DWEN EntreprenHERS Mumbai meet: An evening of shared learnings and connections

The rise of digital media, e-commerce, internet and mobile phone penetration, and continuous innovation in the startup ecosystem has meant that things are looking up for the women entrepreneurship space in India. A report by NASSCOM notes an increase of 5 percent in women-led startups in India - from 8 percent in 2014 to 13 per cent in 2019. A report by Bain and Co. titled ‘Women Entrepreneurship in India’ also suggests that women entrepreneurs can create 150–170 million jobs by 2030.

To build and work towards this goal, Dell Technologies launched the global networking community Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) in 2009. DWEN aims to connect like-minded women entrepreneurs (WEs) worldwide and support them with state-of-the-art technology, expert advice, and industry insights so they can navigate their challenges and grow their businesses together.

DWEN meetups for women entrepreneurs

DWEN has been and will continue to host multiple meetups across the country to bring together women founders and ecosystem enablers to share their insights and mentor other budding entrepreneurs to scale their businesses.

The Mumbai edition of this DWEN networking meet was held on December 2 at Versova Social, Mumbai and attended by over 40 enterprising women entrepreneurs.

The keynote address on How to pitch your brand to a VC was delivered by Bala C Deshpande, Founder and Partner, MegaDelta.

Bala has over two decades of investing experience and 31 years of overall work experience. She started her investing career as Director Investments in ICICI Venture in 2001 and joined NEA at a General Partner level to set up and head their India Practice in 2008. Bala has been nominated among India's top 50 most powerful women in business by Forbes consecutively in 2011. and 2012. She was also nominated for the Women Leadership Forum held at Bestfoods, New York.

Here are some pointers from her address:

1. Understanding the role that capital plays in every business journey is an important insight to have for entrepreneurs.

2. Knowing how much capital is required is just as important as understanding what you want to do with it.

3. Know the present capital market well and understand which capital provider you can approach at your current stage of growth and need.

4. Building the right networks not only brings in necessary capital but also attracts potential employees. Continuously build networks, even if you start slow and small.

5. Have a well-thought-out idea that is cogent and logical, and presented in a manner that convinces investors that you can deal effectively with the competition.

6. Be very careful about your capital reference point and your plan to balance capital requirements with valuation aspirations.

Swati Mishra, Director and General Manager, Small Business, India at Dell Technologies, shared her work history at Dell Technologies, challenges small business owners face in their journeys, DWEN’s history and support, and answered a few questions from the audience about DWEN’s offerings.

Click here to listen to takeaways from her chat with the audience at the DWEN Delhi meetup.

Inspiring journeys of DWEN EntreprenHERS

DWEN India has seen hundreds of entrepreneurs join the community since its inception and benefit from the extensive tech resources, expert advice and support it provides.

Here are five inspiring DWEN entrepreneurs from Mumbai who shared their journeys:

1. Shambhabi

Shambhabi is the founder and CEO of Fieldmobi, a B2B SaaS platform founded in March 2022 that enables structured collaboration (Multi-organizational Workflow, Visibility, etc.) between organisations and teams of varying levels of digitization. She has over seven years of experience working with clients in Enterprise Tech and Advertising such as Tata Motors, Amul, and Zee.

She has also won multiple national and international advertising awards including Clio Awards, Kyoorius Awards, and Abby Awards, and was named one of Impact’s Top 30 Under 30 in the Creative, Media and Digital Industries.

Fieldmobi offers mobile-first, field-focused business applications built on their proprietary no-code platform broken down into four stages (basic digitization, field operations management, ERP field extension, and multi-organisational collaboration) which organisations can select based on their digitization stage.

2. Sanjana Swaroop

Sanjana is an international corporate lawyer turned social entrepreneur and Co-founder of EcoDhaga, India’s first ethical thrift store with a unique close-the-loop model that they’ve built in tandem with their patrons, donors, thrifters, and community. EcoDhaga took root when the founders were confronted with the waste problem in India and decided to find a solution for the 51 percent of textile waste that ends up in landfills in India.

The company is geared to help India achieve its global sustainable development commitments, the swachhta mission, and promoting women entrepreneurs. EcoDhaga was recently awarded APAC Insider Business Award for Most Sustainable Clothing Store (Southwest India) in 2022.

3. Jill Bhanushali

Jill is the Chief Administrative Officer & Director at Regrow Biosciences, a biotech organisation pioneering the cell therapy sector for India & globally acclaimed as the first organisation to commercialise three cell-based products for unmet medical needs.

Jill has been a critical part of the Regrow’s growth journey since its inception, as part of the business strategy and people strategy teams, leading special projects, and providing strategic leadership and operational oversight of the administration and revenue functions of the organisation.

4. Riddhi Sharma

Riddhi Sharma is a content marketing specialist with over fourteen years of experience. In 2015, she founded Thought In A Dot, a content-driven digital marketing agency that is one among many pioneers of leadership profiling in the digital space, including Bollywood celebrities.

Riddhi is also a faculty at Mumbai University, mentoring students in digital marketing, creative writing, journalism, and communications. She was a part of LinkedIn’s First Creator Accelerator Program in India and is currently building ‘Project Sakhi’ - a resource centre and digital learning platform for women entrepreneurs.

5. Sanchita Lohot

Sanchita currently works with journalist Faye D'Souza. She has over six years of work experience in the media industry and takes up content writing & editing projects on a freelance basis.

DWEN is committed to supporting and empowering more women entrepreneurs to advance their businesses by making the most of what Dell Technologies offers. If you are a woman or know someone who could benefit from this contest, this is your chance to benefit from this brilliant opportunity for growth.

Join the growing DWEN WhatsApp community here to become part of the supportive community.