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TiE Annual Conference To Focus On Doing Business In Internet Age

Arthur J Pais

Where would a young entrepreneur from the Indian subcontinent with a great idea, but few connections, little capital and no experience go for morale support and practical ideas?

The IndUS Entrepreneurs -- TiE -- has been answering that question for over seven years. Now, as the much publicized organization is to hold its annual conference at San Jose, it not only will offer guidance to emerging entrepreneurs but will also focus on doing business in the Internet age.

Tim Koogle, CEO, Yahoo and Halsey Minor, CEO, Cnet, will join Jagdish Sheth, professor of marketing at Emory University, to give keynote speeches on entrepreneurship in the Internet age. The TiEcon '99 will be held at the Fairmont Hotel, May 22, 23.

The first TiE conferences was held in March 1994 with a focus on entrepreneurship.

Other topics for this convention are:

· Translating ideas into a business plan.

· Raising funds for the new businesses.

· Building Web-based industries.

· Creating a buzz and acquiring customers.

A tutorial will be conducted by John Hagel, principal of McKinsey, and John S Brown, chief scientist at Xerox-Parc, will also address the conference.

TiE, which hosts workshops and networking nights almost every month, helped to make CyberMedia Inc one of the most successful new software companies last year, and is a key force behind a host of new Bay Area startups.

The group, which started as a social club for Indian and South Asian businessmen in Silicon Valley, soon changed its focus as its members began asking how they could give something back to the community. Now with over 500 members, it has branches on the East Coast and in Southern California.

"We decided that the area where we could do the most was the area we understood the most: entrepreneurship,'' said Suhas Patil, chairman of Cirrus Logic and the former president of the group, in a recent interview.

"We knew people would want to start companies and we felt if we could increase their odds of success, even by 5 or 10 per cent, we would be making a significant contribution.''

The charter members of TiE include some of the bigger names of the high-tech industry, including Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Kanwal Rekhi, formerly a senior executive at Novell and TiE's new president, as well as top officials from companies like Oracle and Advanced Micro Devices.

Officials at CyberMedia, a Los Angeles firm that makes software for Windows, sought the group's help six years ago, when the company had just a dozen employees. Now valued at more than $ 250 million after a successful 1996 IPO, the company credits TiE members with providing much-needed advice and seed money early on.

"It wasn't so much that they had the answers, but they pointed out the roadblocks so we could watch for them,'' said Srikanth Chari, CyberMedia's vice-president for marketing and one of its co-founders.

Today the group will even allow startups to use its 3,000-square-foot facilities, including their conference rooms, phones and computers.

Patil said one of the major achievements of Tie is that it has become a multiethnic group that has remained united despite the political feuds between members' countries.

"We said, look, we're here in America,'' Patil said. "Whatever the differences are between our countries there, we'll leave them at home.''

Helping South Asians integrate into the mainstream is also one of the primary aims of TiE, recalled Kailash Joshi, a former IBM executive and co-founder of the group. "We wanted to be more known in the larger community," he said, adding that stories on TiE have appeared in major American newspapers and magazines making it far more visible than its founders had imagined.

One of the reasons why the likes of Koogle and Minor are invited to Tie conferences is not only to give an opportunity for TiE members to think in larger terms but also for the big guns in the American industry to acquaint themselves with the group.

Among the other continuing concerns for TiE is to involve more women, said Bakul Joshi, president of the software firm, Multiple Access CA Corp of Fremont, and one of its most active members. Among the charter members of TiE-Atlantic are Radha Jalan, president of Electrochem Inc, a leader in PEM fuel cell technology and Achla Madan, the founder of Achala Designs, manufacturers of hand-forged wrought iron furnishing for the home and gardens.

Another TiE concern is to expand overseas, not just in South Asia but also in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

For more information about TiE-Atlantic, contact (781) 272-6456; in the Valley, (408) 567-0700, and in southern California, (714) 670-6700. TIE also features information on its Web page at http://www.tie.org

If you would like to post any information about forthcoming events or community happenings, please email the details to bettypais@aol.com

Information and photographs can also be mailed to Betty Pais at 87-52 108th Street, 2nd Floor, Richmond Hill, NY 11418-2229, USA

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