Thank You, Partners, For Making The Makers Summit 2023 A Grand Success!

The third edition of India’s largest product conference — The Maker’s Summit 2023 — successfully concluded on March 25, 2023. The two-day virtual conference brought product leaders like unicorn startup founders, CXOs, VPs, and policymakers, among others, under one roof to decode how the next generation of products from sectors like deeptech, edtech, gaming and EV will shape industry trends in the years to come.

More than 75 leaders of the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem came together to give actionable insights into what goes into making ground-breaking products. Some of these names are the founder & CEO of Zeta and Flock Bhavin Turakhia; BYJU’S cofounder Divya Gokulnath; founder and CEO of IndiaMART Dinesh Agarwal; and founder and CEO of Obvious, Rahul Gonsalves.

We are glad to share that more than 5K attendees joined us and actively engaged with the speakers through dynamic Q&A sessions. The two-day conference fostered more than 30 live sessions and 723+ meetings between attendees and speakers.

With an exchange of more than 18K messages and connection requests, the summit proved to be a great networking opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs, investors and many product leaders of the Indian startup ecosystem. 

All this was accomplished by the unwavering support and collaboration of our associate partner BYJU’S and community partners Introbot, Venture Catalysts and The Product Folks.

Inc42 would also like to extend its gratitude to all the speakers and attendees who made TMS 2023 a great success. A special thank you to Vikrama Dhiman, the head of mobility products of Gojek, and Brijesh Bharadwaj of FamPay who walked the extra mile to help us create insightful sessions.

We would also like to take a moment to express gratitude to our enablers who joined us in this endeavour.

Associate Partner

BYJU’S

BYJU’S, a venture that started as a CAT coaching centre in 2006, is today India’s one of the most valued decacorn edtech startups. BYJU’S was founded in 2011 by Divya Gokulnath and Byju Raveendran. It offers learning programmes for classes 6-12 and test preparation for JEE, AIPMT, CAT, IAS, GRE and GMAT. The edtech startup aims to bring education to every corner of India.

The startup leverages technology to enhance the learning experience of its students by creating realistic visual aids, steering away from the traditional methods of teaching and learning. 

Today BYJU’S app, launched in 2015, has 150 Mn+ downloads. Additionally, the decacorn holds offline classes across more than 1.7K global cities. 

Besides being an associate partner at TMS 2023, BYJU’S cofounder Divya Gokulnath joined us as a speaker for a fireside chat on the topic ‘Edtech 2.0: Peering At The Phygital Future’. She spoke about the importance of the partnership between the government and key private players in the edtech space. She also emphasised how edtech startups can leverage AI to offer customised learning solutions to students. The session was moderated by Shashank Randev, the founder VC of 100X.VC.

Community Partners

Introbot

Founded by Divyaansh Anuj and Utkarsh Roy in 2021, Introbot is an AI-powered chatbot startup that enables entrepreneurs to make business connections by providing a Whatsapp chatbot, helping them network with clients, investors and talent. 

The startup has already built a network of 2.5K+ businesses wherein entrepreneurs have been introduced to the right networking that has helped them invest, hire, advise and sell their products.

Venture Catalysts

Venture Catalysts (aka Vcats), an integrated incubator founded by Dr Apporva Ranjan Sharma and Anuj Golecha, is India’s first seed investment and innovation platform for startups. Its average investment ticket size ranges from $200K to $2 Mn in early-stage startups. 

The incubator has invested in 300 startups, including the likes of OYO, Basic, Grexter, Sharenest and Home Capital, and has evaluated 21K+ ventures.

Venture Catalysts helps early and growth startups get relevant connections in the corporate world, provides mentorship to entrepreneurs, resources to network and grow and other sector-specific expertise.

The Product Folks

Folks at The Product Folks (TPF) describe the startup as a volunteer-driven community of product managers and enthusiasts with 100K+ members. Having organised more than 200 events, the startup works with 50+ volunteers and 40 partners.

Additionally, the platform curates job opportunities for early to growth-stage product managers in the tech industry. 

At TMS 2023, one of the cofounders of TPF, Suhas Motwani, moderated a fireside chat on “The Multiplier Effect Of A Customer-Obsessed Product Culture” with Tejas Vyas, VP of product management, product and design, BigBasket. 

The dynamic session between Vyas and Motwani threw light on the importance of data-led strategies to find and solve customer pain points. They also spoke about why customer insights can help startups expand their top line and how to create a customer-focussed culture.

It also hosted a session on ‘Seizing The $2 Tn Crossborder Payments Opportunity’. Speakers Monica Jasuja of GoTo Financial, Swastik Nigam of Winvesta, Prabhu Rangarajan of M2P Fintech and Srivatsan Sridhar of Skydo discussed the current state of cross-border payments for B2C and B2B startups, and the role of UPI and India Stack in taking Indian solutions to the global market.