“Things just happen. Entrepreneurship is an exhilarating experience; and maybe subconsciously I wanted to move from a passive role to the driver’s seat.”  

Many entrepreneurs may tell you the same. Yet, the story behind that statement changes as much as it is said.

Gautam Sinha started his entrepreneurial journey in 1996, much before the startup boom had hit India. Having owned a recruitment firm in the early 2000s, the sector wasn’t new to him. His firm was bought over in 2008 and Gautam moved into a new role of being a seed investor.

It was the winter of 2013, when Gautam invested in Expat Naukri, a company started by Sanjeev Punwani to recruit expats for Indian companies. He says,

“At that time, as a full-time seed investor, there was no thought to co-found or run it. For me it was like any of my other 10 investments that I would spend the time and effort on.”

But soon things changed.  The more time Gautam and Sanjeev spent on the business, the more they started to realise the need to challenge traditional recruiting models for international hiring.  What was sneaking in was the bug to build something big and radical.

Sanjeev’s background in hiring foreign talent and Gautam’s experience in running a recruiting firm did just that.

The product was CBREX, a technology platform connecting recruitment consultancies and freelance recruiters, to conduct hiring across the globe.

“I was in angel investing for the last five years, and it was the sheer scale of this idea which made me change tracks and jump right in. I’d say CBREX was born out of the mistake of trying to build an expat hiring company in the traditional way. Thus, I believe the birth of the idea itself came from a mistake,” says Gautam, CEO and Co-founder, CBREX.

How does it work?

Standing for Cross Border Recruiter Exchange, the firm aims to enable small and medium enterprises go global without the need of heavy investments.

Let’s say an enterprise wants to hire talent across their border. For example, an Indian company expanding their operations in Beijing wants to hire in China. The other application can be when an enterprise wants to hire foreign talent in its home location, which would be an Indian company wanting to hire a Chinese in India or vice versa.

Through an active network of recruiters or recruiting firms present in 40 countries, CBREX in the above case will connect the recruiter in India with the recruiter in China. In effect, neither the talent nor the enterprise has to cross the border for the underlying transaction to come to a closure.

Moreover, being a member-only managed exchange, CBREX engages only with recruiters or recruiting firms and not with the hiring enterprises or candidates.

Revenue model

When a transaction is closed, the supplier recruiting entity gets 50 per cent of the candidates CTC (Cost to Company) salary, while the demand recruiter who fills the position receives 30 per cent, leaving CBREX to an entitlement of 10 to 20 per cent of the share.

Let’s say if an Indian recruiter is looking for a Chinese in China and closes the transaction. The Chinese recruiting agency which supplies the talent gets 50 per cent of the share while the Indian recruiting agency receives 30 per cent of the share.

Since its inception in May 2015, the firm has closed two international transactions with each movement taking an average of 90 days to complete.

CBREXers

The bootstrapped venture has a team of 11 people spread across locations – Mumbai (5), Bengaluru (2), NCR (1), Chennai (1), and USA (2). Being a cross-border company, the founders believe in building a cross-border team as well. Out of the 11, four members are not Indian nationals.

The aim is to bring more of this diversity into the team while expanding its representation geographically.  In the future, 80 per cent of the company’s team will be from outside India working in their respective geographies. Currently, the firm is looking to hire as many as 20 individuals with a focus on Spanish-speaking professionals as they spear into the South American markets.

Operating geographies

Speaking about operating geographies, the firm has its own of set of geographical divisions depending on the language and market sensibilities.

It is present in India and Myanmar in SAARC. While dividing zones, China, Korea and Japan come in Zone Number Two, with Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia making up Zone Number Three. In the African continent , the French-speaking nations coupled with France and Middle East contribute to the fourth zone and Spanish-speaking countries in South America, West Europe, UK and Scandanvian Countries flock to make the fifth zone. The last obvious market is North America for the firm.

Currently present in 40 countries, the venture has anchored itself in China, Philippines, Singapore, most of Africa, Romania, Sweden and Norway to name a few.

It is collaborating with 50 recruiting entities in the above geographies and is expected to haul to over a hundred by the end of September 2015.

Gunning higher

Aiming at reaching close to 500 recruiting entities by the end of December 2015, the firm is set to up its presence in 50 countries.  Making recruiter aggregation as its focus, Gautam tells us about the interesting model of the venture:

“We are focussed more on recruiter aggregation. This is because the same guy (recruiter) who brings in demand is the same guy who brings in supply.”

Further, with each market holding a potential of 1,00,000 recruiters, the founders are optimistic at reaching a figure of 6,00,000 recruiting entities and closing 30,000 transactions by December 2018. Currently, they are aggressively targeting markets in China, USA and India.

Motivation

While concluding the conversation, Gautam tells us what keeps his team excited during this journey

“Original ideas come when you are trying to solve a ‘live’ problem.We want to play a role in delinking globalisation from company size; in effect small ones can also be global.We want to change perceptions and provide an opportunity for any size enterprises to go global making hiring talent is easier for smaller companies which want to sell outside their geographical location.”

Website: cbr.exchange

Whether you own an apartment, duplex or an independent house, one common need for every household is repair and maintenance. However, one of the biggest challenges in India is finding skilled workforce when needed. The grey collar workforce is amongst the unorganised forces in India. However, in the past few years, several players like Babajobs, Nanojobs and HouseJoy are changing the scene.

Joining this brigade is Kochi-based Fixall that focusses on on-demand repair and maintenance of homes and offices. Currently, Fixall focusses on electrical, plumbing, carpentry, masonry, painting and cleaning work done through its network of FixPro.

Ligil John, Founder of Fixall, says, “We want to create a whole ecosystem of repair and maintenance. We will be expanding to services for appliance and mobiles in the coming months as well, thus becoming a one-stop for all maintenance and repair.”

The idea stages

Living in Melbourne, Australia, Ligil observed that most of the grey collared workforce was well-trained and had a steady and good source of income. He adds that there are several tailored courses for improvement. “They’re called tradies,” he adds. While he had got the idea in 2011, and even got a person onboard, the actually setting up could happen only in April this year.

“We want to create a new generation of skilled workers who love and appreciate what they do. We want more people to come forward and take up skilled jobs at Fixall and change the perception towards this industry,” Ligil says. However, living in Melbourne and starting an organisation in India hasn’t been easy for Ligil.

Team building and it’s struggles

He says that team building and hiring has been quite a struggle, as people were skeptical in joining an organisation, which had its founder in another country. “I wanted someone who could take on the responsibility and work independently,” adds Ligil.

When they first started in 2011, one person had joined the team and the platform, but when he got a government job, he left within a few days. Lijil adds that after this it became a struggle to get anyone on board. It took Lijil four years to convince people that he could run the business from Melbourne. Fixall, currently has four employees and two more people will be joining in shortly.

The team initially used Quickr during the validation stage. After validation, it was able to get good traction as it grew to around 40 per cent during that time with minimum marketing.

How it works

Users can place a request on the portal or by calling in for any form of repair or maintenance work needed. The internal team processes this request and then picks the best technician to complete the job. After the task is completed, the customer pays the technician. The platform currently trains and gets onboard these technicians. These technicians are tested by the on boarding team, who also do basic verification.

Traction and pipeline

“We were focussing more on corporate work and have around Rs 1,00,000 in pipeline and currently planning our first marketing campaign that will hit Kochi at the end of September,” says Lijil. Fixall is currently bootstrapped, but is in the final stages of discussion with a Melbourne-based business group for funding.

The team currently is in the process of expanding to Kottayam and Thrissur, and later expanding to all major cities in Kerala by December 2015, and to other major cities in the country in 2016. “We want to place Fixall as the most convenient way to get repair and maintenance done through our qualified FixPro, great customer service and competitive prices,” says Lijil.

The market

In April this year, Babajob secured a USD 10-million minority investment from SEEK Limited. SEEK, with its affiliate companies, is the largest global online employment marketplace, available to approximately 2.6 billion people across Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia among others.

In 2013, according to a report by Frost and Sullivan close to 5,000 urban homes in India were looking for facility management services every day. This translates into a market size of Rs 25 lakh per day per city.

Website

After e-commerce and hyperlocal space, digital healthcare segment is attracting a slew of entrepreneurs to evangelise $60 billion opportunity. While early mover Practo is leading the space, a host of startups including Credihealth are also scaling-up fast to grab inefficient healthcare process in India.

Started in 2013 by Ravi Virmani, Gaurav Gaggar, Saurabh Uboweja, and Piush Kumar from Gurgaon, Credihealth initially focused on Delhi–NCR market. And now, it has presence in the six major metropolitans across India. The company claims to have 2.5 million visitors and served 50,000 patients last year.

Speaking about shift of users towards digital channels, Ravi says,

People from all walks of life are on the internet and we see a phenomenal increase in the percentage of people in India choosing the digital healthcare space to make informed decisions. We are confident about seeing these figures increase by many folds in the coming years.

Genesis of Credihealth and current traction

In a developing country like India, people primarily trust anecdotal evidence while selecting a doctor. This is not only convenient, but references through word-of-mouth attract lower chances of misguided advice from a specialist. Ravi says,

At Credihealth, based on your symptoms or treatment required, our in-house doctors hold your hand right from the first doctor’s visit to post-operative care – giving personalized medical guidance throughout the hospitalisation process. This augmentation in a patient’s journey has contributed the maximum traction.

As of now, the company has more than 7,000 super-specialist doctors from 500 plus hospitals listed. Gaurav points out,

We’ve received more than 60,000 requests till date seeking information about tertiary-care medical problems such as cancer, cardiac ailments and neurology.

Focus on tertiary care is a major USP of Credihealth

While a plethora of players in the healthcare industry are in the primary healthcare business, focusing on booking clinic appointments and queue management, Credihealth seems to be a significant player in the hospitalisation business with tertiary care as a primary focus.

Owning an entire value chain and seamless integration enhance consumer experience in a big way. Credihealth helps users to seek information such as hospital, doctor credentials, procedure, feedback, price comparison, etc., and at the same time it also ensures delivery part through credible partners who support the patient through the entire experience of their hospital journey.

Healthcare is democratic in nature and has no boundaries

Credihealth is bridging the gap between patient and doctor by enabling people, both in India and abroad, to access information on experts and treatment options regardless of thousands of miles of distance between them. Saurabh outlines,

For instance, we have eight liver transplant patients across the globe who will be getting treatment done in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore through our services. Accessibility to healthcare is not limited nationally, it goes beyond borders.

Content is key for us to drive engagement

Moving away from the conventional approach, the company also leverages content (via social media and blog) to engage with users. It claims to have over 250 famous doctor interviews and patient feedback.

To promote survivor stories of patients who’ve struggled through serious illnesses, Credihealth launched CrediHeroes a few months ago. Gaurav adds,

Inspiring stories of mental and physical hardship are motivational for patients who are unwell and informative for others.

Road ahead

At present, it has a team of 30 people and it’s actively looking for VC round to accelerate its growth. Since it’s a source of patients, Credihealth’s main source of revenue comes from market development fee from hospitals. Credihealth is operational in six cities and planning to have its presence in 15 major cities in India by the end of 2015.

YourStory’s take

The estimated healthcare expenditure in India in 2013 was $96.3 billion which constituted almost 5% of the GDP. With a growth rate of ~12%, this number is expected to cross $195 billion in the next three years.

Healthcare in India is very poor when compared to the West and other developing nations. Over the past few years, the state of healthcare has improved with adaptation of new technology and innovation. Although metro and tier I cities have access to good doctors, tier II and III cities still lack experts for consultations. It’s highly unorganized, inefficient, and full of middlemen in smaller cities.

As we pointed out, there are a plethora of startups in the healthcare industry that focus on primary healthcare business, but tertiary care is evangelised by only a handful of startups. Credihealth broadly competes with Ask4healthcare and Medipal. However, with Instahealth acquisition by Tencent-backed Practo, Credihealth will also compete with it.

Digital healthcare startups have potential to optimise inefficiency and bring transparency to the current state of healthcare in India. Sensing the wide scope of digital healthcare solutions in India, conglomerate like Tencent had pumped in $90 million in Practo.

Going forward it would be exciting to watch how tertiary care and overall digital healthcare space evolve this year.

Website

With the increasing usage of smartphones and the convenience of shopping online, the delivery of daily essential products within minutes has become the need of the hour. Here comes the role of hyperlocal logistics startups which deliver everything at one’s doorstep, starting from grocery, medicines to electronic products, thereby giving local kirana stores a platform to tap a larger chunk of customers.

Founded by Mayank Kumar and Lokesh Jangid, Opinio is a tech-enabled hyperlocal logistics startup which helps small businesses (merchants) – restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries and laundry stores – fulfill their demand by offering delivery as a service. Every merchant is given an Opinio Merchant App, which enables them to call a ‘Ground Pilot’ (delivery boys at Opinio). The pilot receives a notification on his Pilot App (every pilot has an Android phone with a preloaded app on it), accepts the order, picks it up from the merchant’s place and delivers it to the customers.

CEO Mayank says,

Customers who are expecting a package from our merchants receive a tracking link via SMS after the ground pilot picks up the package. With this link, customers can track their deliveries in real time rather than having to repeatedly check with the merchants.

Both Mayank and Lokesh developed entrepreneurial skills during college days when they built three to four apps that helped people go about their daily lives. Additionally, they have also built software to play music or video file on one’s computer from any device without having to transfer the file. According to Mayank, those entrepreneurial activities were just experiments and were never meant to morph into companies. They, instead, helped bolster their passion to become entrepreneurs.

Tying up with merchants

The startup has tied up with around 500 merchants in 15 areas in Bengaluru and three areas in Delhi. Mayank gives credit to the technology team which has understood the psychology and need of the user very well and has helped create an easy-to-use product. The startup charges merchants on a per-order basis.

Mayank says,

We don’t charge anything on app downloads. We charge on a distance-based pricing model. For example: Rs 40 per order for 4.5 km and if it exceeds 4.5 km, the charges would be Rs 40 per order plus Rs 10 per km. We have grown by five times since the last month.

Empowering the pilots

Currently, the app has around 700 pilots in its fleet. In a bid to empower the pilots, the startup holds 10-hour long comprehensive training sessions in its offices to impart knowledge on technology, behaviour, morality, ethics and more.

According to Mayank, the ground pilots cover all the major areas in Bengaluru. Deliveries start at nine a.m. and continue till midnight, with the ground pilots working on eight-hour shifts.

Mayank says,

Customers can place orders to the merchant by phone calls or demand aggregators like Foodpanda, Zomato, Justeat, Tinyowl etc. Some merchants charge their customers for delivery and some don’t; it is completely up to the merchants.

Opinio is part of Moonshots Internet Private Limited which was incorporated on December 16, 2014. The startup has signed non-disclosure agreements with some of the merchants. Mayank believes the company will become the number one player in the hyperlocal logistics space in the next three months.

Started getting attention from VCs

Opinio has built a workforce of over 100 employees since inception, comprising ten key members representing various departments. It has managed to raise USD 1.3 million from Accel Partners and Tracxn Labs.  Mayank says, “Accel has played a role of a wise mentor for us in every situation be it hiring, operations, business model etc.”

Yourstory’s take

With the digital revolution, consumers today demand seamless shopping experience. According to an Assocham-PwC report, about 40 million consumers purchased goods online in 2014 and the number is expected to grow to 65 million this year.

The changing consumer behavior in the last couple of years has sky-rocketed the demand for hyperlocal delivery in India. The potential growth in this space has seen a host of startups cracking the business model and drawing the attention of investors. As earlier reported by YourStory, hyperlocal startups have raised over USD 200-million risk capital over the past 10 months.

With hyperlocal buzz drumming up everywhere, it seems to be a wait-and-watch moment for Opinio.

Opinio App

Rishab Bafna is a third generation entrepreneur. The Bafna Group is headed by Padmashree awardee Suwalal Bafna and the group is a diversified entity with businesses in construction, education and logistics. An avid automobile enthusiast, young Rishab started preparing for his dream early on. He worked as a floor engineer at Arya Honda to understand the finer nuances of the business he wanted to get in to. Later, he moved to Barclays to work as an associate product manager. While pursuing his MBA from Babson University in Entrepreneurship, he started giving shape to his idea.

Back home in India, he found the service costs to be on the higher side. He met with a Babson alumni and discussed the aftermarket car service industry in India. Rishab recalls, “He said that India’s after-sales car service industry is behind US’ by 35 years. European, Japanese and American cars and most of the sports and super cars have forayed into the market. But USA, like India, lacked good service options outside of the dealership network.” This is when he decided to tackle this area and start Kar-Workx & Spa for the mid-to-luxury segment cars.

Founded in June 2013 in Mumbai, Kar-Worx & Spa is a multi-brand car service organisation. “We have seen good traffic from mid-to-luxury segment cars, from Maruti to Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Porsche, Bentley, Range Rovers and so on. Our USP is state-of-the-art infrastructure with some of the best names in the service equipment industry, scanners, accurate diagnostics, skilled engineers all at affordable prices,” says Rishab. The company covers the entire spectrum of services, from periodic maintenance to mechanical services to cashless accident repairs along with other VAS items like free pick-up and drop, 24-hour breakdown assistance, insurance renewals etc. The success of their first workshop in Mumbai has also led them to start another one in Aurangabad.

Apart from catering to all service needs Kar-Worx aims to be an end-to-end solution provider to car owners. “We want to personalise every service experience and to do that we recently developed a garage management software (GMS). Kar-Worx is looking at expanding base to Pune by the first quarter of 2016,” says Rishab. The GMS enables smooth operation in a multi-location format. “Our GMS will help us track and take all our operations online. From checking in the car to invoicing, everything will be automated. Our software is designed in a way where a customer gets his own dashboard to check on the status of his car. Without calling countless times a day, the customer can get updates along with billing history, service reminders and tips,” he adds.

Customer education has been one of the biggest challenges in the field. “Being in the aftermarket space, educating a customer about the importance of regular servicing has been time consuming. We have worked extremely hard in the past two years to build a trust equation with our customers who now are content with our offerings,” says Rishab. Access to good quality, genuine spares at competitive prices is also one of challenges that the company is trying to tackle by building good vendor relations.

When the company started in June 2013, they only catered to the basic car servicing needs but the response was quite modest. The team then conducted research to understand the purchase pattern of customers in India and found that a car owner needs a one-stop solution to all his car needs. “We then installed an in-house paint booth and cashless tie-ups with over 15 leading insurance companies. We introduced pre-owned cars, insurance renewals and breakdown assistance,” says Rishab.

In terms of the competition landscape, there are a few multi-brand players in India like Mahindra First Choice Services, My TVS and Carz Care. There are plenty of tech startups trying to tackle different areas in the auto industry as well. For instance, the auto-classifieds space in India is very hot and apps like Strandd are trying to tackle smaller pieces of the puzzle. “Doing a thorough market research and study has helped us cope with the rapid developments in the Indian industry. I can confidently say that we have successfully and quickly adapted to the evolving ‘online’ ecosystem,” says Rishab. Kar-Works & Spa has a team of 27 employees covering Mumbai and Aurangabad. Mumbai is the HQ with all sourcing, accounting and marketing activities centralised. With the unit economics in place, the company is looking to expand aggressively now.

FB Page: Kar-workx

With players like Ola, Uber, AutONCab, ZipGo and Shuttl, the models for intra city commute and travel are fast changing. Beginning with taxis and now moving to buses and autorickshaws, most of these players are looking to solve one problem: traffic congestion and ease of commute. Joining this bandwagon is Noida-based Ghoomakkar. Started by IIT Delhi alumni Babu DC Verma and Sanjay Sharma, Ghoomakkar aims to be a hybrid, point-to-point ride and delivery service using autorickshaws.

Realising the other side

After working in firms like OnMobile Global, Spice Digital and a few other startups, Babu was looking to start an online product. It was during this time he had the opportunity to meet a few AAP volunteers and also some autorickshaw drivers. This meeting helped him see the other side to the story and realise their pain point as well.

Babu figured that in order to run their vehicles on a daily basis, auto drivers had to pay commissions to several people and transport systems like metros, buses and taxis were eating into their market. “I realised that the general perception that they were looking to just make a quick buck wasn’t completely true,” adds Babu.

Also Read: After Ola and Uber, ZipGo looks to bring in the next level of disruption in city commute

Setting up the team

He believes if auto travel and transport facility were to be organised it would work as a win-win situation for both the commuter and the auto driver. Looking to integrate technology, Babu figured mobile phones were the most commonly and conveniently used modes. Armed with this idea, he met his friend Sanjay from IIT Delhi and pitched it to him. Soon, Sanjay joined in as the co-founder.

When Babu and Sanjay pitched the idea to auto drivers, they were keen to come on board. Soon the duo figured out there were peak and lean timings for passengers who used transport. “So we decided that during the peak hours, the auto would work as a mode of transport and at other times, it would be used for hyperlocal delivery. Our operational costs work along the lines of a hyperlocal player,” says Babu.

Workings

Currently, Ghoomakkar works as a web-based platform, where both auto drivers and commuters can register. One can book for rides online or via a phone call. The team started operations on May 20 this year to test its service setup. Currently, it has delivered close to 3,000 rides in Noida and Ghaziabad. The company has witnessed 100 per cent month-on-month growth, according to Babu. He says they’re processing close to 300 to 400 bookings in a week in the window of seven a.m. to eight p.m.

Ghoomakkar plans to have close to 1.5 lakh vehicles on the platform and manage about Rs three lakh-worth transactions by the end of 2016. It also intends to expand to 10 new cities in the year and work on its app.

Also Read: 15+ tech startups tackling transport concerns of commuters in Indian cities

Core strengths

Babu believes passion is the core driving force behind his company. “You’ve to love and believe in the idea to be a part of Ghoomakkar,” he says. While looking to build a team, Babu says they want to see people with drive, a need to prove themselves and a desire to build something.

The market space

While Babu agrees that they have stiff competition from established players, he believes their model is here to stay. He adds that they are intent on touching every pain point of an auto driver’s and commuter’s travel experience.

Without doubt, the autorickshaw market is one of the biggest in the country with over two million in the country, and drives averaging at Rs 80. There are other players that are focussed on monetising this mode of transport like Ola Auto

Website 

It was on-demand taxi service that took the road and disrupted the taxi-booking market. Now, startups catering to bus service will be the next big thing in the transportation space. In other words, it looks like the system aiming to overhaul the commuting system is the shuttle bus service. Such services have already kicked off in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru and will soon enter other cities as well.

Launched in April this year by Deepanshu Malviya and Amit Singh, Shuttl is a bus aggregating platform offering shuttle bus service to its commuters in cities like Noida and Gurgaon. The platform claims to offer services such as good buses, reserved seats, flexibility in timing and economically viability.

Amit, Co-founder, Shuttl says, “We are targetting the segment of commuters that would like to avoid both high-priced taxi services and unreliable and crowded public transport. This shuttle bus service is slightly more expensive than the bus but much cheaper than the taxi.”

He adds that the effort is to address the daily commute problem faced by office goers. Carpooling, though a noble idea, failed to address the issue as it can’t carry more than four people.

The service is available via mobile app. There are three steps to book this service: register the account with the app, pick up a boarding point, drop point and time of commencement and get the riding pass.

The platform has aggregated around 250 buses and the number is increasing. The shuttle service plies on a total of 15 routes in Gurgaon and Noida, and is planning to add more high density routes in its service. It claims that its service is growing fast and expects to reach 10,000 rides a day in a couple of weeks. The minimum charge for using the service is Rs 20 which is deducted from the app wallet. The user can recharge the app wallet minimum of Rs 500 to Rs 10,000.

“We offer public experience via our services. Despite not spending much on marketing, more than two-thirds of our users are coming from organic channel. We are growing at the rate 30 per cent week on week,” says Amit.

He, however, adds that as the platform grows he will encounter more complexities. It is quite new and demands a lot of work around technology. Amit aims to build a robust technology as the product has to become more intelligent.

Market and competition

According to experts, the emerging bus service market is going to be larger than the taxi market, which is estimated at Rs 60, 000 crore. In the past few months, many players sensing the growth have entered the segment.

Shuttl has secured funding from Sequoia Capital and angel investors. At the same time, other players such as rBus and Zipgo have started spreading their wings in other cities.

Mumbai-based rBus, which recently raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from India Quotient and angel investor Anupam Mittal, will prove to be the biggest challenger to Shuttl as the latter introduces its service in Mumbai.

Zipgo which is currently offering its service in Bengaluru is also set to make the competition triangular as Shuttl and rBus move to the city or the former begins its service in Delhi and Mumbai.

Ola which is one of the most formidable cab aggregators is also preparing to invest Rs 120-150 crore to launch a bus service.

According to experts, with these players, the fledgling segment is going to be more vibrant and mature in coming days.

On the market, Amit says, “Owing to infinite demand, the possibility is very high in this segment. We are pioneer in the segment and building a high-end technology platform to offer our services. As the platform becomes more high-tech and mature, we’ll become more formidable in the segment.”

App

Ramaraju Lakkamraju is the co-founder of CEO of Hyderabad based Innasoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. He started the company with his brother, Suribabu, and their team has built websites and mobile apps for a host of businesses across India.  Growing up in Andhra Pradesh on the eastern coast of India, their family has been into aqua farming and so when Uppalapati Naresh approached them with the idea around the subject, they didn’t think twice to take it up.

Aqua farming is not a subject oft spoken about. Also known as aquaculture, it is the farming of aquatic organisms and plants under controlled conditions. Different from fishing, aquaculture has a history dating back to 6,000 BC. If one looks only at fishes, the total world production of fisheries in 2012 was 158 million tonnes, of which aquaculture contributed 66.6 million tonnes (42 per cent). In India, two types of aquaculture are practiced: freshwater aquaculture and brackishwater aquaculture. Freshwater aquaculture involves the breeding of freshwater fish like carp, catla, rohu, freshwater prawn etc. Brackishwater aquaculture involves breeding of fish that habitat the sea like sea bass, grey mullet, tiger shrimp and mud crabs. Andhra Pradesh ranks first in coastal aquaculture and fresh water aquaculture (source).

“The aqua farming industry has seen no technology intervention and it is about time something was done,” says Ramaraju. The problems are like in any other industry:  the end users (farmers in this case) have to deal with a lot of middlemen and pay a heavy price, while the manufacturers or producers don’t have good distribution channels. Hence, Aquall was built to serve as a marketplace for aquaculture products straight to the aqua farmers. “Aqua-all” aims to be the one-stop place for all the supply of aquaculture related products all over India.

But are the farmers online? The team at Innasoft is positive about it. “We are in the marketing phase and it’s a tough road ahead but many aqua farmers possess smartphones and are reasonably tech savvy,” says Ramaraju. Aquall is spreading the word by sending bulk SMSes and the online channel is more of a bridge to enable farmers and others to look at what is available. Farmers can also fill up a simple form with their requirements and Aquall takes care of the rest.

Aquall has an interesting range of products: seed, feed, aerators, harvesters etc. It also has some technicians onboard. “The main reason for starting Aquall is to solve aquaculture farmer problems in india. India an active aquaculture producing country, with more than 10 per cent of the global variety of seafood farming being cultivated here,” says Ramaraju. He goes on to mention that India ranks second in the world with an annual seafood production of about 9.06 million metric tonnes. Since the 90s, industrial-scale aqua farms have mushroomed all over India and this is to meet the population requirement globally. “With the Indian government encouraging coastal areas to nurture aqua farming, the need for aquaculture supplies has increased at a rapid rate,” he says.

Aquall claims that aqua farmers in India experience substantial challenges from starting aquaculture to buying aqua inputs and finally selling their yield at best market price. This is the chain they want to enter. A lot of education will also have to go in. “We will provide elaborate guidance on every aspect of feed to be provided, each kind of seed variety, and different chemicals and aerators to be used with price negotiations on the manufacturer and distributor provided cost,” says Ramaraju.

An attempt to buy aquaculture products online yields some results from Indiamart and Alibaba. There are a few other companies like Seao and Sagar Aquaculture which are also in the space. Talking about agriculture, there have been new developments in the technology startup space. M-commerce platform AgroStar raised USD four million from IDG Ventures, Mumbai-based Eruvaka Technologies and many others have been building momentum. For Aquall, it is still very early days but definitely a good starting point to bridge the online and offline divide in aqua farming.

Website: Innasoft

Technology is advancing at a breakneck speed. Cloud, big data, enterprise mobility, and IoT are changing the way organisations function, look at revenues, and acquire customers. We no longer are in the age of proprietary softwares, it’s the age of open source.

Looking at this global opportunity for organisations to transform their ROI on the IT spend by leveraging the best commercially supported, enterprise-grade open source solutions, OSSCube was established by Lavanya Rastogi and Vineet Agarwal.

OSSCube provides innovative business solutions in the fast growing areas of cloud, big data, e-commerce, enterprise mobility, and application modernisation. The team enables their clients to reduce the time to market and total cost of ownership of their business solutions by leveraging the power of open source.

The genesis

“We have helped a variety of clients ranging from well-funded startups to Fortune 1000 companies transforming and integrating their business solutions and maximising their ROI by unlocking the power of open source,” adds Lavanya.

This is Lavanya and Vineet’s second startup. Lavanya says that most of the founding team have been working together and had started their careers together. “Therefore, coming together was an event that took place at the genesis of entrepreneurial pursuits several years ago. OSSCube was just the ‘next thing’ we wanted to do together,” adds Lavanya.

Prior to OSSCube, the duo founded a successful product company where they had built award-winning products in the eCRM space based on open source technologies. “We fully understood the ‘power of Open Source’ – but at the time when we were exiting that company,” adds Lavanya.

During this time, the duo realised that OSS adoption was going through a point of inflection. They saw that open source products were becoming increasingly enterprise-grade and commercially supported. This was their eureka moment. They discovered a huge opportunity, a pure-play open source solutions integrator to advise and enable the enterprise in conquering new technology disruptions and transforming their ROI on the IT spending.

Building blocks

Initially, they started as a training and consulting company but later forward integrated to become a full lifecycle solutions provider. “That’s why our tagline is: Solutions. Developed. Delivered,” adds Lavanya. He adds that the IT landscape is going through a fundamental and structural change, where the needle on innovation and high impact breakthroughs is being moved by innovative startups rather than the traditional large software publishers.

This he says is creating a new order of meritocracy in the IT solutions space, where the enterprise is leaning increasingly towards adopting innovations to stay competitive. This he adds is creating a fundamental shift in perception as the customer’s buying decisions are increasingly less influenced by fear, uncertainty and doubt, and towards the need to stay competitive and leverage innovation.

Future plans

“This is a huge opportunity for a company like ours to actually impact multiple industries and countless lives by bridging technology innovation to real everyday life business solutions that transform the efficiency, effectiveness, and experience of both corporations and end users,” says Lavanya.

The team sees a huge opportunity in the domestic IT sector, which they believe has been undermined. Lavanya says that they have been readying a suite of solutions that will directly address some of the most pertinent needs of the businesses in India.

Traction and market space

Speaking of growth and traction, Lavanya says that monetisation to his mind is a process and not a goal. He adds that it is about incrementally unlocking the value for all stakeholders. “Explosive growth while remaining profitable is a monetization of sorts already, as it gives you the flexibility to create value for people. From an event perspective – an IPO or strategic integration are both on the table,” says Lavanya.

OSSCube has been listed amongst the Top 100 Great Places to Work in India. They’ve also made to the INC 5000 list of fastest-growing privately held companies in America. Established in 2006, OSSCube has worked with the likes of Google, LinkedIn, bigadda.com, Yahoo, and Trend Micro.

Reports suggest that close to 90 per cent of Indian IT organisations will have integrated open source to their critical platforms by 2017. A study by Gartner suggests that the uses of open source will become integral to strategic and client facing aspects of the system. The study also adds that close to 99 per cent of Forbes Global 2000 companies will soon be using open source.

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So, are you planning to join a startup?

A few years ago, it was suicidal to break away from the norm of a blue collared corporate role and be employed with a startup. Thankfully, the question above does not bring out the kind of emotions that once used to be! There are numerous factors responsible for the drift in people’s mindset, but that’s a story for another day.

The need of quality candidates is often a point of discussion within a startup. Being a co-founder and CEO, I have faced it each time I have to recruit a fresh talent for our growing team. Many would agree that these interviews are usually high voltage and enlightening with a smirk here and there, often out of a swanky coffee shop than a closed cubicle.

Despite a sense of informality, there are few questions that are bound to surface. If you are already working for a startup, you’ll know what I mean here. But for those who are looking at jobs at a startup, here’s my quick guide of ‘what not to ask in a startup interview’. Please bear with me and take it all with a pinch of salt!

What’s the salary package like?

I’m not any Jack Nicholson, but that’s exactly my reaction when it’s the first question being asked.

Here’s a quick tip! Never, ever ask that question in a startup interview. The reason is simple. There’s no definite answer for that. Most co-founders gauge your potential, evaluate you left, right, and centre for months, before making a monetary offer.

It’s only after being thoroughly convinced that they divulge these numbers. In most scenarios it is often less than your expectation. But hey champ, aren’t you getting those stock options? It’s time to cheer up.

What’s my designation?

“You’ll be responsible for growth, strategy, image of the company, etcetera etcetera.” In a nutshell you’ll be a lot more than what you expect. Isn’t it awesome? How’s that for a designation, eh?

But believe me, if you make the right decision you will never have to ask this question again.

What are the work hours?

If you are joining a startup be prepared to put in those extra hours. Literally translated to – there aren’t any work hours. You work till that last hour counts. You may have to work even when you are back home. Your parents, friends, and family may disown you and you may die (not literally).

But in the long run, all that counts! Stay put through those gruelling hours and you may well be part of history.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining!

The awesome folks at Buffer put it aptly:

Working at a startup is like trying to build a bike while riding it.

It is quite obvious then that it is not a job, it is a mindset that counts in this ecosystem.

Most co-founders are looking at things which are beyond your resume. A lot of applicants misjudge this equation. If you are able to devote yourself for a supercharged startup environment, growth will follow suit.

What are some questions that you think don’t hold any value while appearing for a start-up interview? Do share your experiences in the comments below!

P.S. We are hiring!

We know it is taxing, but we love this chaos. Are you looking for an awesome work culture, great pay and love the idea of an awesome team? If your answer is a yes, do drop me a line at lax@appvirality.com.

We are looking for awesome Android and iOS developers! Apply now.

(Image Source: Scoopwhoop.com)

It was the year 1993 and the IT sector in India was buzzing with activity with Infosys going public. Among the many eyeing this lucrative space was Rohit Aggarwal, an engineering graduate from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. His interest in mathematics and computers had made him build a mini-ERP for the SME sector while still in college.

Before setting up his own IT export company, Rohit worked at his father’s company, Essen Deinki.”I wanted to start my own IT export company. Not knowing where to start, someone suggested starting an IT training company as a stepping company. Digital Equipment Corporation was looking for franchise, and I applied for Chandigarh. They, however, offered in Delhi, and so Koenig started its operations in Delhi,” says Rohit.

The dot com crash and pivot

Initially, the company was just another IT training centre catering to the domestic market. However, when the dot com bubble burst, the firm ran into rough weather. The company struggled to survive in a highly competitive market and suffered huge losses. However, Rohit believes that he found a saving grace. He noticed that almost every training batch had one or two students from Europe.

The team decided to offer accommodation and airfare to offshore students within the training package, making it a win-win situation for Koenig as well as foreign students. The idea clicked and Koenig opened training centres in tourist places such as Shimla, Dehradun and Goa. “I believe we’re the pioneers in the space of education tourism,” adds Rohit.

Aiding education tourism

Koenig has customers from over 50 countries across the globe. With this business model in place, the team now focusses on helping global IT knowledge seekers get training at the best prices through certified trainers and world-class infrastructure.

Rohit explains: “Due to IT training in USA, UK and other European nations being expensive, students prefer India as their IT training and certification partner. While students from USA, Europe and Australia look towards India for their IT training needs because of low costs and tourism, African and Asian students choose India for its quality and availability of highly-skilled trainers.” In order to solve concerns with regards to the Indian visa, Koenig also started operations through a new modern training centre in Dubai.

Also read: With Rs.10,000, this entrepreneur went on to build India’s largest power solutions company Su-Kam

Traction and combating challenges

Koenig today is an authorised training partner of Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, VMware, Red Hat, SAP, Novell, EC Council, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, SCRUMstudy, Check Point, PRINCE2, PMI, Salesforce, Zend, EMC, Citrix, Android, Symantec, IIBA, SAS, Linux Professional Institute and CompTIA. It is also the authorised testing centre for Prometric, VUE and Novell.

The main challenge for the team was convincing customers about the advantage of education. Rohit adds that though the ROI of good IT education is proven, it still does not get the priority it deserves. “This is true because of the non-urgency of IT education and though the results are empirically proven, they are not guaranteed for every transaction,” he says.

To combat this, the team became more agile to customer feedback and market changes. It introduced new delivery models and value-added services to enhance the overall experience of customers at Koenig.Customised training at Koenig ensured individual needs of the customer were given priority.

Future plans and sector

Koenig plans to set up training centres in every continent and become the world’s most preferred IT training company by 2020. Koenig today claims to have a turnover of Rs 200 crore and has seen a growth of 40 per cent from the previous financial year. With the growth of online educational centres, Koenig also has several online training courses in place.

The education sector is set to touch USD 50 billion by 2017. Reports by IBEF suggests that with the strategic bilateral partnership with Germany and India, the need for vocational education and training will increase. The Indian IT industry is at USD 118 billion and about 1,80,000 new employees were added last year.

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At Twin Prime, our GLAS (Global Location based Acceleration Strategies) database processes billions of network requests to arrive at insights about network performance. Understanding which factors impact performance is key to dealing with mobile performance issues, and our data exemplifies how variability determines mobile performance.

Impending LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network upgrade may outperform WiFi

Most people will say they perceive WiFi to be better than cellular networks, because WiFi is more reliable and faster than cellular – our first Insights blog showed that this is not the case with LTE in many cities globally. How about India?

In India, LTE adoption is just beginning to ramp up – the share of LTE traffic among requests seen by Twin Prime in India is around 2%. But if early trends are an indicator, LTE performs better than WiFi in major metros. Hyderabad lives up to its tech reputation and beats other metros.

The speed chart presented above computes median download speeds for files in the range of 30–60KB (a popular choice of size for downloaded content in India) across hundreds of millions of samples.

With LTE, India could be ready for video on cellular

A good quality video (for example, 480p video) requires 1.5 Mbps download speeds over large file sizes. Analyzing about a million samples leads us to conclude that LTE is well positioned to deliver video. The download speeds presented here are for files larger than 200KB since we are interested in sustained speeds achieved over longer connection durations.

Summary

We analyzed hundreds of millions of measurements related to network performance in India. We see that LTE is off to a great start and Hyderabad does deserve its “Cyberabad” nickname! Recent reports that forecast a significant growth in LTE devices in India is great news for customers looking to experience rich media such as videos. This is a great opportunity and a challenge for India’s booming m-commerce, travel, dating, and other such mobile businesses.

About the author:

Satish Raghunath, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Twin Prime Inc., has more than 15 years of experience in network software design, holding technical and engineering positions at leading networking companies including Juniper Networks and Nortel Networks. At Juniper Networks, Satish was instrumental in improving router technology and contributing to the development of a cross-company services platform. Satish holds a PhD in computer networking from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and his work has been published in several IEEE publications.

(image credit: ShutterStock)

It’s quite often that we have ordered something online and the delivery arrived when we were at office or some other place. When the delivery guy is at your house, you try to make receiving arrangements for the package. You call up your neighbour to check if they can receive your package. They ask a few questions, you explain things. And thus, receiving a mere delivery becomes a tedious task.

Now, Gurgaon-based platform Doorguy is trying to address the problem by providing a delivery solution. Launched in July this year by Anshul Garg who was later joined by Sumit Badwal, Doorguy has rescheduled the usual delivery timing, which is between 10 a.m and 6 p.m. In accordance with consumers’ convenience, the company delivers the package between new delivery hours, which is between 6 p.m. and 12 a.m.

“People don’t have time to waste on delivery hassles, especially not when delivery hours often conflict with their work schedules. So, we have reimagined package delivery for e-commerce by perfecting the delivery timing,” says Anshul, Co-founder, Doorguy.

How it works

When you sign up at Doorguy’s platform, you’ll receive a personalised shipping address. You can enter this address as your own wherever you shop online. When the platform receives the package, it’ll notify the consumers and let them schedule a delivery time. They can get their packages delivered till midnight any day of the week.

Uniquity, growth & revenue model

The platform claims the idea is unique and there’s no similar solution available right now. “If we talk about major players in the logistics sector, they have been there for the past few decades and they have not done a single thing to improve users’ experience. If other logistics start doing the same, which is impossible, people will have to have an account or install app for every other courier whereas we are agnostic,” says Anshul.

The platform claims that during its beta version it hardly shipped 25 packages in 40 days. But due to uniqueness of the service, it started growing through word of mouth and after its public launch, it made over 100 shipments in just two weeks. Currently, it has more than 250 registered users on its platform and is growing every day.

Doorguy charges based on number of packages, starting from Rs 19 per package. It has delivery limits based on the size and as the size increases, the pricing changes. It is currently offering the first shipment for free.

“We are also talking to a few e-commerce companies as they are willing to pay for our service since it eliminates re-routing fees and reduces their customer service load and inefficiency,” Anshul adds.

Market opportunity & competition

According to a survey conducted in 2013, for every billion shipments, 20 million were not delivered successfully in their first attempt. Though it’s a small percentage, the number is quite high. There is a huge business opportunity in this segment when the cause of unsuccessful shipment is known.

“However, we still don’t know how the market is going to react. Being first movers, we can capture a huge portion of the market if things go according to our plan,” says Anshul.

Currently, the platform is focussing on user acquisitions and retention. At the same time, it’s also looking to raise capital. According to Anshul, this market is capital intensive and won’t go too far without raising any funding.

With the growth of e-commerce industry, demand for e-commerce-focussed logistics has also escalated. Ecom Express, gojavas, Delhivery and DotZot, among others are some of the formidable players in the segment making the supply chain smooth for e-commerce players. However, there is still huge scope for startups that can bring efficient solutions to meet the massive scale of e-commerce.

Currently, Doorguy is operational in Gurgaon only but is planning to expand too NCR soon. The company is also working on a mobile app, which will be a better alternative to the existing web-only solution.

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Hyperlocal has been a buzzword in the Indian startup terrain over the past 10 to 12 months. We see plenty of startups trying to solve the pain points attached to hyperlocal needs. Riding high on venture capital wealth and consumer demand, these startups are able to scale rapidly as well.

While major startups in the hyperlocal (service and product) segment are focusing on major cities in India, Jugnoo started from Chandigarh and tested the so-called “unfavorable cities” for startups in India. Now the Paytm-funded company is foraying into the global market and has chosen Philippines to be the first destination.

Samar Singla, Founder and CEO, Jugnoo, says, “We have been studying Philippines from some time and observed that on-demand services have huge potential and is the way forward there.”

The company has already stationed a few employees in Philippines to foster partnerships. On what drove Jugnoo to evangelise in the global market so early in the game, Samar points out, “There is a lot of scope in this domain internationally and our traction in India tells us that we are prepared for this.”

Recent acquihires will fill missing discovery quotient for Jugnoo

To spruce up the discovery quotient, besides fulfillment (which is its core focus), Jugnoo recently acquihired two content discovery companies: Bistro Offers, a restaurant discovery app and Yelo, a mobile­-only services marketplace. According to our sources, the value of the acquihires were about USD one million, largely consisting of stock components.

Bistro Offers is a Chandigarh-based startup, providing a do-it-yourself platform for broadcasting offers and managing loyalty for any restaurant or a chain of restaurants. The functionalities within the app interface allow restaurant managers to build, execute and monitor customer engagement and brand loyalty campaigns. We recently featured a similar app that works across Pune.

Yelo, on the other hand, offers a peer-to-peer platform connecting users to experts needed to for any kind of job. With this platform, Jugnoo will be able to break into the market of providing on-demand talent.

From 90K transactions to 300K just within 100 days

For the Philippines launch, Jugnoo is in talks with some prominent business houses there to enter via joint venture. The company claims to grow 70 per cent on a monthly basis. It has also forayed into Gurgaon and Indore recently. Samar adds, “Indore has been a great example for us as we came a long way and learnt a lot from the experiments in our initial cities. In Indore, we were able to do 1,000 transactions in just 50 days, which took around 300 days in our first city. Gurgaon crossed 1,100 daily transactions in around 100 days. So the trend looks promising.”

Jugnoo claims to process 3,00,000 requests through its platform each month. While over 2,00,000 requests are auto-bound, Meals and Fatafat contribute close to 33 per cent of the overall transactions done on the Jugnoo platform. The company claimed to close 90,000 transactions in June.

Series B is on the way

For expansion and fast scaling  Samar says, “We’re in the advanced stage of raising Series B round.”

YourStory’s take

The need for on-demand and hyperlocal services is touted to bring about big opportunities in India. However, none of the startups have thought about global footprint (except Aaramshop which has presence in Pakistan).

Jugnoo’s move to expand to Philippines could be two-edged for the company. While executing the same model with a few tweaks in a market similar to India can bring quick scale and global spotlight, it could also lead to losing focus in the Indian market.

Of late, consumer-facing startups like Zomato have shown Indian startups the way to spread their wings in the global market quickly. The Gurgaon-based company has presence in 22 countries. Besides Zomato, Practo recently launched in Indonesia. Jugnoo appears to be the first hyperlocal startup to harbour global ambitions and it would be interesting to see how it rolls out in global arena.

(With inputs from Aparna Ghosh)

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Over the past few years, with the growth of e-commerce sector, the market of both the forward and reverse logistics has increased. However, there’s a huge growth gap between the two types of logistics; and in terms of growth, the former is much ahead of the latter. According to experts, reverse logistics is plagued by mismanaged returns, high distribution costs and retailer–manufacture conflicts, among other reasons.

While working with companies like IBM and Amazon, Sapan Jain realised due to ambiguity associated with reverse logistics supply, a bulk of unutilised or returned inventory has been lying unused in the IT sector. Despite the fact, there’s a large demand of refurbished products in the market, owing to inherent distrust in the unorganised market, there are not many buyers of such products. This is where he realised an opportunity to create a professional organisation to bridge the trust deficit and involve all stake holders ranging from enterprises, retailers, and individual consumers.

Launched in April 2014 by Sapan, Jeby Cherian, Amit Goel, and Jayathirtha P. Katti, Bengaluru-based Blubirch focuses on reverse logistics with a main focus on IT technology. It provides solution for IT asset management, remarketing and also deals with refurbished customer returns and excess.

The platform offers its services to enterprises, retailers, and individual consumers. In enterprise segment, it offers services such as asset life cycle management, asset buyback services, procurement services, trade-in program, refurbishment services, and rental services. To retailers, it provides services such as grading and valuation services, exchange programs, sell customer returns, and excess inventory. The platform’s customers include companies of all sizes across the industry, retailers, cloud and data centre providers, system integrators, business partners, and value-added resellers.

“We are an IT asset focused reverse logistic company that deals with assets ranging from enterprise level machines like servers and storage to consumer products such as laptops, mobiles, and accessories etc.,” says Sapan.

Instead of the taking transactional or single downstream channel approach, the platform is focused on end-to-end multichannel solution. Through this platform he is working to bring efficiency, transparency, and trust to ensure better value for both suppliers and buyers of the inventory.

He adds that he’s helping clients not only in defining policies related to returns or decommissioned equipment but also in inspecting, sorting, refurbishing, and liquidating to ensure highest returns at lowest cost and with fastest speed. To ensure that consumers of these products have complete piece of mind, the platform also gives warranty on these products.

Market and challenges

According to IDC, 2011 survey, the global IT asset disposition market is worth USD 300 billion. According to another report, between the year 2006 and 2015, this market has been growing at 10 percent CAGR. By 2020, in India alone, the IT asset disposition market will touch USD 50 billion.

Despite the large market size, there are few who takes the holistic approach and provides a complete solution in both the supply and demand side of reverse logistic in the IT sector.

According to Sapan, there are some challenges in the segment which have constrained the growth of the industry. The industry is highly fragmented, there’s lack of management focus on decommissioned or returned inventories, less understanding in reverse logistic supply chain, and the absence of organised players covering full range of IT assets.

Blubirch claims that it’s trying to address the issue at all the levels. It is creating various technology assets to bring together different channels actors in the reverse logistic supply chain and providing them a transparent and efficient environment to interact with each other. It is also taking a consultative approach to create solutions to meet the specific needs of customers. It works with management to highlight the impact of reverse logistic on their business.It is also using technology in the end-to-end value chain, including how devices are inspected, sorted, and liquidated.

“We have the ability to assist clients with complete range of technology assets ranging from enterprise assets down to consumer electronics,” adds Sapan.

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The Indian online education sector will touch USD 40 billion by 2017. A report by IBEF suggests that India is targeting to create 500 million skilled workers by 2022. The FDI flow in the sector has been close to USD 1071.15 million between April 2000 and January 2015. Hoping to bring in change to the sector is Jaipur-based edutech startup Srjna.

In order to ensure that students from Classes I to X retain their creativity, Srjna has created over 200 economical, feasible, innovative and portable subject-learning models for schools. The models are all based on an experiential learning approach.

Founding team

It is the brainchild of four people – Sharad Bansal, Om Prakash, Kapil Arya and Vivek Pathak. Vivek met Sharad and Om at a fest in their college at IIT Delhi, after which he stayed in touch. He then went ahead to do an MBA programme at XLRI, Jamshedpur. It was during this time that Vivek realised the quality of school education wasn’t up to the mark.

After discussing this with Sharad and Om, the trio began to develop models along the lines of the curriculum and piloted them in a few schools. Now, there are five full-time employees and over 15 interns in the startup.

The platform

Vivek explains, “To make this experiential learning affordable and scalable to all the schools, we are developing simulations on which students can practice anytime from anywhere on mobile/tab/web platforms.” Apart from that, the team is also developing an assessment platform with advanced analytics.

Through this platform, teachers can go online, create their own tests by choosing different parameters on which they want analytics, generate tests and see the results with advance analytics in a user-friendly graphical format. Students can receive content and career-oriented consultancy based on their track record.

In the past ten months Srjna has taken the mentorship of several individuals from IIT, IIM and XLRI. They’ve reached out to about 30,000 students.

Chintan Bakshi, Chief Operating Officer of Startup Oasis, which is incubating the startup, says, “Srjna is filling a very important gap in school education – that of enabling experiential learning where students can actually see and feel concepts through physical models, rather than seeing them on a blackboard or a smart screen.”

Traction and growth

Currently, Srjna is associated with Maharani Gayatri Devi School and The Palace School in Jaipur. It also has been part of top 20 startups selected (out of 1913) in CIIE-Pune Based Accelerator Program of ‘Innovate for Digital India Challenge’, an initiative by Government of India.

It has been ranked second in ‘Top 6 innovator award’ (Trending Startups) by IIT Delhi Alumni Association, among the top 10 education startups in StartEdu 1A by Unitus Seed Funds, has bagged first prize in ‘Tech4Raj’ by TIE Rajasthan & Startup Oasis. It has also won Rs 1,00,000 in Seed Money Competition by Venture Lab- Thapar. REI (Rajasthan Education initiative, Rajasthan) had validated and recommended the project for government schools on a pilot basis.

Building the team

“We provide a multi-discipline exposure to our team. For example, software developers sometimes market their product or marketing guys sometimes try their hand at content development. Even among the co-founders, while everyone has their own specialty and responsibility, we keep shifting roles to develop everyone’s skills,” says Vivek

At Srjna, the team follows an across-the-domain, horizontal work culture than a multiple hierarchy from top to bottom. “We celebrate small successes and never forget to celebrate with our team after each win,” adds Vivek.

Funding and future plans

Srjna has also received an investment of USD 65,000 from RAIN (Rajasthan Angel Investors Network) and Individual Angel Investors. Their investors include-

Puneet Mittal (CEO, Pratham Software, one of the top IT companies in Rajasthan),

Rajneesh Bhandari (President, TIE Rajasthan), Mahavir Pratap Sharma (President, RAIN) with three other RAIN members and two independent angels.

“We shall use the funding raised for development of more models, content integration, business development and expansion”, says Sharad, Co-founder, Srjna.

The team plans to expand to other cities of Rajasthan, Delhi-NCR and reach 50,000 students in next six months. It is also launching its assessment platform by the first week of October, to bring more teachers/students on online platforms and use high-level analytics to provide filtered experiential learning content.

I want to disappear. I want to move into an old apartment building in a place where I would never talk to anyone.

I would order delivery for all three meals a day. I would learn to talk to my neighbors, who spoke every language but English. 

From online printing to a B2B gifting company, 5By7 has seen a lot of changes. After an initial round of angel investments amounting to Rs.40,00,000, the company, founded in 2012, has not received any funding. Despite that, they claim to have a CAGR of more than 50 per cent. Following the launch of their online platform last year, they have seen a 3x increase in traffic without incurring any acquisition costs.

With a catalog of close to 5,000 products, specially curated and filtered for their clients, which include both startups and large companies, 5By7 supplies gifts or branded merchandise for clients, employees, promotions and events. “We have worked with over 500 companies including 50 global brands and aim to emerge as a top player in the present $1 billion gifting market in India,” says Piyush Suri, Founder 5By7.

Back to the drawing board

5By7 started out as VitaminPrint.com, an online printing company in 2012, but realised within a few months that there was a much larger gap in the Indian online B2B gifting market. The market was highly fragmented, inaccessible, and had a reputation for being unreliable, supplying poor quality and design.

The pilot was initiated with Opera Software, a Norwegian company that outsourced their entire merchandise production and management to the team. The feedback they received from Indian clients was positive and their online-curated platform soon began seeing significant traction in India.

Today, they serve clients in India, the Middle East, Europe and the US and are, for the first time, launching products that can be sold in the retail/consumer markets as well.

Brainstorming and building

Like most startups, 5By7 began with a group of friends and known associates. Ripun Jai Mehta and Piyush met while working in New York, and Rahul Kumar was Piyush’s classmate at college. Given their consulting backgrounds, the trio were keen to build something that was scalable and evaluated several businesses before deciding to pursue online printing.

“The 5By7 that you see today is a result of a few iterations based on our strengths as a team, market gaps and feedback from clients. Most of our core team has been with us for over three years and we have worked hard to build a solid base with the right processes, a large vendor and customer base, and a highly motivated team,” says Piyush.

Seeing the market evolve

The emergence of e-commerce, according to Piyush, has resulted in a more tech-savvy and design-conscious buyer who is looking for reliability and impact rather than just cost. On the supply side, they have seen a fast-growing retail market but limited growth in B2B/bulk buying, creating an opportunity for them to establish a presence.

On the demand side, he says that both consumer and bulk buying have grown exponentially. Piyush says that 5By7 sees a role beyond B2B, moving towards bulk selling to consumers in niche markets like such as weddings and personal gifting.

“5By7’s differentiator has been our focus on automation and data,” ‘says Piyush. He says they have continuously invested in building a vast repository of product data that is the backbone of all their work today.

Additionally, over the past few months, they have automated various processes in order to address pain points that clients face in the B2B market. These include idea generation for clients using predefined filters, workflow tools to track processes, and pitch PDF generators to decrease the sales cycle.

The segment realities

According to a rough industry estimate — B2B e-commerce is a $500 billion market at its early stages in India. There are 4.8 crore SMEs that need to secure bulk supplies making this a much bigger opportunity than B2C e-commerce.

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Thanksgiving is here! Let’s put on those gratitude hats!

“We don’t celebrate thanksgiving in India,” is the usual response.

But weren’t we taught to be grateful in India? Besides, Indian or American, being grateful doesn’t need a day of celebration now, does it?

Then again, why would anyone decide to be grateful on this particular day of the year when we haven’t had the time to notice the good things in our life, all throughout the year?

I don’t believe in answering the question why? Let’s instead get to the how and the what. That just makes life far easier; at least it does for me.

Gratitude just sounds rather fancy, but basically the idea is to say thank you. How many times in a day are we thankful? How often do we say thank you for the things that we take for granted? The number of things that we take for granted is just endless. Be it the breakfast laid out on the table when your mother is around, the ironed clothes, folded sheets or polished shoes. Wait! That was only till we got out of home.

Then we started finding temporary gratitude for the electricity that comes back just in time for you to take a shower in the morning, the red light that turns green for us to make it in time to office or that chaiwala, who diligently brings your cup of tea every morning and afternoon. You realise your attachment to that cup of tea and the favour he does only on those days when both you and the chaiwala decide to take off.

Strange that most of us have had those days in college when with just Rs. 30 we managed to treat a gang of five to chai and samosa. And also had some change left for a coffee afterwards. I don’t know about you. But for me, the best part of those days was the fun, the conversations, the company and the gratitude in that time spent together. Invariably, most of us were always broke, but we always managed to scrape something to be able to spend those few moments together.

Even with the risk of sounding old and may be a little wise, I choose to ask the question. Where is that gratitude now for all those simple things in life? Today, with all that money we make, how far are we willing to go to acknowledge the gratitude we feel for those simple things in life? How can we build grand ideas and dreams and, more so, companies without the gratitude for the simple things in life?

So instead of answering the why, this Thanksgiving – although I’m no American – I have decided to answer the what’s and how’s of being grateful for simple things in life. I think I will start with the maid in my office. I’m grateful that she takes the trash out every day. Thanks to her, I don’t have mosquitoes annoying me all day. As for the maid at home, I think I should express some gratitude to her as well and thank myself for being patient with me and taking care of me. Surprise! Surprise! Who said anything about expressing gratitude only to others? What about yourself?

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Stelae Technologies, an enterprise software company based in Bengaluru and Chennai, has raised an undisclosed amount through a Pre-Series A round funding, led by Earlsfield Capital, UK, Saha Fund, former Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai and other Cross Border Angels. Stelae Technologies, initially bootstrapped, generated funds through customer revenue. The company, with this round of funding, aims to improve its delivery processes and its direct sales in order to acquire more flagship customers in their focused sectors.

The company’s product, Khemeia, which is pending patent has automated content transformation and unlocks content in any format to be analysed, which could not be analysed or searched before. “Our uniqueness is in the different algorithms in the software. We have about 70 of them that analysis content exactly like the human eye, it recognises titles, paragraphs, images and more,” explains Aruna Schwarz, CEO, Stelae Technologies.

Being an enterprise company, Stelae Technologies, believes that innovation is constant in their algorithms. Aruna believes that their product is changing the whole manual game and is replacing their competitors either in-house or are being asked to use their software.

Since its launch, the company has focused and strived to build the best product in the enterprise spectrum and ensured it solves its customers’ day to day problems with its product. “We focused on our product niche, we focused on one problem and excelled at solving it,” says Aruna. “We really built the product with the customers, who have followed us along our journey and big name came along like Rolls Royce to fine tune the product,’’ she adds.

Stelae Technologies, despite all the success has a very clear vision of being acquired by one of their technology partners. The company has now built a brand and is focusing on expanding their horizon throughout the globe.