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I recently attended TiEcon, which is a convention for entrepreneurs organized by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) Silicon Valley chapter. It's 2009 event was held in the convention center of Santa Clara, California, on May 15th and 16th. It was mentioned that more than 3500 people attended the event. Some of the different type of people who attended the convention ranged from budding to successful entrepreneurs, executives of well established firms, venture capitalists, job seekers, and students.

At the broad level, the agenda of TiEcon2009 could be classified as

Executives from well established firms shared their business insight and also their experiences in starting or growing their firm. I found these speeches to be very useful and inspirational. Some of the points that have got etched in mind after attending these speeches are

• To define successful products, do not just wear the cap of the marketer and make assumptions. Instead, put yourself in the shoes of the end user and also test waters before deciding on the product.
• Yes, there are real world people and companies who played David in the David vs Goliath fights and they won. One needs to be innovative and persistent to do so.
• Have passion for what you do and money will follow.
• Hire people who are interested in their job and do not make compromises on it. After that, developing good work culture is the key for building successful business.
• Communicate openly with your employees and customers.
• USA surely benefits from immigrants. While interviewing one of the keynote speakers, Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn, the topic of immigration came up. The interviewer then asked all the attendees who are entrepreneurs and not born in USA to stand up. There were so many people who stood up in this big convention hall that the interviewer asked the cameraman to capture that so as to make the point to Washington.
• What recession? This is the perfect time to start a company and be ready when the economy picks up. To emphasize this point, many of the speakers and moderators mentioned that 16 out of the 30 Dow Jones companies started during recession or depression.

These involved presentations, panel discussions, question and answer sessions on different topics in different rooms at the same time. At the abstract level, some of the key points that I learned or got reinforced by attending these sessions are

• If there is a chance of failure in a product or in getting funding or anything else, then plan on failing fast. Do not drag it and then fail.
• When confronted with the choice of direction of the venture, choose the one that has higher barrier to entry. Although, it is difficult in the beginning, it is rewarding in the long run.
• There are lot of smart and dedicated people working on a whole range of innovative ideas. If you want to succeed and beat the competition, plan carefully with good research and negative feedback from the end user.
• Expect to give away 33% of ownership to get anywhere from $500K to $2M from angel investors or venture capitalists. Therefore, it depends on your skill to give away that by either holding a small cup or a big bowl.
• There are people who have done successful ventures without outside funding. They were just innovative and judicious in their use of available resources, which includes time, money, and the direction of their company.

To be candid, getting leads for my business was the main reason that I attended this convention. Of course, I got leads during my interaction from other attendees of TiEcon. But, more importantly, I had a chance to have conversations with other like minded individuals working in different fields. These one-on-one or small group of meetings have enriched me in many ways. First, I had a chance to learn what work others were doing in a very short amount of time. Some of these were sort of new to me and were just informative. While in some other conversations, I realized that their business problems are something that we can offer solutions or that we have already solved as part of another bigger problem. These were pleasant and surprising rewards to me for attending TiEcon.

I was also awestruck to know and meet people who have traveled from different parts of the globe - India, Japan, Europe, Australia, Mexico, and different regions of USA, just to attend TiEcon. After attending this event, I understand why they would do that and fully realize the value of it. I was really impressed by their simplicity, humility and the boldness to swim against the tides of real life constraints, while pursuing their ideas and dreams.

TiEcon was not just about business alone. There was good food for breakfast, lunch, snacks and banquet. Also, there was very good professional shows at the end of each day. The first day also had a dance party after the stage show by artists,there was a dance party for participants of TiEcon. On the second day evening, there was a brilliant presentation by Itay Talgam, who is a chief orchestra conductor. He showed videos of different orchestra conductors, adeptly pointing out their ideosyncrasies and subtleties. Based on that, he metaphorically explained how executives should manage an organization and its employees, which would lead to different end results. I thought that his speech was subtle, but well suited message for a gathering of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and executives.

Imagine a day where you have learned a lot in a short time, got new potential leads and ideas for your business, enjoyed the entertainment show by professionals, and danced till late night. I would call that a perfect day. Well, that's what I experienced by attending TiEcon2009 and I would remember it for a very long time. If you have not attended it, then I strongly recommend that you attend it next year. If you cannot afford the registration fee, then you can possibly attend it for free by doing voluntary service for the event for few hours.

Ajay Raparla is the author of this article. He is the CEO of Indira Tech, Inc and can be reached by writing to him at ajay@indiratech.com or by calling 650-585-6776. You can know more about Indira Tech, Inc by visiting http://www.indiratech.com