SimplyFest Delhi 2016: A celebration of entrepreneurship and storytelling

New Delhi, February 25, 2016: The very first edition of SimplyFest Delhi saw a weekend of inspiring talks and sessions at Q’la and Zorba, Delhi. A one of a kind celebration of entrepreneurship bringing together inspiring storytellers in a space that is infused with curated music and art, the event saw students, entrepreneurs in the making, and investors, come together on the 19th and 20th of February across a range of interesting sessions.
The event started with a keynote address by Sanjoy Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts on the 19th of February at Q’la where he spoke about the important role played by art in the everyday and the importance of sticking to your convictions as an entrepreneur. Saturday was dedicated to sessions by storytellers representing some of India’s most sought-after enterprises with collaborators across venture capitalists, incubators, knowledge institutions, social platforms, business groups, business dailies and technology companies.
The specially crafted interactive boot camp had 16 hand-picked storytellers with 4 by 4 sessions focused on knowledge sharing through activity based interactions under the themes of People; Communication; Money; and Technology. Rajdeep Sardesai (Senior Journalist, India Today Group), Suchita Salwan (Founder & CEO, Little Black Book), Arvind Singhal (Chairman, Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd.), Shilpa Sharma (Co-founder, Jaypore) spoke on how brand and strategy needs to revolve around the communication of a start-up. The session on cost management had speakers like Sudhir Rao (Founding Managing Partner, IndusAge Partners), Raghav Bahl (Founder, Quintillion Media & Network18), Rohit Sarin (Co-Founder, Client Associates) and Atul Jalota who spoke on managing money while raising investments, equity dilution, among other pertinent issues of financing.
• “The challenge of today's India is that they want to feel empowered” - Rajdeep Sardesai
• “People fail, that doesn't mean products should too” - Suchita Salwan
The session on culture and talent of start-ups was addressed by Avijit Das (Managing Director, Eveready), Sanjeev Agarwal (Co-Founder, Helion), Shilpi Singh (Executive Coach & Founder, Purple Tree) and Anil Sachdev (Founder & CEO, Soil) where they discussed hiring practices and their impact on startup culture. The last session had innovators from technology including Anand Sinha (Founder & CEO, Pressplay), Varun Chawla (Co-Founder, 91springboard) and Saubhik Mandal (Co-Founder, SalesPanda) speaking about technological developments in startups.
• “Become VC to VC – very capitalist to very compassionate!” – Sudhir Rao
• “India isn't getting transformed, India is performing better” – Raghav Bahl
The day ended with a ‘talk show’ featuring Gul Panag and Shweta Tripathi as they spoke about their ‘Journey’ with entrepreneurship. Exciting performances from bands like Reaction 70, Big Bang Blues had the audience tapping their feet.
SimplyFest is an initiative by Rajneesh Singh (SimplyHR), Abhinav Rajput (Partner & Co-Founder, Beam & Words), Sahil Seth (Marketing Consultant) and Mukesh Marwah (Founder, PixelVJ). “With SimplyFest, we want to help pass on their wisdom to the next wave of innovators who have the potential to start the hottest start-ups of tomorrow,” says Rajneesh Singh, managing partner at Simply HR.
The next edition of SimplyFest is in April 2016 in Pune.