Venrock’s venerable reputation

Venrock is a pioneering venture capital firm formed in 1969 to build upon the fortunes of the Rockefeller family. A compound of “Venture” and “Rockefeller”, the institution currently has $2.2 billion under management. They currently have 24 professionals backing 122 ventures out of offices in Palo Alto, New York City, Cambridge, and Israel.

Crowdfunding Beer Companies & more

A British beer company has launched BeerBankroll.com which is using crowdfunding to start their new brewery company. It is currently recruiting a minimum of 50,000 members, each of whom will contribute $50 in exchange for voting rights on ideas such as the company name, logo, product design, product mix, marketing plan, advertising and sponsorship. It is a model that works better for businesses with people who are passionate about the company–bands, movies, sports clubs.

The benefits are that it allows for alternative financing and word of mouth promotion.

The down side is that it opens up the opportunity for copycat businesses with better financing.

One of the more interesting applications is in community-funded journalism.  A nonprofit called Spot Us has two main components:

1. ask people for story ideas, and
2. ask them to provide funds to defray the costs of producing the story

In the latter case, “the experiment has also raised concerns of journalism being bought by the highest bidder” according to the Times.

More to come on this fascinating business model.

Business Partner Featured on WOR – 710 AM New York, NY

Alastair Ong, my business partner and cofounder of GreenSoul Shoes, was featured on LaunchPad, WOR – 710 AM talk radiothis morning. http://su.pr/6Op4ne. He was talking about our innovative market-based restoration model that connects shoeless kids from around the world with local artisans and American consumers.

Liz and Joan Hamburg host the show and offer expert advice on how to finance your business, market it, deal with employees, and other entrepreneurial topics. It is heard live every Monday morning at 12:40 pm.

The Tata Nano: Disruptive Products & Social Innovation

The idea:

“Whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for [...] families riding on two-wheelers – the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby.” – Ratan Tata

The elegent solution:

The TATA Nano. To create a $2,000 “people’s car”I t

I love the insights from this BusinessWeek article and  Professor Govindarajan’s blog on the product and social innovation of Tata Motor’s new car: The Nano.

The idea came from  Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group,  when he wondered if there was a way to create a  safe, affordable, all-weather vehicle for Indian families who typically get around on two-wheels. He describes a scene where,  ”the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby.”

His solution was to dream up the Tata Nano, a super cheap car that would meet the needs of the 75% of the Indian population who still travels using these unsafe “open air” vehicles.

What makes it tremendous is that the entire car is $2,500–less than a new 17′ MacBook Pro.  Its closest competitor is another Indian company,  that is still roughly twice as expensive as the Nano.

Tata Motors is also cutting out the middleman in their go-to-market strategy. Their modular design allows for the manufacturing of kits which can then be assembled locally by thousands of entrepreneurs–saving on costs and providing a distribution network of manufacturers and evanglists while providing jobs. *As Vijay points out, it is like what IKEA did for the furniture industry.

Tata notes, “this approach would replace the dealer, and therefore the dealer’s margin, with an assembly-cum-retail operation that would be combined with very low-cost service facilities.”

This shift is tremendous and represents another step towards mass customization of the automobile. This adds to Tata Motors’ holdings, who in 2008, acquired Jaguar and Range Rover.

The company has also disclosed that it is working on an electric version of the Nano in Thailand.

Sources