HERALD: How many proposals do you receive from Goa every year, seeking investments for new ideas?
TARUN BANSAL: We do receive a lot of proposals from all over India including Goa with Net Plug being one example. If we see any inventor has any idea which can be converted into a tangible technological product then we do offer them our assistance so that their idea never dies out and they are able to cope with the growing competitive scenario of the market.
HERALD: You have invested in Net Plug, apart from funds what kind of assistance do you provide them?
TB: We haven’t invested in Net Plug yet. But at this point, we are trying to help them make their business model more viable, practical and long term. We are also helping them close business deals with consumer electronics and lighting companies.
HERALD: How many such proposals do you receive from people with good ideas but with poor technical background?
TB: That’s kind of very frequent, especially because of the growing fascination for start-ups in India. We receive proposals from start-ups and innovators who are very passionate, hardworking and have a good idea to solve some day-to-day problem and/or to make life more convenient. However, most of the time, considering inter-disciplinary nature of things, they lack proper technical skills and infrastructure to convert that idea in to tangible product/ solution.
HERALD: How many proposals do you receive every month?
TB: We receive around 25 proposals in different technical domains.
HERALD: What is the most striking feature of all the proposals that you receive in terms of technology, sophistication of idea and scale of ambition?
TB: First-time innovators can broadly be classified in two categories: Innovators with sound passion but low technical skills and Innovators with sound technical background and passion.
Innovators from first category faced hurdles right from the beginning owing to their technical handicap as they find it difficult to covert the idea into a practical one, find no relevant people to brainstorm with and lack the right infrastructure to prototype/ lab test their solutions.
While innovators in the second category could manage this part sufficiently well and developed a good product- they failed at further steps like scaling up prototype for manufacturing, getting the right investments/ partnerships and most importantly with on-the-ground business development to sell their technology, IP and/or product/solution.
Further, there were some problems common to both categories especially about properly understanding the market and competition and defining the SWOT/value of their business models.
HERALD: When did you incorporate your company and what was the idea behind it?
TB: Our company was incorporated in the year 2008 to help inventors globally over years at very early stage of idea inception for patent filing and IP and market research. In a few years, Sagacious IP realized that over 60% of these ideas where provisional patent applications were filed did not see the light of the day despite idea being good and inventor being hard working and passionate. This was a Eureka moment when Sagacious IP decided to launch an initiative ‘Idea to Market’ to help ideas get to the market rather than going to dustbins. Sagacious spun off this initiative as a new company ‘Centre for Future (CFF)’ specifically for Indian innovators.
To fulfil this, Sagacious collaborated and got on board a number of research institutes to develop lab testing/prototyping facilities and a number of specialized investors. Further, as most people faced problem with offline mode of sales as opposed to e-commerce, Sagacious further got on board most of the major offline retail chains, some major distributors and an in-house team of sales, marketing and distribution experts.
With all things in place, CFF is now helping innovators right from evaluating their business models, brainstorming to refine ideas, prototyping/ lab testing, IP related issues, scale up and manufacturing, selling their technologies/IP/products/solutions on-the-ground in India and outside, and securing funding/investment/partnerships.
HERALD: How do you see the start up scene in India evolve in the next five years?
TB: With all the optimism around and India improving on ease of doing business index, young generation is now keen on starting up and entrepreneurship is the buzz word these days. However, still the ideas are more towards e-commerce and software industry rather than tangible technical products which are the focus area of Sagacious/CFF. However, I think with the ‘Make in India’ initiative, rather easier availability of funds even for this area and support ecosystem that has started to come up for entrepreneurs in the products area – things are set to improve and boom.
