What does it take to build a startup?

Nishant Bhaskar, RKMV 2001 (X)

The 21st session of the Praktani Adda was a unique one. In this era of startups, each of us is aware of the challenges an entrepreneur faces in starting their company. As a result, whenever an experiences person talks about starting up and entrepreneurship or quality leadership, the house on the audience side is always packed. However, this session was not only about starting up, but it was a concise guide to starting up in the world of Web 3.

Technology is dynamic, and it’s churning out new entities by the day. As it evolves the world is witnessing a democratization of sorts that was earlier exclusive. In the eighties, one might have heard about the painting Monalisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. However, only a lucky few knew what precisely the image looked like.

Then came the internet. The internet was touted as Web 2 revolution, that brought with a sense of democracy that was unthinkable earlier. In this effort of further democratizing systems and bringing in transparency the Web 3 revolution is happening based on blockchain technology. Today, if anyone interested in the painting looks up on Google will be easily be available to get a glimpse of Monalisa and get an idea of exactly how the painting looks.

This praktani adda session opened with an introduction to blockchain. Nishant Bhaskar, CEO and Co-founder of a Paris-based startup, Lomads, explained with various examples about blockchain technology and how it is changing the way the world looks at entrepreneurship in particular and aspects of business in general. In doing so Nishant spoke about why the concept of Web 3 is still not popular with the example of various curves in which technology progresses.

He spoke from his experience starting up his own company, Lomads, a new age event and group discovery platform geared to enable real-world connections. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, he worked in various roles, such as heading innovation at the Appliances division of Godrej & Boyce and working as Innovation Consultant at Claro Partners (Barcelona). He was also a visiting faculty at the Desai Sethi Centre for Entrepreneurship at IIT Bombay.

During the session, Nishant started with lucid example of blockchain and explained cryptocurrency. During the adda, the speaker explained the various questions raised on cryptocurrency and talked about entrepreneurship based on the reflections he experienced while scaling up his own companies.