What do I stand to gain from India Venture 2000?
	Who is eligible?
	Is there a registration fee?
	How will I benefit from the contest?
	Who are the coaches and how will they help me?
	How will I be coached?
	Will my idea be funded?
	Does India Venture 2000 offer a faster track to marketability for business-ready ideas?
	What additional support will I be given?
	What if my business does not win a prize?
	How confidential is my idea here?

	Coach FAQ's
	General FAQ's

How will I be coached? The responsibility of making the coaching programme successful, is yours. You can decide what would be most effective: coaching by telephone, email, web-based messaging services or even face-to-face. Will my idea be funded? While funding is not guaranteed, business plan competitions have been extremely successful the world over in bringing ideas and funds together. In some cases, participants have been funded by venture capitalists or angel investors. Indeed global venture capitalists now perceive business plan competitions as a hotbed of well-developed, high quality ideas. For example, a German venture capitalist recently observed that, "... [the competition] started what has become a self-reinforcing wave of entrepreneurialism... typically 10-15% of all our funding is now directed towards ideas in venture plan competitions." We hope that venture capitalists will also participate in India Venture 2000 and, in the process, meet participants with fundable ideas. Does India Venture 2000 offer a faster track to marketability for business-ready ideas? Yes. Business-ready ideas at the end of Phase 2 (April 2010) will begin execution immediately. Other teams, however, will continue to develop their business plans further during Phase 3 (May-June 2010), before they are ready to launch their start-up. What additional support will I be given? We will provide you with information and insights on business strategy in IT/e-commerce, a "How to Write a Business Plan" handbook, links to relevant web sites and web-based communication tools. Shortlisted participants will be able to access these through the India Venture 2000 web site. What if my business plan does not win a prize? India Venture 2000 is not about winning prizes but about learning and building skills. In the process of interaction with other participants and coaches we hope that you will build a network within the industry and learn how to plan and run a successful business. We feel that this is probably the most useful benefit of the contest. Further, our experience elsewhere suggests that winning the contest is not critical for your idea to appeal to a venture capitalist or investor. For example, a similar contest held in Germany in 1996 gave birth to at least 30 new companies that raised more than $ 65 million in venture capital. Not all these companies had won the contest. How confidential is my idea here? To address the issue of confidentiality, coaches with access to your idea (other than those who are venture capitalists) and McKinsey personnel involved in the programme, will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement. However, the organisers of India Venture 2000 cannot, and will not, take further responsibility for protecting the confidentiality of your idea. In any event, as a participant, the extent of disclosure to all involved (including coaches, organisers and other participants), is in your hands.