I am been here in Bangalore for about 2 months now. In this few days, I tried to attend as many startup meets as possible and meet as many entrepreneurs as possible. If I say I am disappointed, it would be an under statement.

My first one was OCC Bangalore. Although the name suggests it is Open Coffee Club, it is not functioning like one. This is an event which is run by a few people in the name of OCC. Nice way to brand and gain new members. Most of the meets are centered about a theme, (at times a generic meet do happen, however, that is moderated as well). The folks are doing a good job running the meeting. However, they should not mislead people with the name OCC Bangalore. It is just not right. May be they started as proper OCC few years back, but now it does not have any feature of OCC. It is a paid meet up, the venue changes every time, meets once a month and is always moderated. I have attended two of these and might not turn up for the others. I did not find many of the good start-up members in these meetup.

The second one I attended was Startup Saturday. This is similar to the how the above meetup is run, but way more structured and does not hide behind OCC banner. It is being done by HeadStart. They are doing it across different cities of India once every month. Again, it is based on a theme. They usually have a demo of startups and some experienced people sharing their experience. However, I was not able to spend much time in this event to be able to comment completely on this. It is said to be the best one in the city.

The next one was Startup City. It was a very big disappointed. The target mass is certainly not entrepreneurs but students and professionals who are thinking about entrepreneurship. I attended a so-called CEO conclave, and the people on the dias, were speaking BS. Same text book stuff and not really much value add.

The others I attended was a 1M1M meetup of bangalore chapter. They are just starting and it was the first meet I had attended. Sramana is doing a good job with her online round tables. I only hope this meetup turns out to be something better for the janta. I also attended a couple of meets at TIE bangalore. Meet one very interesting people, who is a charter member of TIE and does mentoring. After the event, I met with him a couple of times and he helped me a lot, just by listening to my idea and asking a few questions.

The best experience so far has been the MIT-EF meet. The first meet was awesome and I gained a lot of knowledge on education sector in India and how to approach it. Waiting for the next meet to happen and it has been more than 45 days since the last meet. Could not meet many people due to my prior engagements.

I did attend a few other meets on mobile, but it was either too technical or just basic stuff.

Here is what I would like to see the start-up eco-system in bangalore.

1. Leaders should take the initiative and meet more budding entrepreneurs. If I become successful, I will make a point to do this. Not only does it help the startup culture to grow, it also help any company grow. To get the right ROI, you have to look beyond the obvious. For starters, if more good startups with interesting ideas start from bangalore, the valuation of the companies based in Bangalore will go up. It will be easier to raise funds. Silicon Valley is a good example. Startups from other part of US do not get the same treatment as from silicon valley.

2. More un-conferences happening in the city. Too many structured meetups happening. Need more free-wheeling, no agenda meetups.

3. Lot more real OCC taking place all over the city. OCC can be started by any one who wants to meet people. The current OCC group may or may not support it. But people can still arrange more OCC type meetups in their respective areas.

4. Mentoring workshops happening at least once a month.

5. The successful companies should look at guiding and helping other start-ups grow. Even if they look competitive. It will help both. The established company can get a small stake in the next big thing and/or they can compliment each other and both grow bigger. Remember Coke and Pepsi. If not read about them.

6. More and more students joining and converting ideas and implementing them.

7. Entrepreneurs and everyone associated with start-ups should take an active role in social causes. Building a company is not the only thing you should care about. Building a better country is also your job.

One day, these things will happen. To kick start these things, I am going to start an OCC of my own. I will be disclosing the details as an update to this post soon. If anyone wants to meet up and share some talk, you are most welcome.

Update: Apparently, some of the admin of Bangalore OCC, read my post and decided to remove/ban me from the google group. So sad. They call it an “OPEN” group. Wish them all the best. Also, hope they grow up and understand how to take criticism constructively, and learn from it. It really concerns me knowing that, the start up ecosystem is partially held hostage by the imaginations for some immature people here in Bangalore. Time for other groups to come up and improve it. I am hopeful on 1M1M and MIT-EF.