CATEGORIES

Dunkin' Donuts

The coffee-and-doughnut brand’s tally in the U.S.sounds like a lot—it has more than 8,600 existing shops—but that’s small by the company’s ambitions.

It's A Yes For Fintech Start-Ups

The country’s fifth largest private sector bank, YES Bank, is among the first-of-its-kind ‘companies offering banking-as-a-service’, as it positions itself as a technology company in the business of banking. In its digital-first banking strategy, based on its Alliances, Relationships & Technology (ART) approach, the bank’s fintech accelerator – YES Fintech, launched in January this year, is letting it take its customer services to a new level while being the gateway for start-ups to the financial ecosystem. Entrepreneur spoke to the man himself - Rana Kapoor, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, YES Bank; and Chairman, YES Global Institute, for the low-down.

Innovation And Ideas At Its Best

The Entrepreneur Startup Summit 2017 recently held in Bengaluru, brought together a diverse group of individuals, starting from leaders of established companies to young risk takers that are on testing waterbeds with their innovative ideas.

The Hunger Game

Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO, Zomato

Making Maximum Impact

Rahul Sharma, Co-Founder, Micromax

For EXIM, It Is Products And Services And Not Region

The Export-Import Bank of India or the Exim Bank may not be serving the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) directly but every time, they need to venture overseas – by market expansion or capacity expansion, it extends a helping hand. In an exclusive conversation with Entrepreneur, DEBASISH MALLICK, Deputy Managing Director, Exim Bank, shares about its agnostic support to the SMEs, its effort towards digitization and various other initiatives.

Caught In The Talent Crunch?

Aiming for market disruption with your artificial intelligence (AI) solution? Spoiler alert!

Being Different Is Not The Only Difference

Finding the right investor who would also benefit from your idea through equity is quite a herculean task.

Why Consumer Brands Are Hot?

Consumer product based businesses are not a new phenomenon but it has truly come of age. When we thought of the biggest trend that will rule the coming year, we found everyone excited about consumer product start-ups.

Pedaling Down The Memory Lane

'Don’t buy upgrades, ride up the brakes' –Eddy Merckx

Turning The Tablez

Adeeb Ahamed, who heads the Abu Dhabi-based Lulu Group’s organized retail venture Tablez, hospitality arm Twenty14 Holdings and financial services vertical Lulu Exchange, is bullish on Indian retail story. After dabbling in food and beverage, and apparel sector, Ahamed is scratching the toy market in India via franchising under Tablez India brand.

The Bubbling Tea Master

Having traveled the world, hospitality fanatic Adnan Sarkar realized the craze of bubble tea concept globally, missing in India. In 2015, Sarkar Indianized the concept and launched his start-up Dr Bubbles. Beginning with Mumbai, the brand has already been picked up well by customers and Sarkar has put expansion in full throttle via franchising.

A Conglomerate Of Conceptions

For a company called Hurban, it is difficult to define in a line. A conglomerate with quirky ideas and elegant products, Hurban is best known through its brands that have carved their own space in the consumer’s mind through unique product placements to reach an audience that is anything, but ordinary.

Entrepreneurs Straight Outta School

While technology and management colleges have become the hotbeds of start-ups in India, the school education is in need to adapt to the changing business environment to impart necessary entrepreneurial skills.

Lessons in Learning

How Grace Pinto became the reckoning force behind Ryan International Group of Institutions.

It's An Opportune Time For Indian VCs

Earlier this year, one of India’s most active VC fund, Blume Ventures, decided to form a strategic alliance called Draper Venture Network (DVN), an independent venture capital firm to connect leading entrepreneurs with investors around the world. The alliance will give Blume Ventures’ portfolio, which includes start-ups such as Runnr, Locus and Exotel, access to a global network of corporate and ecosystem relationships.

The Start-Up Superhero

Spanning passion and ambition, rebel and instinct, with a dose of creativity and energy, Akshay Kumar has created a niche as an actor for using entertainment as a medium of moving the society to a better place.

Maha-power To Women Entrepreneurs

Before 2017 could end, Maharashtra Government approved an industrial policy to boost and encourage women entrepreneurship in the state. Claiming it to be first such policy in the country, Subhash Desai, Minister of Industries, Maharashtra, talks about the motive behind the policy and how women entrepreneurs can avail its benefits.

Crunching Numbers In The Cloud

For long in India, small and medium enterprises (SME) have always been business driven. Increasing revenue is what drives a startup and small business owner to work every day, slug it out and survive another day of managing clients and operations.

The Access Code Rewritten

Under the government’s nose to maintain the sanctity of net neutrality and ‘gated’ principles of Facebook’s Free Basics for the farce called affordable Internet, there are few start-ups that are truly democratizing it.

Going Back To The Whiteboard

Hacker Earth helped companies hire better developers, grew at $1 million run rate, employed over 100 people and had no trouble in sight. But after four years doing so, its CEO Sachin Gupta knew that he has completely messed it up.

Building a Brand Without Destroying A Legacy

‘Rome was not built in a day’ – the French proverb stands true for legacy businesses, which have withstood the test of time to not only validate their products but also inspire the next-gen leaders to be entrepreneurs. Waking up to the changing trends and technological advancements, torch-bearers of these legacy business are either taking these conglomerates into new territories or re-inventing themselves, keeping the core values intact. Tracing their journey, Entrepreneur talks to these legacy masters.

Will Robots Help India Ride Next Industrial Revolution?

The fourth industrial revolution is upon us, where machine intelligence is usurping human intelligence at an overwhelming speed. More than China, India must understand its significance in order to lead the revolution as an industrial giant. We missed it last time. China is already stuffing its industrial corridors with an army of robots, while India is still trying to catch up with the dragon and others. To win the battle, India needs more startups in hardware robotic space, not just artificial intelligence (AI)-backed software robots, a.k.a bots.

What's Choking India's Rise in Ease of Doing Business?

India’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) ranking slingshot to 131 last year from 142 in 2014, thanks to the immediate reforms kicked in by the Modi government, after coming into power. However, as the dust of the economic euphoria settled down, despite a barrage of new initiatives pressed into action over last 12 months, it has failed to translate the impact onto the rankings this year.

How To Learn The Most From Your Customers

Let's say you wake up one day and decide the world needs a better mop, and you’re just the person to make it. Before setting out, you interview prospective customers. “Are you looking for a better mop?” you ask someone. The person searches his memory for all the times he’s wrestled with a mop or hated the smell of it, and he ignores the fact that most days he doesn’t care about his mop and can’t even remember the last time he used it. The hits, not the misses, fill his mind. “Yes,” he tells you. “I am looking for a better mop.” You’re thrilled to hear that and go off to design it. Eight months later, with $20,000 of R&D money invested, you come back and ask him to buy it. “Nah,” he says. “I’ve already got a mop.” 

Fashion Takes To Tier II & Beyond

With the blurring of seasons, value fashion taking centrestage and luxury brands making beeline, upcountry markets are witnessing a major makeover.

Separating Fact From Fiction In Corporate Venture Capital

Aldi Adrian Hartanto, Head of Investments, MDI Ventures.

How Start-Ups Are Battling Air Pollution

With air pollution reaching alarming levels across China, many entrepreneurs have turned to the idea of developing environment-friendly solutions.

Breaking The Language Barrier

Breaking the barriers of various languages and dialects across India, Uniphore Software Systems worked its technology grounds up and now supports more than 25 global languages and over 150 dialects. It became a flag bearer of an Indian company which first started solving language problem for Indian villages and is now exporting to other parts of the world. Umesh Sachdev Co-founder and CEO of Uniphore Software Systems shares more.

Startups Or MNCs Where Are You Headed After College?

Not very long ago, placement cells in B-schools and IIT's were flying high in glory of startup growth in India. Students were going all out to get onto the lucrative ‘Start-Up bandwagon’. Literally some 365 days ago, it seemed like a win-win situation. The story, as we see it now, is different. The year 2016 has seen a massive downturn, turning it into a year of uncertainty. Entrepreneur analyses what the future holds for graduates in this climate.