TheIndianStartup.com is proud to present a brand new feature called the Startup Products & Services Showcase which will soon enable startups to avail of top quality, hand picked offerings. This will also offer vendors an opportunity to showcase their specialized products and services for startups. We foresee this initiative going a long way in adding value to our growing community.

The showcase already has a few listings so feel free to browse around.  The image below the front page where 125×125px images of the product/service will show.

On clicking these image visitors will be taken to the products detail page as shown in the image below.

As you can see from the detail page image, vendors can add a larger image of their product etc, product description, contact details, and link to their website. The details pages also include a form for clients to submit reviews/testimonials for the vendor.

Apart from the showcase front end, the product/services will also be rotated on the frontpage of Theindianstartup.com as seen below:

Here are some reasons how we expect the Startup Showcase to add value to our community:

Advantages for vendors:

1) Lead generation: Products and services in the showcase will be rotated on the frontpage of theindianstartup.com and will also feature randomly across the community.  On clicking the ads, visitors would be taken to the detail page as shown in the second image.

2) Better visibility: We are planning to associate ourselves with an optimal number of vendors to focus on granting them advertising estates for a longer time.

3) Customer base: Since we are already a congregation of startups which is growing substantially, vendors can be assured of a target audience with whom they can not only interact but also generate business.  Deserving vendors can also gain credibility through the ratings and testimonials features on their detail pages.

Advantages for clients:

1) Credible vendors: We are making sure that the firms listing themselves are trustworthy and serious about working with startups.  Ratings and testimonials will also be available to help you decide if the product/service is right for you.

2) Useful products: As a startup ourselves, we understand the plethora of difficulties in getting a product or a service which is designed keeping our needs in mind and isn’t just a modified rendering of what is sold to big companies.

3) One stop shop: We will showcase vendors providing all kinds of professional services so that all your requirements ranging from marketing to HR to legal are taken care of!

Vendors should also note that, as a launch promotion, the price of participation is very attractive at the moment and we have already started signing up participants.  We will also showcase interesting products and services in an upcoming post!  So what are you waiting for?  Contact us at support (at) theindianstartup.com or submit a product for review.

We would love the community’s’ feedback and look forward to your response. We will be adding features to the showcase on a regular basis so let us know if there is any particular functionality that you would like to see.  Lastly, do spread the word about the Startup Showcase amongst your favourite vendors so that they can benfit from this opportunity!

TIS is looking for a full time/part time intern to help us manage our growing community. Responsibilities would include:

• Creating and implementing strategies to increase member participation
• Creating content for the site news blog, newsletters, Facebook & Twitter profiles
• Generating exposure for the community (advertising, tie ups, press releases etc.)
• Interacting with members both within the community and through other mediums
• Brainstorming & product development for planned features

You must have great verbal and written communication skills, an interest in entrepreneurship, the ability to work remotely without supervision and meet deadlines.  Previous experience in blogging, social media engagement, inbound marketing and graphic design is a plus. Depending on your previous experience and your time commitment, we may provide a stipend. To apply, please send your resume, a short note of why you want this opportunity as well as links (or attachments) showcasing prior relevent experience to kunal.jain (at) theindianstartup.com

Thanks to all the members who are helping spread the word, we crossed 250 registered users early this week.

We request all our existing members to let fellow entrepreneurs know about Theindianstartup.com so that we can get even more entrepreneurs, vendors, and investors involved with our community.

Sham is the latest addition to the TIS team and will be helping us generate quality content as well as spreading the word about our community to entrepreneurs across the nation. While working on Theindianstartup.com part time, Sham is also pursuing an MBA from NMIMS University, Mumbai.

Expect to see some great posts from Sham and he might be in touch with you soon to get your opinion on how we can take this community to the next level.

We have an exciting new feature: A google maps mashup of the best places for entrepreneurs to work & meet, out of office. Currently it’s quite bare but, with your help, we believe that it can be extremely useful to the entrepreneur community in India.

Please visit the mashup page and follow the instructions to add markers for the best places in your city where you like to work and have meetings when you are not in office. These might be cafes, libraries, restaurants, hotel lobbies or any other location that works for you. Places that are free to use are best!

Also, we would love your feedback so please let us know how we can make this better.

TheIndianStartup has a new press releases and announcements section that will cover startup launches, product introductions, acquisitions, key hires and other milestones.  To read more about this blog and to submit your press releases visit the Press Releases and Announcements blog.

Please note that with the launch of the new core blog, we will actively discourage new blogs being created solely for the purpose of posting an article as an announcement about your startup for the following reasons:

• We want to reduce blogs that are solely self promotional without adding value to the community.
• The promotion opportunities provided by posting a single article on a new blog are limited.  We will actively promote the articles on the press releases and announcements blog amongst journalists and bloggers and so posting an article there would provide the highest PR value
• According to our terms and conditions, we may delete blogs that have fewer than 5 posts and have not seen activity for over 3 months as these blogs add clutter to our directory and take up resources that can be better used by our regular contributors.

Therefore, please consider contributing your articles & press releases to the announcements blog instead of creating a new blog for them.

Please visit the newest component of our community, the Startup Bazaar! We hope that this initiative will help introduce us to vendors who are interested in working with startups.  Vendors, please note that you have to be a registered member of the community to post a free ad in the Startup Bazaar.  We hope that this will help vendors be more accessible to startups who wish to connect with them.

Watch a walkthrough below:

If you are like me, you spend a considerable amount of time reading up entrepreneurship blogs.  Now, updates from these blogs have been made a part of your experience at theindianstartup.com.

The front page now has a new feed box that is a mashup of feeds from the following entrepreneur’s blogs:

• Onstartups.com
• Eric Ries’ Startup Blog
• Tim Berry’s Blog
  
• The Four Hour Work Week Blog
• Seth Godin’s Blog
• Kevin Kelly’s Blog
  
• Guy Kawasaki’s Blog
• Wil Schroter’s Entrepreneur Blog

We will continue to improve this section both design and contentwise.  These blogs are just the few that are followed regularly by me.  More will be added to this mashup with your recommendations.  If there any blog that you think deserves to be added to this list, please leave the url in the comments below.
If anyone is interested subscribing to this feed mashup, click here.

A new color scheme and minor functionality changes were implemented across the website this weekend.  This was to give the community a fresher look and make some display changes based on member feedback.  There might be some lingering issues so please let us know if see any odd behavior.

We hope you like our new look.  A lot of new features are expected in the next month so stay tuned!

In other news, our community crossed a 100 members last week!  We also launched a new featured blog called Startup Tools which will be focused on sharing resources that make startup life easier.  Please check it out and give us your feedback.  We also invite all members to recommend a tool or to author an article for the blog.

We would like to thank Paul Schwarz for being the first community blogger for the interviews blog. For his first article, he interviewed the startup creADivity.

Speakup! is a new section on indianstartup.com and its purpose is to gather member opinions on issues faced by startups as well as other topics important to entrepreneurs. The topic questions as well as the responses are expected to be short and to the point and only members will be allowed to participate.

Under each answer, you will also notice buttons that will allow you to rate other members’ inputs.  At the end of every session, the answer/opinion with the highest rating will be featured on the front page and the contributing member will win a prize.  If you have an interesting topic or question to add to SpeakUp!, or wish to sponsor a prize (great promotion opportunity), please contact us.

The first topic of discussion for the SpeakUp! page is:

“Do you use social media (blogs, twitter etc.) to promote your startup? If so, how?”

The member with the best input will win a free hosting package.

We hope that all our members will participate and generate some great content! Visit SpeakUp!.