A bunch of guys running a PE firm recently invited me to their office to advise them on their investment into a Singapore-based company that had diversified into the Internet space. The dot com was started roughly 2 months ago. I had a look and came out thoroughly impressed. I saw great potential – the product addressed a well-defined need and had a proven revenue model tied to it. But the PE firm guys seemed to have a different opinion. They had been losing sleep over the fact that the Internet division had yet not seen any revenue. Thankfully, these guys had faith in my judgment and I was able to convince them that they had invested in a winner. And at this stage, they were better off contributing ideas that could act as hooks to bring in traffic rather than sitting through board meetings with the single-minded agenda of driving revenues.

When I watched the videos preceding this post, I got goose bumps. The videos are pitches/demos by the founder of 2 startups – one called BirdPost.com and the other called GoodGuide.com. Am sure when you finish watching these videos, you’ll know why I felt that way. Be prepared to be infused by a change-the-world spirit.

I firmly believe in bootstrapping before hitting the VCs (if at all one finally needs funds to grow). Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Naukri.com, has put this beautifully in his Sept column in Mint. Also, you could read the column on his blog.