The book ‘Good to Great’ talks about ‘the flywheel effect’. It is described as a situation in a Company where subsequent CEOs/leaders push the Company further in the direction of growth, creating sustainable growth momentum, by choice of a Strategy that the Company persists with making suitable changes with time. Something similar played out at the Joint mentoring session of IIM, Bangalore with IIT, Delhi where several mentors and start-ups had congregated for the Common pitching session. This is a session where Start-ups incubated at either FITT, IIT, Delhi or NSRCEL, IIM, Bangalore make a pitch with the aim of getting an assessment from a diverse group of mentors. Mentors at this forum are typically Alumni of these institutes who have industry experience and as a result have a closer view of industry ‘problems that need a solution’.
Ubifab was a Stratup being incubated at FITT, IIT Delhi. Started by two young Textile Engineers who had developed this technology that could impart three important characteristics to a wide range of textiles. These three traits being a) Self Cleaning of Organic stains when exposed to Sunlight for three hours b) UV protection c) Anti-Microbial and Anti-Odour. They had a patent for the process. The Market they were trying to address was ‘Fashion Garments’. They were also being guided by a Professor with interest in the domain. The Start-up met with early success when several suppliers to high end brands were willing to use that technology for their supplies to their Customers. However, since there was not much demand for this kind of product with the end use Market not yet developed, these suppliers were not willing to pay much money to Ubifab. That was the challenge!
I had witnessed a large demand for use and throw linen in Hospitals, when the Government of India had launched the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana(RSBY), a Health Insurance program launched in 2008, that targeted the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’. I could also envisage potential applications in Doctors gowns. So, I shared with them potential applications in the Healthcare Industry and nudged them to explore this Market as well, where a clear need was already established. I also suggested to them that for the chosen Customer segment of ‘Fashion’ it would be better for them to go and meet the leadership at the high-end brands as they would be the people creating the Market for such products. To enable this, we also provided linkages to industry leaders, who were not only happy to meet with such start-ups and had the personal leadership to encourage them by sending their brand teams to meet with them
Feel really happy to share that the Start-up took on the Healthcare application thought and incorporated the same in their pitch for funding to a Healthcare MNC and walked away with a big funding cheque!
