाहिने जस्तो एस्टीमेट भएको थियो। साढ़े तीन देखि पाँच लाख लाग्ने बाटा पनि छन।

तर राउंड १ मा ३०-५० हजारले पुग्ने यदि छ भने पनि सफल भएको खण्डमा आखिर त्यसै स्टार्टअप ले पनि राउंड २ मा गएर ५ लाख डॉलर, एक मिलियन डॉलर fundraising गर्ने र खर्च गर्ने हो।

So it really is a matter of scheduling. कुनै स्टार्टअप २०-३० हजार मै हुने, कसैलाई ५-१० लाख चाहिने भन्ने होइन। सबै सफल स्टार्टअप त्यो मिलियन डलरको बाटो बाट जाने नै हो। नौबिसे हो त्यो रोड मार्कर।

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Sagoon: Nepali Tech StartUp: Presentation At Chautari

DC Comics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Friday evening I was at the presentation at the Chautari Restaurant by Sagoon that seemed to have some founders from the Nepali community in DC and a team in Delhi. Accumulating 100,000 users is very promising. I would like to know how many of them are active users. How many log in monthly? Weekly? Daily?

VCs will tell you, at 50,000 users you become interesting to them. And user base is everything. As long as you have a fast growing user base, you are in a good shape.

Twitter was launched in mid 2006. But I only discovered it in early 2009. I was not using it. But its user base kept growing. And then it really grew in 2009 and 2010.

So I hope Sagoon's user base grows rapidly, and I am proven wrong. But I also felt like there were no fundamentally new features. And it was not necessarily trying to cater to the local market in Nepal. Darshan Rauniyar caused a lot of excitement in the Nepali community across America. But he got very few votes in his primary election and was out. In the process he still paved the way for future Nepali aspirants for political office. But internal excitement is apparently not enough.

I don't want Sagoon to be the Darshan Rauniyar of Nepali tech entrepreneurship.

But I am impressed with their registered base of 100,000. I am impressed they decided to take the plunge. Risk taking is a big deal. I am impressed they have taken the risk. Sticking your neck out is not easy to do.

I hope they grow their use base to 500,000 and beyond. I hope they go on to raise money from professional investors, because it is about time.

I was impressed with how many people in the room were willing to possibly invest, if not a lot then at least a few thousand dollars each.

They have a working prototype and 100,000 users. That's a lot to have. They said they have already raised 350K, and they were in town to raise 150K.

Anjan Shrestha asked if there was an anti-dilution clause to protect this first round of investors. The roundabout answer was, no there wasn't. The question was echoed by half a dozen other people.

You can give 25% of the company to round 1 investors and have no anti-dilution clause. Or you can give 5% and have an anti-dilution clause. I will take that 5% any day. I have known of many successful tech startups where the round 1 investors saw little to no growth of their money.

I have a pre lanch tech startup, an Augmented Reality Mobile Game. I know Anjan Shrestha harbors tech startup ambitions. There are several routes to moving forward. Some quick routes bring in professional angel investors pretty fast.

For Nepali tech startups, it is a very good idea to have the Indian community in mind. Indians are some top names in tech and investing as well.

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