Balu Pandian, Chairman, Brookfield High, Electronic City, Bangalore – an ICSE school providing contemporary, skills based education and aiming to plug the gap between education and the demands of the job economy. Prior to this Balu has served many Marketing roles – Marketing Director, Jobstreet.com, Marketing Communications Director besides other Marketing roles, American Power Conversion Singapore Pte Ltd. He has also worked in Marketing roles at Enterprise Nexus, Mudra Communications and Singer Sewing Machines.

This talk would be of interest to all Entrepreneurs and especially those with Startups or ideas in the “Education Vertical”. This would be a good opportunity to validate your idea with an entrepreneur who can also role-play as your potential customer. Bring your ideas, problems, challenges and thoughts along.

This was a session striking in its simplicity, honesty and practicality. Here are the key Lounge47 take aways:

1. Identify a “real” pain point (eg. Assessment drudgery faced by teachers) and provide a “real” solution

2. Study the website of the institution and align your presentation to meet the vision of the institute

3. Reach out to the Administration Officer (AO) within the educational institute to understand the institute better, the key players and their challenges. Key skill required : Listening

4. Leverage existing relationships e.g. The person that sells transportation buses to the school, whose recommendation would set you up for better success

5. Identify the decision maker – this is more likely to be the person in the organization that has “veto power” – the person who can say “no” to decisions

6. Educational institutes are capital intensive organizations. Capex (capital expenditure, eg. classrooms) takes first priority over Opex. Given this, entrepreneurs have a better chance of success with established institutes

7. Lead time for Opex decisions is 1 to 4 years. Understand this reality, do not get disheartened if your idea does not get the nod. Call back repeatedly to check status 8. A normal day of school can be hectic. The entrepreneur should understand this and pick a time of the day and time of the year carefully, to ensure that the decision maker has the mental bandwidth to give your proposal full attention.

And remember that the truest test of the success of your Startup is not VC funding but a paying customer.