The 8-member jury considered scale of the ambition, sustainability of the business and perseverance of founders as key parameters as they picked the best candidates in various categories for The Economic Times Startup Awards 2018
Size of the ambition, sustainability of the business and perseverance were some of the defining qualities that the jury was looking for in the winners of The Economic Times Startup Awards 2018. The meeting began as the eight member jury assembled with Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani chairing the proceedings. Nilekani briefed the members saying that those among them with an interest in any of the shortlisted candidates would recuse themselves from voting or discussing. Nilekani nominated Quess Corp chairman Ajit Isaac to head the jury for the categories he recused himself from — Social Enterprise and Comeback Kid.
Jury members were well prepared, having thoroughly studied the blackbook containing the detailed profiles of contenders — shared by ET, a week ahead of the deliberations.
To begin with, there was a discussion about the general benchmarks that would be used. The shortlist of five candidates in each category was trimmed down to either two or three companies after initial voting, following which the jurors debated the merits of each to arrive at a final consensus. In some categories like Bootstrap Champ and Top Innovator, the initial voting proved to be decisive enough to pick the winners
“I think the deliberations were indepth, the jury members were well-prepared and their choices were backed by sound arguments as to why they would pick a winner. The quality of preparation by ET helped,” said Isaac.
The jury members singled out the Social Enterprise category for high praise, lauding the quality of contenders and engaged in passionate discussion on the ET-Facebook Woman Ahead category, with several womanled enterprises coming in for high praise from the assembled gathering.
While picking the winner in the Social Enterprise category, the jury debated merits of three contenders, before making a decision based on the size of the impact created by the eventual winners — Drishti Eye Care — as well as the feasibility to scale it further.
“What I liked was everyone on the jury was respectful of the other person’s views and was willing to be convinced. Everyone in the jury is big in their own right but they were willing to be convinced,” said Deep Kalra, founder of MakeMyTrip. The debate was most intense for two heavyweight categories — Midas Touch Award for Best Investor and Startup of the Year, for which discussions lasted for over an hour.
In Midas Touch, the debate centred around how some investors backed companies that continue to prosper, while some brought in patient capital. Discussions finally led to two names being considered with Accel Partner’s Subrata Mitra winning the prize for the blockbuster exit recorded by the venture fund when American retailer Walmart, bought a significant majority in India’s largest eretailer – Flipkart.
As the jury turned its attention to the grand prize what was unanimous was their praise for all five contenders in the Startup of the Year category, with one juror remarking, “Each of these is a winner”. They discussed each company before arriving at two final contenders using metrics such as ability to generate revenue, size of the market opportunity and the expected pace of growth in the future.
The jury finally voted for OYO Rooms citing a multitude of factors including the ability of the founder to bounce back from near closure and script a turnaround, hire a high-quality team and also display admirable global ambition by entering the Chinese market.
“Startup of the Year would be the best topic to remember. For all choices we had an opinion… and then we chose an incredible company,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com