Google Launchpad, search engine giant’s start-up mentorship program, coming to India

Google is bringing its 'Launchpad' startup mentorship programme to India. The Internet giant has already identified over 10 startups to be part of it. Google Launchpad will be a 5-day programme between November 3 and 7 in Bangalore where a number of senior Googlers will come down to mentor the startups in technology, product strategy and marketing.

The event will witness around 20 mentors, half of who will be Googlers from California and Israel, including Amit Shevat, Google's startup outreach programme manager.

Google Launchpad is a pre-incubation program for early stage startups focused on subjects including user interface, product strategy & technology, marketing, business development and presentation skills.

Each day in Google Launchpad is dedicated to a specific subject and includes presentations, one-on-one mentorship, and a lot of focused work. The idea is to achieve rapid progress in a very short time using a lot of resources and mentors experience.

“Launchpad is an exhaustive mentorship program to help startups build at scale,” Sunil Rao, country head of the startup program at Google India, told Business Insider. “By next year we want to do this every quarter, and a year from then, we hope to do it every month.”

Some of the shortlisted startups are working in areas including financial services, computer graphics, online education and health care.

“We need people who can really implement the idea. We are also looking for those with a sound business plan and minimum product viability,” Rao said, adding that the startups were being identified based on the quality of the founding team.

Ravi Gururaj, chairman of the Nasscom Product Council, said the Nasscom 10,000 Startups programme stated, "Google's Launchpad is a similarly innovative compressed bootcamp which will deliver access to world class experts, and knowledge to further help catalyse the Indian startup ecosystem. Launchpad resembles an accelerator on steroids and we would welcome more such programmes," he said.