Hyderabad-based startup engine T-Hub and Slush partnered to organize India’s first ever ‘Slush Small Talks’ in Hyderabad on November 22, 2018. Slush is a student-driven, not-for-profit movement which facilitates meetings between investors, startups and the global startup community, and hosts one of the largest startup and tech events in the world with 20,000 attendees every year in Helsinki, Finland.
The event brought together tech entrepreneurs, corporates, investors and innovators all under one roof, and focused on growth, scaling and user acquisition, adding fuel to the fast-emerging relationship between Indian and European startup ecosystems.
“T-Hub is happy to bring such a great tech startup event to India as part of its commitment to nurture and support entrepreneurs in India. Hosting such events gives startups access to global knowledge from successful Founders and helps them to scale their own businesses. We look forward to bringing more such opportunities for the ecosystem,” Srinivas Kollipara, CEO of T-Hub said in a statement.
The event’s sessions included networking opportunities for startup founders and executives. Startups got insights from seasoned entrepreneurs on how they lead a team which is scaling at a fast pace and how they grabbed their first thousand customers.
Alexander Pihlainen, President of Slush said, "It was incredible to see a gathering of brilliant founders, investors, tech executives and entrepreneurial minded students for yet another Slush event. This event helped us in achieving long-term collaboration for the advancement of Indian tech startups. These kind of meetups with ton of valuable knowledge and connects for the entrepreneurs is exactly what Slush Small Talks is all about."
Key takeaways from the event also included strategies on how to choose a new market, setting a go-to-market strategy, scaling an engineering team and how startups can grow along with tech giants. These discussions exposed Indian entrepreneurs to the strategies of success that is leveraged by most billion-dollar companies from the Silicon Valley.
"Hyderabad hosts largest offices for Amazon, Google, Apple and Uber outside the US and has been increasingly named as the new go-to-city for many Indian entrepreneurs to start their companies. That's why the Hyderabad's vibrant startup scene has been in our radar for some time and it feels great to finally be here," Alexander added.
The startups got the opportunity to attend sessions by globally successful founders like Peter Vesterbacka, former Mighty Eagle at Rovio- the makers of Angry Birds; Adibeli Nduka-Agwu, Director of International Growth at Blinkist and Sudeep Patnaik ,Country Manager of Trivago - India among others.
There were sessions designed with Tata and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) for early stage startups on challenges and opportunities for Indian startups in the Fintech space and on how to scale startup quickly.
This year, Slush hosted similar Small Talks events for founders in Stockholm, Berlin, London and will be hosting in Paris post this event. It hosts more than 70 events every year and is operating in 29 countries globally