Till 3 months back, startups were all about parties and *change-the-world* stories.

And now?

Largely, startups are about layoffs and shutdowns.

What went wrong? Couple of things:

– Equating Funding to product validation.
– No serious damn given to product management, a discipline lacking in Indian startups (otherwise, how would you explain app-only movement which was flawed from the word go).

This UnPluggd

This UnPluggd, we are focusing deeeply on fundamentals of building a business building a sustainable business.

We are focusing heavily on some of the bigger aspects of tech entrepreneurship.

– Product management/marketing
Growth hacking / Selling to enterprises and a whole lot of interesting talks. We dedicate the Day 1 to ProductGeeks!

– Lessons from fellow founders – right from the ones who have made it big to the ones who had to shutdown.
This is the core of UnPluggd. You won’t find such conversations anywhere in the country.

– Bootstrapping.
Seriously speaking, the world needs to celebrate more of these!

UnPluggd : What Lies Ahead

As with UnPluggd, expect brilliance. Expect candid talks / actionable insights and amazing energy! And ofcourse, an opportunity to meet fellow entrepreneurs, investors and geeks.

Here is what you should expect at UnPluggd, which is scheduled for May 6th & 7th (Hotel Park Plaza, Marthahalli, Bangalore).

Day 1 : ProductGeeks Conf

On day 1 of the conference, we bring to you great insights by founders and product geeks.

Talks range from scaling up (without spending a lot of cash), to cracking growth engine (agenda goes live by this Friday).

We will cover B2C as well as B2B space. Some of the topics include :

1. Product Marketing
2. Growth Hacking
3. Lean startup principles applied in real world scenario.
4. Insights on product positioning / GTM

Ideal fit for :

• Founders who are looking to scale up without depending on (external) cash .
• Product managers / marketers who are looking at building growth engines.
• ProductGeeks : The ones who breathe and live products/growth hacks and marketing.

Investor Meeting : We have Sequoia Capital coming over to meet early stage startups for a one-on-one meeting. If you want to meet/pitch them (in a closed door setup), do apply here.

Day 1 : Networking Evening

At the networking evening, expect a combo of founders, investors, accelerators and well, beer !

The idea is to drive conversations and build informal connections,

Investor Meeting : VentureEast team will be present during the networking evening for a one-on-one conversation with early stage founders. Keen? Apply here.

Day 2 : The Big Day [May 7th]

This is when you get to listen to a lot of real startup stories . This time around, we are focusing on bootstrapping and #BraveTalks a lot!

Frankly speaking, bootstrapping is one of the least respected / talked about phenomena in the Indian startup ecosystem (heck! we are bootstrapped). And so is startup failure.

We mix the two. We will bring cockroach founders as well!

Investor Meeting : We have Nexus Venture Partners coming over to meet early stage startups for a one-on-one meeting. If you want to meet/pitch them (in a closed door setup), do apply here.

We have announced a few speakers and more will be announced in the coming days, but the beauty of UnPluggd is that we aren’t speaker-centric.

We are topic-centric!

And we get amazing speakers (who aren’t media trained) to share their experience.

UnPluggd Details

Date: May 6th And 7th
Venue: Park Plaza hotel (Marathahalli), Bangalore
URL: http://nextbigwhat.com
BUY tickets from here (ticketing widget is also embedded in the post).

Discount : Use SUPERAPRIL to get 20% off on your tickets.